Chapter 550: Rewards and Punishments

Chapter 550: Rewards and Punishments

“Hold on. Let me think…” Li Ruobing had grown wise to his ways. In the past, their bantering had invariably escalated into spontaneous wagers before she knew it, racking up an unbroken string of crushing defeats. She had never won a single bet against him. While this wasn’t technically a wager, it shared the exact same DNA—one that would produce an immediate, undeniable verdict.

Li Ruobing chose to tread carefully.

In past contests, she had surrendered vital leverage to Wu Chen. For instance, forfeiting the right to play the jealous lover over his other women…

Don’t take the bait! Li Ruobing sternly warned herself.

“What is there to think about?” Wu Chen chuckled, deliberately adopting an exaggerated, theatrical drawl. “Don’t tell me, my dearest Miss Li… You’re actually scared? You’ve lost your nerve? You finally don’t dare gamble against me?”

“Please! Your transparent provocation is utterly amateurish.” Li Ruobing affected a voice of profound boredom, adding, “I’m not afraid. I respect you! I treat you as an adversary who demands the utmost caution!”

“You certainly know how to spin a phrase…” Wu Chen scoffed with an amused laugh.

“You haven’t called any of my people, have you?” Li Ruobing asked point-blank.

“No,” Wu Chen replied cleanly.

“Then… did you inquire about me with anyone today?”

“Nope.”

“Mm… Have you received any intelligence concerning me through third parties?”

“None.”

“Mm…” Li Ruobing weighed every angle.

If Wu Chen had not acquired a shred of information about her through any person or channel today, then his only means of “guessing” her tactical deployments rested entirely on his knowledge of her past and a psychological profile of her character!

Li Ruobing was acutely aware of how terrifyingly well Wu Chen grasped the human heart.

She had long since confirmed that he knew her past inside and out—including her most deeply buried, private secrets, and even that near-miss romance from her university days.

And so…

Li Ruobing conducted a swift, exhaustive audit of the entire twenty-seven years of her life!

No precedent existed!

Li Ruobing had never once executed an arrangement identical to today’s. Even on occasions where she had dispatched muscle, the operational context had been fundamentally different. This affair was entangled with romantic jealousy. Prior to Wu Chen, Li Ruobing had never even been in love! In other words, even if Wu Chen possessed encyclopedic knowledge of her history, there was no baseline data for him to extrapolate from!

What was more, the concrete maneuver she had devised for this occasion involved her own physical presence!

“Even if you were the greatest psychologist and intelligence mastermind on earth, you couldn’t possibly guess it!” Li Ruobing declared, having reached her unshakeable conclusion.

“So what reward do I get if I’m right?” Wu Chen asked for the third time.

“Let’s settle the forfeit if you’re wrong first,” Li Ruobing countered.

“Name it!” Wu Chen answered readily. He trusted Li Ruobing to balance her demands with precision. She was never the type to make wildly unreasonable requests, nor was he.

“If you guess wrong, then…” Li Ruobing pondered for three seconds. “Then kneel before me and sing a song.”

“What an uninspired forfeit. Ever since you dropped to your knees for me, you’ve been obsessing over evening the score,” Wu Chen teased. “Care to name the track in advance? ‘Conquest,’ perhaps?”

During the phase of his thousand-year loop when he had immersed himself in songwriting and musical composition, Wu Chen had extensively studied this world’s musical landscape online. He knew this parallel earth also possessed a track titled “Conquest,” and that its lyrical essence was remarkably similar to the anthem of the same name from his original reality.

“Fine, it’s a deal,” Li Ruobing agreed without missing a beat. “Your turn. What reward do you want if you guess right?”

“The reward I want is… for you and An Menglan to stand face-to-face before me. You take her by both hands, and then…” Wu Chen deliberately dragged out his cadence, a smile dripping from every syllable.

Standing before the towering glass facade of the skyscraper in her sleek black dress, Li Ruobing held the receiver to her ear. As the details of Wu Chen’s coveted “reward” registered in her mind, her expression froze solid. She nearly crushed the smartphone in her grip… had she possessed the physical strength to do so.

“Are all you men such perverts? You actually enjoy watching that sort of thing?” Li Ruobing demanded coldly.

“I wouldn’t call it perverted,” Wu Chen laughed smoothly. “If you really can’t stomach it, a kiss on the forehead will suffice.”

“Then…” Li Ruobing hadn’t expected him to concede so easily. She had instinctively intended to seize the out and accept, yet something felt off. It made it seem as though she were the unreasonable one throwing a tantrum, while Wu Chen was magnanimously meeting her halfway. Furthermore, if she backed down and downgraded the stakes now, wouldn’t that expose her own lack of confidence?

Li Ruobing truly was feeling an undercurrent of unease.

Yet that apprehension was born purely of Wu Chen’s terrifying track record!

From a standpoint of rational analysis, there was no earthly way Wu Chen could divine her plans this time! It was impossible to deduce through logic alone; he lacked the requisite baseline conditions…

What Li Ruobing could never comprehend was that those baseline conditions were not lacking in the slightest!

For instance, during the thousand-year loop, while lounging in post-coital pillow talk, Wu Chen had once asked her: If you ever discovered your boyfriend was cheating on you in the future, what would you do?

Wu Chen had received his answer then and there.

That conversation truly existed within his memory.

Yet for Li Ruobing, that conversation had never occurred; it had long been obliterated by the merciless reset of time!

“Never mind. No need to change a thing. I accept your terms. Go ahead and guess,” Li Ruobing said coldly.

“Then I shall,” Wu Chen chuckled, launching straight into his deduction. “Early tomorrow morning, you will board a private jet and touch down in Modu.”

“Mm.” Li Ruobing conceded the point, adding flatly, “That bitch dared to provoke me. It takes no genius to figure out I’d march over to settle the score.”

“No! Don’t try to derail me! You will arrive in Modu extraordinarily early!” Wu Chen continued with a low laugh. “I wager that shortly after seeing that Weibo post, you dispatched a convoy driving straight for Modu. Your personal bodyguards! By now, they should have already arrived in the city! And they’re currently monitoring An Menglan!”

“What of it? Keeping tabs on her movements is standard procedure.” Li Ruobing’s tone remained as icy as ever, but her expression was beginning to change.

“Your objective in watching An Menglan isn’t merely to see what she and I are up to. You want to pinpoint where she spends the night, and verify whether I go to sleep with her. You’ve already cross-checked with Zhuang Xiaodie to confirm I won’t be staying at her place tonight.

“You need to confirm whether I spend the night in An Menglan’s bed. In fact, you’re hoping I do!

“Because tomorrow at the crack of dawn, you intend to launch an ambush. Your bodyguards will neutralize An Menglan’s security detail, and just as day breaks, you’ll manifest like a wraith at the foot of the bed where An Menglan and I are sleeping. You’ll probably be gripping a firearm in your right hand and your smartphone in your left! And I’m willing to bet you’ll be wearing a black dress paired with crimson high heels!

“You plan to photograph the sheer terror in An Menglan’s eyes the second she wakes! Yet you don’t actually intend to do her physical harm. You simply want to terrify her out of her wits! To catch the cheating pair red-handed in bed, nothing more! That way, you utterly dominate your wager with An Menglan with undeniable photographic evidence! She’ll be completely at your mercy!”

“Tell me, did I get anything wrong?” Wu Chen concluded softly.

Absolute, dead silence fell over the other end of the line.