Chapter 431: A Ten-Billion-Yuan Gift, for Free?

Chapter 431: A Ten-Billion-Yuan Gift, for Free?

“Little Wu, this major gift you mentioned…” Tang Jingbin was not an impatient man, but this time he genuinely couldn’t wait to find out what Wu Chen had in mind.

“You know Shuangqi Real Estate, don’t you, Mr. Tang?” Wu Chen asked with a smile.

“Shuangqi?” Tang Jingbin thought for a moment. “Of course. The Qi brothers, Qi Min and Qi Jun. They’ve got some ties to the Xiang family… Why?”

“Nothing much.” Wu Chen smiled. “I just want to give Shuangqi Real Estate to you, Mr. Tang. For free.”

“G-give it to me?” Tang Jingbin froze.

Even a man of his temperament went blank for a moment.

He couldn’t even grasp what Wu Chen meant.

Shuangqi Real Estate.

Nationally, Shuangqi was no giant. The truly massive real-estate groups had assets in the hundreds of billions or even trillions, tangled ownership structures, and ties to major families almost without exception.

Within Modu itself, though, Shuangqi carried far more weight.

The city’s most valuable companies were either internet firms or in finance. Major developers from elsewhere came to Modu to build as well, but among locally based real-estate groups, Shuangqi ranked in the top ten.

Its market capitalization was over twenty billion yuan.

And because it had the Xiang family behind it, even the big outside developers found it hard to compete with Shuangqi on its home ground.

Just last year, squeezed by a whole field of outside property giants, Shuangqi had still managed to win a fiercely contested parcel of land in Qingpu District.

On the strength of that, its stock had hit the daily limit-up three days running, sending its market cap soaring from a little over fifteen billion to more than twenty.

Qi Min, Shuangqi’s chairman and holder of thirty-one percent of its shares, had seen his net worth jump by over a billion yuan from those three limit-ups alone.

Add Qi Min’s other assets and his younger brother Qi Jun’s fortune, and the Qi family’s total wealth exceeded ten billion yuan.

Two billionaire brothers, with a family fortune over ten billion.

Wealth like that, in any country, in any city, even the capital, made them upper-class figures with connections everywhere and influence in every direction.

Tang Jingbin came from a military family. He’d had no real dealings with Qi Min and Qi Jun; at most he’d seen them at a few events and traded a few words.

He wasn’t especially close to an elite political family like the Xiangs either. They moved in different circles. At most, a few of the businesses he ran competed with businesses the Xiangs had stakes in.

But Tang Jingbin was a businessman himself.

He didn’t know Shuangqi or the Qi brothers well firsthand, but he had heard plenty.

He fell silent.

He thought it over, and the more he thought, the more confused he became.

Shuangqi Real Estate had nothing to do with Wu Chen.

It certainly couldn’t have anything to do with the Li family.

And it wasn’t Wu Chen’s company.

So what did he mean, give it?

To him?

For free?

It was baffling. It came out of nowhere. There was too much Tang Jingbin couldn’t make sense of. Leave aside whether Shuangqi had anything to do with Wu Chen. Suppose it did. If Wu Chen said he wanted to give it away…

Tang Jingbin still wouldn’t accept.

Wu Chen’s last major gift had already left the Tang family in his debt. The evidence to bring down the Lius and the chance at a secret alliance with the Lis had both been enormously valuable to them.

Wu Chen had never asked for anything in return.

And now he was offering another.

A gift worth over ten billion yuan.

However rich Tang Jingbin was, even holding the Tang family’s purse strings as he did, managing hundreds of billions in assets openly and covertly, directly and indirectly—

Even he couldn’t shrug off ten or twenty billion yuan as nothing.

It was an enormous sum.

He would never accept a gift like that without reason.

The favor he already owed was big enough. Any bigger, and it would become a burden.

It would get in the way of their future dealings, and perhaps even the Tang family’s dealings with the Lis.

So he reasoned.

But he still couldn’t stop himself from asking what Wu Chen actually meant.

“Little Wu, do you… know Qi Min?” Tang Jingbin asked carefully.

“No,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

“Then you have ties to Shuangqi’s other shareholders?”

“No.”

“Then what do you mean, give—”

“It’s a little complicated.” Wu Chen paused, then smiled again. “Tell you what, Mr. Tang. We’ll go over it properly tonight. I’m driving right now.”

Tang Jingbin realized at once that he’d lost his composure. Who kept pressing over the phone about something this big? A matter like this could never be explained properly over the phone anyway. It had to be discussed face to face.

It wasn’t entirely his fault. Wu Chen’s opening line had simply been too staggering. It had knocked him off balance.

“All right, all right. We’ll set a time tonight. You focus on driving, Little Wu. I won’t keep you…”

“Okay. Let’s leave it there.”

The call ended.

Driving one-handed, Wu Chen set the phone down and glanced at the side mirror outside his window.

He had noticed it during the call: they were being followed.

A black Mercedes-Benz van with Modu plates.

Wu Chen could tell at a glance the plates were fake.

He even knew who had sent it.

Qi Jun, naturally.

The driver was probably one of his bodyguards.

As far as Wu Chen knew, this black Mercedes van was one of the off-the-books vehicles Qi Jun regularly had his people use for dirty work. It had even carried bodies. Every time it went out, it wore a different plate.

The plate could change. The model couldn’t. Nor could the little dents and scratches that had never been fixed, or the exact spot of the inspection sticker on the window.

At a moment like this, so suddenly, only Qi Jun would send someone to tail him.

It was exactly what Wu Chen had expected.

He could even read Qi Jun’s state of mind.

Qi Jun had taken Qi Chenghong to the hospital, left men watching the restaurant, then sent people to follow Wu Chen… He probably hadn’t told his elder brother, Qi Min, yet.

Qi Jun was somewhat afraid of his brother.

Especially in recent years.

Mainly because Qi Min believed his younger brother had led his son astray and never taught him anything decent. Qi Min had dressed him down over it before. And Qi Jun owed much of his success to his brother’s backing.

It was Qi Min who had managed to forge ties with the Xiang family.

Qi Jun couldn’t even get a word in with them.

So if Qi Min learned what had happened today, that once again it involved his younger brother and his son together, that it had started because they were harassing some young girl, and that it had ended with his son nearly cracking his skull open—

The ruthless Qi Min would certainly retaliate.

But he would also tear into his younger brother, and very likely slap him across the face himself.

So Qi Jun wouldn’t dare report it right away.

He would wait until Qi Chenghong had been examined and treated and was doing a little better.

And going by how Qi Jun usually operated, he would settle the matter first.

Before his brother found out, he would wrap everything up and grab the “enemy” first.

Which meant…

Wu Chen could tell that the Mercedes van behind them wasn’t just tailing him to see where he went.

It was there to stage a crash and snatch him. Or, more simply, to cause a major “accident” and kill him.

The only reason it was still just following was that this stretch had too many cars and traffic cameras everywhere. It was too awkward to make a move.

A red light ahead.

Wu Chen eased to a stop at the crosswalk.

The black Mercedes van stopped right behind the Bentley, three meters back.

They wouldn’t dare try anything in a busy commercial district.

The thirty-second light was nearly up.

Wu Chen glanced at the rearview mirror a few more times.

The corner of his mouth slowly curved up.

“Xiaodie, sit tight. Hold on to something,” he said suddenly.

“Hm?” Pulled from her thoughts, she turned to him, instantly tense. “Wh-what is it, Mr. Wu?”

“Nothing.”

The light turned green.

Wu Chen shoved the gear selector and floored it. The Bentley Continental launched with a squeal of spinning tires and shot forward.

“I’m just…” he went on with a smile.

“Going to kill two people.”