Chapter 184: Aren’t You Afraid Miss Li Will Be Hurt If She Finds Out?

Chapter 184: Aren’t You Afraid Miss Li Will Be Hurt If She Finds Out?

Wu Yurong truly was a woman whose guard went up the instant she could not understand something.

But—

If what she could not understand rose to the level of the mystical, that was another matter entirely.

Once it reached that level, her guard became meaningless.

“Who am I? Haven’t you already looked into me, President Wu?” Wu Chen asked, smiling.

Wu Yurong stared at him.

She was not even smiling anymore.

She had no appetite left for the performance.

She simply could not work it out.

Of course she knew who Wu Chen was.

She knew his family background as well.

There was no need even to debate whether the records were genuine.

Because after thinking it through carefully she realized that whatever Wu Chen’s identity was—even with a background powerful enough to reach the heavens—there was still no possible way for him to know the things he had just said.

He even knew what she had once thought in private.

He knew what was in her mind?

Was he a fortune-teller?

This was very nearly supernatural.

Wu Yurong thought back as well to what he had said about Ding Ruilong and Dong Yuantao.

They had more or less finished with that, and yet Wu Chen had never once explained how he came to know it.

While listening, she had guessed he might have bought off someone inside the Ding family—one of Ding Ruilong’s trusted men, perhaps. Perhaps Ding Ruilong had a loose tongue among his own people, and that was how Wu Chen had learned the secret.

But now—

The more she thought, the more she felt that the way Wu Chen came by information lay beyond anything she could imagine.

After a while she drew a deep breath and slowly sat down.

“You know quite a lot, Mr. Wu.” Her habitual gentle smile returned. “Then could you tell me what else you know about me?”

“A great deal.” Wu Chen smiled faintly. “Which aspect do you mean?”

“For example…” She paused, smiling, eyes narrowing slightly. “Things enough to send me to prison.”

At Wu Yurong’s level of business, not one person was entirely clean.

That was simply the truth.

And for a ruthless woman who hid knives behind her smile, Wu Yurong had done far too many things that could put her in prison.

Wu Chen had already named one earlier:

Chuanhang Fund.

Now she wanted to know what else he had.

“Things that could send you to prison…” Wu Chen’s smile turned peculiar. “There are rather too many, aren’t there? Back when you were going after the Song family, you stole their newest fashion designs… And several investors the Song family was negotiating with before the bankruptcy were too frightened to invest, thanks to methods of yours…”

“Then there are the business rivals you’ve sent to prison over the years. With some you’d found leverage. Others you framed through schemes of your own—Zhao Huannan, Jin Caijun, Fan Lin…”

Wu Chen touched on them only briefly, then smiled. “Oh, and that operation with Liu Zhentao three years ago was beautifully done. Although in my opinion you’d do better to manipulate share prices less. It’s too easy to get caught…”

The smile was still on Wu Yurong’s face.

It had gone slightly stiff.

Inside, however, enormous waves were breaking through her.

She was stunned past words.

Wu Chen seemed to know everything.

In that entirely unreasonable, illogical way—

Everything.

It was impossible.

And yet Wu Chen knew.

Wu Yurong watched him swirl the wine in his glass and smile, and stayed silent a long time.

Her expression changed by degrees as well.

First she calmed the turmoil in her and let the smile grow natural again.

Then she looked at him with an extremely subtle gaze.

She had asked about things enough to send her to prison because she wanted to know whether Wu Chen had the ability to put her there—or, put another way, to ruin her beyond recovery.

Now she had her answer.

He did.

In Wu Yurong’s mind, Wu Chen became extraordinarily mysterious.

She was already near to filing him among the uncanny, the extraordinary.

So as far as Wu Yurong was concerned, only two choices remained.

Kill Wu Chen—the man who would otherwise leave her unable to eat or sleep in peace.

Or…

Sleep with him.

Build an intimate relationship with him.

Make use of this man’s abilities.

Another woman would certainly have seen more choices.

She could cultivate a good relationship with Wu Chen, for instance, or a good relationship with Li Ruobing. There could have been a third option, a fourth.

But Wu Yurong felt she had only these two.

That came out of her character, and out of all the years she had spent using her beauty to get things done.

She was nowhere near as hard-line as Li Ruobing.

She was calculating, and she also considered too much. She disliked the feeling of losing control, and because she worried about a situation slipping loose, her choices ran to one extreme or the other.

Every option in between carried the possibility of losing control.

And for so many years she had used her beauty to tease men into becoming her spare options and her devoted lapdogs.

So her thoughts went instinctively in that direction.

Besides, Wu Chen had hinted at it.

From the beginning of their conversation he had said he had designs on her.

Now Wu Yurong had come to believe the double meaning had been deliberate.

And his carrying her in his arms had made her understand that he truly did have intentions toward her.

He had volunteered that information to her.

Naturally it pushed her thoughts that way.

And there was one more thing.

The most important thing.

Wu Chen’s looks, his bearing, and the way he spoke were all exactly to her taste.

A young man.

A young body.

A handsome face.

And that relaxed, unruffled smile that never seemed to leave him.

Wu Yurong had been lonely far too many years.

Her heart was restless, and she had never found a man worth giving herself to completely without feeling she had gotten the worse end of it.

“Mr. Wu, let’s go back to the Ding family.” Wu Yurong spoke again, hauling the subject back.

She still wanted the whole picture.

She wanted to see whether Wu Chen really was as omniscient, as formidable, as though he possessed some mystical power.

Wu Chen went on.

He mentioned Dong Yaoguang’s rival.

He mentioned the Dou family.

He explained that he had told Li Maoren about the dirt on Qu Qiangmin.

And he explained the interests and consequences involved.

As before, he told it in the most roundabout way.

It took more than half an hour.

And in that half hour the two of them finished another entire bottle of red wine.

Wu Yurong drank slightly more, because she had drained her first glass in one swallow.

In that half hour Wu Yurong also became completely certain of two things.

First, Wu Chen was absolutely not a “normal person.”

Second, Wu Chen possessed a terrifying ability to unite and divide powers through strategy. He was like one of the political persuaders of the Warring States era: with words alone he could throw all under heaven into chaos.

And what he knew went far beyond anything those ancient strategists could have known.

Wu Chen had not even told her about the dirt he had on the Wei family.

There was no need.

This was already enough.

“Mr. Wu, with everything you’ve arranged, it seems the Ding family is doomed…” Wu Yurong said.

Her words were half sincere and half performance.

She had drunk a whole large bottle of red wine, and her tolerance was poor. By now she was genuinely drunk. The intoxication showed plainly in her face, and her brows and eyes were full of allure.

“I’m going to accelerate the process.” Wu Chen smiled at her. “That’s also why I’ve explained so much to you, President Wu. You should understand your position by now. And I hope as well… that you’ll enter the game. If you stand on the side that brings the Ding family down, I think you won’t merely come through unharmed—you’ll be able to go a step further.”

The drunken Wu Yurong sobered considerably at once.

Because those were exactly the words she had been hoping to hear.

While listening to him earlier she had already thought of it.

This was a crisis.

But it was an opportunity too.

If the Ding family were brought down, everyone who helped bring them down would take a share.

And the Ding family’s cake was enormous.

Thinking it over, Wu Yurong smiled and asked, “Mr. Wu, could you tell me why? Why are you doing this to the Ding family?”

“Ding Ruilong,” Wu Chen replied.

“Ding Ruilong? Only because of Ding Ruilong?” she asked.

“What else?” The corner of Wu Chen’s mouth rose. “Ding Ruilong dared fight me over a woman. He has to die. But he has the Ding family behind him. Rather than wait until I kill Ding Ruilong and have the Ding family come after me, I might as well… take them down together.”

Wu Yurong smiled with a trace of surprise, seemingly unsure what to say.

After a pause she said, “It seems you truly love Miss Li, Mr. Wu.”

“Of course,” Wu Chen said.

“Then…” Wu Yurong asked softly, smiling in her drunkenness, her eyes warm and teasing, “when you carried me in your arms just now—aren’t you afraid Miss Li will be hurt if she finds out?”