Chapter 171: Brother-in-law, Give Me a Hint First

Chapter 171: Brother-in-law, Give Me a Hint First

“A ten?” For a moment Li Ruobing did not seem to take it in.

“That’s right. A ten.” Wu Chen nodded, then smiled. “My standards are extremely, extremely strict. A six is already what you’d call good-looking. Female celebrities known for their faces have to be naturally beautiful to score above an eight—and I mean their natural appearance.”

“You’re a nine. Though when it comes to your appeal to men, your looks are actually secondary. You’re extremely beautiful, but the other things about you are what make you most captivating.”

He looked at her, paused, then added, “Qingying is a nine and a half. Wu Yurong when she was young—ten for looks.”

“A perfect score?” Li Ruobing’s expression was hard to read.

“The highest score I give. Not the absolute limit of female beauty. Aesthetics are very subjective,” Wu Chen said.

“What does that mean?” She did not quite follow.

“It’s complicated.” He shook his head and did not explain.

“Fine… then what about Wu Yurong now? What score?”

“Aesthetics are very subjective,” Wu Chen repeated. Instead of answering, he asked, “What do you think? Her now, against you?”

“If I thought she wasn’t as pretty as me, would I be asking you?” she returned.

Wu Chen smiled. He understood her.

Wu Yurong was fifteen years her senior, and even now Li Ruobing did not think the woman’s looks fell short of her own. She could not decide which of them was more beautiful, which was precisely why she had asked him.

When Wu Chen stopped answering, she stopped asking.

She slipped her arm through his.

The two went downstairs to the living room.

Few people remained on the ground floor.

Earlier it had been crowded with men searching everywhere, and precisely because there had been so many, the sweep had gone quickly and was already finished. Every listening device they found had been destroyed and tossed onto the coffee table.

Apart from Li Ruotai, only two of his trusted bodyguards were left, along with Zhou Huan, Li Ruobing’s own.

“Sis. Brother-in-law.” Li Ruotai stood as they approached, then gestured for all the bodyguards to go.

They filed out.

Only the three of them remained.

Wu Chen and Li Ruobing sat down on the sofa.

“Have you called Dad?” she asked.

“Not yet.” Li Ruotai’s face was grim, his tone wrong. His eyes flickered as he glanced at her, and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

Then he turned to Wu Chen.

“Brother-in-law, what happened today was my failure. I promise it won’t happen again. However many bodyguards you want, just say the word. I—”

“No need.” Wu Chen cut him off with a smile. “I appreciate the thought, Atai.”

Since Wu Chen had refused, Li Ruotai did not press. But his expression was still wrong.

“What are you planning to do?” Li Ruobing narrowed her eyes at her brother.

“Nothing,” he said at once.

The instant she saw that attitude, her face darkened.

She knew her own brother far too well.

They were only a year apart and had grown up side by side. She knew his character, his methods, and exactly how he behaved when he was about to do something.

“Atai, don’t imagine I can’t see what you’re thinking! I’m warning you. Don’t do anything reckless!” She came to her feet.

Ordinarily the moment Li Ruobing lost her temper, Li Ruotai folded.

This time his face only grew blacker.

He jabbed a hand at his own chest and shouted, “Sis! Ding Ruilong is slapping me across the face! Humiliating me! Donghai! Donghai, the place I’ve spent six years building! He comes onto my ground and pulls something like this, and you want me to swallow it? Why the hell should I? If Old Man Ding didn’t treasure him like gold, I’d have joined up with a few families and killed him long ago! What the hell is he?!”

The more he said, the hotter he got. He was on his feet now too.

“Sis! How many times has it been? How many? Last time he blew up the equipment room at your factory, I burned his warehouse, and you still yelled at me! Said I was impulsive! So what if I go after him? I want him dead!”

“Anyone else can kill him. You can’t!”

“Why the hell can’t I? Why am I the one person who can’t?”

“Li Ruotai! Calm down!”

“Sis! How am I supposed to calm down? This time he dared go after Brother-in-law! What about next time? He only came through it because he can fight! And because he called me ahead of time and told me to grab those men! That’s the only reason nothing happened! What am I, some kind of useless waste? You want me to pull my head in like a turtle?”

Brother and sister were arguing.

Just as the rumors in Donghai had it, provoking Li Ruobing was more frightening than provoking Li Ruotai himself.

Where his sister was concerned, Li Ruotai very often abandoned reason, logic, and method altogether.

Once his blood was up, he acted.

And what had happened today had shaken him badly.

Long ago Li Ruotai had sworn to himself that however his sister had protected him when they were small, once he grew up he would protect her the same way.

Whoever his sister liked, he liked.

The man his sister loved was his brother-in-law.

He understood very well that if Brother-in-law Wu Chen were killed, his usually level-headed sister would become the least level-headed person alive.

She might take a gun and shoot Ding Ruilong herself.

And then the situation would be past containing, and he might even lose her.

The more he thought about it, the more it frightened him.

So right now Li Ruotai truly wanted to kill Ding Ruilong first.

Fast.

Clean.

An end to the threat forever.

Li Ruobing would never allow it.

Wu Chen knew that for all her hardness, this woman had one very obvious weakness buried in her.

The people she cared about.

Before Wu Chen appeared, in the entire Li family—in the entire world—there had been only two.

One was her mother.

The other her younger brother, Li Ruotai.

The more she cared, the less she could bear the thought of anything happening to them.

So if anyone else went and killed Ding Ruilong, Li Ruobing would not merely refrain from stopping them. She might applaud.

But Li Ruotai absolutely could not.

If he killed Ding Ruilong—a man from another great family whose standing matched his own—there was no possibility he would come out of it intact.

When Wu Chen first got Li Ruobing to take his hand, he had exploited precisely this weakness. He had used her fear of something happening to her brother.

And now Wu Chen and Li Ruobing had reached the point where—

He had become the third person she cared about.

The reason she was trying to stop Li Ruotai now was the same reason she had tried to stop Wu Chen before.

The difference was that Wu Chen had never intended simply to go and kill Ding Ruilong.

He had a plan to destroy the entire Ding family.

Li Ruotai genuinely meant it.

“…Sis! Donghai! This is Donghai! Ding Ruilong sits down in Nanguang and dares reach his hand all the way up here. Why the hell can’t I cut it off?” He grew more agitated by the second.

“You—” She was too angry to know what to say.

She raised a hand to her forehead. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Wu Chen sitting there with a faint smile, watching the show, and that made it worse.

“Would you say something to him?” She gestured at him.

“Brother-in-law, you don’t have to talk me out of it either. I’ll consider this carefully!” Li Ruotai got in first.

Wu Chen made no attempt to talk him out of anything.

Instead he smiled and asked, “Did Old Dao come through resuscitation?”

“Old Dao? Which one? The one you said specifically had to be kept alive?” Li Ruotai asked. His bodyguards had told him that much.

“Right.” Wu Chen nodded.

“He made it. They called and told me.”

“Good. I need to speak with him alone. At length.” Wu Chen was smiling as he said it, and there was plainly a second meaning under the words.

Li Ruotai froze, thought a moment, then came quickly around the coffee table and sat down beside Wu Chen.

He even crowded him a little.

“Brother-in-law, speak about what? Does he know something about Ding Ruilong? Or—could something he says get Ding Ruilong killed?”

“Want to know?” Wu Chen glanced sideways at him.

“Yes!” Li Ruotai nodded.

“Apologize to your sister.” Wu Chen gestured toward her.

Li Ruotai shot to his feet, bowed ninety degrees to Li Ruobing, and said, “Sis! I’m sorry! Your little brother was wrong! I shouldn’t have argued with you!”

He did not look at her once through the whole performance.

The moment it was done he sat back down, leaned in close to Wu Chen again, fixed him with an ingratiating grin, and said, “Brother-in-law, give me a hint first?”