Chapter 329: Someone Is Framing Me!

Chapter 329: Someone Is Framing Me!

Still shouting, Li Ruotai leveled the gun at Ding Ruilong and strode fast toward the bed, his face terrifying, his whole body seemingly seized by a berserk rage.

“A-Tai! Stop!” Sun Yongzhang cried, springing up.

Li Ruotai jolted, his eyes flicking instinctively toward Sun Yongzhang. In that instant Sun Yongzhang crossed the room in a few strides and clamped a hand around his wrist.

Sun Yongzhang’s reaction was entirely genuine.

He truly believed Li Ruotai was about to kill Ding Ruilong, and in his alarm he had lost all composure and rushed in to take the gun. In his forties, Sun Yongzhang was hardly old—in the prime of his life, in fact—and quick on his feet.

“Third Uncle, stay out of this!”

“A-Tai! Calm down! Tell us what happened first!”

“I’m going to put him down right now!”

“A-Tai!”

They wrestled briefly. Sun Yongzhang put his full strength into it and wrenched the gun out of Li Ruotai’s hand.

He was genuinely afraid. Afraid Li Ruotai would shoot Ding Ruilong on the spot.

Propped against the head of the bed, Ding Ruilong was somewhat rattled himself. His face stayed grim, his expression barely shifting, but his eyes gave him away.

There was nothing false about Li Ruotai’s fury, or about how close he seemed to losing control.

How could Ding Ruilong not be afraid?

He knew the fire had nothing to do with him. But Li Ruotai was convinced otherwise, and years of Li Ruotai’s work had been destroyed in a single night. He really might kill a man over it.

In a rage, people were capable of anything.

“A-Tai! Get a hold of yourself!” Sun Yongzhang was angry now too, and roared it.

The shout brought Li Ruotai up short, and he calmed considerably.

“What do you think you’re doing? What exactly are you doing? Have you lost all sense of respect? What could be so serious that you can’t talk it out before resorting to this? Well?” Sun Yongzhang glared at him.

He had lost his temper as well.

He had been badly frightened. Cold sweat covered him. That had been far too close.

“Uncle! He burned down my club! How am I supposed to calm down? Why are you yelling at me? Is this somehow my fault?” Li Ruotai shouted back, flinging out a hand to point at Ding Ruilong.

He simply could not master his own emotions.

“Where’s your evidence? Do you have any before you accuse Ruilong?” Sun Yongzhang demanded.

“I have evidence!” Li Ruotai shouted.

“Then produce it! Let’s look at it, talk it through, and see whether there’s been a misunderstanding!” Sun Yongzhang spoke as though it should have been obvious, then glared again. “What kind of behavior is this? Pulling a gun before you even know what happened! Can’t you explain yourself first?”

He was giving his nephew a furious dressing-down.

Li Ruotai fell silent, his face dark. He looked at his uncle, glared once at Ding Ruilong on the bed, then turned abruptly and strode for the door.

At the entrance he beckoned to someone outside.

“Bring the computer in. Hurry.”

One of Li Ruotai’s bodyguards soon came in with a laptop. He opened it, called up the club’s surveillance footage already saved to the machine, adjusted a few things, and handed it over.

Li Ruotai took it and showed it straight to Sun Yongzhang.

“Third Uncle, look. This is yesterday afternoon… This man is one of Ding Ruilong’s bodyguards, isn’t he? That’s him. Look…”

The footage had not been edited, and it came from several cameras. After watching one stretch they had to set the time manually and switch to another feed.

A few minutes later.

Having taken in the key sections, Sun Yongzhang’s expression shifted uneasily.

He suddenly raised his head and glanced at Ding Ruilong. Something was plainly wrong.

“Ruilong, come and look. Is this man one of your bodyguards?” Sun Yongzhang picked up the laptop and walked over to him.

The bed in the private ward had a small sliding meal table at its foot. Sun Yongzhang pulled it into place and set the laptop on it.

“Watch closely! Fuck you! If you don’t explain this properly today, I’ll fucking kill you!” Li Ruotai came to the table too, pointed at Ding Ruilong, hurled a few more curses at him, then started working the computer.

It had to be him. Sun Yongzhang had not made a point of memorizing the crucial timestamps, so it would take him far longer to find the right stretches.

Ding Ruilong said nothing, his face dark. He did not even answer the abuse.

He did not dare provoke Li Ruotai at a moment like this. Better to see the so-called evidence first.

“Watch this part…” Li Ruotai had already started the video. Then he looked up suddenly at Tang Jingbin, who sat on the sofa with a deeply troubled expression. “Second Master Tang, come and take a look too. Be my witness. See for yourself whether I, Li Ruotai, have wrongly accused this Ding bastard!”

Tang Jingbin did not answer, but he stood at once and said, “I expect there’s been some misunderstanding…”

As he spoke he moved to stand behind Li Ruotai.

He genuinely wanted to see it. He had wanted to from the start, to learn what evidence could make Li Ruotai so certain Ding Ruilong had burned the club.

The ward fell silent.

The footage had no sound.

Everyone watched without speaking. Only the occasional click of the mouse broke the quiet.

Ding Ruilong never took his eyes off the screen.

He recognized Jiang Hongguang in the footage at once.

A little after four the previous afternoon, Jiang Hongguang had gone up to the tenth floor, come back down to the ninth, wandered about, spoken to a young cleaning woman, then returned to the tenth and swiped a card to enter Room 1029.

A little after six that evening, Jiang Hongguang had ridden the elevator up from the fifth floor, and on reaching the tenth had gone straight to Room 1029 again.

Both times he stayed inside several minutes before coming out.

All of it on camera.

The sequence was recorded in considerable detail.

There were other details too: Jiang Hongguang stealing the young cleaning woman’s card, and Jiang Hongguang looking at his phone in the corridor outside the fifth-floor restaurant before leaving, as though reading a text message.

All of it could be inferred straight from the footage.

They finished watching.

Li Ruotai paused the video and said coldly, “Go on. Explain. I’m listening. What’s the story with this man? Is he one of yours or not? Sneaking around like that, and he was the only person who entered Room 1029 before the fire. Check the later footage if you don’t believe me. Why did he go to Room 1029? What the hell did you send him there to do? Fucking explain yourself!”

Ding Ruilong looked at him grimly. After several seconds of silence he said, “He’s missing. Someone is framing me!”

Jiang Hongguang had vanished the previous night. Ding Ruilong knew that much; a bodyguard had reported it that morning while he ate breakfast after waking.

At the time it had been hard to judge what had happened. Jiang Hongguang was only one of his many bodyguards, not a well-known figure like Jiang Chuan, nothing out of the ordinary.

Ding Ruilong had no reason to follow the thought any deeper. With his own injury weighing on him and his mood sunk, he had not asked many questions. He had simply told the others to find the man.

But now—

Ding Ruilong understood.

Someone was framing him.

He was intelligent enough to work the logic out immediately.

“Missing?” Li Ruotai froze, then cursed still more furiously. “Fuck you! Do you take me for an idiot? Trying to make sure there’s no witness left? He’s your man, you fucking—”

“Li Ruotai!” Ding Ruilong cut through the tirade. “You can rest assured somebody is trying to frame me! I want the truth of this more than you do! I’ll give you an explanation!”

With that he picked up his phone. Unaccustomed to his left hand, he tapped at the screen a good while before he found the number and placed the call.

“Hello. It’s me… Look into Jiang Hongguang’s recent finances and his call records. The last month. Focus on who he was in contact with yesterday afternoon…”

More than an hour later.

It was already noon.

North District, Zunrong Donghai Huafu, Villa No. 36.

In the dining room, Wu Chen, Zhuang Xiaodie, Tang Xinbao and Guo Qiqi had already started lunch. Wu Chen had not gone out that morning. Besides chatting with Tang Xinbao, he had gone into the kitchen before the meal and cooked two dishes himself.

A great many things needed time to ferment. Wu Chen had nothing pressing at the moment, so he might as well fill the hours.

“Mmm… Brother Wu, this is delicious. Really delicious. Your cooking is so good…” Tang Xinbao had taken a bite of the sweet-and-sour pork ribs and was praising him.

Ring, ring…

Wu Chen’s phone.

He took it out and glanced at the screen. Li Maoren.

“Hello, Uncle,” Wu Chen answered.

“What’s going on?” Li Maoren asked straight out, his tone very serious.

“What do you mean?” Wu Chen asked in return.

“The fire at the club,” Li Maoren said.

He already knew.