Chapter 325: The Ding Family Has to Give an Accounting!

Chapter 325: The Ding Family Has to Give an Accounting!

Of course Li Ruobing knew who Jiang Chuan was.

Back when Ding Ruilong had arranged the attempt on Wu Chen’s life, Li
Ruobing had helped pin the whole thing on Jiang Chuan. On the phone her
father, Li Maoren, had said that he himself had nearly been hurt and
that the Ding family owed them an accounting. In the end the man who
naturally took the blame was Jiang Chuan, who had come to Donghai in
person with his men to handle the job.

When Ding Ruilong called Li Ruobing afterward, he too had shifted the
responsibility onto Jiang Chuan.

But after that there had been no further word on how the Ding family
dealt with him.

The accounting given to the Li family had ultimately been settled with
money, and Ding Ruilong’s current trip to Donghai had ostensibly been
made so he could apologize to Li Ruobing in person.

Li Ruobing neither cared about nor understood the Ding family’s internal
affairs.

So she had no idea that Jiang Chuan had already disappeared.

The Ding family had kept an extremely tight lid on Jiang Chuan’s
disappearance. Not a word was permitted to leak.

Because Jiang Chuan knew far too much about them.

Had he been dead, that would have been one thing. Missing, he was a
liability. And according to what the Ding family knew, before he
vanished Jiang Chuan had deliberately shaken off the men around him.
There was a very real chance he had run of his own accord and simply
disappeared.

Naturally the Ding family would never let outsiders learn that. They
could not risk hostile families exploiting it.

Which meant that as far as the outside world was concerned, Jiang Chuan
was still one of the Ding family’s men. No one simply knew what he was
doing at the moment.

“The number used to contact Jiang Hongguang was prepared by Jiang
Chuan.” Wu Chen lay back in his pajamas and turned his head to smile at
her.

“Prepared by Jiang Chuan? He… prepared it? Then how did it end up with
you?” Li Ruobing was thoroughly confused. From where she stood, Jiang
Chuan was a trusted core figure of the Ding family. How could that
possibly happen?

“More precisely, Jiang Chuan prepared that number and that SIM card for
Old Dao,” Wu Chen explained with a smile. “Remember when Old Dao escaped
from the hospital? He fled to a safe house that had been prepared in
advance. I found him there.”

“Everything in that safe house—the fake documents, the weapons, the SIM
cards—had been prepared for Old Dao by Jiang Chuan, so that if anything
went wrong Old Dao could get clear.”

“And that SIM card… you understand. There’s no real information to
trace.”

She nodded as she listened.

Of course she understood. SIM cards used for dirty work were all
“black.” There was no useful identity behind them.

Cards like that were not hard to come by either. Even with new
activations requiring real-name registration, you had only to use a
stranger’s stolen identity.

“Jiang Chuan is experienced and cautious. From what I know of how he’s
always worked, something as minor as preparing a SIM card for Old Dao
isn’t the sort of thing he’d need to report beforehand. And he and Old
Dao always kept contact one-to-one. So Jiang Chuan is the only person
who knows who was using that card and that number.”

“So…” Li Ruobing drew the word out, then raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t
that still mean they can’t trace it to Jiang Chuan? By your own
explanation nobody knows the card has anything to do with him. How could
the investigation possibly reach him?”

As she spoke, something else seemed to strike her, and she sat abruptly
upright.

Before Wu Chen could answer she went on. “Wait. Set aside whether they
can trace it to Jiang Chuan at all. Even if they do, Jiang Chuan is one
of the Ding family’s people. He knows whether he did it or not. He knows
the SIM card was in Donghai. As far as the Ding family knows, Old Dao is
dead, but they can still guess who might have taken the card…”

She finished and frowned at him.

Right now it felt as though Wu Chen’s plan had an enormous hole in it.

And the biggest hole was Jiang Chuan.

Jiang Chuan might indeed have trouble explaining the matter, but he
could tell them the truth: that the card had been left in a Donghai safe
house for Old Dao. And not all of Old Dao’s men were dead. The one who
had come after Wu Chen with a knife was “dead,” but the one who had
meant to run him down with a car had been captured.

If things went that way, the worst case was that the Ding family might
eventually suspect Wu Chen and Li Ruotai.

And then this whole self-staged scheme would collapse.

“Any other questions? I can answer them together.” Wu Chen smiled.

“No. That’s it.”

“Then there are two questions.” He smiled at her. “I’ll take the first
one first. The reason the SIM card can lead them to Jiang Chuan is that
before today, that card—that number—had made exactly one call.”

“On the day I found Old Dao, I had him use that number to call Jiang
Chuan.”

“So when the Ding family investigates whoever threatened Jiang Hongguang
and pulls the call records for that number, they’ll see that the only
call it ever made was to Jiang Chuan.”

“The only person that number has ever contacted is Jiang Chuan.”

“So they definitely will trace it to him?” she cut in.

“Right.” Wu Chen nodded and smiled again. “Then the second question.
Once the Ding family finds the connection to Jiang Chuan, they’ll
certainly go and ask him. He’s their only lead. But they won’t be able
to find him.”

“Can’t find him?” She froze.

“Jiang Chuan is missing,” Wu Chen said.

“Missing? Since when?” Her eyes widened.

“The same day Old Dao escaped and I found him. I had Jiang Chuan
captured.”

“You captured Jiang Chuan?!” Her voice rose. She was stunned.

“Yes. I had Old Dao arrange it. He has people in Nanguang.” Wu Chen
smiled at her. “Jiang Chuan is in Donghai right now, being held. So the
Ding family’s investigation will ultimately lead back to one of their
own men, and they won’t be able to get any explanation out of him.”

She stared at him with enormous eyes and did not recover for a long
while.

“Because they can’t get an explanation from Jiang Chuan, internally the
Ding family will suspect the missing Jiang Chuan. But none of that
actually matters. How the Ding family investigates it, what they guess
among themselves—none of it matters.”

Wu Chen went on, smiling. “What matters is how it looks from outside.
From the Li family’s side. Whether Ding Ruilong ordered it from behind
the curtain, whether Jiang Hongguang did it himself, or whether Jiang
Chuan appears to be the mastermind—every one of them is a Ding family
man.”

“So whether the Ding family can uncover the truth is their problem. But
as far as the Li family is concerned, the Ding family has to give the Li
family an accounting!”

The bedroom fell silent.

Li Ruobing was still having trouble taking it in. Her eyes stayed wide
as she turned it over, and the more she turned it over, the more
frightening it became.

Could Wu Chen have laid out this entire scheme as far back as the day
Old Dao escaped from the hospital?

In fact, no.

Wu Chen could not have known in advance that Ding Ruilong would come to
Donghai. It was simply that he knew too much. Faced with a given
situation, he could take the information and the other resources he held
and rapidly build a plan.

And if circumstances changed, he adjusted the plan to match.

A great many of the plans he had carried out today had already been
revised more than once.

Yet no one could ever truly see into Wu Chen’s thoughts.

From where Li Ruobing stood, all she could see was that the scheme was
vast and extraordinarily complicated. Any single link in it was
complicated enough on its own. Jiang Chuan, for instance, was hardly an
easy man to seize.

Li Ruobing had felt the frightening side of Wu Chen more than once
before.

And at this very moment she felt it again.

She had always liked powerful men.

Wu Chen was a powerful man.

Powerful enough to frighten her.

“Wu Chen,” she said suddenly, using his full name.

“What is it?”

“Tell me…” She looked into his eyes. “If one day, sometime in the
future, the two of us come into conflict—would you do something like
this to me too?”

“No,” Wu Chen said. He understood what she meant.

“That answer came awfully fast.”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you.” Wu Chen smiled.

So sappy.

Li Ruobing pursed her lips, then suddenly smiled. She shifted closer and
leaned in until they were face to face.

“I love you too.”

Then she kissed him.

Late at night, with everything quiet, it was about time to sleep.

The two were still wrapped up in each other when—

Ring, ring…

Wu Chen’s phone rang.

“Who’s calling at this hour…” Li Ruobing lifted her head and complained
irritably.

Wu Chen reached over, picked up the phone, and looked.

Li Ruotai.