Chapter 310: Mr. Sun, Shall We Talk First?

Chapter 310: Mr. Sun, Shall We Talk First?

“Second Master Tang, long time no see!” Having shaken Wu Chen’s hand, Gu
Ruibo shook Tang Jingbin’s.

“Hahahaha! Little Gu, you’re here too? What a coincidence…” Tang Jingbin
laughed.

He and Gu Ruibo knew each other fairly well. Both were from Modu and had
been acquainted for years, though they saw little of each other in
ordinary life.

After a few pleasantries the three of them moved farther in, and Li
Ruobing, Li Ruotai, and Sun Yongzhang also stepped forward to meet them.

A show of the importance they placed on Tang Jingbin.

None of them was surprised that he had arrived with Wu Chen.

Wu Chen had called Li Ruotai on the drive over and explained.

“Boss Tang, a pleasure to meet you.” Li Ruobing was the first to shake
his hand.

One point was worth noting.

This was the first time Li Ruobing and Tang Jingbin had ever met.

They knew of each other, of course, but had never met in person. Li
Ruobing disliked socializing outside of business and skipped a great
many of the occasions the major families shared.

“You must be Miss Ruobing. Hahahaha! A pleasure, a pleasure!” Tang
Jingbin laughed as he shook her hand, his manner very friendly.

“Boss Tang.” Li Ruotai put out his hand as well.

“Young Master Li.” Tang Jingbin shook it, but his manner shifted. The
smile stayed; the warmth did not.

“I’ve long heard that Young Master Li has been making waves here in
Donghai. If Young Master Li so much as sneezes, all of Donghai has to
tremble. Worthy of the Li family’s eldest grandson indeed. Truly
impressive.”

Li Ruotai’s expression shifted slightly.

He could hear the warning under the words perfectly well.

But he did not answer back.

On the phone Wu Chen had told him plainly: whatever Tang Jingbin said,
do not rise to it. Say as little as possible.

“Hahahahaha…” Having released Li Ruotai’s hand, Tang Jingbin laughed and
strode forward two steps, extending his hand to Sun Yongzhang of his own
accord.

“Brother Sun, it’s been a few years, hasn’t it? You’re looking even more
vigorous than you did a couple of years back! Hahahaha!”

Sun Yongzhang was tall and lean, long-faced and bespectacled, in a
well-cut black suit with his hair combed meticulously into place. At a
glance he had the refined air of a Confucian businessman.

Tang Jingbin was forty-five that year. Sun Yongzhang was forty-seven,
two years his senior.

“Brother Tang, look at you…” Sun Yongzhang smiled as they shook hands.
“A little misunderstanding among the younger generation, and you make a
special trip to Donghai?”

“A child of my family was nearly beaten to death. I had to come and
look.” Tang Jingbin smiled. “No choice in it. My elder brother is busy
with military duties, so as his uncle, I had to make the trip.”

And with that, the two of them began.

Both were masters of the spoken word.

Once everyone had exchanged the usual courteous nothings, Sun Yongzhang
saw them all seated.

This might be Li Ruotai’s territory, but Sun Yongzhang was Li Ruobing
and Li Ruotai’s maternal uncle, and a close one. Here he was as good as
at home. He had the standing to decide things.

Once they were seated, Tang Jingbin spoke first again.

“When did you arrive, Brother Sun?”

“Just now.” Sun Yongzhang answered with a smile, then sighed. “A-Tai
made a mess of things, didn’t he? Not a major matter, a few
misunderstandings, and Young Master Tang isn’t too badly hurt, but the
Li and Sun families still have to show an attitude. My brother-in-law
had no time. I happened to be free, so I came.”

There was a great deal packed into that.

He shouldered responsibility first, then called the matter minor and
labeled it a misunderstanding, defining the nature of the incident. And
he deliberately spoke of the Li and Sun families as one.

Laying the blame directly on Li Ruotai might look like the wrong move.

In fact it was the only move available.

The men under him had to be protected.

So did Li Ruotai’s foundation in Donghai.

Sun Yongzhang had made his position clear.

“Exactly! A misunderstanding, of course it was!” Tang Jingbin replied at
once, smiling. “Ah, who could have expected a thing like this? It never
should have happened. Our Xiaobao isn’t the sort to go looking for
trouble. This time he nearly died in Donghai. Who knows whether the boy
will be left with some psychological scar… My sister-in-law wanted to
come to Donghai too. I stopped her. I was afraid that seeing how badly
Xiaobao had been beaten would be more than she could bear.”

And off they went again.

They sounded for all the world like two men chatting. Neither ever
stated outright what was being negotiated.

But every sentence carried a second meaning.

For more than ten minutes, Tang Jingbin and Sun Yongzhang did nearly all
the talking.

Their conversation was fascinating.

Both were unfailingly courteous. Not so much as a whiff of gunpowder in
the air.

One plainly wanted to shrink the incident; the other wanted to enlarge
it. Their positions were in direct conflict, and their language never
once collided head-on.

Their command of words was extraordinary.

In truth each was probing the other’s intent while working to shift the
other’s position.

Tang Jingbin wanted an explanation, but he did not want this to turn the
Tang family into enemies of the Li and Sun families. Offending them
would serve no one.

Sun Yongzhang knew Li Ruotai was in the wrong, but he would not let the
Tang family use the incident to make the Li and Sun families lose face.
And Li Ruotai’s foundation in Donghai had to be preserved.

It was complicated.

Neither side wanted the talks to collapse.

Both wanted an outcome shaped to their own terms.

Wu Chen sat on a sofa to one side and never once joined in.

He simply listened.

Li Ruobing sat sideways beside him, one hand resting on his shoulder,
leaning now and then to his ear to murmur something.

Tang Jingbin noticed.

And once again, something struck him as wrong.

Not Wu Chen and Li Ruobing.

They were a couple. Their closeness was perfectly normal.

The strange one was Sun Yongzhang.

It went back to the proposed marriage alliance between the Li and Ding
families.

Tang Jingbin had heard about it. Four years ago Li Ruobing had refused
the match, and still the Ding and Li families had begun cooperating. And
inside the Li family the attitude had never changed.

They wanted Li Ruobing to marry Ding Ruilong.

The Sun family felt the same.

The alliance with the Dings had been something the Li and Sun families
discussed and agreed upon together in the first place.

So by any normal reckoning, Sun Yongzhang should have been hostile
toward Wu Chen, Li Ruobing’s current boyfriend.

If not hostile, then at least unable to stand the sight of him.

But in fact—

Sun Yongzhang paid Wu Chen no attention at all.

He showed not the slightest reaction to the intimacy between Li Ruobing
and Wu Chen.

Which was extremely strange.

Another half hour slipped past.

Tang Jingbin and Sun Yongzhang kept at it. Li Ruotai spoke occasionally;
Gu Ruibo occasionally chimed in on his behalf.

Wu Chen and Li Ruobing never joined the “idle conversation.”

It was almost as though they were not there.

Li Ruobing had wanted to speak. Wu Chen had stopped her.

Over that half hour and more, the discussion of Tang Xinbao’s case had
quietly gone very deep. They were nearly at the point of actual
arrangements: who would be held accountable, who would not, how much
compensation would be paid, and the rest.

“…Brother Tang, if we’re speaking of fault, then of course the fault was
ours. But there’s no need to damage the harmony between our families
over this. Young Master Tang was injured, and the Li and Sun families
will certainly give him suitable compensation…” Sun Yongzhang was
saying.

Tang Jingbin watched him with a genial smile, listening.

But something in his eyes had changed.

Sun Yongzhang had not mentioned the men who did the beating.

He had spoken only of compensation.

A very hard line.

And one Tang Jingbin could not possibly accept.

This was about face.

“Mr. Sun.”

A voice came suddenly from the side.

Wu Chen.

He had cut the conversation off.

The room went quiet.

Everyone looked at him.

“Shall we talk first?” Wu Chen asked with a smile, tilting his head
toward the inner rooms.

The living room fell completely still.

Far too abrupt.

Even Tang Jingbin stared.

That tone Wu Chen had used with Sun Yongzhang…

He actually dared speak to Sun Yongzhang that way?

“Shall we talk?”

What standing did he have to take that tone with a man like Sun
Yongzhang?

Sun Yongzhang looked at Wu Chen and froze for a moment.

He did not find Wu Chen’s manner inappropriate.

It was only…

too sudden.

One of his reasons for coming to Donghai had been to find an opening for
a private word with Wu Chen. He simply had not expected Wu Chen to ask
for one in this setting, right in front of Tang Jingbin.

Wouldn’t that put suspicion in Tang Jingbin’s head?

Sun Yongzhang could not work out what Wu Chen was thinking either.

But he definitely needed to talk to him.

And since Wu Chen had already raised it, then…

Under Tang Jingbin’s surprised gaze, Sun Yongzhang stood at once and
gestured toward the inner rooms.

“All right. Let’s talk inside.”

Then he looked at Tang Jingbin.

“Brother Tang, sit a moment. We’ll continue shortly…”

Wu Chen rose and walked toward the study.

Sun Yongzhang followed.

One after the other they went in and shut the door.

The living room was silent.

Everyone sat there dumbfounded.