Chapter 877 — The Kidnappers' Demands
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
Gu Pengzhan sat on the sofa waiting for the kidnappers' call, yet he could not shake a feeling of restlessness; he simply could not settle his mind. He glanced at Wei Zhao, who sat with eyes closed, nurturing his spirit, then abruptly rose to his feet. He felt he had to do something—but once he was standing, he had no idea what.
Wei Zhao sat with eyes closed, but he was not idle; in his mind he was weighing countermeasures. Zhen Yingjun's actions had crossed Wei Zhao's bottom line. He was thinking that if his strength recovered after a while and the kidnappers still had not called, he would go straight to the Zhen family and dig them out even if he had to turn the earth upside down.
Gu Pengzhan had barely risen when the phone in his pocket rang abruptly. He hurriedly pulled it out and glanced at the caller display—a concealed number, showing nothing but a string of zeros.
"Hello, this is Gu Pengzhan!" He was already all but certain that the caller must be the kidnapper. After all, ordinary people had no need to hide their numbers when making a call.
"Mr. Gu, hello there. First meeting—what an honor!" The voice on the phone was grating, clearly run through a voice changer and somewhat distorted, and its false, forced politeness made it all the more uncomfortable to hear.
"Who are you? What do you want?" Gu Pengzhan asked, frowning.
"Who I am doesn't matter. What matters is—do you want to know where your daughter and her best friend are? I happen to be someone in the know, wahahahaha!" The man on the phone was brazen, utterly unbridled.
"My daughter and Xiaoshu were kidnapped by you? What do you want?" At this Gu Pengzhan was entirely certain of the caller's identity—it must be the kidnapper. Yet this actually calmed him somewhat! So long as the kidnapper was willing to contact him on his own initiative, that was good news. Gu Pengzhan was not afraid of the other side making demands; what he feared was a foe who asked for nothing and simply took his daughter away in silence, then vanished.
"Mr. Gu, that's not the right way to put it! What do you mean, kidnapped by me? I'm merely someone in the know." The man spoke with shameless effrontery. "I only heard that Mr. Gu has offered a reward of two hundred million to anyone who provides a lead. Is that so?"
Gu Pengzhan was furious at the caller. Truly, he wanted to keep his chastity while building a memorial arch—clearly he wanted ransom money, yet he dressed it up as a reward.
"Yes!" Gu Pengzhan knew he could not provoke the kidnapper, so he could only nod and answer, "That's right. You want two hundred million, I can give it to you. But you must guarantee the safety of my daughter and Xiaoshu. If they suffer the slightest harm, I will not give you a cent!"
Two hundred million was no small sum. Gu Pengzhan's entire personal fortune amounted to no more than five hundred million or so, and that was counting his shares in the company and his real estate. In terms of liquid cash, two hundred million was very nearly the absolute limit of what he could produce! It seemed the other party had investigated him beforehand and knew exactly how much cash he could lay his hands on. That figure of two hundred million was likely no idle number tossed out at random!