Chapter 337: Had the Talks Broken Down?

Chapter 337: Had the Talks Broken Down?

“Sis, I swear I wasn’t glaring at her. I was just looking. Really, just looking. Am I not even allowed to look? What do you want me to do, gouge my own eyes out?” Li Ruotai was still trying to explain himself.

He genuinely felt wronged. From where he stood, he certainly had no fondness for Zhuang Xiaodie, but he bore her no ill will either.

What he cared about was his sister’s feelings. And since Li Ruobing herself did not mind, he knew it was not his place to say anything.

He had never quite understood how his sister could accept a thing like this. But not understanding did not mean he intended to interfere. Was he not even allowed to look?

His eyes had been unfriendly simply because he did not like her. He had not deliberately glared.

“I told you to apologize!” Li Ruobing kicked him again. She was in high heels, and the kick landed on his shin, not hard, but certainly hard enough to hurt.

“All right, all right, I’ll apologize! Don’t be angry, Sis. I’ll apologize!” Li Ruotai caved.

Seeing that she was genuinely angry, he decided to admit fault even though he did not believe he had done anything wrong.

“Um… Miss Zhuang!” Li Ruotai turned to Zhuang Xiaodie, straightened up, and said solemnly, “Please accept my sincere apology. I’m sorry!” He bowed slightly as he finished.

“No—it’s fine. I wasn’t really—you don’t have to—really, it’s fine…” Zhuang Xiaodie panicked, waving her hands. When he bowed to her she dodged aside.

“See, Sis? I told you it was nothing. There wasn’t anything, and you still insisted I—” Li Ruotai glanced at Li Ruobing, his tone helpless.

“Get lost!” Li Ruobing folded her arms and shot him a sidelong glare.

“Right away!” He turned, opened the door, and left the kitchen. Li Ruobing pulled it shut behind him.

Li Ruotai went back to the living room and sat down.

“Young Master Li, what was that just now?” Tang Xinbao could not help asking, gesturing toward the kitchen. He and Guo Qiqi had faintly heard voices but could not make out the words. It had sounded like an argument.

“Nothing. My sister’s blaming me for not telling her a few things… ah!” Li Ruotai sighed.

The explanation was false. The sigh was genuine.

Only his own sister could treat him that way. He would certainly not have been so good-tempered with anyone else. But what could a man do when his own sister picked a fight? Put up with it.

In the kitchen.

“Miss Li… really, it wasn’t—Young Master Li didn’t—I just…” Zhuang Xiaodie tried to explain again, effectively speaking up on Li Ruotai’s behalf.

“I understand.” Li Ruobing cut her off with a smile. She rested a hand on Zhuang Xiaodie’s shoulder and said softly, “You don’t need to be afraid. If that brat A-Tai ever says anything out of line to you, tell me. I’ll deal with him.”

Zhuang Xiaodie opened her mouth as though there were something more, then stopped. In the end she only nodded. “Mm! Thank you, Sister!”

“How long have Wu Chen and the others been upstairs?” Li Ruobing asked, changing the subject outright.

“Almost an hour,” Zhuang Xiaodie said.

“That long?” Li Ruobing frowned slightly.

Everything that needed saying about Tang Xinbao’s affair had already been said. By now they should be discussing the outcome. Why would it take so long?

Could they not come to terms? Had the talks broken down?

She did not press Zhuang Xiaodie. She knew the girl could not possibly know the details.

They chatted a little to ease the air after the earlier subject, then left the kitchen one after the other.

Back in the living room Li Ruobing got the conversation going again. Cosmetics, another subject for the women.

Throughout it, Li Ruotai did not dare so much as look at Zhuang Xiaodie. Li Ruobing, meanwhile, watched Zhuang Xiaodie’s face closely. Once she saw the girl daring to speak again, growing more relaxed as they talked, she finally felt easier.

She had genuinely been worried.

Making her brother apologize had never really been about giving him a hard time. It was about calming Zhuang Xiaodie. What she feared was that Zhuang Xiaodie would stay uneasy and keep turning it over afterward. Wu Chen was not blind. Sooner or later he would notice.

And if Wu Chen learned that Li Ruotai had frightened Zhuang Xiaodie, he would be deeply displeased, even if Li Ruotai had done nothing at all.

When Wu Chen was displeased, the consequences were usually severe.

In short, Li Ruobing was afraid Wu Chen and Li Ruotai would come into conflict. And if they did, one thing was certain: Li Ruotai would be the one destroyed.

So she meant to nip it in the bud.

It was already past three in the afternoon.

In the second-floor study.

“…Once you look into the owners of these two numbers, you’ll know. At present their bank accounts should hold—assuming they haven’t moved any large sums recently—a little over a hundred million in one and over three hundred million in the other. Nearly five hundred million altogether.”

“And that’s only part of it. There are properties and shops in their names as well. If the Tang family works backward from those, the evidence shouldn’t be hard to come by.”

Wu Chen had nearly finished laying out the Liu family’s dirty secrets. He had given Tang Jingbin two phone numbers, sending both straight to his phone by text.

One number was connected to the Liu family. The other was connected to the Dou family.

The material Wu Chen described concerned the Lius, but it implicated the Dous as well. The Liu family had made the money, the Dou family had helped, and so the Dous had taken a share.

The study was silent.

Tang Jingbin stared at his phone, at the two numbers Wu Chen had sent, utterly overwhelmed.

Wu Chen had told him an extraordinarily complicated, winding “story.” He had explained exactly how the whole operation had been run, then handed over those two crucial numbers.

Tang Jingbin could not imagine how Wu Chen had uncovered any of it.

How could anyone investigate something in such detail? He might as well have been there himself.

Even if the entire Li family threw everything it had at the task and spent years on it, with no one making a move in the meantime, could they really have turned up this much?

His bewilderment was only natural.

Wu Chen truly had been extraordinarily precise.

What Tang Jingbin could never have imagined were the methods behind it.

Wu Chen had learned all of it across his thousand years in the loop, and his habitual investigative method during those years had been extreme: abduction and forced interrogation.

It did not matter who the person was.

Take them and ask. Nothing needed worrying over, nothing needed weighing. Even if the abduction was exposed and set off a citywide manhunt, it made no difference. Drag them somewhere quiet and question them, or question them in the car. Then run.

If he could not get away, that was fine too. He could push it as far as he liked. Everything would reset regardless.

Even something extremely complicated became simple. He merely had to take a few more people. Question several key figures in succession and he could learn anything. He could also set their “testimonies” side by side to work out which statements were true and which were lies.

“Good! Good! Excellent! Hahahahahaha!” Tang Jingbin’s laughter suddenly filled the study. He was practically slapping the armrest of the sofa as he said it.

He was getting excited.

He could not understand how Wu Chen knew these things, but that was not the point. The point was that if it was true, the Tang family could destroy the Lius.

The feud between the two houses ran too deep. The Tangs would show the Lius no mercy.

And if they brought down the Liu man in the capital, then Tang Jingbin’s elder brother, Tang Jingjun, could seek a transfer there once more.

An old score settled. Enormous gains to be had. The more Tang Jingbin thought about it, the more excited he became, until he could not help laughing aloud.

“Xiao Wu, why the hell didn’t I meet you sooner? Brother Li is damn lucky to have a son-in-law like you! Hahahahaha!” Tang Jingbin was positively elated.

He did not know how the information had been obtained, or whether it came from Wu Chen or the Li family. But right now he wanted to praise Wu Chen. He had to.

Wu Chen watched him with a smile. After giving him a moment he said, “Then we have an agreement.”

“Agreed, agreed! I’ll go back to Modu today and report to the old man,” Tang Jingbin said at once.

“Good.” Wu Chen smiled, then changed direction. “Boss Tang, as for Young Master Tang’s affair—what do you think?”

They had come back around to Tang Xinbao’s injury.

“Forget it! It was a misunderstanding. Xiaobao’s fine now. Forget it, forget it!” Tang Jingbin waved a hand at once. In a complete reversal of his earlier position, he actually said to let it go.