Chapter 314: Everyone Is Acting

Chapter 314: Everyone Is Acting

Ding Ruilong’s eyelid twitched.

He had not expected Wu Chen to dare provoke him so openly in front of an elder of the Sun family.

The marriage alliance might be a matter between the Ding and Li families, but the Suns and the Lis had always worn the same trousers, and inside both houses everyone supported him, Ding Ruilong. Where did Wu Chen find the nerve to start something first?

The moment Wu Chen finished speaking, Sun Yongzhang’s expression shifted exactly as expected. He looked deeply displeased.

The mood in the room went abruptly wrong.

“I really don’t understand you,” Wu Chen went on, staring straight at Ding Ruilong. “You insist on coming all the way to Donghai just to watch Ruobing and me being this affectionate. Does that feel good?”

And when he had finished, Wu Chen gave him a victor’s smile.

It was, in truth, deeply out of character for him.

But Ding Ruilong did not know Wu Chen’s real temperament or his usual methods, so he sensed nothing strange in it.

“Why bother with him?” Li Ruobing said coldly.

The words were addressed to Wu Chen; the attitude was aimed squarely at Ding Ruilong. As she spoke she lifted Wu Chen’s hand, glanced at the watch again, then laced her fingers through his as naturally as breathing.

“He came all this way to Donghai. It’d be rude not to talk to him, wouldn’t it?” Wu Chen turned and smiled at her, then looked back at Ding Ruilong. “Isn’t that right, Young Master Ding?”

Bang!

“Wu Chen, don’t push it!” The furious shout came from Sun Yongzhang.

He slapped the coffee table and glared at him.

Bang!

“Uncle!” Li Ruobing slapped the table too and shot to her feet, confronting Sun Yongzhang coldly. “If you have a problem with Wu Chen, then we’ll leave right now! Stop throwing your temper around in here! If you can’t stand listening to him, we don’t want to stay either!”

“You… are you trying to make me die of rage?” Sun Yongzhang pointed at her, his finger trembling, and shot Wu Chen a glare as well.

“Sis! Third Uncle, don’t—don’t fight…” Li Ruotai jumped up to mediate.

“I’m saying it now! If you dare say one more word against Wu Chen, we’re leaving this minute!”

Li Ruobing was afraid of no one. She went at her uncle head-on.

Sun Yongzhang’s face went livid.

“Uncle, calm down, calm down. Let it go, let it go… we have guests.” Li Ruotai went over and tugged at his sleeve.

He was very close to his uncle. His older sister, though, was beyond restraining.

Face dark, Sun Yongzhang glanced at Tang Jingbin, seated diagonally across from him.

“I’m telling you, Bingbing, we have an honored guest here today, so I won’t argue with you—” Sun Yongzhang began, starting to sit.

“You think I want to argue with you, Uncle? What did I say before I came? If you don’t want us here, we’ll leave right now. Don’t sit there bristling and blowing up at Wu Chen—”

She fired straight back.

Sun Yongzhang, halfway down, stood up again.

“Li Ruobing! Is that how you speak to an elder? I’m your uncle!” His temper was up, the kind of eruption that suggested he had been holding it in for some time.

“Being my uncle means you don’t have to be reasonable?” she shot back.

“You—” Sun Yongzhang started again.

“Uncle Sun, Ruobing, don’t fight, don’t fight…” Ding Ruilong cut in suddenly, in the voice of a well-meaning peacemaker. “We’re all family here. Don’t let an outsider damage the harmony between you… Uncle Sun, I’m fine, really. Please, sit. Sit.”

There was a barb buried in it.

The “outsider” was naturally Wu Chen.

Sun Yongzhang looked at him, and his face softened considerably.

“Ruilong is the magnanimous one.” He sighed, then smiled and gestured. “Come, Ruilong. Sit.”

He invited Ding Ruilong down and sat himself, then turned an expressionless look on Li Ruobing and Wu Chen.

When he turned back, the smile had returned, and he began talking with Ding Ruilong.

“When did you get here, Ruilong? Why only come over now?”

“I arrived at noon. Went to the hotel to get ready first, then came.”

Sun Yongzhang played the elder to perfection. His expression, his tone, even the way he looked at Ding Ruilong carried the air of a senior who thought highly of this younger man.

Ding Ruilong, for his part, adopted the posture of a junior fully, unfailingly courteous and refined.

The quarrel was over.

Once Sun Yongzhang sat and began talking to Ding Ruilong, Li Ruobing could not be bothered to say anything more. She sat down beside Wu Chen again, hooked her arm through his, and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Why did you even bother with him?” she murmured.

Her voice was low, though not so low that the others could not faintly hear.

“Because it’s fun.” Wu Chen turned his head and smiled at her.

Ding Ruilong heard it.

And saw it.

As he spoke with Sun Yongzhang his eyelid kept jumping. Exactly as Wu Chen had said, he had come to Donghai only to watch Wu Chen and Li Ruobing being affectionate.

Of course it did not feel good.

And Wu Chen was provoking him on top of it.

It infuriated him.

But.

With Sun Yongzhang present he could not let it show. And more than that, Sun Yongzhang’s attitude, and the clash between Li Ruobing and her uncle, had made a great deal clear to him.

He understood now.

The only reason Wu Chen could sit there at all was Li Ruobing’s protection. Her temper was what it had always been. She would go at anyone.

It was not that Sun Yongzhang could do nothing about Wu Chen.

It was that he could do nothing about Li Ruobing.

And there was no need whatsoever for Ding Ruilong to answer Wu Chen’s “low-grade” provocations. Answering would only cost him his dignity.

Sun Yongzhang valued him so highly. That naturally represented the Sun family’s position, and perhaps the Li family’s as well.

The Suns and the Lis had always held the same line on the marriage alliance. They regarded him as one of their own.

Wu Chen was the outsider.

He might have some ability, some methods, something unusual about him that had let him bewitch Li Ruobing. In the end he was simply not a man the Li family respected.

They looked down on him.

Once Ding Ruilong had thought it through, he felt a great deal better.

It seemed as though everyone was helping him, the Lis and the Suns alike. Only a tiny handful stood against him. Li Ruobing herself…

and Li Ruotai.

And Li Ruotai was nothing to worry about either. However much he disliked Ding Ruilong, in the end he would have to obey his family.

Only Li Ruobing was the real problem.

The only problem.

Ding Ruilong made up his mind.

If this was the situation, there was absolutely no reason to clash with Wu Chen. Whatever Wu Chen said, let him say it.

The more brazen and unrestrained Wu Chen behaved, the more he would disgust Sun Yongzhang.

The more flamboyant and presumptuous Wu Chen became, the steadier and more gracious Ding Ruilong himself would look by comparison. That would make Sun Yongzhang see all the more clearly…

what sort of worthless thing Li Ruobing had gone blind enough to pick.

If Wu Chen pushed a little further, perhaps Ding Ruilong would not even need to act later.

Perhaps the Li family itself would sweep away Wu Chen, this obstacle standing in the way of the alliance.

Before long Sun Yongzhang’s booming laughter filled the living room.

He and Ding Ruilong had not seen each other in a long time. They traded pleasantries for quite a while, and the atmosphere became extraordinarily harmonious.

On Wu Chen’s side, Gu Ruibo had begun talking to him as well.

“…Mr. Wu certainly looks like an outstanding young man. No wonder you won Miss Li’s favor,” Gu Ruibo said, praising him as though they had met only today, purely out of deference to Li Ruobing.

He had never gotten along with Ding Ruilong anyway, so there was an element of deliberate needling in it too.

Earlier on the balcony Wu Chen had told him to “behave normally.”

Under normal circumstances the two of them should not have known each other before today.

Today was supposed to be their first meeting.

“Brother Gu, don’t let my brother-in-law’s age fool you. He’s incredibly capable,” Li Ruotai put in.

Only Tang Jingbin stayed silent.

It was not that he had nothing to say.

He simply did not want to speak now.

Something was wrong with his expression. Something was wrong with his eyes. His gaze traveled from person to person and settled at last on Wu Chen, and then his whole bearing changed.

Tang Jingbin had gone cold all over.

A chill ran through his entire body.

Because he had found the “secret.”

Everyone.

Every last one of them.

Was acting.

All of them were cooperating with Wu Chen.

Together they were deceiving Ding Ruilong.

What were they trying to do?

Damn it…

At this point Tang Jingbin would not be the least bit surprised if Ding Ruilong died in Donghai today.

Even Sun Yongzhang was acting, pretending his relationship with Wu Chen was terrible, pretending to look down on him.

What in the world were they trying to do?

Tang Jingbin’s scalp crawled.

“Mr. Tang,” Wu Chen said suddenly.

Tang Jingbin snapped back to himself. His unfocused gaze settled on Wu Chen again. It took him a moment to react before he managed a grin.

“What is it?”

“Want to talk about A-Tai’s matter?” Wu Chen asked.

Ding Ruilong, in the middle of talking with Sun Yongzhang, heard it. He glanced at Wu Chen, then at Tang Jingbin.