Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

"Of course. You may choose not to believe me, but I hope you won't regret passing up a chance to work together." The young man nodded, full of confidence.

"Are you threatening me?" The boss's voice dropped low. His voice was unpleasant to begin with, and now it turned even more grating.

"Not at all. I'm merely stating the facts," the young man said, not the least bit afraid.

"State your purpose, then. What do you want?" The boss had grown cautious now. Even in choosing a partner, one had to be doubly careful; the former Right Elder had been a fellow who could not accomplish anything but was plenty capable of ruining everything.

Not only had he failed to get rid of Yang Ce, he had stirred up the situation and left even the boss with his hands tied.

"My purpose is to eliminate Yang Ce," the young man said with certainty.

"You don't want money?" The boss glanced at the young man, somewhat taken aback.

"Of course not. I'm not short of money." The young man shook his head. "I simply want Yang Ce dead, but I'm alone and without backing, so I have no way to kill him. That's why I need to find a powerful partner and use him to achieve my aim."

"How did you find me?" The boss looked at the young man with some suspicion.

"I'll say a name, and you'll understand." The corner of the young man's mouth lifted slightly as he uttered a certain person's name.

The boss nodded after hearing it. "All right, I believe you. But what kind of help can you offer me? As you said, you're alone and without backing, though not short of money. And I happen to be not short of money either."

"This isn't a question of money." The young man waved a hand and pointed at his own head. "I flatter myself that I have a bit of cleverness and am rather good at playing tricks and schemes. I believe what you're lacking at your side is precisely a strategist to plan for you."

The boss hesitated a moment, then nodded. "True enough. I am indeed short of such a man. Very well—it sounds as though I have nothing to lose by working with you. Then let us try working together for a while."

"Here's to a pleasant partnership." The young man extended his hand and shook the boss's.

"Now then, since we're partners, I may as well speak plainly. Getting rid of Yang Ce is no simple matter," the boss said. "Yang Juehuan has excellent reflexes and an extremely keen nose for danger. To be frank with you, I've sent several pairs of men after him, but all came to nothing."

"Meeting force with force naturally won't work." The young man smiled. "If we're going to play, we play in the dark."

"What do you mean?" the boss asked.

"I've recently done some quiet investigation and learned where Yang Ce is staying," the young man said.

"What's there to brag about? I already knew where he lives," the boss said, sounding rather unimpressed.

"No, hear me out," the young man said. "Your idea is to go head-to-head with Yan and hit him straight on—and that will get you nothing but trouble. But my idea is that we can stab him in the back."

"What do you mean?" the boss asked, puzzled.

"If we know where he lives, doesn't that make things easy?" The young man suddenly gave a sinister smile. "You must have seen the reports in the papers a few days ago about the explosion at Dekang Real Estate?"

The boss nodded, but frowned. "What does that have to do with Yan?"

"Everything. Of course it does," the young man said with a mysterious smile.

"How? You don't mean to say that Yang Ce was behind that bombing?" the boss asked, bewildered.

"That I couldn't say. What I mean is, if Dekang Real Estate can be blown up, why can't Yang Juehuan's house be blown up too?" The young man shook his head and lowered his voice.

"You're talking about planting a bomb in Yang Ce's house?" The boss was stunned for a moment, but inwardly he was already calculating—this actually seemed like a fine idea.

"Exactly. It was a simple matter to begin with—why make it so complicated?" The young man chuckled. "As long as we do it flawlessly, it won't come back on us."

"I'm not afraid of it coming back on me," the boss said with a cold snort. "What I'm afraid of is that it won't kill Yang Ce."

"If a bomb can't kill him, then he's a superman, and we may as well give up on opposing him and quit while we're ahead," the young man said, half joking.

"That's true enough." The boss nodded, then asked, "Since there's such a simple way, why haven't you used it yourself?"

"If I had anyone capable of doing it, I wouldn't need to come to you," the young man said with a bitter smile. "With my skills, I'd probably be caught before I even got the bomb into the villa."

The boss did not doubt him—the young man was telling the truth. The task looked simple, but in fact it was not. Slipping into Yang Juehuan's villa unseen and planting a bomb was truly no easy matter; at the very least it would take someone on the level of a professional master thief.

"All right. I'll set people to work on it right away." The boss thought it over and decided there was no time to lose—now that they had a plan, it was best to put it into action at once.

"But don't get your hopes up too high," the young man said, pouring cold water on him at the most inopportune moment. "The method may be simple, but carrying it out is quite difficult. Whether it can be done without Yang Ce finding out depends entirely on the skill of your men."

The boss nodded; he understood that as well. But with something like this, all they could do was take a gamble—and if it failed, the worst that could happen was the loss of a single subordinate.

Of course, before carrying out the deed, the boss went to scout the site himself. When the actual operation took place, he could not be present, lest complications arise.

But the result of his scouting delighted him beyond measure—Yang Ce was actually with Wang Yanqiu! He had no idea how the two of them had ended up together, but this was a stroke of tremendous good fortune.

If tonight's business truly succeeded, it would be killing two birds with one stone and settling everything at once.

The boss glanced at the woman beside him in her black night-clothes, and felt a pang of reluctance. She was an orphan he had taken in and raised from childhood, trained and brought up by his own hand to adulthood.

Of course, apart from her training, the girl's other duty was to warm his bed. Since what they were about to do tonight carried a certain danger, the boss felt some unwillingness—but by comparison, if Yang Ce and Wang Yanqiu really died, then even at the cost of the girl's life, he would be glad to pay it.

"Xiao Ai, no problems, right?" the boss asked.

"No problems," said the woman called Xiao Ai with a nod.

"If the mission fails, don't fight to the death—staying alive is what matters," the boss said after a moment's hesitation, still giving the order.

"I understand," Xiao Ai replied.

The boss sat in the car with the young man beside him, while Xiao Ai, carrying a case of explosives, vanished into the vast darkness of the night. "If you can't harden your heart, you can't accomplish great things," the young man said coldly, having noticed the boss's attachment to Xiao Ai.

"I don't need you to teach me what to do!" the boss said angrily.

The young man said nothing, but looked at the boss with mockery on his face.

To be continued

1037. The Night Raid

Stung by that gaze, the boss said awkwardly, "Xiao Ai has been with me for over ten years. I couldn't possibly have no feelings for her."

"I'd say it's you who has feelings for her. This Xiao Ai is like a robot—she has no feelings," the young man said flatly.

The boss's expression froze at once, yet he could not argue. That was right—Xiao Ai, like the other children he had raised with his own hands, was cold-blooded and devoid of thought. They understood only how to complete a task, carrying out his every order to the letter.