Li Fengrui was visibly annoyed, realizing that Jiang Luo wasn’t taking the bait at all—he was so arrogant that he barely even acknowledged him.
“Cooperate?” Li Fengrui squinted.
It seemed Jiang Luo hadn’t taken him seriously in the slightest.
That day, Jiang Luo was inspecting some new clothing samples in the workshop when Xiao Lu came over quietly. “Jiang Zong, someone’s looking for you in the office.”
“Who? For what?” Jiang Luo didn’t even look up.
“He just said his surname is Li and that you know him,” Xiao Lu replied.
Jiang Luo immediately knew who it was, yet still didn’t lift his head. “Have him wait. I’ll be a while.”
He smirked inwardly—Li Fengrui had actually come to his office.
In the office, a steaming cup of tea sat on the coffee table. Li Fengrui stood by the sofa, hands behind his back, gazing at a large framed calligraphy on the wall.
“‘Lanting Xu’?”
Li Fengrui’s Chinese wasn’t strong, being from Taiwan, and he didn’t know much simplified script, but he recognized this famous classical piece.
Seeing Jiang Luo actually hung this up, he snorted coldly, thinking it pretentious.
He squinted at the tiny personal seal at the bottom of the calligraphy, trying to decipher it.
“Dong? Or maybe Dong… something? Wu? No… Yu? Yu…”
The door opened abruptly. Jiang Luo entered. “Li Zong, what brings you here today?”
Li Fengrui tore his gaze away from the seal, turning to smile. “Jiang Zong, you’re always so busy that I couldn’t get you on the phone. I had no choice but to come in person.”
They shook hands, both playing their parts.
After shaking hands, Jiang Luo moved toward his desk. Li Fengrui returned to the sofa, sitting down slowly and lifting his tea.
He took a sip, frowned at the taste, and kept a calm expression. “A few days ago Wang Feng asked you something. Looks like coffee didn’t go well. Just a small matter, yet you refused to respond.”
Jiang Luo, flipping through a booklet, didn’t look up. “Li Shaoye is joking. What matter? Why discuss it in person when a phone call would suffice?”
Li Fengrui set his cup down. “Even if I called, you’d be too busy to pick up.”
Jiang Luo answered calmly, “You joke again. If the phone rings, how would I know who it is? I’d pick up, of course.”
“And if I don’t like it, I hang up.”
“Not picking up could risk missing something important. Isn’t that a bigger loss?”
“You agree, right?”
Li Fengrui leaned back, fixing Jiang Luo with a look. “Hang up? Are you saying you’d hang up on me?”
“Not quite.”
He changed tack. “Then you’re unhappy with the thirty percent profit share?”
Jiang Luo still flipped through his booklet. “Li Shaoye jokes again. Thirty percent, not thirty percent? I don’t understand.”
For a moment, the two exchanged barbed words lazily, neither feeling the need to mask their contempt.
Jiang Luo understood—Li Fengrui had come to intimidate him.
Li Fengrui understood—Jiang Luo had no intention of joining his crooked scheme.
Li Fengrui’s expression hardened. “So, no respect for me?”
Jiang Luo finally put the booklet down, leaning back with an expressionless face. “You started it, Li Zong.”
“Jiang Luo.”
Li Fengrui’s expression turned cold. “I’ve already been polite to you. I voluntarily withdrew my counters in the past. Didn’t mind that you skipped the Pacific store. Even invited you to meals now and then. Have I treated you badly? And now you treat me like this? Offend me?”
“Li Shaoye,” Jiang Luo replied, “don’t make it sound so grandiose. I’ve said before—you’re a golden child, I’m ordinary. I never meant to offend you. But you insisted on inviting me to a banquet, pretending to apologize while threatening me. Copying my brand, wanting me to do your dirty work. Now it’s not me offending you—it’s that you don’t even see me as human.”
Li Fengrui fixed him with a glare. “I’ll ask you one last time—are you taking the Tongcheng factory project or not?”
Jiang Luo returned his gaze. “Li Zong, take care. I won’t see you out.”
“Jiang Luo!”
Li Fengrui sprang up, striding across the sofa to the desk, hands braced on the tabletop. “Don’t think you can open a dye factory just because I show a little color! You think borrowing ten million and building a factory makes you impressive?!”
Jiang Luo looked up without fear, smiling. “And that’s not impressive? What can you do to me now? Copy another factory like you did with Vilanido?”
Li Fengrui gritted his teeth. “I have plenty of ways to get to you.”
“Is that so?”
Jiang Luo chuckled, gesturing around him. “Which way? How?”
“Counters? Yong’an, Xianshi, Daxin? None are yours.”
“Factory? My factory has foreign investment, local government backing. The city values it, the town government is my support. Tax, industry, commerce, police—all sit at the same table. You think you can do anything?”
“Send the cops after me? Tax office reports? Or hire thugs to burn my factory?”
Li Fengrui: “…”
Jiang Luo smirked mockingly. “You’re from Taiwan, and you can’t even hold ground here in Haicheng. You still want to mess with me? Dream on.”
He brought up an old matter. “You made Guo Ronghai kneel and slapped him, then kicked him out of the Pacific. Did you expect he wouldn’t be furious and come after me? You know it happened, yet stayed silent. I got unlucky. I took the hit, stayed quiet, didn’t come after you. And now you come to my door wanting trouble?”
“Li Shaoye, don’t go too far.”
Li Fengrui left the factory in a rage, struggling to calm down. In his eyes, Jiang Luo had gone completely mad.
He wondered: Yu Dong? Yu Dong?
Who was Yu Dong? Was there someone like that in Haicheng’s business district?
He had the driver circle the factory walls for a closer look.
Seeing the tightly secured perimeter, with barbed wire atop and men stationed outside keeping watch, Li Fengrui went silent. Jiang Luo had indeed fortified the factory thoroughly.
He sat silently in the car, expression dark. Jiang Luo was untouchable. The factory’s connections—industry, tax, town government, even police—were all aligned. With guards watching constantly, any mischief was impossible.
Li Fengrui’s mind chilled. Jiang Luo, just wait. You’ve got people behind you, I can’t touch you. But you have people around—surely I can handle that. You’ll pay for offending me.
A few days later, at noon, Zhang Ningfu left the factory, heading across the street for a street vendor’s braised chicken leg—he craved it.
Seeing no traffic, he crossed, unaware that a speeding motorcycle suddenly appeared.
“Bang!”
Meanwhile, in the city, at roughly the same time, Accountant Xue, returning from the tax office, pedaled toward the company building. As he dismounted, another motorbike came from behind, brushing past him. Losing balance, Xue tumbled heavily.
“What?!”
Jiang Luo, at his Wukang Road home, received the call from the factory. He sprang from the sofa and hurried down the stairs, frowning. “Is he badly hurt?”
Soon, Jiang Luo arrived at the hospital, striding into the outpatient building. Xiao Lu stumbled after him, panting. “Jiang Zong, it’s bad. The company called—the accountant Xue fell outside the office, can’t even stand, possible fractures. Taken to Huashan Hospital.”
The old man Xue!?
Jiang Luo’s steps halted. Thoughts raced as he pressed his lips together and clenched his jaw.
Better not be you, Li Fengrui.
Upon arriving at the hospital, Jiang Luo first checked on Zhang Ningfu. The man was badly injured—struck by the speeding motorcycle outside the factory, thrown far, unconscious, head gaping and bleeding heavily. Fortunately, the nearby vendors intervened quickly.
Zhang’s wife and child arrived immediately, rushing over. One raised a hand to slap Jiang Luo, while the other restrained him, shouting, “My dad was fine, and now this happens outside your factory! Your company must take responsibility!”