Chapter 201: Good Luck

Chapter 201: Good Luck

“…And afterward you can ask him about this too…” While Old Dao keyed in the number, Wu Chen told him a few more things, laying out exactly what to say to Jiang Chuan. Old Dao said nothing, only nodded.

With the number entered, he looked up at Wu Chen and waited until he had finished before dialing and switching on the speaker.

The call connected fast.

“Hello?!” Jiang Chuan gave nothing away in his voice, though inwardly he was badly shaken. He knew this number. It belonged to the SIM card he had prepared for the “safe house,” and Old Dao should have been the only person able to use it.

But wasn’t Old Dao dead? Jiang Chuan could not be sure Li Ruotai’s men had not gotten hold of the card.

“It’s me.” Old Dao’s voice was low, with a faint tremor in it. He was weak, and he was in pain.

“Old Dao? You’re alive?” Jiang Chuan exclaimed.

“It’s me. They managed to save me. I escaped from the hospital…” Old Dao gave him a brief account.

“You— what the hell happened to you people?” The questions came in a rush. “You couldn’t take Wu Chen? Six, seven of you couldn’t take one man? All of you caught? Who else is alive?”

“It wasn’t just Wu Chen. Li Ruobing turned up with bodyguards… We weren’t a match for them… Wu Chen really can fight. Your fucking intel was wrong, no question about it…” Old Dao knew how to play a part. He kept it vague and salted it with curses.

Jiang Chuan fell silent, trying to reconstruct it.

Hadn’t they all been lying in the elevator? How could a space that cramped have held more men than that?

Unless… the bodies had been dragged into the elevator afterward. Wu Chen had staged the scene deliberately, just to take that terrifying photograph.

“Right, Master Chuan. During the job, when I couldn’t get clear, I tried to take Li Ruobing hostage. Nearly hurt her. Is that going to be a problem?” Old Dao asked, out of nowhere.

“What did you say?!” Jiang Chuan shouted.

“I mean… I grabbed Li Ruobing and almost—”

“You fucking— Christ! You motherfucking— I— fuck!” Jiang Chuan seemed to come apart, so worked up he could not even find a way to curse Old Dao properly. He forced himself steady, then roared, “Didn’t I warn you? Don’t touch Li Ruobing! Don’t touch her! If she’s with Wu Chen, you don’t make a move!!”

“We’d already moved… I had to stay alive somehow.” Old Dao was untroubled by his fury. Calling him “Master Chuan” had only ever been flattery, because Jiang Chuan brought him work. He had always called him that.

“You fucking…” Jiang Chuan started in again. He truly was losing his mind, because he could already see the consequences. The Li family would demand an explanation from the Dings, and the Dings would have to give them one. But the man who paid for it would certainly not be Ding Ruilong.

It would be Jiang Chuan.

This could get him killed.

“Master Chuan! Watch how you talk to me!” Old Dao snapped, aggrieved, playing it up. “I take money, I do a job. Your intel was wrong and you’re blaming me? Let me warn you — I know all about the filthy business your Ding family’s been up to. And… Ang Tun, back then. I’ve been keeping quiet about that for your Ding family too. You really think I never found out? If it weren’t for our old relationship—”

“Ang Tun? You know?!” Jiang Chuan cut straight across him, his voice sharp with shock.

Old Dao’s face changed at once. He glanced at Wu Chen again.

The bait had worked.

Jiang Chuan’s reaction had already proved that Wu Chen was telling the truth.

In fact Jiang Chuan was a man who kept his mouth very tightly shut. But his thoughts were in chaos now. More than that, part of him no longer cared, because he knew that Old Dao’s nearly hurting Li Ruobing would end in one place: Jiang Chuan dead.

If he worked for some other member of the Ding family, it might not have come to that.

But he worked for Ding Ruilong, and he knew Ding Ruilong’s temperament and methods far too well. Now that this had happened, the Li family had to be answered. Ding Ruilong would dump the whole of it on Jiang Chuan, kill him, and offer up his life as the answer.

And it was true that Jiang Chuan had botched the job.

He was already thinking about running. Without even noticing, he had stopped thinking about what was good for the Ding family.

The phone was on speaker, and Wu Chen heard every word of it clearly.

When Old Dao looked over, Wu Chen put out a hand.

Old Dao leaned forward and passed him the phone.

“You—” Jiang Chuan had just started again after a silence.

“Jiang Chuan,” Wu Chen said, smiling.

Jiang Chuan froze. The voice had changed. Someone else was there?

Then he placed it at once. He had heard this voice yesterday.

“Wu Chen?! You and Old Dao—” He broke off just as abruptly. He thought of Old Dao never having escaped at all. He thought of the possibility that Old Dao had already thrown in with Wu Chen. He thought of everything the Ding family had hired Old Dao to do over the years, and what it would mean if Wu Chen knew all of it — then the Ding family…

Old Dao’s reputation had always been impeccable. So why this time…

Jiang Chuan could not make sense of it, and there was no time to try.

“Ding Ruilong isn’t in Nanguang, is he? Did he go back home to see Old Master Ding?” Wu Chen asked pleasantly.

“You—” Jiang Chuan managed the one word and nothing more.

Wu Chen was right.

Jiang Chuan had returned to Nanguang the previous night. Ding Ruilong was already gone by then. Others told him something urgent had come up and Ding Ruilong had gone home to see the Old Master.

Jiang Chuan had not known what the urgent matter was. He had guessed it concerned Wu Chen, but had not thought the trouble ran that deep.

Now he understood. Yesterday, it had not only been Wu Chen who nearly came to harm. Li Ruobing had too.

That changed the meaning of everything. Wu Chen was not a Li. The Li family might even want him dead, since he was interfering with the marriage alliance between the Lis and the Dings. But Li Ruobing hurt — that struck at the very foundation of the alliance, and could set the two families at each other’s throats.

Wu Chen had reminded him on purpose, so that he would think it through.

The cold had already spread through Jiang Chuan’s body. He had arranged all of it. He had botched all of it. With every passing second he understood more clearly that he would be the sacrifice offered up to soothe the Li family’s anger.

All it needed was for Ding Ruilong to come back to Nanguang.

There was every chance Ding Ruilong would put a bullet in him personally.

“Good luck,” Wu Chen said, and hung up.

Jiang Chuan would not call back.

He would not warn the Ding family either.

He would tell no one anything about this call.

Because he had already understood: he was going to carry the blame. He was going to be offered up. However loyal he had been to the Ding family, he was not loyal now. He did not want to die. There was a great deal of money sitting untouched in his overseas accounts. His woman and his child were both abroad, his son at university in the United States.

Jiang Chuan had followed Ding Ruilong for ten years.

Because he knew him, he was certain: Ding Ruilong would kill him.

So there was only one thing in Jiang Chuan’s mind now — get clear of every person connected to the Ding family, immediately. Brothers, subordinates, all of them shaken off. He had to run. Right now. As fast as he could manage, and out of the country as soon as possible.

After hanging up, Wu Chen kept the phone in his hand, opened the messaging screen, typed in some information, and left it unsent.

Then he handed the phone back to Old Dao.

“At the address on the screen, in a drawer in one of the rooms, there are several fake passports and ID cards Jiang Chuan had made years ago,” Wu Chen said, smiling. “If he means to leave the country, he’ll go to that address first thing, and he’ll go alone to collect them… Make the arrangements. Have your people in Nanguang get there ahead of him and lie in wait. You can take him.”

Most of Old Dao’s men were in Yun Province, but he had people in Nanguang City as well.

Old Dao changed phone numbers constantly. If someone had not been in contact with him for a long stretch, there was no way to reach him directly, but word could still get to him through his men.

And certain business arrangements meant he kept a few people stationed in Nanguang.

Every one of them a ruthless desperado.

Old Dao took the phone, looked at the unsent address, thought for a moment, and was about to enter a number.

“Move! This is it — fifth floor!”

“Faster!”

“Get your weapons out. Watch yourselves!”

A burst of pounding footsteps filled the stairwell outside, a whole group of men coming up. Their voices carried faintly through the door, and from what they were saying they were clearly headed for Apartment 501.

Old Dao’s face changed. He looked sharply at Wu Chen.