Chapter 172: Framing Him

Chapter 172: Framing Him

“Ever heard of the Golden Flower Group on the Myanmar border?” Wu Chen asked with a sidelong glance and a smile.

“Golden Flower Group?” Li Ruobing frowned first, then her eyes widened. “That… warlord? The drugs—”

“That’s right.” Wu Chen nodded.

In Golden Flower Group, the word group meant a criminal organization.

The Myanmar border was a chaotic place. Quite a few forces there could still be called warlords even in the modern world, and nearly all of them had some connection to drugs.

Golden Flower was one such organization.

“So this Old Dao—he’s with Golden Flower?” Li Ruotai thought it over and seemed to understand.

“Right.” Wu Chen nodded. “Old Dao is essentially a top enforcer, one of Golden Flower’s operatives inside China. You could also call him a mercenary hitman. Pay him and he’ll do the job—and he’s willing to take the work nobody else will.”

“Then Ding Ruilong… and Golden Flower… could it be…” Li Ruotai’s speech slowed without his noticing, each word coming later than the last, while excitement crept into his voice.

If Ding Ruilong had ties to Golden Flower Group, if drugs were involved, then once the matter came out, not even the gods could save him.

Wu Chen shook his head.

“It isn’t as grave as you’re imagining. Ding Ruilong has plenty of legal ways to make money. He wouldn’t touch that kind of business, and the Ding family would never let him run that wild. He personally has no connection to Golden Flower Group. He isn’t stupid enough for that.”

“Then he…” Li Ruotai sounded disappointed.

“Old Dao.” Wu Chen laid weight on the name, smiling. “He knows a great deal about Golden Flower, and he knows a great deal about Ding Ruilong. There have been several occasions when Ding Ruilong wanted something done absolutely, with nothing traceable back to him. Each time he brought in outsiders. And the man he hired was Old Dao.”

Li Ruotai listened, and thought.

His eyes widened slowly.

“He hired Old Dao… to kill who?” He had worked it out.

Ding Ruilong had very likely hired Old Dao to kill people he should never have killed—people he could not afford to kill.

Old Dao might not have carried out every job himself, but he would certainly know the inside of it.

Wu Chen looked at him and smiled.

After a pause he said, “Time for lunch.”

“Huh?” Li Ruotai had been waiting for him to go on, and instead he was talking about food.

“When I speak with Old Dao, you can sit in,” Wu Chen added with a faint smile.

“Ah—good, Brother-in-law! Good! You mean it, now!” Li Ruotai came back to himself and agreed hurriedly.

Then he stood. “So, Brother-in-law… where are we eating?”

“Order in. Talking outside isn’t convenient, and it wastes time,” Wu Chen said.

“All right… I’ll have a hotel send something over.”

Li Ruotai took out his phone.

He called it ordering in, but naturally Li Ruotai did not use a delivery app. He simply called a star-rated restaurant that offered no delivery at all and told them to prepare food and bring it over.

He stepped aside to make the call.

Li Ruobing had been listening to Wu Chen and her brother the whole time. Seeing Li Ruotai now, she knew Wu Chen had handled it.

He had never tried to talk her brother out of anything.

He had simply made him understand there was another, better way, and Li Ruotai had abandoned the impulse on his own.

Whatever came next, it was better than sending men to kill Ding Ruilong outright and ending up with a mess nobody could contain.

Li Ruotai finished the call quickly and came back to sit opposite them.

“Sis, I’ll call Dad then…” he said.

That he could say it meant he had truly given up on acting rashly.

“I’ll call him,” Li Ruobing said.

His expression shifted slightly in surprise.

He knew his sister had not called their father of her own accord in years.

Their father was always the one who called her.

Li Ruobing took out her phone and dialed quickly.

It connected almost at once.

“Hello, Bingbing! Hahaha, my daughter has finally decided to call her father.” Li Maoren’s voice came through.

He was genuinely delighted.

“Dad,” she said. Then, “Ding Ruilong sent men to Donghai to kill Wu Chen. A group of professional killers brought in from outside the country. They very nearly hurt me too…”

Listening to her, Wu Chen raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth curling despite himself.

Li Ruotai understood now why his sister had chosen to make this call.

Once she poured this bucket of filth over Ding Ruilong’s head, it would never come off.

Because every killer was “dead.”

Every “eyewitness” was one of Li Ruobing’s bodyguards.

And all the relevant surveillance footage had already been destroyed.

Ding Ruilong had no way whatsoever to prove otherwise.

“What?!” Li Maoren’s tone changed on the instant. He asked heavily, “Bingbing, how are you? You weren’t hurt?”

“I’m fine. The bodyguards pulled me clear in time,” she said.

“And Wu Chen?” he asked.

“He’s fine too,” she answered quickly. “But seven of them are dead!”

Some had plainly been resuscitated, and she said all of them were dead.

She even gave the exact number, deliberately raising the gravity of the thing.

The line went silent.

Several seconds later Li Maoren said heavily, “I understand. I’ll make the Ding family answer for it. Fuck!”

Li Maoren, who rarely swore, cursed at the end of it.

“Ding Ruilong called me just now as well. He denies arranging it. He says Jiang Chuan acted on his own,” she added.

“That animal, fucking… All right, I’m hanging up. I have calls to make. Bingbing, get some rest. Have Atai deal with those seven men!”

He cursed again and ended the call in a hurry.

He was certainly going to demand an explanation from the Ding family. That was why he was in such a rush to start telephoning.

Li Ruobing lowered the phone, glanced at it, then dialed another number at once.

This time it rang for more than ten seconds before the other party answered.

“Bingbing…” An elderly voice.

“Grandfather…” she said.

She had called Old Master Sun.

She would never call her paternal grandfather, because the Li family’s old master favored sons over daughters.

Old Master Sun was another matter.

Through a great many things over the years, Li Ruobing’s mother had been able to shield her and openly take her side because she had her own family behind her—because she was Old Master Sun’s most beloved daughter.

And Old Master Sun doted on his granddaughter as well.

Had the marriage alliance between the Li and Ding families not involved such enormous interests, Old Master Sun would never have made things hard for her.

“Grandfather, you know about Wu Chen, don’t you?” she said.

And then she told her maternal grandfather much the same story she had just told her father.

It was a frame-up, plain and simple.

Ding Ruilong would certainly never target her directly.

But this time the men he had used were outsiders. He might not have controlled them completely. Once they went into a killing frenzy, anyone could have been hurt; in the heat of it they might have killed whoever tried to shield Wu Chen…

Logically it held.

“If Dad asks you, you know what to say?” she asked Li Ruotai after ending the call.

“Understood. Understood, Sis. I’ll make sure the bodyguards all tell the same story too.” He answered at once, and even raised a thumb to her.

Li Ruobing had made only two calls, but they were going to cost Ding Ruilong dearly.

He would not merely receive an extremely severe punishment from his family; the family resources he was permitted to mobilize might well be curtailed for some time.

More importantly, Ding Ruilong’s most capable right hand—

Jiang Chuan.

He was certain to die.

Someone always had to step forward and take responsibility.

…

A little after one in the afternoon, having eaten the food that was delivered, Wu Chen drove out of Honor · Donghai Mansion.

He was going to see Song Xuan.

They had agreed on Qingchun Café in Central District.

Half an hour later.

Wu Chen turned onto Xingye South Road, where Qingchun Café stood.

From a distance he spotted an all-black Volkswagen MPV parked at the curb outside the café. It looked very unassuming.

The instant he saw the vehicle, a smile came to his face without his meaning it.

Just as expected.

Wu Chen knew that vehicle.

More to the point, he knew whose it was.

It was driven by the bodyguards of Song Xuan’s mother, Wu Yurong.

For years upon years Wu Yurong had kept people around her daughter, protecting her and watching her in secret.

She had even bought off some of Song Xuan’s close friends.

Song Xuan knew nothing of it at all.

Wu Chen parked outside the café.

Getting out, he straightened his suit, then glanced—apparently without thinking—at the black MPV parked only a few meters away.

Then, smiling, he walked into the café.

Inside the MPV, the instant Wu Chen stepped through the door, the masked man in the passenger seat raised a camera.

Click.

He photographed Wu Chen’s back.