Chapter 285: Huh? Sis! Don’t!

Chapter 285: Huh? Sis! Don’t!

The call connected quickly.

“Hello, Sis.” Li Ruotai spoke first, and as he did he glanced instinctively over his shoulder, then walked a few steps farther off. “Sis, when will you get here?”

“Soon,” Li Ruobing said coldly.

There was tire noise behind her voice. All of Li Ruobing’s cars were luxury vehicles with excellent sound insulation. If he could hear the tires, she was driving very fast.

“You’re already there?” Li Ruobing asked. “Have you seen your brother-in-law? Is he hurt?”

She knew the answer. If Wu Chen had been hurt, Zhuang Xiaodie would have said so.

She was working on Li Ruotai’s frame of mind—making it plain how much she cared about Wu Chen.

“No. How could that lot be a match for Brother-in-law?” Li Ruotai lowered his voice, paused, then added, “Sis, don’t be angry either. This time Crooked Zhao failed to keep his men in line. Those little bastards didn’t know who Brother-in-law was. I’ll deal with them.”

“Nothing else happened?” Li Ruobing asked.

She meant Wu Chen hitting Crooked Zhao. She wanted to know where her brother stood. There was nothing the two of them could not say to each other.

“Mm… it’s complicated. I can’t explain it in a few words. Sis, let’s talk when you get here,” Li Ruotai said instead.

It really was complicated. Tang Xinbao and Guo Qiqi had been beaten. Because of Wu Chen neither was badly hurt, but the fact that they had been beaten at all was serious in itself.

There would be no end of trouble afterward.

But when Li Ruobing heard her brother say it was complicated, she took it another way.

Wu Chen hitting Crooked Zhao was complicated?

Could this really touch Li Ruotai’s standing in Donghai’s underworld, his grip on the men beneath him?

“Six or seven minutes, I think, and I’ll be there,” Li Ruobing said, thinking. “Leave it for now.”

This plainly could not be settled over the phone, and she had no intention of going into it there.

“Hey, Sis? Wait, don’t hang up,” Li Ruotai said hurriedly.

“Hm? What is it?” she asked, already about to end the call.

“Well… Sis… do you know—” He sounded hesitant.

“Why are you hemming and hawing? Say it! If you don’t, I’m hanging up,” Li Ruobing snapped.

Deliberately. That way, when she arrived, she would have grounds to flare up and back Wu Chen. Her mood would stay consistent from beginning to end.

“Sis, it’s just—” Li Ruotai sped up abruptly, dropping his voice. “Sis, do you know a girl named Zhuang Xiaodie?”

“Her? What about her?”

“She… when I got here she was with Brother-in-law. And just now she told him she’d spoken to you on the phone. Is that… true?” The words came out badly. He was still afraid he had misread the whole thing, and just as afraid that he had not—and that raising it would set his sister off.

“Oh. I know. She went out with your brother-in-law this afternoon to take care of a few things,” Li Ruobing said.

“You know her, Sis? Then what… what’s your relationship with her?”

“…Nothing in particular. Friends, I suppose.” Her voice caught slightly. She could hardly tell her own younger brother that she and Zhuang Xiaodie were “sisters.” The words simply would not come.

But by now she understood exactly what he was trying to ask.

He knew his brother-in-law had another woman.

And Zhuang Xiaodie had let slip that she had spoken with Li Ruobing.

So Li Ruotai was thoroughly confused.

“Then… is she friends with Brother-in-law too?” he asked.

“Why are you so concerned about her? What business is it of yours?” Li Ruobing snapped again. She still had not decided how to explain this to him.

“No, Sis, I—I’m worried about you.” Li Ruotai’s head was beginning to hurt. His sister’s attitude only muddled him further.

“I’ll be there soon. We’ll talk when I arrive. I’m hanging up.” She ended the call.

Listening to the dead line, Li Ruotai looked deeply unsettled, his eyes still full of confusion.

He still had no idea what the hell was going on.

His sister permitted her boyfriend a mistress?

He did not even dare let his thoughts run that way.

He knew her temperament far too well. She was hard-edged to a frightening degree.

Everyone outside said Li Ruotai had a bad temper. Li Ruotai knew his sister was the fierce one. Every time he remembered her cursing the Old Master in front of the whole family, or trading slaps with their uncle, his scalp tingled.

Still baffled, he walked back to where Wu Chen, Zhuang Xiaodie, Tang Xinbao, and Guo Qiqi were standing.

Guo Qiqi was still wiping the blood off Tang Xinbao.

Li Ruotai glanced at Wu Chen, then spoke to Tang Xinbao. “Young Master Tang, don’t worry about tonight. I, Li Ruotai, will give you an answer for this. Not one man who laid a hand on you is getting away.”

Two minutes later.

Li Ruotai’s bodyguard came back. He had recovered Guo Qiqi’s high heels and brought her handbag from the wrecked GTR sports car.

Another five minutes or so passed.

Vrooom—

A convoy of one Mercedes-Maybach and two Mercedes G-Class SUVs appeared on the street, engines roaring, all three moving extremely fast, as though they had raced the whole way. Nearing the alley mouth, the two G-Class SUVs at the rear slowed first.

The Maybach surged several more meters before braking hard.

The rear door opened at once.

Li Ruobing shoved it open and jumped out.

She wore a woman’s suit with trousers and a pair of flats she rarely put on. She and Wu Chen had only truly slept together for the first time yesterday. She had spent the day resting at his house and had already had some of her clothes packed and sent over to the villa.

She would be staying at Wu Chen’s often from now on, dressing there before work, so she needed changes of clothes waiting.

Li Ruobing normally wore light makeup. She had come here with none.

There had been no time. The moment she decided to come, she had dressed and gone downstairs. Makeup had not even crossed her mind.

Nor had she done her hair. It hung loose and somewhat disheveled.

Even so, she did not look the least bit unkempt stepping out of the car. If anything there was something almost ethereal about her. Her skin was simply too good. A small breeze caught her hair as she got out, and the sight was breathtaking.

Li Ruobing swept her gaze across the scene.

By now everyone had gathered near a van. Its door stood open, and the injured Tang Xinbao sat sideways inside, legs out on the pavement. Guo Qiqi stayed beside him, dabbing medicine onto his forehead with a cotton swab.

There was a small first-aid kit, taken from the car of one of Crooked Zhao’s men. People in the underworld commonly kept one.

Wu Chen, Zhuang Xiaodie, Li Ruotai, and the others all stood outside the van.

Crooked Zhao stood off to one side, a little farther away.

Qiao Chenghu was not there. He had beaten his son Qiao Yang until the young man’s leg broke, and Qiao Yang had passed out afterward. Qiao Chenghu had carried him back to his own car and had not returned.

When the convoy arrived and Li Ruobing stepped out, every head turned toward her.

“Sis.” Li Ruotai raised a hand.

Li Ruobing came over fast with her bodyguards, her face cold, her presence enough to press on the air. She went to Wu Chen first, caught his arm, and looked him up and down.

“What are you doing?” Wu Chen asked with a smile.

“You’re not hurt?”

“No.” He smiled.

She stopped looking at him at once and turned toward Crooked Zhao. “Your men did it?”

“Y-yes, Miss Li. It was a misunderstanding, I—” Her presence was so intimidating that Crooked Zhao began explaining immediately, but she did not let him finish.

One step.

A raised leg.

Li Ruobing had trained before. She went straight in and drove her foot into Crooked Zhao’s chest, sending him over backward.

Crooked Zhao was having a wretched night. Wu Chen had kicked him, then Li Ruotai had kicked him, and now Li Ruobing.

And she was not finished.

“Gun,” she said, still staring at him, and put out one hand to the side, palm up.

Zhou Huan, the bodyguard who had come with her, drew a handgun from the back of his waistband and slapped it into her palm.

Li Ruobing racked the slide to chamber a round, flicked off the safety, stepped forward twice, and leveled the muzzle straight at Crooked Zhao’s head as he lay on the ground.

It happened so fast. Within seconds everyone stood stunned.

Li Ruobing was going to put a bullet in Crooked Zhao right there.

“Huh? Sis! Don’t!” Li Ruotai cried out.