Huo Zongzhuo looked at Jiang Luo calmly and said, “I warned him before, over what Guo Ronghai did.”
“He behaved himself after that. He didn’t really make a move on you.”
“But in my eyes, if he laid a hand on someone around you, that’s still a threat to your life. That’s the same as touching you. And I wouldn’t let that go lightly.”
There was something else Huo Zongzhuo didn’t say.
That car accident—was it really, completely, Chen Xianlong’s doing alone?
Chen Xianlong was a Singaporean businessman, new to the place, unfamiliar with the terrain, stuck in a small county like Haimen. How could he possibly go all the way to Haicheng and meticulously arrange a fatal “accident”?
Especially when he didn’t even know Jiang Luo.
Was Li Fengrui really uninvolved? Had he truly done nothing—no instigation, no nudging from behind the scenes?
Yes, Li Fengrui had gone to Chairman Qiu, trying to make peace with Jiang Luo.
But Huo Zongzhuo had too much experience.
In his view, Li Fengrui was anything but innocent in Jiang Luo’s car accident.
And Huo Zongzhuo would never tolerate someone playing both sides under his nose, trying to be clever.
“Don’t worry,” he said.
His broad, warm palm covered the back of Jiang Luo’s hand. “The Li family already sent people to take him away.”
“Whether it’s Guo Ronghai, Li Fengrui, or Chen Xianlong—you won’t see any of them again.”
Not far away, an ambulance arrived. Wang Junqing, Lao Si, and the others worked together to lift Chen Xianlong onto the stretcher.
Inside the car, Jiang Luo’s heart was pounding as he silently tried to digest everything. Huo Zongzhuo stayed with him the entire time, patient and calm.
Huo Zongzhuo asked again, “Scared?”
Jiang Luo looked at him and slowly shook his head. “I’m okay.”
The dump truck flipping the sedan had made a huge commotion. It really had startled him.
Huo Zongzhuo kept his hand over Jiang Luo’s, his voice gentle, steady, and firm. “Jiang Luo, what happened with Guo Ronghai was an accident.”
“He had malicious intent toward you first. When an accident happened, the greatest responsibility was his own. No one else is to blame.”
“As for Li Fengrui, you and he just didn’t get along. That little friction between you doesn’t even count as real enmity.”
“Having his family take him away was simply because I already disliked him after the Guo Ronghai incident. I wanted him gone sooner rather than later.”
“And this Chen Xianlong—I already told you. An enemy who wants your life is someone you must never go easy on. Being soft on him is harming yourself.”
“Do you understand?”
Jiang Luo listened, looked into Huo Zongzhuo’s dark eyes, and slowly nodded.
After a moment of silence, his Adam’s apple bobbed as he said, “I just never imagined there could be a way like this to deal with Chen Xianlong.”
Huo Zongzhuo said, “He saw you as an obstacle and wanted you dead. You don’t owe him any mercy.”
Then, fixing his gaze on Jiang Luo, he taught him, “Jiang Luo, if all you wanted was to run a small business, make a little money, be self-sufficient and satisfied, then even if you ran into a petty villain like Guo Ronghai, you probably wouldn’t have clashed with someone like Li Fengrui.”
“You know that yourself, don’t you?”
“But since you have ambition—since you took out loans to build a factory, since you want to climb higher—remember this: on the road upward, man or woman, whoever it is, everyone is either bleeding inside, or bleeding on the outside.”
“The sprouting of capital is destined to be savage and soaked in blood. You need methods. You need to know how to read people. Different people, different situations, different solutions. And your heart has to be ruthless enough, hard enough, if you want to keep climbing.”
Jiang Luo listened, then looked back at him. “So this time, you used money to pave the way, bought people over, made everyone at the garment factory deny it together—deny Chen Xianlong’s investment?”
He was still shaken. “I really never thought something like this was possible. It’s just too…”
Too what?
Jiang Luo searched for words, thought for a moment, then said, “It’s too unbelievable.”
“That’s because you never lived through the seventies and eighties,” Huo Zongzhuo said, understanding him.
“You’ve never seen criminals rob banks with guns and kill people. You’ve never seen businessmen trample over others’ corpses for profit, completely indifferent to life and death.”
“You were born later. You’re just starting out. You haven’t experienced much, haven’t seen much. You don’t know that there are countless things in this world that exist outside the boundaries of law, morality, and human feeling.”
“Scared?” Huo Zongzhuo asked again.
Jiang Luo held his gaze for a long time. His breathing was slow and heavy, his body tense, but his mind was growing more and more exhilarated, his heart pounding faster and faster.
Afraid?
No.
Jiang Luo knew this—there was never an easy path upward.
What was there to be afraid of? Fear was useless. Even if he was afraid, he still had to keep going.
He was just overwhelmed in this moment—his heart racing, his thoughts tangled, struggling to take it all in.
It turned out that even after living two lifetimes, he still knew far too little.
The world had revealed a side he had never known before, and he was shaken by the tiny tip of the iceberg beneath it.
He swallowed and shared with Huo Zongzhuo, “Before, Li Fengrui wanted to drag me down with him to do dirty work. I knew exactly what he meant. He wanted me to be ‘in the mud’ with him.”
And with Guo Ronghai—how was what he and Huo Zongzhuo had done not also being “in the mud together”?
Huo Zongzhuo understood immediately and nodded. “Yes. You’re right. We’re in this together.”
Huo Zongzhuo had been willing to sign guarantees for Jiang Luo, and Jiang Luo had been willing to live with him on Wukang Road. Plainly speaking, they had already been on the same side for a long time.
Huo Zongzhuo looked at Jiang Luo deeply. “We’re in this together. You can trust me completely, and I trust you completely.”
“You have your road. You have ambition. You want to climb higher. Don’t be afraid. I’ve got you.”
“Whether it’s Guo Ronghai, Li Fengrui, or Chen Xianlong today—they’re all insignificant.”
“You don’t even have to say the word. I’ll clean it up for you.”
“And if you do speak up, I’ll resolve it thoroughly—no loose ends.”
Jiang Luo’s heart started beating even faster.
Was it excitement? Elation?
Or was it because the road ahead was clear, and behind him stood Huo Zongzhuo?
Just thinking about climbing higher and higher in the future made his blood heat up.
He leaned closer to the man, looked straight into his eyes. “Nothing comes free in this world. Huo Zongzhuo—you help me, you back me. What do I have to give you in return?”
This time, Huo Zongzhuo didn’t answer right away. He calmly, steadily met Jiang Luo’s eager, slightly excited gaze.
“You don’t need to give me anything,” he said.
His voice was composed. “You know this already. I like you very much.”
“Since we’re friends, then naturally, in the marketplace—or when necessary—we can also be allies who are impossible to break.”
“Today, I help you. In the future, if I need it, you help me.”
“But what could I possibly help you with?” Jiang Luo was genuinely puzzled. Huo Zongzhuo was simply too powerful. He already had everything.
Huo Zongzhuo’s expression softened, his gaze turning warm. He raised his hand and cupped Jiang Luo’s face, his palm gentle as he said, “Calling me ‘Dad’ all the time isn’t for nothing. Just think of it as me really having one more son.”
“You’re my son. My child. I teach you, I raise you. What would I ever need your help with?”
“Maybe taking care of me in my old age?”
The tension in Jiang Luo’s expression finally eased. His pale eyes shimmered as he looked at Huo Zongzhuo, deeply moved. “Aren’t you being a little too good to me?”
“Fine. I’ll take care of you when you’re old. I definitely will.”
Huo Zongzhuo smiled and pinched Jiang Luo’s cheek. “That won’t be necessary. I was just joking.”
Then he added, “The shares in the state-owned garment factory—I bought them for you.”
“Now that Chen Xianlong’s been kicked out, you’re one of the shareholders.”
“As for how the factory is managed, how it’s run, how you deal with the other shareholders and the people inside—that’s up to you. I won’t interfere.”
Jiang Luo laughed, touched and amused at the same time. “You really are like my real dad. You spoil me so much.”
Huo Zongzhuo curled his lips, brushing the back of his hand lightly against Jiang Luo’s cheek. “You’re an only child—my only son. If I don’t dote on you, who would I dote on?”
For some reason, Jiang Luo suddenly felt a little embarrassed.
He didn’t even know what he was embarrassed about.
“Thanks,” he said.
Huo Zongzhuo replied, “Thanks who?”
“Thanks! Thanks! Dad! Dad!”
Jiang Luo snapped back to his usual self. He leaned away, sat back properly, and slapped Huo Zongzhuo’s hand off his face. “Don’t be so gross.”
On the ambulance stretcher, Chen Xianlong lay there with his head wrapped in gauze, the bleeding barely stopped. He was sobbing, snot and tears all over his face, cursing in Malay between sobs:
“You bandits from this poor backwater! You’re all bandits! Nazis! Fascists! Savages who don’t understand the spirit of contracts! Savages!!!”
…………………………………
Huo Zongzhuo didn’t take advantage of being in Haimen to bring Jiang Luo by the garment factory called Hongming. He’d said he wouldn’t interfere, and he meant it. The shares were already Jiang Luo’s—what happened with Hongming from now on was for Jiang Luo to handle himself.
The car headed back. Jiang Luo sat in the back seat, processing everything that had just happened, then turned to look at Huo Zongzhuo beside him, eyes closed as he rested.
He suddenly found it all a little strange.
In his previous life, he and Huo Zongzhuo had barely intersected at all.
In this life, Huo Zongzhuo had told him, “You’re mine to raise, mine to teach—my child.”
When had the gears of fate begun to turn?
Was it when they met again in Wencheng, had a meal together, and Huo Zongzhuo gave him a pager and started calling him frequently?
Was it at the Jing’an branch, when Huo Zongzhuo lent him a hundred thousand to speculate in stocks because of a bet?
Or was it that early morning when he’d fallen asleep on a bench at the Bund, and Huo Zongzhuo just happened to see him—and kindly draped a coat over him?