A Chan – CH 116

Chapter 116: A Complete Turnaround (3)

You Mingxu returned to the car and tossed the recorder to Ding Chenmo. These past two days, Ding Chenmo had been in frequent contact with Zhang Jingchan and had learned the inside story of the warehouse case from years ago. Seeing this, his brow twitched, and he blurted out, “This can’t be that recorder, can it?”

You Mingxu: “Which recorder?”

“It can’t be explained in a few words.” Ding Chenmo pressed the recorder’s switch, found it was out of power, and immediately connected it to the car’s charging cable.

Ten minutes later, You Mingxu transferred the contents of the recording to his phone and pressed play:

“Old Cheng, with things so tense right now, why did you arrange to meet here? What if someone sees us…”

“But Fuming will eventually go bankrupt and be liquidated! Those debts can’t be hidden!”

“Yingying and I have discussed this. As long as she’s willing to sacrifice a little of her reputation and let Zhang Moyun die in her bed, and as long as the evidence is solid, the police will most likely close the case quickly.”

“Can I come up with an idea? A few times before, when Boss Zhang got drunk, I’ve taken him to the villa in Yanghuai Lane to rest. How about there?” …

Ding Chenmo’s eyes reddened as he listened. He immediately wanted to call Zhang Jingchan, but You Mingxu stopped him: “What’s the rush? Telling him now will only make him anxious. We’ll deal with it after we get the person. I reckon the secret room is in that master bedroom. We need to find the entrance, and the lock probably won’t be easy to break.”

Ding Chenmo: “Then what do we do? Break in again?”

You Mingxu smiled and nodded: “Break in again. I’ll bring Yin Feng.”

“Him? Bring him for what?”

They came to the villa today, and Yin Feng insisted on coming along, but You Mingxu dismissed him with disdain. Now they’re bringing that kid again?

You Mingxu held the recorder in one hand, tossed it a couple of times, and smiled knowingly: “You don’t know, Mr. Yin can open any lock in the world.”

—

Two hours earlier.

Before dawn, Li Weiyi hadn’t climbed the air conditioning duct. Standing in the secret room in the early morning, she finally made up her mind and walked towards the safe. “The computer password is my mother’s birthday,” he casually remarked one evening in that past life.

…

The computer in that study back then stored Xu Yi’s most confidential business documents, but Li Weiyi had never been interested in looking at them.

The safe door opened with a click. Li Weiyi breathed a sigh of relief, glanced at the door again, and quickly rummaged through the documents. Inside were several passports and some contracts, but at first glance, she couldn’t make heads or tails of them.

Suddenly, her gaze was fixed on a pen in the far corner of the safe. She slowly took the pen out, tears welling up in her eyes.

She quickly put the safe back in its place, sat back on the bed with the pen in her hand, pondered for a moment, then put the pen in her pocket and zipped it up.

She decided to climb the ventilation duct, knowing full well that she would most likely fail. But

What if she succeeded?

Failure wouldn’t matter; she could use it as a diversion to distract Xu Yi. He assumed she wouldn’t notice the recording pen if she tried to escape this way.

Although she fell, the outcome was better than she expected—Xu Yi carried her out of the secret room and into the master bedroom, finally taking a step forward.

In the brief moment that Xu Yi, looking displeased, left the master bedroom to speak with the housekeeper, a bold and impulsive idea surged into Li Weiyi’s mind—she instinctively felt that reinforcements had arrived outside, and she also sensed that if Xu Yi sensed danger, he wouldn’t let her out of the secret room again.

She would leave the recording pen outside.

Perhaps Xu Yi would discover it, but that would only bring her back to square one; she would likely never be able to escape again anyway.

But what if someone else discovered the recording pen? What if it were the reinforcements Zhang Jingchan had brought?

Li Weiyi had blind faith in Zhang Jingchan, believing that the people he had invited would definitely find this place, find this master bedroom. Therefore, she couldn’t just sit and wait to die.

Never mind all that; she’d take a gamble; a small victory might just be hers.

As for her sudden escape after Xu Yi entered, it was just another pretext—again, to divert his attention—he would only become suspicious if she did nothing. After all that commotion, he had no energy to notice what had suddenly appeared in the master bedroom.

Of course, as considered before, what if she really did run away?

Escape from Xu Yi required relentless effort and unwavering determination.

—

Gas station.

Zhang Jingchan slowly drove closer, stopping at the roadside near the gas station entrance, watching the large Jeep from a distance of about ten meters.

A man of medium build got out of the driver’s seat. He wore an old black cotton jacket and a baseball cap, revealing graying sideburns. He exchanged a few words with the gas station attendant before heading to the adjacent payment booth.

A moment later, he emerged, facing Zhang Jingchan and Li Yunmo.

Li Yunmo exclaimed, “It’s him!”

Zhang Jingchan stared at the man with icy eyes, a smirk playing on his lips.

Everything made sense now. A once-prominent executive, now a prisoner, arrogant and stubborn, and self-proclaimed highly educated, he couldn’t bear the fall from grace and sought revenge on society.

The Jeep pulled out of the gas station, and Zhang Jingchan followed in his car. His phone beeped; he picked it up and saw a picture sent by Ding Chenmo—a familiar-looking voice recorder.

Ding Chenmo couldn’t resist boasting about it midway through the drive.

Zhang Jingchan immediately sent a voice message: “Where did you find it?”

Ding Chenmo also sent a voice message: “Your wife secretly got it.”

Zhang Jingchan slammed on the brakes, pulling the car over to the side of the road. He said to Li Yunmo, “You drive.” They switched seats, and he immediately dialed the number. Before he could even ask, his heart leaped into his throat: “Where is she?”

Ding Chenmo: “She hasn’t been rescued yet.”

Zhang Jingchan: …

Suddenly, he wanted to give this old man a good beating.

Ding Chenmo laughed: “It should be soon. I didn’t realize your wife was so clever, so prepared for an inside-outside operation.”

“How could I not see that?” Zhang Jingchan finally smiled. “Thank you. Let me know as soon as you have any news.”

—

In the afternoon, a Bentley drove out of the villa; it was Xu Yi’s car.

An inconspicuous sedan was parked on the sidewalk not far from the villa. Ding Chenmo put down the phone, examined the voice recorder in his hand, and frowned: “Why didn’t Xu Yi destroy this pen? He kept it for so many years, and then that girl Li Weiyi found it?”

Yin Feng, who had just arrived, scoffed and said, “Isn’t it simple? This is the key to turning his dark business around, the symbol of the defeat of his rival Zhang Jingchan—if he considers Zhang Jingchan his biggest enemy, of course, he’ll keep this trophy. Imagine, in a dark, secret room, pulling out this voice recorder, thinking about how much blood is stained on it, that secret and satisfying feeling—it’s thrilling just thinking about it. I’d keep it too.”

You Mingxu glanced at him.

Yin Feng realized he had said the wrong thing, but didn’t know what, and remained silent.

Ding Chenmo didn’t pay much attention, watching Xu Yi’s car drive away, muttering, “I wonder what he’s doing out here at this time?”

You Mingxu unbuckled his seatbelt, patted Yin Feng’s shoulder, and got out of the car: “We’ve already alerted him today; it’s not advisable to follow him any further. Get him out first. As long as we have witnesses and evidence, Xu Yi won’t escape. Old Ding, you stay here and keep watch; we’ll make our move.”

—

Half an hour later.

You Mingxu struggled to get Yin Feng into the master bedroom of the villa. Facing the unremarkable wall, You Mingxu said, “Is the entrance to the secret room easy to find? I’m stuck here.”

Yin Feng, like a giant green caterpillar, meticulously felt his way along the wall, inch by inch. After a few minutes, he tapped on the wall next to the bookshelf and muttered, “It’s right here. It’s not that clever, is it? Why can’t Ah Xu find it?”

You Mingxu tapped him on the head, asking irritably, “Can you open it?”

Yin Feng pulled a miniature lock-picking device from his pocket—a gift from one of his skilled lock-pickers before they left, a skill he himself had learned—and pressed it onto the combination lock on the bookshelf.

A dozen seconds later, the combination lock beeped, and Yin Fengzhen pushed, revealing a door recessed in the wall.

Yin Feng turned to You Mingxu: “It can be opened.”

You Mingxu smiled and patted his head, and he immediately bent down to rub his head against her palm.

The two pushed open the door to the secret room.

Li Weiyi was squatting in front of the safe, flipping through the contracts, her eyes wide as she turned to stare at them.