Chapter 380: Just That Arrogant! The Persona Can’t Slip!

Chapter 380: Just That Arrogant! The Persona Can’t Slip!

Central District. Chunyuan Avenue.

At one in the afternoon, the Lamborghini came roaring up the street. Nearing Qingyuan Teahouse, it slowed and pulled over.

Wu Chen cut the engine and got out. He didn’t go straight in. He leaned against the car, looked up at the teahouse’s signboard, then took out his phone and called Peng Wei.

It connected at once.

“I’m here. Where are you?” Wu Chen asked bluntly.

“Third floor. Tianshui Yise,” Peng Wei said, giving the name of the private room.

Wu Chen hung up. Out of habit, he straightened his suit jacket and walked into the teahouse. A hostess came forward at once. He told her he had a reservation and gave the surname, and she led him upstairs.

At the same time.

Across the street from Qingyuan Teahouse stood a three-star hotel, the Yijia Hotel. In Room 322 on the third floor, at the window overlooking the street, the curtains were drawn, save for a narrow gap.

Peng Wei held his camera. He had just finished shooting the teahouse entrance, dozens of frames in burst mode. Wu Chen getting out of the car, making the call, walking in, the hostess meeting him at the door, the few words they’d exchanged… he had captured all of it.

He was preserving evidence. Proof that Wu Chen had come to meet him today.

Two minutes later, Peng Wei raised the camera again and aimed it at a third-floor window across the street. The window of the Tianshui Yise private room.

He adjusted the focus.

Zoomed in.

He could see Wu Chen already inside, seated at the table. Peng Wei fired off another long string of shots.

Inside Tianshui Yise.

Wu Chen had seen the moment he walked in that Peng Wei wasn’t there. That came as no surprise. Nor did he imagine Peng Wei had stepped out to the restroom. For Peng Wei to dare set up a meeting at all today, he had to be going in as a man gambling with his life.

So Wu Chen understood his caution.

The hostess didn’t say where the guest who’d booked the room had gone. Perhaps she didn’t know either. She said nothing more and left once she’d shown him in.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

It was only a server with the tea, ordered in advance by Peng Wei, naturally. Fine oolong… Once the server had gone, Wu Chen poured himself a cup and drank alone.

Before he knew it, another ten-odd minutes had passed. It was already one-twenty.

Peng Wei still hadn’t appeared.

In fact, he had been in the hotel across the street the whole time, watching Wu Chen through the window. And not only Wu Chen. He was watching the surroundings, watching everyone who came and went from the teahouse.

He was checking for an ambush. Checking whether Wu Chen had brought anyone else.

He had come early, set everything up before Wu Chen arrived, and been watching ever since, to see whether Wu Chen had sent anyone ahead, whether anyone suspicious turned up.

Peng Wei was genuinely afraid.

After the crash yesterday, he had already thought about leaving Donghai at once. He understood the crash was no accident. The Toyota’s driver, that thin, dark young man, had behaved very strangely afterward.

No anger whatsoever. He’d just smoked the whole time, and the look in his eyes had been odd too, sizing Peng Wei up and down with a kind of amused interest.

That wasn’t normal.

Peng Wei could only suspect one thing: Wu Chen had arranged it all.

And the most terrifying part of the arrangement wasn’t the crash itself. It was that the Toyota wasn’t the one at fault.

The Touareg had run a red light. Fully at fault.

There was nothing to dispute.

Even if the Toyota had killed everyone in the Touareg, its driver wouldn’t have faced any criminal liability. At most… some humanitarian compensation.

That terrified Peng Wei.

How many people, how many cars, must Wu Chen have stationed around that intersection, just to catch the moment Peng Wei’s car ran the light and ram it?!

If Wu Chen had wanted him dead yesterday, he would already be dead. And he’d have died for nothing.

The more he thought about it, the more frightening it became.

Peng Wei really had considered fleeing Donghai, running back to Modu first and working out how to deal with all this from there. He had agonized over whether to leave right up until this morning.

In the end, he chose to stay. He would meet Wu Chen.

He had no choice.

Because the more he thought about it, the clearer it became that he couldn’t leave.

If he went back to Modu just like that, then what? All eight of his core staff had vanished into thin air. Could he simply ignore that?

He could pretend nothing had happened. But their families wouldn’t. Within days, they would come asking. Where are they? Why can’t we reach them?

He wouldn’t even have an explanation.

Of course, once back in Modu, he could expose everything online and call the police. But that led right back to what had stopped him in the first place. Mutual destruction?

Wu Chen had the Li family behind him, and the Li family would never allow scandals about cheating or kidnapping or anything of the sort to hit the headlines. Whoever put such things on the front page, whoever made trouble, the Li family would make that person disappear first.

Peng Wei had no wish to die.

So after thinking it over and over, he decided on a dangerous gamble. He didn’t take the “safest option,” which would have been to go straight to Li Ruobing and show her the photos of Wu Chen and Zhuang Xiaodie.

He took the option that maximized his gains. What he considered the “optimal solution.”

Go to Wu Chen.

Threaten Wu Chen.

Peng Wei believed Wu Chen still didn’t know those photos existed. That was why he could afford to be so arrogant. So he had to be told. He had to be made to understand his position.

And with that, Peng Wei could turn the tables from a desperate position.

As long as Wu Chen didn’t want the Li family to crush him instead, then…

He would have to pay to buy back the photos of himself with An Menglan.

He would have to pay to buy back the photos of himself with Zhuang Xiaodie.

Peng Wei could even make him an informant, someone to sound out now and then for inside information on An Menglan.

Peng Wei had prepared for the worst, but he had also pictured the best possible outcome. He was angry. He didn’t just want to vent. He wanted money too.

All his caution now was to make sure he could see the negotiation through. His greatest fear was getting knocked out cold before he’d even had the chance to say his piece.

Inside Tianshui Yise.

One twenty-five in the afternoon.

Ring, ring…

Wu Chen set down his teacup, picked up his phone, glanced at it, and answered. “Where are you?”

“Mr. Wu, I think we could move somewhere else before we talk,” Peng Wei said, getting straight to the point.

He wanted to change venues. He still didn’t feel the teahouse was safe. The main problem was that he had told Wu Chen the time and place too early, giving him ample time to set up any number of ambushes.

Wu Chen’s power in Donghai had truly frightened him.

People just disappeared.

“Have you been watching too many movies?” Wu Chen raised an eyebrow and smiled. “I don’t have time to waste on you. You’ve got five minutes. If you’re not here in five minutes, I’m leaving, and there’ll be no reason for us to meet after that.”

He hung up.

Just that arrogant.

The persona couldn’t slip.

Four minutes later, Wu Chen heard footsteps outside. They stopped at the door. A pause of perhaps two seconds, and then the door opened.

Peng Wei had come after all!

The psychological pressure on him was nothing like the pressure on Wu Chen. They had already come this far, to the point of talking. He saw no point in backing down now.

Teacup in hand, Wu Chen turned his head and cast a sidelong glance at the man coming in.

Peng Wei was tall, around 1.85 meters, with an ordinary face and a somewhat flat nose. He wore black-framed glasses and had the air of a university lecturer, or perhaps a newspaper editor.

He really was exceptionally good with words, especially at whipping up netizens’ emotions and drawing attention.

“Why go to all this trouble?” Wu Chen said with a faint smile. He looked away and took another sip of tea.

Expressionless, Peng Wei walked to the far side of the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

The two men faced each other across the table.

“So what did you want to talk to me about?” Wu Chen asked with a smile.

He was clearly the one who wanted to resolve the problem Peng Wei had created, yet here he was asking what Peng Wei wanted to discuss.

There was nothing wrong with that. Wu Chen already held the initiative. And it really had been Peng Wei who’d asked for this meeting.

“Mr. Wu, before we get down to it, I think I should warn you.” Peng Wei stared at him, his face blank. “I’ve already made arrangements with someone. If I lose contact today, they’ll call the police immediately and post everything I know online. Everything about you, about Miss Li Ruobing, and about An Menglan!”

It was a show of nerves.

Opening with that betrayed his fear the moment he spoke.

He had no choice. He had to guarantee his own safety.

When Peng Wei finished, Wu Chen burst out laughing.