Chapter 126: If You’ve Got the Guts, Beat Me to Death!

Chapter 126: If You’ve Got the Guts, Beat Me to Death!

Zhuowang Garden residential complex, property management surveillance room.

Wu Chen leaned back in his chair, still watching the security footage. Onscreen, Lu Guangnian was still standing at the doorway talking to his first love, Ma Huifang. The standoff had gone on for nearly half an hour. Throughout it, Lu Guangnian had kept one hand on the door, preventing Ma Huifang from closing it.

By now, Ma Huifang had been worn down to the point where she simply stopped talking. Her face was dark, and no matter what Lu Guangnian said, she gave no response. She only stared straight at him, resisting everything with silence.

Lu Guangnian had already said everything he needed to say, stirring up many of Ma Huifang’s old memories. The groundwork was more or less complete.

“You can go up now.” Wu Chen turned to the five property security guards, then reminded them, “Remember to pick up the jianbing guozi and give it back to Boss Lu. Make it look natural…”

Everything had been arranged!

Before they even came over, Lu Guangnian had already used his connections to contact the major owner behind the residential complex’s property management company. Under that person’s arrangements, Lu Guangnian had arrived, connected smoothly with the property manager, and spoken with the security guards before going upstairs.

The guards left, somewhat nervous and also a little excited.

Wu Chen continued watching the monitors.

Soon, he saw them take the elevator upstairs.

The show was about to begin!

Just then—

Ring, ring…

His phone rang. Wu Chen took it out and glanced at the screen. When he saw the caller ID, a smile appeared on his face.

Li Ruobing!

Wu Chen had not been entirely sure whether Li Ruobing or Su Qingying would call him first. It depended on when Li Ruobing heard the news, and how long Su Qingying took after the board meeting to smooth things over with her mother.

But one thing he could be certain of!

If Li Ruobing was the first to call, then Su Qingying had definitely succeeded!

“I’m busy,” Wu Chen said with a faint smile as soon as he answered.

“Su Qingying succeeded!” Li Ruobing said in a low, serious voice.

“Mm. I know,” Wu Chen replied.

“She called you?”

“Not yet…”

“Then how do you know?”

“My plan was certain to succeed.”

There was a pause on Li Ruobing’s end. Anyone hearing Wu Chen say, “My plan was certain to succeed,” would instinctively think he sounded conceited. Arrogant! But… Li Ruobing, who knew part of the inside story, did not dare dismiss him that way.

The more she learned about Wu Chen, the more terrifying she found him.

With a turn of his hand, he could summon clouds; with another, rain!

Almost impossible to counter!

“Aren’t you going to explain in detail why it worked? I can’t understand it at all. There are so many parts I can’t make sense of. I want you to tell me, all right?” There was already a note of asking for instruction in Li Ruobing’s voice.

“Let’s talk when we meet. I’m a little busy right now. You can ask Qingying too. She should be able to sort it all out now. Ask her…” Wu Chen’s speech suddenly quickened. “That’s it for now. Something came up.”

“You—”

Before Li Ruobing could say anything else, Wu Chen hung up.

Because he had seen the five guards appear on the ninth-floor surveillance feed.

Ninth floor.

The five guards came out of the elevator one after another. The one in front was a short-haired guard in his early twenties. The moment he stepped out, he looked toward the door of 901. Lu Guangnian was still there holding the door and talking at Ma Huifang, so the guard called out, “You again? We’ve been watching you on the cameras for half an hour. You know you’re disturbing the neighbors? We’ve already gotten complaints!”

His tone was not especially aggressive, more complaining than anything.

As he spoke, he led the others over. The jianbing guozi Ma Huifang had thrown out earlier was still on the floor by the wall, inside a plastic bag. As the short-haired guard passed, he casually picked it up and asked, “Whose is this? You still want it?”

“Mine, mine!” Lu Guangnian hurriedly said. He suddenly remembered that Wu Chen had told him that if the food got thrown away, he was supposed to pick it back up and hold on to it first.

When he first saw Ma Huifang earlier, he had been so nervous he forgot.

The guards reached the doorway. The short-haired guard casually handed Chapter 125: She’s Terrifying!

Her brother opened with, “Sis, have you heard?”—no lead-in, no context—and Li Ruobing went blank for a moment.

“You mean you don’t know?” Now it was Li Ruotai’s turn to be confused.

“Know what? What are you talking about?”

“Su Qingying! The Su family’s eldest daughter!” he said quickly, then doubled back. “Wasn’t she with you yesterday? She even stayed the night at your place. You two have been thick as anything lately—and you haven’t heard?”

He knew Su Qingying had stayed at his sister’s house because his sister had told him herself.

Li Ruotai had a serious problem of his own to sort out these days, and he called her almost every day around noon. Today was no exception. During that call he had asked whether there was some misunderstanding with the Su family, and whether she wanted him to step in.

He knew about what had happened yesterday at the mouth of the alley outside Wu Chen’s home.

There had been too many people there for it to stay quiet. After Madam Su arrived, the two sides had dozens of bodyguards between them, plugging the alley entrance completely. Onlookers were inevitable—and among them had been the underling of an underling of one of Li Ruotai’s men. A small-time hoodlum.

Li Ruotai’s people were spread across all of Donghai.

Nearly every petty thug on Donghai’s streets served as his eyes and ears.

Not that they reported every trivial thing to him.

Yesterday was different because Li Ruobing had openly given her name. The hoodlum who saw her knew she was Young Master Li’s sister, so the news went up the chain, layer by layer, until it reached him.

But he had also heard that once Madam Su arrived, she had shaken his sister’s hand and spoken to her pleasantly, so he had not called to ask what was going on.

He knew his sister liked to handle her own affairs. She was strong-willed to the bone, and she hated it when he blundered into her business uninvited.

Li Ruotai protected his sister, but he knew where the line was.

So he had not called about it specially—only mentioned it in passing during their conversation at noon. Li Ruobing had not said much either: a small misunderstanding, she and Su Qingying were friends, Su Qingying had even stayed at her house the night before, that sort of thing.

The instant she heard her brother say the name Su Qingying, Li Ruobing shot to her feet, the color draining and returning to her face.

“Sis… what’s wrong?” He could hear that something was off. He could even hear that her breathing had gone ragged.

“What did you hear?” she asked flatly. “Say it. Skip the padding.”

“So you really don’t know!” Li Ruotai said at once. “Hey! I only just heard myself—word leaked out of Jinfu’s board meeting. They broke up not long ago. Su Qingying rebelled against her own parents right there in the boardroom! She’s something else. She used some petty little matter to go after Madam Su—she was picking a fight on purpose! Word is she’d quietly locked down half of Jinfu’s directors beforehand, Tang Deyang and the other heavyweights included. Mother and daughter went at each other in front of the whole board, and then—”

Li Ruotai poured out everything he had just learned in a single breath.

He relayed it exactly as it had been described to him, and made it vivid in the telling.

Only with his own sister did he have the energy to talk this much without tiring of it.

Li Ruobing listened without a word, astonishment on her face.

“—and after Madam Su walked out, the resolution passed. Su Qingying got unanimous support!”

He clicked his tongue in admiration. “Tsk! She’s incredible. Better than me! She actually had the nerve to turn on her own family and seize power—and she pulled it off. Who knows how long she’d been laying the groundwork. The way things stand now, I doubt even Su Ruiwen can do anything about her when he gets back. He can’t exactly cut her off. She’s his only daughter. There’s no move left to make.”

When it came to reading people and situations, Li Ruotai really was sharper than his sister.

The moment he heard what had happened, he had seen it: even if Su Ruiwen came home, there was little he could do. She was his only child, his sole heir. There truly was no good answer.

He finished. Li Ruobing still said nothing.

She was still inside the shock.

If she had not known the inside story, it would not have shaken her at all. She would have been surprised for a moment and moved on.

But she did know. She knew exactly what had happened—and even knowing, she had not been able to see how it could possibly succeed. And now, out of nowhere, it had.

“Sis? You still there?”

“Ah—yes.” She came back to herself.

“What’s the matter with you? What’s going on—”

“Nothing. It’s nothing. Something just occurred to me.” Her tone was level again.

“All right, then. I only called to tell you. Nothing else…” He sounded ready to hang up, then suddenly added, “Oh—right, Sis. I think from now on, when you deal with Su Qingying, you’d better be careful. Don’t get too close. Whatever you do, don’t open your heart to her.”

“Hm? Why?”

“Sis, don’t you think she’s terrifying?” He laid it on thick, his tone shading the whole thing with menace. “Her! Donghai’s number-one beauty. Donghai’s number-one heiress. Daughter of the richest man in Donghai. Heaven’s favored daughter in everybody’s eyes, practically flawless—good character, sweet temper, well brought up, top schools, brilliant, and beautiful to that degree. Now think about it, Sis. Tell me you don’t find her terrifying.”

Li Ruobing understood at last where he was going.

“Nobody can point to a single bad thing about her. Everyone agrees she’s sensible and obedient. The impression she gives the outside world is so good you can hardly find a flaw in it.” He pressed on. “And today she seizes power—thunder and lightning, one stroke, settled. Done in a single blow! Sis, tell me the depth of her scheming isn’t frightening.”

“She’s way too terrifying. A woman like that, if you dropped her into ancient times, she’d be the type to usurp the throne overnight, raise a rebellion, and crown herself empress.” By the end he was laying it on rather thick.

But Li Ruobing understood exactly what he meant.

Even Li Ruotai thought Su Qingying was a frightening woman. Terrifying!

The kind that raised the hair on your arms.

Because the contrast between the Su Qingying of before and the Su Qingying of now was simply too vast.

Vast beyond imagining.

He only said all this because he cared about her. He exaggerated on purpose, afraid she might choose the wrong friend. With someone like that, you kept your guard up. Always.

And yet—

Li Ruobing knew the truth.

The terrifying one was not Su Qingying. It was the man behind her. Wu Chen!

And Wu Chen was terrifying on a scale several levels beyond anything Li Ruotai, with everything he currently knew, could imagine.

Because there had been no long stretch of secret plotting at all. The preparation behind this enormous upheaval had taken a few hours. Last night.

“All right. I understand. I’m hanging up.” She ended the call, scrolled rapidly through her contacts, and dialed at once.

Wu Chen.

Chapter 126: If You’ve Got the Guts, Beat Me to Death!

Zhuowang Garden residential complex. Property management surveillance room.

Wu Chen sat back in his chair, still watching the monitors. Onscreen, Lu Guangnian stood in the doorway, still talking at his first love, Ma Huifang. The standoff had run for nearly half an hour, and throughout it Lu Guangnian had kept one hand on the door so she could not close it.

By now Ma Huifang had been worn past speech. Her face was dark, and whatever Lu Guangnian said, she gave nothing back. She simply stared straight at him, meeting everything with silence.

Lu Guangnian had said all he needed to say. He had stirred up a great many of her old memories. The groundwork was more or less laid.

“You can go up now.” Wu Chen turned to the five property guards, then added a reminder: “Don’t forget to pick up the jianbing guozi and hand it back to Boss Lu. Keep it natural.”

Every piece of it had been arranged.

Before they ever came here, Lu Guangnian had used his connections to reach the major owner behind the complex’s property management company. With that man’s blessing, Lu Guangnian had arrived, linked up smoothly with the property manager, and spoken to the guards before going upstairs.

The guards filed out, a little nervous, a little excited.

Wu Chen kept watching.

Soon he saw them step into the elevator.

The show was about to begin.

Just then—

Ring, ring…

He took out his phone, glanced at the screen, and smiled at the caller ID.

Li Ruobing.

He had not been entirely sure which of them would call first, her or Su Qingying. It depended on when Li Ruobing heard, and how long Su Qingying spent smoothing things over with her mother after the board meeting.

But one thing was certain.

If Li Ruobing was calling first, Su Qingying had succeeded.

“I’m busy,” Wu Chen said with a faint smile the moment he answered.

“Su Qingying succeeded.” Li Ruobing’s voice was low and serious.

“Mm. I know.”

“She called you?”

“Not yet.”

“Then how do you know?”

“My plan was certain to succeed.”

There was a pause on her end. Anyone hearing a man say My plan was certain to succeed would think him conceited. Arrogant. But Li Ruobing, who knew part of the inside story, did not dare dismiss him that way.

The more she learned about Wu Chen, the more terrifying she found him.

A turn of his hand summoned the clouds; a turn of his hand brought the rain.

There was almost no answer to it.

“Aren’t you going to explain to me in detail why it worked? I can’t make sense of it at all. There are so many pieces I can’t follow. I want you to tell me. All right?” There was something close to deference in her voice now.

“We’ll talk when we meet. I’m a little busy just now. You can ask Qingying too—she should be able to lay it all out by now. Ask her—” His speech quickened suddenly. “That’s all for now. Something’s come up.”

“You—”

Before she could get anything else out, Wu Chen hung up.

Because the five guards had just appeared on the ninth-floor feed.

Ninth floor.

They came out of the elevator one after another, led by a short-haired guard barely into his twenties. He stepped out, looked toward the door of 901—where Lu Guangnian was still holding the door and talking at Ma Huifang—and called over, “You again? We’ve been watching you on camera for half an hour. You know you’re disturbing the neighbors? We’ve had complaints!”

His tone was not especially hard. More grumbling than anything.

He led the others over. The jianbing guozi Ma Huifang had thrown out earlier was still by the wall in its plastic bag. The short-haired guard scooped it up in passing. “Whose is this? You still want it?”

“Mine, mine!” Lu Guangnian said hurriedly. It came back to him all at once—Wu Chen had told him that if the food got thrown out, he was to pick it up and keep hold of it.

Earlier, seeing Ma Huifang for the first time, he had been too nervous and forgotten.

The guards reached the doorway. The short-haired one handed the bag back and said, “Come on, that’s enough. You’re family. This has been dragging on for days. If you want to argue, go inside and argue. Don’t stand in the doorway bothering everybody.”

“Who’s family with him? I don’t know this man! He came here to harass us. You’re just in time—get him out of here,” Ma Huifang said rapidly.

“Don’t… don’t say that.” Lu Guangnian looked at her.

“The two of you… All right, big boss, time to go.” The guard moved to see him off, tugging at his arm.

“What do you think you’re doing? Don’t touch me.” Lu Guangnian shook him off and glared.

“Oh-ho. And what’s that supposed to mean?” The guard’s tone changed on the spot. He looked Lu Guangnian up and down. “Listen, big boss. Think this through. You didn’t bring your bodyguards today. I don’t care what line of work you’re in—you make trouble here, it’s our job to handle it.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m talking to my wife. Get the hell out of the way, all of you.”

“Who are you telling to get the hell out? Why are you cursing at people? Are all you rich types this classless? I’m warning you—we’ve put up with you for days now! Don’t think a few lousy bucks make you somebody. We’ve seen plenty of nouveau riche like you. You even know who owns our property company? The name alone would scare you to death.”

“Who do you think you’re threatening? I’m not leaving. I’m standing right here. Go ahead—lay a hand on me.”

“Lay a hand on you? So what if I do? Here—” The guard stepped in and shoved Lu Guangnian twice with his fists.

Lu Guangnian’s face went dark. His fist came up to strike.

Then he checked himself. He glanced at Ma Huifang and made a show of forcing it back down.

When he had made his promises to her earlier, he had told her how he would change, how well he would treat her from now on. He had sworn he would change all of it—that he would not be the man he used to be, always acting on impulse, always clashing with someone.

“Still want to swing at me? Move it!” The guard yanked hard at his arm.

Another guard grabbed hold of him too.

Lu Guangnian thrashed. Fifty-six years old, and genuinely in good condition: one hard sweep of his arm sent a very thin guard flying, straight down onto the floor.

“I’m not leaving! Get away from me!” he shouted.

“You fucking dare hit somebody? Get him! Fucking idiot nouveau riche!”

They were all young men with short fuses. How were they supposed to swallow that? They went straight at him.

One charged in and kicked Lu Guangnian back against the wall. His grip failed and the bag dropped, the bag of jianbing guozi hitting the floor and getting stepped on.

Being beaten, Lu Guangnian did not fight back. He grabbed for the bag first and curled his body over it.

Chaos.

All of it, at once.

Ma Huifang had expected the guards to drag him away. It had never occurred to her that they would actually start swinging.

“You—” She took one step out the door and stopped. One word out, and then she hardened her heart and said nothing more.

Inside, Ma Jiawei had come to the doorway too. Watching.

From the sofa behind him, the child began to cry again.

One man against five—there was no winning it. Lu Guangnian could not even get up. Boots came down again and again; fists landed solid on his body. At first he still tried to rise. Then he stopped trying.

“Go on! Hit me! If you’ve got the guts, beat me to death! Kill me and I still won’t leave. I won’t leave! Without my wife and my child there’s no point in me being alive anyway!”

“Fucking idiot, quit playing the devoted lover! Fuck your mother!”

A young man may hold something back before the fists start flying. Once his blood is up, he can stop caring about anything at all.

Lu Guangnian stopped talking. He kept his head down against the floor, arms around the bag.

His whole body was covered in shoe prints.

The short-haired guard kicked him again and rolled him onto his back.

In that instant, at an angle no one else could see, he slipped something into his mouth. Another guard’s boot drove into his stomach.

Pfft—

Lu Guangnian sprayed blood. Beaten until he vomited blood.

“Stop—” Ma Huifang’s cry had barely left her when a far angrier one drowned it out.

“Get off my dad! You touch my dad, I’ll fuck your mothers!” Ma Jiawei, whose hatred for his father had never run that deep, who had wanted the beating stopped for a while now, finally snapped the moment the blood came.

He did not even come out to pull them apart. He came out swinging.

His first kick dropped a guard on the spot.

In the surveillance room, Wu Chen smiled.