Chapter 505: Not a Single One of Them Gives Me Peace of Mind

Chapter 505: Not a Single One of Them Gives Me Peace of Mind

Wu Weidong’s expression changed dramatically, and the hand holding his teacup gave an involuntary shake.

He had never expected Wu Chen to demand his shares so brazenly, right from the start. Before Wu Chen said those words, Wu Weidong had already guessed that the young man wanted him to understand the situation and stay out of it, giving Wu Yurong more room to maneuver.

Clearly his guess hadn’t been bold enough!

“Did Rongrong ask you to come tell me all this?” Wu Weidong asked, his expression shifting as his tone grew slightly grave.

“No,” Wu Chen replied evenly, then smiled. “Sister Rong’s original idea… When we were having breakfast this morning, she mentioned in passing whether you could be told about this. She could have kept it from you indefinitely…”

Wu Chen was telling the truth.

“But I thought that even if Sister Rong could keep it hidden forever, she would inevitably have to lie when she reported to you each month. I think she wants to tell you the truth, but she’s afraid you’ll object…”

Wu Chen met Wu Weidong’s eyes. “That’s why I came… This is certainly a major matter, but things aren’t quite so complicated now. Whether we’re talking about me, Sister Rong, or you, Old Master, there’s no going back and changing what’s happened.”

Wu Weidong’s face darkened somewhat.

He couldn’t refute Wu Chen’s words.

Wu Yurong knew her father well. Wu Weidong really was conservative, old-fashioned, steady, and cautious. If he had known about this from the beginning, he would never have allowed Wu Yurong to get involved.

Unfortunately, there were no ifs.

The operation was already underway. Nobody could withdraw at this point. And precisely because Wu Weidong was so cautious, because he had never involved himself in the affairs between great families, he didn’t understand them well enough to dare withdraw lightly.

As things stood, anyone who pulled out would be the first to be crushed by their own allies!

In short, Wu Weidong had found out too late!

Except… Wu Chen was lying to him. It would never have been too late for Wu Weidong to find out. Wu Chen could easily have arranged for Wu Yurong to withdraw. There was simply no reason to bother!

Wu Weidong looked at Wu Chen. He very much wanted to accuse him of something, but he couldn’t find the words, because Wu Chen had said that Wu Yurong herself had been tempted by the opportunity.

He knew his daughter. He knew her temperament.

And he knew how hard she had worked to attain greater wealth and higher status! The time he had forced Wu Yurong into marriage had changed her profoundly!

“Mr. Wu, now that matters have reached this point…” Wu Weidong began, then fell silent. After thinking for a moment, he continued. “Assuming everything you’ve said is true, you’re right. Our Wu family has no way out.”

He acknowledged Wu Chen’s argument, but then changed tack. “But what does that have to do with the shares I hold? Rongrong actually runs Senlan. The shares are merely registered in my name. She has full decision-making authority…”

It had to be said that there was a certain hypocrisy in Wu Weidong’s words.

But it was only human nature.

Wu Weidong was nearing seventy—an old man, certainly, but not that old!

Very few founders or members of the older generation in business families would hand over all their shares to their children while they were still in reasonably good health. Such transfers generally happened only when they became seriously ill and bedridden for years, or through a will after their death.

Older people had their own ways of thinking. A desire for control was one factor; wanting to guide the overall direction and having views of their own was another.

Wu Weidong wasn’t particularly controlling, but he was traditional. And nothing had ever happened to give him a reason to transfer all his shares to his children.

“To make it easier to get things done,” Wu Chen replied, smiling at him. “And to prepare for certain unexpected developments.”

“Unexpected developments?” Wu Weidong raised his eyebrows slightly.

He could imagine the possibilities. For example, what if the Li family alliance, despite all its preparations, lost? The consequences for the Wu family would be disastrous!

A dead end!

Wu Chen was very fond of creating situations that appeared to offer no way out!

And he was doing it again. Wu Weidong clearly couldn’t think of any solution. A problem like this simply couldn’t be settled according to established business rules or within the usual boundaries!

They couldn’t retreat, but advancing might also mean death!

“It seems you haven’t understood what I mean by unexpected developments, Old Master,” Wu Chen said suddenly, smiling.

“Hm?” Wu Weidong froze. He hadn’t said anything, yet Wu Chen claimed he’d misunderstood.

“What other unexpected development could there be, apart from losing?” he asked, looking at Wu Chen.

“Losing… We won’t lose!” Wu Chen smiled.

“You’re a very confident young man,” Wu Weidong said, staring at him.

“Ha.” Wu Chen laughed, but didn’t explain further. Instead, he said, “Actually, the unexpected problems Sister Rong might face now have nothing to do with the outcome of the larger struggle. They’re inside your own family.”

“Inside the family? What’s wrong?” Wu Weidong raised his eyebrows again.

“I imagine you know the Wu family’s circumstances very well, Old Master.” Wu Chen smiled and continued, watching him. “When Sister Rong divorced and came home, you were the one who gave her a chance. And when people questioned her abilities in the early days, you gave her considerable support. She truly has you to thank for everything she’s accomplished, as her father!”

Wu Chen wasn’t flattering him. Everything he said was true.

Wu Weidong attached enormous importance to his family and relatives. It was precisely for that reason that, years earlier, he’d forced his daughter into a marriage alliance to save Senlan and the Wu family. And when she came home again, he’d tried his utmost to make it up to her.

There was no contradiction in that.

Wu Weidong couldn’t be described as an unquestionably good father, but he was a fairly good family elder!

He listened without any change of expression.

“…Sister Rong is a strong, capable woman. She’s been extremely successful in business.” Wu Chen paused as he met Wu Weidong’s gaze, then continued. “But she’s a woman! There’s no denying that prejudice against women still exists, both in society and within families.”

“Old Master, you also have two sons!”

“You know what your eldest son, Wu Yulin, did back then, don’t you?”

“And Wu Yuning—if your wife hadn’t pleaded for him, he’d probably still be in prison now, wouldn’t he?”

Wu Weidong looked distinctly uncomfortable.

It was a family disgrace!

It had happened roughly ten years earlier, on the eve of Wu Yurong’s promotion from executive vice president to president. The Wu family had held a family meeting.

Both of Wu Yurong’s brothers had fiercely opposed her taking charge! This was despite the fact that during those few short years, she had demonstrated business abilities far beyond theirs and had even earned the strong approval of some of Senlan’s longtime veterans.

They offered any number of reasons. She was still young, only in her early thirties, and needed more experience. Her seniority was insufficient to win people over. Appointing her president would upset other shareholders and might even affect the share price.

They were all excuses.

It was about the family fortune, plain and simple!

Wu Weidong’s wife, Han Yuzhi, had opposed it too. She had always favored their two sons, particularly the younger, Wu Yuning.

Wu Weidong had overruled them all.

When open opposition failed to stop Wu Yurong, Wu Yulin and Wu Yuning each resorted to secret measures. Wu Yulin tried to join forces with other shareholders to oppose her at a meeting. He used some underhanded tactics and promised to channel benefits to them, but his actions weren’t especially outrageous.

Wu Yuning went much further!

He colluded with outsiders, intending to frame his own younger sister Wu Yurong through a problematic contract. If his scheme had succeeded, Senlan could have lost tens of millions of yuan. Even at the time, that wouldn’t have been a particularly large sum for the company. But it would have stained Wu Yurong’s record as executive vice president, making her promotion difficult. At the very least, it would have delayed it!

Wu Yurong discovered everything.

Someone had even died. The representative who was supposed to come to Senlan to sign the contract with Wu Yurong jumped from a bridge and killed himself!

After the death, Wu Yuning fled abroad and hid there for four months.

The furious Wu Yurong terrified him!

In the end, though, Wu Yurong let her second elder brother off. Her mother’s tearful pleas and a long, heart-to-heart talk with her father persuaded her to give her family another chance.

“What happened back then is all in the past,” Wu Weidong finally said after a full minute of silence.

“So you think your two sons have accepted it?” Wu Chen asked with a smile. Then he added, “There are some things I haven’t even told Sister Rong. I might as well tell you today, Old Master…”

“Your eldest son is currently president of Senlan’s branch company in the capital. Perhaps he understands that you ultimately intend to leave the family business to Sister Rong, and no longer expects to receive many shares himself. So, over these past few years… guess how much he’s secretly embezzled?”

“I can tell you. As of the first half of this year, approximately six hundred million yuan.”

“As for Wu Yuning, he left Senlan back then, but five years ago your wife helped arrange his return to the company. He’s currently in charge of the production department… I won’t tell you how much he and Han Yubin have embezzled over the years. You can ask your wife.”

Han Yubin was Han Yuzhi’s youngest brother, Wu Weidong’s brother-in-law, and therefore Wu Yurong’s maternal uncle. He was also nearly sixty this year.

In his younger days, with help from his brother-in-law Wu Weidong, he had become a distribution agent for Senlan clothing. Later, as times changed and Senlan opened company-owned stores on a large scale, Han Yubin switched to the fabric business. He had supplied Senlan with fabric year after year, right up to the present.

Today Han Yubin himself was worth several hundred million yuan. He had also remained exceptionally close to the Wu family, visiting them frequently.

“Actually, Sister Rong isn’t unaware of what her two older brothers have been doing. She just turns a blind eye to it. They’re family, after all; the money is still staying in the family. But… Wu Yuning has been making more and more moves behind the scenes these past few years, and they’ve become increasingly outrageous…”

“Maybe it’s because Song Xuan has grown up. Once she graduates from university and joins the company, Sister Rong will start grooming her successor… That sense of urgency has made your second son more and more daring…”

Wu Chen spoke as though he were simply mentioning whatever came to mind. His pace was unhurried, his tone almost conversational. Wu Weidong listened with a dark expression.

“And then there’s Wu Yuxing. He’s very close to Wu Yuning, and he’s involved in some of the things Wu Yuning does…”

Wu Yuxing wasn’t Wu Weidong’s son. He was the eldest son of Wu Weidong’s third younger brother—his nephew! He also worked at Senlan, where he served as the director of one of its production factories, directly subordinate to Wu Yuning.

Over the next dozen or so minutes, Wu Chen brought up many more names: Wu family members, professional managers whom Wu Yurong valued and had been grooming, and distant Wu relatives who had joined Senlan years before and, being fairly capable, now held senior management positions.

Every person he named had problems.

Most of those he didn’t mention were Wu Yurong’s trusted people, who followed her lead unquestioningly.

But after hearing all this, Wu Weidong felt that Senlan’s internal problems were enormous!

What he didn’t know was that Wu Yurong was already aware of almost all the problems Wu Chen had described, especially the major ones!

Some she genuinely chose to overlook. Water too clear holds no fish. Every business empire had its share of problems, and putting someone else in charge wouldn’t change that.

Other problems she intended to solve, but was waiting for the right moment. In fact, she had deliberately allowed some of them to develop.

That made people easier for her to control! Easier to keep in line!

According to Wu Chen’s investigations during his thousand years in the time loop, there was presently nobody in Senlan Group who could shake Wu Yurong’s position in the slightest!

Nobody!

But hearing Wu Chen speak, Wu Weidong clearly no longer believed that!

“…I think you understand, Old Master, that at this particular moment, any internal problem at Senlan Group could have disastrous consequences. Or someone might join forces with other shareholders to put pressure on Sister Rong, pressure you, and try to bring her down…”

“As for the Wu family… the family itself could actually withdraw. It’s Sister Rong who can’t withdraw. She could bear the risks alone.”

Wu Weidong looked at him.

He understood what Wu Chen meant by that last remark.

It was simple. If he consolidated the Wu family’s shares in Wu Yurong’s hands and removed certain important Wu family members from their positions, then even if something happened to Senlan in the future, the rest of the Wu family wouldn’t be implicated!

The Wu family’s assets weren’t limited to its shares in Senlan Group. Just as Wu Yurong invested her own money elsewhere, the Wu family had interests in many industries. Those other businesses were small compared with Senlan, their main enterprise, but they were still worth one or two billion yuan.

And the various internal problems at Senlan, Wu Weidong’s two restless sons, and his wife who favored them…

The root of all these problems was that Wu Weidong still held most of the shares!

If Wu Yurong acquired the shares he held, becoming the major shareholder and chairwoman, everyone else’s hopes would be extinguished.

They wouldn’t have the slightest chance of challenging Wu Yurong again!

Wu Weidong fell silent after listening. He lifted his teacup, drank some of the slightly cooled tea, then looked out at the scenery beyond the pavilion once more, his eyes narrowing a little.

It felt like a dream.

Only an hour had passed since he met Wu Chen. Absorbing so much information in such a short time left Wu Weidong, who had been retired for years, with an almost unreal sensation.

Was everything Wu Chen had said true?

Wu Weidong couldn’t be completely sure, but there was plenty he could investigate immediately! Wu Chen had deliberately left him room to check and confirm things himself.

Wu Chen glanced at his watch, then looked toward Wu Weidong and smiled again. “Old Master, I imagine that by now your son Wu Yuning has already received word of my visit.”

“Hm?” Wu Weidong turned toward him.

“When Sister Rong and I arrived earlier, your bodyguard at the front courtyard, Wang Zhiheng, saw us. He’s been with you for many years, but he’s always been quite close to Wu Yuning. I imagine he would have called him. After all, Sister Rong walked in with her arm linked through mine…” Wu Chen smiled, his tone suggestive.

Wu Weidong’s expression changed.

It seemed a trivial matter!

But to him it was anything but trivial. In fact, it immediately stirred anger deep inside him.

He knew what Wu Chen was implying. Had his own trusted bodyguard been bought off by his son?!

“Also… Sister Rong should be nearly finished talking with your wife by now. And your wife will probably call the son she dotes on most, won’t she?” Wu Chen added with another smile.

Wu Weidong unconsciously tightened his grip on the teacup.

Wu Chen’s job here was done!

At this stage, the matter merely needed a little more time to develop.

Wu Weidong now realized that not a single member of his family was free of trouble. There were things he’d known about before. For instance, his wife had always helped her own relatives, and he’d never made much of it. Years ago, Wu Weidong had had an affair and kept a mistress. Han Yuzhi had endured that too, so he could understand some of her feelings.

But at this crucial moment, his daughter was involved in a major undertaking that demanded absolute secrecy, with tremendous potential rewards and equally tremendous risks. There could be no trouble at home, much less a serious family conflict! Otherwise…

One look at Wu Weidong’s face told Wu Chen what the old man was thinking and worrying about. But when it came down to it… the most important reason Wu Chen had come today, and had been confident he could persuade Wu Weidong, wasn’t the internal problems of the Wu family, or even the external situation that seemed to leave them no choice but to forge ahead!

The real, decisive reason was this: Wu Weidong had already intended to give his shares to his daughter Wu Yurong!

So Wu Weidong had no psychological objection to giving Wu Yurong his shares in principle. His hesitation was about whether he should give them to her now!

Ring, ring…

A phone suddenly rang.

Wu Chen took his phone from inside his jacket, glanced at the screen, and answered. “Sister Rong.”

“Finished talking?” Wu Yurong asked in her soft, sweet voice. In truth, she was deeply uneasy and had scarcely dared come over to disturb them.

“More or less.” Wu Chen smiled. Then he offered, “Where are you? I’ll come find you.”

“I’m upstairs. Then… come on up. I’ll show you around. Can you find your way?”

“Of course. All right, I’m coming.”

After exchanging a few words with Wu Yurong, Wu Chen hung up. His offer to go to her was actually intended to give Wu Weidong an opportunity to act on his own.

“Old Master, I’m going to see Sister Rong…” Wu Chen said, setting down his phone and standing. He made a small gesture with his hand as he spoke.

Wu Weidong nodded without speaking, still looking troubled.

Wu Chen left.

Watching Wu Chen’s departing back, Wu Weidong again felt as though he were dreaming. Was all of this really true?

Wu Weidong was now alone in the pavilion.

He casually picked up one of the Chinese chess pieces that had yet to be cleared from the table. Holding the commander piece between his fingers, he absently toyed with it as he thought for a long time.

At last.

He slapped the piece down on the table, then picked up the phone that had been lying there all along. He tapped and swiped through his contacts until he found a number.

Lei Cheng!

Lei Cheng had been in Donghai for ten years. He had lain low for ten years and kept a low profile, but he had quietly made plenty of connections. He and Wu Weidong hadn’t had a great deal of contact, though neither had they had very little.

There was no particular personal friendship between them. Their relationship was purely social.

Wu Weidong called Lei Cheng and held the phone to his ear, waiting expressionlessly.

More than ten seconds passed before the call was finally answered.

“Hahahaha, Master Wu! It’s been ages since we last saw each other. What made you think of calling me…” Lei Cheng’s hearty voice came through the phone.

“Boss Lei, business booming, I hope? Hahaha.” A smile appeared on Wu Weidong’s otherwise expressionless face.

“Haha, thanks to your good wishes. I’m doing all right, all right. Can’t compare with you, though,” Lei Cheng replied with a laugh.

Pleasantries.

Nothing but pleasantries!

“Here’s the thing, Boss Lei. Rongrong mentioned it to me. I hear you two have been doing business together recently?” Wu Weidong got to the point.

“Huh?” Lei Cheng sounded genuinely puzzled.

“Boss Lei, no need to keep things from me. Rongrong has already told me everything.” Wu Weidong laughed, speaking as though they were all on the same side.

“No, Master Wu, what business are you talking about…” Lei Cheng still sounded baffled.

Wu Weidong frowned.

Couldn’t get anything out of him?

For an instant, Wu Weidong even suspected that Wu Chen had lied. But the lie would have been far too large, involving too many people, including his own daughter. It would also be far too easy to verify. There was no reason for Wu Chen to do that.

Wu Weidong thought for a moment. A possibility occurred to him, and he said, “Mr. Wu is at my home right now. We just finished talking.”

“Ah…” Lei Cheng immediately sounded as though he understood. Then he burst out laughing. “Hahahaha…”

But he only laughed. He didn’t say anything else.

Wu Weidong’s expression became wonderfully complicated.

Mentioning his own daughter hadn’t worked at all. Lei Cheng’s lips were sealed tight. He had to mention Wu Chen! And even after he did, Lei Cheng merely changed his attitude without revealing a single piece of information.

“Boss Lei, shall we arrange a time to meet?” Wu Weidong offered.