Chapter 104: Are You Some Damn Fortune-Teller?

Chapter 104: Are You Some Damn Fortune-Teller?

Of course Li Ruobing was extremely curious.

She truly wasn’t a person of heavy curiosity, but this matter was too big—far too big. A moment’s thought was enough to know that pulling it off would demand methods of extraordinary complexity.

Over these past few days she had witnessed Wu Chen’s near-supernatural capability. As for how far that capability reached, she already felt she had no means of judging.

But.

This was not something that great ability and great skill alone could solve.

A force as strong as the Li family couldn’t simply order somebody to seize power over a jewelry-industry giant like Jinfu on command.

Nobody handled things that high-handedly.

However far short of the Li family Su Ruiwen fell, he was currently a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. And his father-in-law—Madam Su’s father, Su Qingying’s maternal grandfather—had reached vice-provincial level before retirement.

And one thing Li Ruobing could be certain of.

Wu Chen would not move directly against Su Ruiwen. Not that he lacked the nerve. Whether he had the nerve, Li Ruobing didn’t know.

The reason she was certain he wouldn’t was that Su Ruiwen was Su Qingying’s father. Wu Chen had said he wouldn’t make Su Qingying choose between love and family, wouldn’t put her in that position… just as he hadn’t moved against Madam Su.

Wu Chen would not truly split the Su family apart.

He would let Su Qingying keep an intact family. All of that could be taken as settled.

Under those conditions, with the largest block of equity still in Su Ruiwen’s hands, and Wu Chen not about to threaten him… what exactly was he going to do?

“Wu Chen, I’m not joking with you!” Li Ruobing looked at him, her face serious. “I’ll admit it. I’m curious. I want to know. Because this thing… don’t you think it’s hard to pull off? Don’t you think that if you botch it, there’ll be trouble?”

“You care about me so much.” Wu Chen smiled. “Then let me say something to set your mind at ease. There won’t be trouble. Better?”

Li Ruobing was angered all over again.

With that attitude of his, certain sentences coming out of Wu Chen’s mouth were truly infuriating.

“How will there not be trouble? You’re threatening people! Who else are you going to threaten? Jinfu Group has over a dozen directors. Are you going to threaten every one of them? Where would you find that many dirty deeds to use as leverage? And which of them is going to be easy to threaten?” Li Ruobing said angrily.

“There’s no need to talk to all of them, is there? A portion is enough,” Wu Chen said.

“You—” She was about to say something else, and then she started.

Because what he’d just said meant… he really did intend to move against other directors too.

“You… what exactly—” She stared at him.

“Six people.” Wu Chen made a gesture with his hand. “Yao Honglin has already gone. Five left. They’re all in this teahouse right now, waiting for me in separate private rooms. I’d estimate… a few hours should be enough to finish the talks.” He smiled when he’d finished.

“Six people? Five more? Five Jinfu Group directors are in this teahouse? You’re going to threaten five more Jinfu directors?” Li Ruobing’s eyes widened further.

She was thoroughly dazed.

As she had said herself: where would there be that many dirty deeds to use as leverage? And who would submit to threats so easily? Among such men, one problem with one of them and word would leak. And once the Su family learned what Wu Chen was doing, it was over.

His nerve was far too great. The method was far too fanciful.

“Two mistakes. I’ll need to correct you first.” Wu Chen suddenly raised two fingers and waved them in front of her.

“First, I need to correct your wording. It isn’t threats. Or rather, not only threats.”

He smiled and shook his head at her. “You have to understand that the human heart… is complicated. A man may accept pressure, and he may also accept temptation. He will weigh it himself. If you understood psychology you’d know what psychological compensation is. You’d also understand exchange of benefit, or repayment of kindness… Different people have different characters and different styles, and the methods used on them differ accordingly.”

“Second, there aren’t five more directors in the teahouse. Not all of them are.”

He smiled again and continued. “If you knew as many things as I know—if you knew that many people’s secrets, their relationships, their pasts—then you’d understand. When you want to use someone, you can go to him directly, or you can go to someone beside him.”

He paused there.

There was no telling whether Li Ruobing caught it. What Wu Chen meant by going to someone beside him was exactly how he had first approached her. At the time, the person he needed to use was Li Ruotai, to clean up the trouble he’d made on July 7—and he hadn’t gone to Li Ruotai. He had gone to Li Ruobing first.

Reading her face, though, she hadn’t caught it. Wu Chen’s abilities were too formidable; she would never connect them to a “minor matter” like that.

“For instance…” He paused, then smiled and went on. “Some men are especially susceptible to pillow talk. They love their wives, they fear their wives, and they’re somewhat afraid of how strong their wives’ families are. So as long as you handle the wife and let her blow a little wind in his ear, getting him to make one small decision is no problem at all.”

“And some men—all it takes is for their son to go home and say that unless they change who they support, he’s going to prison. Guess what the father does then? An only son. There’s no way around it, is there?”

“And some men… you only need to tell them one thing. Something that lets them take revenge, or lets them know the truth. And then… they’ll help you.”

He said all of it lightly, offhandedly, as though he were merely listing a few possible methods.

But.

Once again Li Ruobing felt the terror of him.

Absolute terror.

The logic of what he’d said sounded simple. But think a layer deeper and you found that to accomplish anything by Wu Chen’s method you needed to know not only a man’s secrets but everything surrounding him, his character, what he did not fear, and what he cared about.

The volume of information required was simply beyond imagining.

Without that depth of understanding, you would inevitably get it wrong.

Use pressure and temptation straight on a man immune to both soft and hard measures, and the backlash was certain.

Try to turn a man of thin family feeling through his relatives, and it would be harder than climbing to heaven.

So the necessary condition for accomplishing anything by Wu Chen’s method could only be this: sufficient understanding.

An information broker?

Li Ruobing was beginning to suspect Wu Chen was a fortune-teller. Are you some damn half-immortal or what?

“All right.” Wu Chen took another sip of tea, set the cup down, and stood. “You two go back to Shanshui Oolong. I’ll go down to Listening to Rain at Night on the second floor to see the next one. I’d estimate twenty minutes will be enough.”

“Honey…” Su Qingying stood. She had been listening to the two of them, and though her head was full of questions, seeing that Wu Chen was off to handle serious business, she held them back and said instead, “Honey, then the call—”

She meant keeping the line open so they could listen.

“No need. This one was just to set the model, so you’d understand what kind of attitude to carry in with you.” Wu Chen smiled faintly. “Everyone’s situation is complicated. Hearing fragments won’t tell you anything. So… start the clock now. Twenty minutes from now, walk straight into Listening to Rain at Night.”

Over the next three-odd hours, Wu Chen went in and out of five different large private rooms at Qingyuan Teahouse.

He worked through them one by one.

Li Ruobing and Su Qingying appeared at the times he had given them in advance—sometimes after twenty minutes, sometimes after thirty.

Because the people differed and the methods differed, the length of each conversation differed too.

Before they knew it, it was past ten at night.

Wu Chen had finished with the last of them, and since he and the others were leaving as well, all four went downstairs together.

Under the night sky.

Outside the teahouse doors.

“President Su, don’t worry. My husband and I absolutely will not disappoint you.” A richly jeweled middle-aged woman shook Su Qingying’s hand, her face carrying a faintly ingratiating look.

“Madam Sun, I’ll trouble you, then.” Su Qingying smiled politely and nodded.

“No trouble, no trouble at all… Mr. Wu… Boss Li… I’ll be going now.” Still talking, the woman shook hands separately with Wu Chen and Li Ruobing, then got into her car and drove off.

The three of them stood at the roadside and watched Madam Sun go.

“Now we can go home and sleep.” Wu Chen glanced at his watch and said it with a smile.

“And then?” Li Ruobing turned to him and asked it again. “And then?” And she went on, “Even if you’ve handled six directors, that still doesn’t reach two-thirds of the board seats. It isn’t even half. On what basis do you control the board?”