Chapter 268: Man, I Fucking Give It Up to You!

Chapter 268: Man, I Fucking Give It Up to You!

Lei Cheng did not know whether Wu Chen had hidden Li Ruobing’s existence from Zhuang Xiaodie, so he tested the water directly, in the form of a joke.

He could tell at once what sort of position Zhuang Xiaodie held at Wu Chen’s side.

Much the same position Tao Manying held at Lei Cheng’s own.

A girl still in school, studying acting. There was no question her dream was to become an actress, a star. And Wu Chen was plainly going to make her one.

Keep a young lover and turn her into a major star.

That was exactly what Lei Cheng had done with Tao Manying.

Zhuang Xiaodie was Wu Chen’s kept young lover.

Li Ruobing and Wu Chen, by contrast, were publicly a couple. There was no possibility of Li Ruobing being the lesser woman. So naturally Wu Chen had no reason to fear Zhuang Xiaodie knowing about her. Zhuang Xiaodie was in no position to be jealous.

From which Lei Cheng could infer that Zhuang Xiaodie probably did know about Li Ruobing. In Donghai, anyone who knew Wu Chen knew who his girlfriend was.

To be fair, there was no malice in Lei Cheng’s probing, nor any other complicated motive behind it.

He owed Wu Chen a great deal, after all. The plan he was laying to get rid of his elder brother was a secret shared between the two of them, and at present it was the single most important matter in Lei Cheng’s life.

Lei Cheng had long since said, “Fuck Ding Ruilong.”

He and Wu Chen were close allies.

No malice at all.

He was simply—really curious.

Wasn’t Wu Chen afraid? Li Ruobing was so strong, so domineering. What would happen if she found out? How would he handle it?

And if he broke up with Li Ruobing, then what would the whole Ding Ruilong business have been for?

“Ruobing… she’s fine. She won’t get jealous,” Wu Chen said, looking at Lei Cheng with a smile.

“Won’t get jealous, or…” Lei Cheng’s brow twitched. He paused, then asked with a grin, “You won’t let her find out?”

“She knows.” Wu Chen laughed. “Xiaodie cooked lunch for both of us today.”

Lei Cheng froze, then stared.

He had understood. Wu Chen, Li Ruobing, and Zhuang Xiaodie had eaten lunch together today, and Zhuang Xiaodie had cooked it.

Cooking meant they had almost certainly eaten at home.

At home?

Lei Cheng knew Wu Chen and Li Ruobing lived together. That was perfectly ordinary; they were boyfriend and girlfriend. But Zhuang Xiaodie was Wu Chen’s lover, and she had gone to their home too?

All three of them were living together?

“At… Brother, you mean… at your place?” Lei Cheng looked from Wu Chen to Zhuang Xiaodie, his tone distinctly strange.

Tao Manying, sitting nearby, looked equally strange.

“Yeah.”

Wu Chen nodded at him.

“Sister treats me very well,” Zhuang Xiaodie added, since Lei Cheng was looking at her.

“Sister?”

Lei Cheng’s eyes widened slightly.

Sister already?

Li Ruobing not only knew about her, but had accepted her?

Calling each other sisters—had they even sorted out their positions?

Lei Cheng was thoroughly stunned. It felt as though everything he knew about Li Ruobing had collapsed at a stroke.

From another angle, though, the real question was not Li Ruobing.

It was Wu Chen.

“Hahahahaha! Brother! That’s fucking incredible! Man, I fucking give it up to you! Hahahaha!”

Lei Cheng burst out laughing and threw Wu Chen a thumbs-up.

That was crudely put.

Lei Cheng was not by nature a crude man, but he had spent ten years keeping up his disguise, and his habits of speech had inevitably been shaped by it.

“Hahahaha…”

Lei Cheng laughed on, but he did not raise Li Ruobing again. He had no wish to dig too deeply into exactly what was going on between the two of them.

There was no need. It would only annoy people.

Four words covered it—Wu Chen was fucking incredible.

That was all.

“Brother, come on, have some tea,” Lei Cheng said, waving him toward the cup.

The idle conversation that followed still centered on Zhuang Xiaodie. Lei Cheng asked a few more questions and learned that she would be acting in the future and that she was the second-largest shareholder of an entertainment company.

Though he knew the shares had effectively been handed to her by Wu Chen, Lei Cheng still joked that the next time he saw her he could no longer call her Miss Zhuang. He would have to call her Boss Zhuang.

More than ten minutes later.

Once the small talk had run its course, Lei Cheng set down his teacup and looked at Wu Chen.

“Brother, want to talk in the study?”

“Sure.”

Wu Chen nodded with a smile.

The two of them stood at the same moment and headed upstairs. Something genuinely important and critical obviously could not be discussed here. There were too many people around.

Several of Lei Cheng’s bodyguards were nearby, along with the housekeeper.

They could not be allowed to hear it. Not because Lei Cheng distrusted them; anyone who could work as a housekeeper in his home, and the bodyguards who had followed him for years, naturally held his absolute trust.

Trust had nothing to do with it.

There was simply no need for anyone else to know.

Just as Lei Cheng would not let Tao Manying know either. Whether she knew would change nothing. The decision was not hers to make, and there was no reason to make her worry.

“Keep Miss Tao company for a while,” Wu Chen told Zhuang Xiaodie as he rose.

“Dabao, look after Miss Zhuang. Talk with her. See whether there might be some way for you two to work together in the future,” Lei Cheng told Tao Manying.

“Got it, Godfather,” she answered with a smile.

Wu Chen and Lei Cheng went upstairs.

They entered the second-floor study.

It was large, done in an antique Chinese style, with everything it needed—desk, bookcases, sofas, coffee table. Neat and clean, and imposing as a whole.

“Brother, sit.”

Lei Cheng closed the study door and waved him to a seat.

Wu Chen took an armchair off to one side; Lei Cheng sat at the end of the long sofa nearest him. They were very close together.

“Lei You called me again this afternoon. The company received a fax from headquarters…” Lei Cheng began at once, glancing at Wu Chen.

He had two things to report.

First, Lei Cheng had been suspended from his posts.

He had been in Donghai for ten years. From his very first day there he had served as chairman and general manager of Donghai Fumao Group, a Donghai subsidiary of Hongfa Group.

The company belonged to Hongfa Group, not to Lei Cheng personally.

A little after two that afternoon, Hongfa Weixing Group headquarters had sent a fax to its subsidiary, Donghai Fumao Group.

The content was simple. Lei Cheng was suspended from his posts.

Deputy General Manager Zhu Haobo was instructed to take temporary full responsibility for the company’s operations.

Zhu Haobo was Lei You’s trusted subordinate.

At roughly the same time, Lei You had also called Lei Cheng. His language was harsh, and again he warned Lei Cheng not to cause trouble for the family.

The second matter began with a question from Lei Cheng.

“Do you know Hu Xilin?”

Wu Chen nodded.

Of course he did.

Hu Xilin, male, forty-five years old, chairman of Donghai Xirui Electronics Co., Ltd.

Xirui Electronics was one of Donghai’s top hundred enterprises, a privately owned, unlisted industrial group whose main businesses included automobile and motorcycle parts, electronic components, molds, instruments and meters, and metal processing.

Xirui Electronics was one of Hongfa Group’s long-term suppliers, with a business relationship stretching back more than ten years.

Even before Lei Cheng came to Donghai, Xirui Electronics had already been supplying electronic components to Fumao Group for several years, while also doing business with other Hongfa Group factories and subsidiaries.

At present Xirui Electronics carried an overall valuation of around five billion yuan. Hu Xilin held as much as sixty-two percent of it, which put his personal net worth above three billion.

Hu Xilin was an old friend of Hongfa Group. And Lei Cheng had been in Donghai ten years, so he and Hu Xilin were old friends as well.

Both in Donghai, they could see each other easily, and their personal relationship was very good.

The second matter Lei Cheng wanted to raise was that Hu Xilin had called to talk him around.

Lei You had spoken to Hu Xilin, and Hu Xilin had then called Lei Cheng to work on him.

Twice, in fact.

The first call had come a little after three that afternoon.

The second had come just over ten minutes ago. When Wu Chen and Zhuang Xiaodie arrived, Lei Cheng had been upstairs on the phone because Hu Xilin had suddenly called again.

Hu Xilin had tried to persuade him, and had even wanted to arrange a face-to-face meeting.

Both developments were Lei You applying pressure. He was not only squeezing Lei Cheng at the corporate level; he was also getting other people to lean on him.

That too was a form of pressure.

“Hu Xilin isn’t a bad man, but…” Lei Cheng paused, weighing how best to put it.

At the same moment Wu Chen took out his phone and swiped across the screen.

He meant to show Lei Cheng a video—the one he had recorded earlier at the lounge.

The woman in that pair of secret lovers was Hu Xilin’s wife.

And the man—

was Zhu Haobo.