Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

That was the last straw. Liu Jihao had already been in a bad mood, and now his girlfriend had done such a thing. Enraged, he set upon her with fists and feet, demanding to know about her lover.

Wang Mei had not wanted to tell him, but she could not withstand Liu Jihao's blows, so she told him everything.

To be continued

829. The IOU

It was not that Liu Jihao felt nothing at all for Wang Mei—after all, the two of them had been together for a long stretch of time. But Liu Jihao was a petty man through and through, and he would never tolerate his girlfriend carrying on with someone else. On top of that, his spirits had been low these past few days, what with the business failure landing on top of everything else, and now word had reached him that the friend of that "adulterer" had gotten himself entangled with Huang Yan. At once his mind began to churn.

How could Liu Jihao not know about Huang Yan's family? Their business was more than a hundred times the size of his own. He had once even set his heart on Huang Yan, only she would never in a million years have looked twice at him. But he had never imagined that the "adulterer's" friend would prove just as skilled at reeling women in. Weighing it all up, he decided to use Wang Mei as his pretext, squeeze a little money out of those two to plug the hole in his losses.

As he saw it, those two outsiders could not stir up any real trouble, and besides, Zhang Bin was the one in the wrong here, so Liu Jihao had nothing to fear. Liu Jihao was, after all, a petty schemer who delighted in plotting, and back when he had set his sights on Wang Mei, he had resorted to some low-down tricks—those loan sharks were his friends, and he had been the one directing them from behind the scenes.

Wang Mei had, in fact, vaguely guessed as much afterwards. Though there was no love in it for Liu Jihao, following him meant a life of fine clothes and good food, and so she had made her peace with it.

Later, when she became a flight attendant and met Huang Yan, she came to feel all the more that everyone around her belonged to the moneyed class. Wang Mei was afraid that if she lost this life of luxury, Huang Yan and the others would look down on her, and so she dared not break up with Liu Jihao—even though she had never, from first to last, felt any real affection for him.

In truth, Wang Mei was not as contemptible as Yang Ce imagined. Though she had taken up with Zhang Bin, it was because she had truly fallen for him—his humor and the care he showed her were things she had never once known with Liu Jihao.

Love had come so suddenly that Wang Mei was dazed by it for a time; otherwise Liu Jihao would never have caught on so quickly. It was not that she had never thought of breaking up with Liu Jihao and being with Zhang Bin. But once she learned that Zhang Bin had a girlfriend of his own, that notion began to waver.

Would Zhang Bin ever really be with her? The man probably thought of her as nothing more than a playmate. When she phoned him this time to ask him to come and meet her, Wang Mei did not expect him to stand up for her.

But she had never expected that Zhang Bin would react so violently to the fact that Liu Jihao had laid hands on her.

Zhang Bin was beside himself with rage, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath. But mindful that he must not stir up trouble, he could only force the anger down, slowly lower himself back into his seat, and say, "Ten million—aren't you aiming a bit too high? You think Huang Yan would give me ten million?"

"Heh, whether he gives it to you or not I couldn't say, but if your friend goes to Huang Yan for it, it ought to work. Huang Yan's family won't even miss ten million." Seeing that Zhang Bin's tone had softened, Liu Jihao was overjoyed. "And besides, this IOU is still in my hands. I tell you, right now we're talking nice and friendly. You come up with the money, and we're square. Otherwise, I take it to court, and you won't have a leg to stand on."

An IOU written under the coercion of loan sharks would, if it truly went to court, most likely have no legal effect. But Liu Jihao was counting on the certainty that Zhang Bin, an outsider, would know nothing of Macau's local laws, and so he was not afraid of being found out after he bluffed him.

Zhang Bin knew that if such a thing were brought before a mainland court, the other side would have only a slim chance of winning. But here, he genuinely did not know what the relevant statutes said.

For him to produce ten million was basically unrealistic—Zhang Bin did not have that kind of money. But if he turned to Yang Ce—well, Zhang Bin did not know Yang Ce's true worth. He knew that Huang Yan had given Yang Puqi a large sum of money, but that money had all gone into the newly founded jewelry company, and the cash Yang Ce had on hand was probably not much either.

Borrowing money from Yang Ce was something Zhang Bin could bring himself to do—their friendship was there, after all. But for Yang Ce to go to Huang Yan and ask for money—that was something Zhang Bin could not do no matter what.

"Made up your mind yet? What's it going to be?" Seeing that Zhang Bin said nothing, Liu Jihao grew impatient. His face darkening, he said, "I'll give you two choices. One, call your friend and have him figure out a way to get the money. Two, I hand you over to these men, and whatever they do with you is no concern of mine."

Liu Jihao gestured toward the burly loan sharks beside him.

Zhang Bin had no way out either. After hesitating again and again, he decided he had better tell Yang Ce about it—whatever happened, talking it over was better than nothing.

"I'm going out to make a phone call," Zhang Bin said, rising to his feet and heading for the door.

"Watch him. Don't let the little bastard run off." Liu Jihao was afraid Zhang Bin might use the phone call as a pretext to escape. He did not believe Wang Mei held any appeal for Zhang Bin; that Zhang Bin would spend ten million purely for Wang Mei's sake—Liu Jihao simply did not buy it.

But Zhang Bin really did mean to do exactly that—otherwise, what the hell did Wang Mei's fate matter to him? Zhang Bin reached the door, where the four loan-shark thugs stood close by, eyes fixed on him, afraid he might bolt.

Zhang Bin dialed Yang Ce's number, and before long Yang Ce picked up.

"Boss, I'm in trouble." Zhang Bin came straight to the point. Given the bond between him and Yang Ce, there was no need for beating around the bush.

"What's wrong?" Yang Ce was waiting for Shu Ya's call, lying on the bed flipping through TV channels out of sheer boredom. Zhang Bin's words gave him a start.

"Wang Mei's boyfriend found out about us and he's demanding ten million from me. I don't know what to do now." Zhang Bin gritted his teeth as he spoke.

"Ten million?" Yang Ce was a little taken aback at the figure. He had not expected Wang Mei's boyfriend to name such an exorbitant price, though for Yang Ce such a sum was nothing much.

"Boss, I know I've made trouble for you. Could you help me borrow it? I'll work for you for the rest of my life." Zhang Bin knew Yang Ce would be put out, and he hemmed and hawed for a long while before getting the words out.

"Work for me?" Yang Ce could not help but laugh. Still, he found it odd that Zhang Bin would be willing to spend ten million for Wang Mei's sake. "Are you sure you want to give him ten million?"

"Yes. It's the loan Wang Mei took out before—her boyfriend paid it back for her." Zhang Bin gave a bitter smile. "I don't know if there's anything fishy going on in all this, but as for Wang Mei, I—"

"All right, say no more. Where are you?" By now Yang Ce understood that what Zhang Bin had told him before had not been said lightly—he really had fallen for her. Yang Ce's impression of Wang Mei was not favorable, but Zhang Bin liked her, and he would not interfere. This time Zhang Bin must truly have fallen in love, or he could never have done something so irrational.