Chapter 288: Psychological Tactics

Chapter 288: Psychological Tactics

Li Ruobing frowned at her father’s voice through the phone.

For Li Maoren to know Wu Chen had other women and to call that morning made one thing obvious.

Li Ruotai had told him.

Li Ruotai had called their father.

He had probably told him about Tang Xinbao too. That part mattered.

In truth Li Ruobing did not care whether her father knew. Personally it meant nothing to her. She had not listened to her family in years anyway. What kind of man she chose was her own business, so she had never warned her brother to keep quiet about it.

But he had found out awfully fast.

She glanced at Wu Chen, wondering what he would say, how he would handle it.

It was worth noting that before they slept the night before, Li Ruobing had given Wu Chen a rough account of Li Ruotai’s questions about Zhuang Xiaodie.

So Wu Chen could easily guess that Li Ruotai had told Li Maoren.

“You’re very well informed, Uncle,” Wu Chen said calmly.

“You’re not denying it?” Li Maoren asked.

“There’s nothing to deny, is there?” Wu Chen laughed.

“Sounds as though you’ve been enjoying yourself. How many?” Li Maoren’s voice grew heavier still.

Even Li Ruobing tensed at that tone.

She never worried about how bad things might get between herself and her father. Whatever their attitudes, whatever the conflicts, however stiff it became, none of it mattered. They were family. Father and daughter. In the end there would always be a way back.

And even if there were not, they would never become enemies.

Wu Chen was different.

He was an outsider.

If the two of them truly clashed, it would be a mess. Worse, Li Ruobing would be caught in the middle, where anything she did might be wrong.

She leaned nearer the phone again. She wanted to speak up and explain for him, to say she did not mind, to tell her father to keep out of it.

But the words stopped before they came.

Because she suddenly realized that an explanation like that might work on her brother, and would mean nothing to her father.

From his position, if his “son-in-law” had other women, the central question was not whether his daughter minded.

It was whether this “son-in-law” was still reliable.

For a great family, that mattered enormously.

Even a married couple, bound by marriage, could face the same doubt.

And she and Wu Chen were not married. Their relationship rested entirely on feeling—and Wu Chen happened to love more than Li Ruobing alone.

“How many isn’t the point, is it?” Wu Chen said into the phone with a smile. “We’re both men, Uncle. That isn’t what you’re concerned about.”

“What exactly are your intentions toward Bingbing—” Li Maoren began, his tone turning graver still.

“There’s no need to circle it, Uncle,” Wu Chen cut in. “I’ll take care of Tang Xinbao.”

The line went quiet.

As though Li Maoren had been choked off mid-breath.

In fact he had not.

Wu Chen had simply laid bare what he was actually thinking.

Li Ruobing, though, did not follow at once. She lifted her head slightly, glanced at Wu Chen, then leaned toward the phone again to listen. Still nothing from the other end.

Li Maoren’s silence lasted only a few seconds.

“Hahahahahaha—” Laughter burst out of the phone. “You… hahaha… ah.”

When he had finished laughing, Li Maoren sighed, then said in the tone of a man ready to concede, “I’m getting old. I can’t even play mind games as well as you young people anymore. Ah!”

“Next time, Uncle, just say what you want. We’re all on the same side,” Wu Chen said.

“All right, all right. Mm…” Li Maoren paused, thinking, then said, “I won’t get involved with the Tang boy’s business. Handle it as you see fit. If you need anything, tell A-Tai and have him see to it.”

“All right,” Wu Chen said.

“Good. We’ll leave it there for now.”

The call ended.

Wu Chen checked the time on his phone. Only a little past eight-thirty. By his count he had slept just over six hours. He could lie down a while longer.

Ding Ruilong would reach Donghai that afternoon. Wu Chen needed to be rested.

He set the phone back on the nightstand, gathered Li Ruobing in again, slid lower in the bed, and pulled the blanket up as though he meant to go straight back to sleep.

“That’s it?” Li Ruobing finally could not help asking.

“Hm?” He turned to the face inches from his own and smiled. “That’s it. What else?”

“That’s really it?” she asked again, looking straight at him.

She did not understand.

From the moment he ended the call she had stopped understanding any of it. Her father had called and gone immediately at Wu Chen about his other women, in a tone grave enough to put even Li Ruobing on edge.

And then—

There was no and then. It had jumped straight to Tang Xinbao, and after that it was over.

Her father had not mentioned Wu Chen’s other women again.

She could not work out what had changed his attitude. He had clearly cared a great deal, and then just as clearly stopped caring.

And what was all that about mind games?

“What do you want to ask?” Wu Chen smiled and pinched her cheek.

“Just… can you tell me what happened back there? How did it suddenly—” She frowned slightly.

“Your father was never worried about you and me,” Wu Chen said.

“Not… worried…” She drew the words out.

She did understand, in fact, that among the children of great families a man having other women hardly registered as a matter at all. She knew her own father had other women, and her mother knew it too. It was no secret.

But—

“Then why open with that? And in that tone?” she asked after a moment’s thought.

“Psychological tactics,” Wu Chen said.

“Psychological tactics?” she echoed.

“Right.” He smiled at her. “He doesn’t actually doubt what’s between us, but he still came at me. Questioned me. He wanted an explanation, or some kind of promise.”

He paused.

“And then?” she asked at once.

“And then I’d have to perform.” He smiled and pinched her cheek again. “I’d have to prove how much I care about you. Which means on the Tang Xinbao business I’d have to put in the work, keep your brother from being dragged into it, and settle the whole thing.”

Li Ruobing looked at him, blinking as the logic came together.

Feign anger, question him, push him into proving himself—so that he would work harder on Tang Xinbao and protect A-Tai?

And Wu Chen had seen straight through it and simply said so?

“You seem to know my father very well,” she said.

“Of course.” Wu Chen smiled.

“Then—” Her voice stopped short.

Because a crucial question had struck her.

Her father trusted Wu Chen?

Still trusted him, even knowing he had other women?

And Wu Chen knew that he trusted him?

Where had that trust come from?

“Have you actually… been speaking with my father privately?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“We’ve spoken on the phone,” Wu Chen said, smiling.

“About what?”

“A great many things…” He did not elaborate.

Li Ruobing understood.

Now she understood completely.

The reason none of it had made sense before was not that she was not clever enough. It was that she had no idea what Wu Chen and Li Maoren had discussed.

She did not know how far their relationship had come. Without that footing there had been no way to reason it out.

Now she knew.

And once the logic settled into place, she could not be bothered with further questions.

She put an arm around Wu Chen’s neck, leaned over, and kissed his cheek. Then she settled back down, closed her eyes, and said, “Let’s sleep a little longer.”

Back to sleep.

About an hour later.

Sometime past nine in the morning.

Ring-ring-ring…

A phone rang in the bedroom again.

Wu Chen’s again.