Chapter 130: No Matter What You Do, You Die

Chapter 130: No Matter What You Do, You Die

Zhuowang Garden residential complex, the corner of the ground-floor corridor.

Lu Guangnian had come downstairs and called Wu Chen straightaway. Barely forty or fifty minutes had passed since Wu Chen left. The reason he had come down so soon, instead of lingering with his woman and his son, was that—

He had to go to the hospital.

Not that he really needed one. The blood he had coughed up was fake. But Ma Huifang and Ma Jiawei had insisted on taking him, and there was no possible way he could let them come along. That would blow the whole thing open.

So he had found an excuse and said he would have someone come for him. He had even teased Ma Huifang a little: “The civil affairs bureau’s on the way to the hospital. We might as well stop in and register the marriage.” That had gotten her worked up enough that she did not follow him out.

Lu Guangnian genuinely had a few injuries from the beating, but nothing worth a hospital.

So the first thing he did downstairs was call Wu Chen.

Reporting the good news was part of it. The other part was that Lu Guangnian still remembered the call Wu Chen had taken while he was laying out the plan for him.

Lu Guangnian prized loyalty and personal bonds above nearly everything.

He hated owing anyone.

Wu Chen had done him two enormous favors, and he had done nothing for Wu Chen in return. Wu Chen would not take his money either. It left Lu Guangnian feeling that if he did not do something for the man, he was hardly a human being at all.

So he had come to regard “someone threatening Wu Chen over the phone” as his chance to repay the debt.

“There’s no need, Brother Lu. I can handle it,” Wu Chen said on the phone.

“What do you mean, no need? Are we brothers or not? If we’re brothers, then out with it!” Lu Guangnian was already growing agitated. “Remember what I told you last time? From here on, you and I are brothers who’d burn yellow paper and swear an oath together! My brother’s in trouble and you want me to stand and watch? Are we brothers or aren’t we?”

Lu Guangnian was genuinely eating himself up over it. If he could not repay at least part of the debt, he felt he would hardly know how to speak to Wu Chen the next time they met.

“That’s not what I meant, Brother Lu. Things have only just turned around with Sister-in-law, and you’ve got your own business to see to. My affairs aren’t—”

“Enough out of you! Give me the address! Stop dragging your feet!”

“Brother Lu, I really—”

“Address! Or don’t you see me as a brother? You think Lu Guangnian isn’t fit to be your brother?”

“…All right. East City. Tree Island Café.”

“Good!”

Lu Guangnian strode out of the building.

Out of the complex, he drove off in the Audi he had brought alone to keep things low-key. Not far along, he turned into a back street.

A luxury motorhome stood at the curb, and behind it waited a convoy with real presence to it—the Rolls-Royce Lu Guangnian usually rode in among them.

Out of the Audi, into the motorhome, change of clothes.

In under ten minutes he stepped back down. He was in a full, sharply cut suit again, his face freshly seen to by a makeup artist.

One detail is worth mentioning: when Lu Guangnian took his beating, the blows had landed on his body only, never his face. That had been arranged in advance, with specific reminders. No hitting the face. Lu Guangnian had people to meet afterward.

The bruises and small hurts on his body were nothing. His clothes covered them; no one would see.

Lu Guangnian had come up from the bottom in his younger days, and he had fought his way up from the bottom. In that era, in the demolition business, men died often enough. He had lived through years of blood and violence. A few minor injuries were nothing at all.

Into the car.

The convoy pulled out.

Straight for Tree Island Café in East City!

Lu Guangnian did not even ask who had threatened Wu Chen before setting off.

No need to ask.

In Donghai, there were not many men who dared deny Lu Guangnian face.

…

Tree Island Café.

Wu Chen hung up and went quickly to the second floor. It was as large as the ground floor, and there was not a single customer in it. Completely empty.

Meng Junhao had arrived at noon with more than thirty men. With that crowd planted in the ground-floor hall, glaring at everyone who walked in, there was no chance of customers even downstairs—let alone up here.

He had two reasons for it. The first was fear: he was afraid of dying, afraid something would go wrong. The second was that killing the café’s business for the day made it convenient to do business of his own.

And the reason he had chosen this place to meet Wu Chen was that the café’s owner was Meng Junhao’s mistress. He had paid to set the business up for her.

Which meant the café was Meng Junhao’s ground to begin with.

Wu Chen walked to the windows on the second floor, picked a table at random, pulled out a chair and sat, then turned his head to look at the street below.

Meng Junhao came up behind him and asked cautiously, “Mr. Wu, is someone else coming?”

He had heard Wu Chen mention Tree Island Café on the phone as they came up the stairs.

“A friend,” Wu Chen said offhandedly, and left it there. He gestured to the seat across from him and smiled. “Sit.”

“Right!” Meng Junhao took the chair opposite.

Wu Chen looked at him, smiling, and said nothing.

He simply went on smiling.

It made Meng Junhao’s scalp crawl.

“Mr. Wu, whatever you need, just name it. Whether I can do it or not, I’ll get it done for you!” Meng Junhao broke first, and the moment he opened his mouth, promises came pouring out.

The man really did know how to talk.

Meng Junhao was, in fact, an interesting sort of man. Wu Chen understood him, and so he knew: the man had guts, decisiveness, and ability. His trouble was simply that he was too greedy. You could say he knew when to bend and when to stand; you could also say he clung to life and quailed at death. He did not mind playing someone’s dog, so long as there was money in it.

Seen from that angle, he was rather a frightening man.

But he had a weakness. He loved money, and he loved his own life more.

Meng Junhao was no small figure in Donghai.

He was nothing beside the men at the very top, but one fact told you the measure of his weight: in Donghai, whenever there was a major event, a concert, a large corporate annual meeting, any large-scale commercial function at all, the security work was generally contracted out to his Dragon Shield company.

The security trade was not large next to other industries—most companies kept their own people and only brought in outside contractors under special circumstances.

But!

In Donghai, Dragon Shield Security was practically a monopoly. Across the whole of East China it ranked near the top. Other security firms simply could not compete; they picked up the small events, while the big ones all went to Dragon Shield.

Meng Junhao could even work alongside the public-security authorities on certain large official occasions, with his company handling part of the security work.

His ties inside the public-security system ran deep.

A man like that should never have been driven to the point of wanting to flee the country. Unfortunately, the two men he had crossed this time were Ding Ruilong and Li Ruotai.

Wu Chen kept looking at Meng Junhao, still smiling, still saying nothing.

Meng Junhao could barely stay in his chair.

“I’d guess…” Wu Chen finally spoke. He glanced out the window, then back at Meng Junhao, with a faint smile. “Ding Ruilong will be sending someone to move on me before long. You must know he’s been investigating every corner of my life lately…”

Of course Meng Junhao knew. He had already worked out that the young man across from him was Li Ruobing’s boyfriend, Wu Chen. Gathering intelligence on Wu Chen was not his assignment, but he knew it was happening.

“Mr. Wu, I—” Meng Junhao started, wanting to explain something.

“I know that side of it isn’t yours.”

Those words reassured him. The next sentence made every hair on his body stand on end.

“I also know Ding Ruilong will have you look into my routines and movements. Because you’ve got a lot of men.”

Wu Chen finished and grinned broadly.

Meng Junhao’s face changed drastically. As a double agent, he grasped the arithmetic of it instantly.

“If you tell Li Ruotai, Ding Ruilong never gets his chance at me. The word will have leaked, and he’ll suspect you. He’ll kill you.

“And if you don’t tell Li Ruotai, and Ding Ruilong’s people move on me successfully, then whatever the outcome, Li Ruotai will understand there’s something wrong with you…

“And you die anyway.”

Wu Chen smiled again. “In other words, in a few days, whatever you do, one of the two of them—Ding Ruilong or Li Ruotai—is going to kill you. Am I wrong?”

A dead end.

Meng Junhao truly was in a dead end.

He shot to his feet, eyes wide—then took one stride and dropped to his knees in front of Wu Chen with a thud, shuffling forward two steps on his knees.

“Mr. Wu! Save me! Save me! From now on I’ll do whatever you say, Mr. Wu—”