Chapter 162: The Underground Venue

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“Fuck!”

Zhang Rui cursed. “Don’t push me! If you really piss me off, I’ll punch your lungs right out!”

“Come on. Let’s go see Guo Tao.”

Apparently believing Old Zhang, Zhang Rui turned and headed out of the house.

Seeing this, Old Zhang was delighted that he had actually managed to fool Zhang Rui. He thought, “Damn, the older the ginger, the hotter the spice. No matter how tough you are, you’re only in your twenties. I’ve crossed more bridges than you’ve walked roads. You’re still too green to play games with me.”

Old Zhang followed him out, got behind the wheel of his used, older-model Audi A6—which he had bought for seventy thousand yuan—and drove Zhang Rui out of the yard toward the clinic.

Although the A6 had already covered nearly two hundred thousand kilometers and was burning oil like crazy, Old Zhang was an expert at fixing up cars. In just a few days, he had transformed the vehicle, which had looked like scrap metal when he acquired it, into a roaring machine that ran exceptionally fast.

Whoosh!

The car soon reached the clinic. Zhang Rui hurried inside and immediately spotted Guo Tao sitting on a battered sofa while receiving an intravenous drip. His head was wrapped in a thick layer of gauze, with faint traces of blood showing through. His left arm was secured in a splint and hung from his neck, apparently broken.

Guo Tao was dozing in a daze. His face looked haggard, and he seemed utterly drained.

“Taozi!”

Zhang Rui walked over, lightly patted him on the shoulder, and bent down to look at him. “Damn, how can you fall asleep at a time like this? You’ve got some nerve.”

Only then did Taozi slowly open his eyes. The moment he saw Zhang Rui, he gave a violent start.

“Brother Rui! What are you doing here? When did you arrive?”

“How are you? Is it anything serious?”

Zhang Rui carefully examined Guo Tao. He appeared to have suffered only superficial injuries, but Zhang Rui had no idea whether there were any deeper wounds.

“I’m fine. I just got hit with a few clubs! Damn it! They ambushed me!”

Guo Tao had only recently regained consciousness. The man who had initially stayed with him had already gone off shift, and Guo Tao was too weak to find anyone to question. All he could do was close his eyes and rest, planning to report everything to Brother Rui once he had recovered a little.

In truth, even Guo Tao himself did not know what had happened. He only remembered standing with his back to the Audi Q7, counting money. Then a gust of wind had rushed past his ear, followed by two blows to the back of his head. After that, he had blacked out.

When he woke, he was already in the clinic. Even now, the back of his head throbbed with a sharp, stabbing pain.

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As for who had attacked him and where the car had gone, Guo Tao knew even less than Zhang Rui.

“All right. Just rest and recover.”

Seeing that Guo Tao was not in any immediate danger, Zhang Rui relaxed. He called Old Zhang aside and said, “You have so many cars in your yard. I need to borrow one for now. It’s inconvenient not having a car. I’ll return it after I find that Q7.”

Old Zhang immediately agreed. “As it happens, I’ve got a Tiguan in excellent condition. It can’t compare with the Q7, but it’s still four-wheel drive. It’ll make getting onto construction sites much easier.”

“Fine. Thanks.”

Zhang Rui clasped his hands in thanks, then added, “I’ll cover Taozi’s medical expenses.”

As he spoke, he took out five thousand yuan and tossed it to Old Zhang.

Old Zhang immediately wilted and refused to accept it no matter what. Zhang Rui would not take no for an answer. The two of them pushed the money back and forth until sweat appeared on Old Zhang’s forehead. He felt deeply uneasy and simply did not dare accept the cash.

!!!

A little after seven that evening, Taozi had finished all three two-hundred-milliliter bags of medicine. He had also eaten the meat buns Brother Rui had gone a long way to buy for him, and his spirits had improved considerably. Sitting on the sofa, he was preparing to discuss what had happened at the dealership with Zhang Rui.

“All right, let’s head back first. Get some rest.”

Before Taozi could begin, Zhang Rui stood up and prepared to take him away. He turned to Old Zhang, who had been accompanying them the whole time.

“Shall we drive?”

“Sure. Let’s go!”

Old Zhang hurried to his feet and helped Zhang Rui support Guo Tao as they headed outside.

After they reached the dealership, Old Zhang brought out the white Tiguan, which had driven only a little over fifty thousand kilometers.

“This one used to belong to a young married woman,” Old Zhang explained. “She got into a minor accident later and thought the car had brought her bad luck, so she replaced it with a Q5 and left the Tiguan here with me.”

“Fine. I’ll use it for now.”

Satisfied, Zhang Rui jumped into the vehicle and drove Guo Tao away in a cloud of dust.

They had barely gone any distance when Zhang Rui began making a call. He instructed Daquan, “Liangzi has been discharged, so you don’t need to stay with him anymore. I’ve got a job for you. After ten tonight, go take a look at Old Zhang’s used-car dealership by the bridge. Sneak into his office and see whether there’s a surveillance monitor. If there is, bring him to Leisure City.”

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“All right. Understood.”

After Daquan acknowledged the instructions, he hung up.

Guo Tao, sitting beside him, was somewhat confused. “You don’t trust Old Zhang? I didn’t see who attacked me, but I figure the only people bold enough to provoke us right now are Xie Tianhua’s men. Cowards like Wei Yong and Jiang Shunfa from back then lost their nerve a long time ago. We haven’t offended anyone else, and we’ve always kept a low profile.

“Besides, you just snatched that plaza project from Zou Dian of Tianhua Industries. Because of you, Tian Xing beat up that fat guy who was following Zou Dian, and you also beat up that man called Black Brother. I’d say there’s an eighty-percent chance Zou Dian arranged this! He wants to give us a warning and see whether we’ll back down!”

Guo Tao himself had heard Old Zhang say that people from Tianhua had ambushed him. He had no reason not to believe it. After all, Old Zhang was merely a car dealer. How could he have known that they had only just fallen out with Tianhua? If he had made the story up, he would at least have needed to know the inside details.

There was no way Old Zhang had invented it.

“Heh. Whether they’re from Tianhua or not, we’ll know after ten tonight, when Daquan takes a look.”

Zhang Rui was an extremely meticulous man. He would never casually accept a single person’s account as truth. Deep down, he was more willing to trust Tian Xing’s character. But in this society, even blood brothers sometimes stabbed one another in the back, let alone outsiders.

!!!

A sealed room on the basement level of the Yellow Dragon Grand Hotel.

The room was lavishly furnished. All kinds of expensive liquor stood neatly arranged on the shelves, while an imported Turkish carpet covered the floor. Along the wall, an antique display cabinet held an assortment of rare and valuable curios.

Yang Tianhe sat upright on his custom-made leather sofa, smoking a cigar. Beside him stood a huge goblet filled with a little red wine recently delivered from a winery in Porto.

This was Yang Tianhe’s private underground office. Though the space was less than a hundred square meters, the furnishings and decorations inside were worth more than ten million yuan.

Wu Jiong stood formally before Yang Tianhe, while Azure Dragon stood off to one side, visibly tense.

“Ha. Tell me, what exactly did I send you there to do? Rescue Miss Yang! And what did you do? You ran off to fight with the villagers! Do you even have a brain?”

After listening to Azure Dragon’s account, Wu Jiong was dissatisfied with his performance. Although Jiaojiao had been rescued and Yang Tianhe had already seen his precious daughter at home that afternoon, the person who had ultimately saved Yang Jiaojiao had not been his own subordinate, Azure Dragon, but some young man named Zhang Rui.

That had left a terrible impression in the eyes of Mayor Yang.

Azure Dragon had taken more than a dozen capable men with him to fight, yet failed to rescue anyone. Zhang Rui, on the other hand, had gone alone and returned with both the girl and the car completely unharmed.

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