“You already said it yourself—he’d gone to Chairman Qiu of the Chamber of Commerce before. He clearly wanted to smooth things over, shake hands and make peace with me, so the mall wouldn’t suffer any bigger losses.”
“Li Fengrui isn’t Guo Ronghai. He wouldn’t be trying to kill me.”
“Mm.”
Huo Zongzhuo kept his eyes on the road. “So what did you figure out?”
Jiang Luo said, “While I was in the hospital, I kept thinking about it. There’s only one situation where someone would really want me dead—if I’d touched their interests.”
“Whose interests did I touch, that they’d hate me so much they’d want me gone?”
“The more I thought about it, the more it came down to just one thing—the factory.”
Jiang Luo continued, thinking out loud, “So I started retracing everything. Before the accident, who had I met? Which of them might have a conflict of interest with me? And sure enough, I thought of someone.”
“Mm,” Huo Zongzhuo said calmly, still driving. “Go on.”
“Wang Feng. President Wang. The one Li Fengrui tried to use to drag me into swallowing up state-owned assets.”
“But the one trying to kill me probably isn’t Wang Feng himself.”
“What I thought of was that garment factory in Tongcheng he mentioned—the one that was in the middle of restructuring.”
Jiang Luo spoke as he reasoned it through. “How could it be such a coincidence? A factory just happened to be restructuring, selling off assets, and somehow came looking for me?”
“So I started thinking—if it wasn’t a coincidence, could someone have set it up deliberately?”
“Deliberately luring me into buying that batch of equipment, then turning around and accusing me of embezzling state-owned assets?”
Huo Zongzhuo said, “Mm. That line of thinking is right.”
Jiang Luo shot him a look. “You found something, didn’t you?”
Only then did Huo Zongzhuo speak while driving. “The Wang Feng you mentioned, and that factory in Tongcheng—they’re both under a county called Haimen.”
“That factory really is undergoing restructuring. The private investor buying in is Singaporean.”
Jiang Luo immediately said, “How do you know that in such detail? You really dug that far?”
Yes. Huo Zongzhuo had people investigate the truck that fled the scene after hitting Jiang Luo. They traced every intersection along the route, eventually found road surveillance at one crossing, followed the footage to identify the truck, then tracked it to the logistics company it belonged to—and finally to the driver who’d been behind the wheel.
When Huo Zongzhuo investigated something, he always took the most direct, simplest, and most forceful route.
Once they had the driver, everything else fell into place. Following the trail step by step, they were led straight to that state-owned garment factory in Haimen.
The factory was being restructured. The private investor buying in was from Singapore, surname Tan—rendered as Chen in Chinese. His name was Chen Xianlong.
It was Chen Xianlong who had arranged for people to take advantage of the moment when Li Fengrui and Jiang Luo were clashing—stirring the waters and making it look like Li Fengrui wanted Jiang Luo dead.
Singapore. Chen Xianlong.
Jiang Luo mulled it over. “A Singaporean who could find a backwater county like Haimen in northern Jiangsu and buy into a state-owned garment factory—he must be planning to lay out a garment-industry network around Haicheng and Jiangsu.”
“And then I suddenly barged in, threw ten million into building my own factory, and completely wrecked his plans.”
Jiang Luo nodded slowly. “He really did have every reason to want me dead.”
Huo Zongzhuo turned his head slightly to glance at Jiang Luo. “So? What are you thinking? What do you plan to do?”
Jiang Luo thought it over. “It’s tricky.”
“I turned down Wang Feng back then. If nothing else had happened—if Chen Xianlong hadn’t arranged for a car to hit me—then it would’ve been him walking his sunny road and me crossing my narrow bridge.”
“But he decided my factory was in his way, so he tried to kill me with a car.”
“This…”
Jiang Luo said gloomily, “I can’t exactly arrange for a car to go run him over too, can I?”
Huo Zongzhuo kept driving, saying nothing, listening.
Jiang Luo thought some more. “He wanted me dead. That’s a real, blood-deep grudge now.”
“Even if he doesn’t want my life anymore, I can’t just let this go.”
“Otherwise, who’s to say he won’t get another bright idea one day and decide to kill me again?”
He paused, then continued, “But when I think about it, constantly making enemies isn’t a good thing either.”
“Should I learn from Li Fengrui—find a middleman and try to make peace?”
“For now, settle it peacefully. Then later, find a chance to get this revenge back.”
Jiang Luo’s reasoning was sound.
Wanting revenge was only human—no one would accept being run over by a car for nothing.
If you try to kill me, that’s a vendetta. People say if you don’t avenge a wrong, you’re no gentleman.
But if you stab me and I immediately stab you back, ignoring everything else, that’s just impulsive and childish.
Jiang Luo had a factory and a business. Weighing pros and cons, choosing to endure for now, taking a step back to gain a wider horizon—that was a kind of wisdom too.
At the end of the day, being hit by a car had put Jiang Luo at a real disadvantage.
He’d only just locked horns with Li Fengrui, and now another Singaporean, Chen Xianlong, had entered the picture.
Was he supposed to stop doing business altogether just to deal with these people?
“Tricky,” Jiang Luo repeated.
“Want to see how I handle it?” Huo Zongzhuo finally spoke.
“Huh?”
Jiang Luo looked over. “You’re going to help me?”
Huo Zongzhuo replied evenly, “If you think it’s hard, then don’t move. Sit tight and watch how someone else does it.”
“You’ve got a way to solve it?” Jiang Luo asked.
Huo Zongzhuo gave a quiet “Mm.” “It’s not that hard. There’s a way to break the deadlock.”
Jiang Luo was curious. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ll do it. You watch.”
“After you’ve seen it, you can decide whether my method works, whether it’s any good.”
Jiang Luo nodded. “Alright. Then I’ll watch.”
Back in Haicheng, the first thing Jiang Luo did was go see Zhang Ningfu.
Zhang Ningfu’s wife and son weren’t there. Xiao Lu wasn’t around either. A colleague from the factory’s management was in the room with him.
“Boss Jiang,” the colleague greeted him, then stepped out at Jiang Luo’s signal.
Jiang Luo went into the room. Seeing Jiang Luo with his arm in a sling and gauze still on his forehead, Zhang Ningfu’s eyes instantly reddened.
Jiang Luo hooked a chair over with his foot and sat down. “Don’t cry. I’m not dead. It’s nothing.”
Zhang Ningfu leaned back against the headboard, forcing down his tears, his voice thick. “Did we make the factory too big? Did we get in someone’s way, make them jealous?”
Jiang Luo snorted. “Looks like your brain wasn’t rattled loose.”
Zhang Ningfu lowered his head, eyes downcast, holding everything in. He wanted to say something, but realized he had no ideas at all—no clue what to do.
He felt miserable. And powerless.
“Enough. Don’t look like that,” Jiang Luo said in his usual dry tone. “When the boat reaches the bridge, it’ll straighten itself out. What are you afraid of? I’m still here. The factory’s still here. The town’s backing us. What’s worth all this sighing?”
“I just…”
Zhang Ningfu sighed again. He felt useless—stuck in the hospital, burning through the factory’s money on medical bills, weighed down by guilt.
But Jiang Luo suddenly asked, “Where’s your wife? Your son and daughter-in-law? Your granddaughter?”
At that, Zhang Ningfu’s gaze dropped even lower.
Jiang Luo looked at him. “Old Zhang, this time, I owe you. Because of me—because of my personal grudges—you and Accountant Xue ended up in the hospital. That’s something I didn’t foresee.”
“I’m apologizing to you. I’m sorry. This is on me.”
“I’ll cover all your medical bills, nutrition costs, lost wages.”
“If you ever need anything in the future, just say the word. I’ll help.”
“But, Old Zhang…”
Jiang Luo rarely spoke this earnestly, almost laying his heart bare. “With me, and with the factory, everything’s negotiable.”
“Whatever you want, we can talk about it.”
“But you also know—in your life, the truly hard part, the real trouble, has never been anything else.”
“It’s your wife and your son. It’s that family of yours.”
Jiang Luo said quietly, “Old Zhang, I’ve told you before.”
“We don’t live for others. We live for ourselves.”
“You were in an accident this serious—half a foot into the coffin already—and you still haven’t woken up?”
“Are you still going to let people knead you however they like, take whatever they want from you?”
Zhang Ningfu looked at Jiang Luo. In those deeply lined, aged eyes, tears welled up and brimmed.
—
Once they decided to go, they moved fast. The very next day, Jiang Luo got into a car with Huo Zongzhuo. They pulled out from Wukang Road, merged onto the main streets, and headed for Tongcheng.
This time, neither of them was driving. Wang Junqing—who’d also been injured in the accident—wasn’t driving either. Behind the wheel was another tall, powerfully built man.
Jiang Luo heard Huo Zongzhuo call him Fourth.
Fourth drove, taking Jiang Luo and Huo Zongzhuo toward the northern Jiangsu county called Haimen.
Jiang Luo didn’t ask much along the way. Huo Zongzhuo had said to watch, so he watched.
They arrived in Haimen in the afternoon. Looking out the window, Jiang Luo saw low houses and rundown small buildings. The roads were bad, full of potholes.
When they reached a certain spot, Fourth said, “That’s it.” Huo Zongzhuo also gestured for Jiang Luo to look in a certain direction.
Jiang Luo looked over and saw, not far away, the forecourt of what was unmistakably a factory gate. It wasn’t especially dilapidated—just plain and ordinary. Hanging at the entrance was a sign, reading from top to bottom:
Haimen County Hongming State-Owned Garment Factory.
So that was the factory Wang Feng had mentioned.
“Where to now?” Jiang Luo asked.
The car didn’t stop at the gate, nor did it drive inside. They simply passed by.
Huo Zongzhuo said, “First, we’re going to meet the former factory director.”
Before long, they arrived at a restaurant that looked fairly decent. The car stopped. Huo Zongzhuo and Jiang Luo got out and went inside together.
They followed a server upstairs, walked down a corridor, and stopped in front of a private room. The door opened.
Jiang Luo followed Huo Zongzhuo inside and saw a man seated within, smoking. When he saw the door open and people enter, he took the cigarette from his mouth and said, in Mandarin tinged with a local accent:
“You’re Boss Huo from Haicheng.”