abcnovels
Chapter 241 - 241: Brother Is Imprisoned
Chapter 241 - 241: Brother Is Imprisoned
Chapter 241: Brother Is Imprisoned
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
Pei Qiuying said, “Chen Rushi, if you disagree with me, discuss it with me privately. If you publicly oppose me, don’t blame me for embarrassing you and undermining your dignity.”
“Why spare Lu Zhiyuan? This is the best opportunity to kill him, a once-in-a-lifetime chance. If we miss it, we may never get another.” Chen Rushi didn’t seem to care about immediate gains or losses.
“The car accident wasn’t meant to take his life; it was meant to kill his other persona!” Pei Qiuying said calmly. “The Third Master’s life belongs to me, and no one can take it away. If I want him alive, he must live!”
Chen Rushi frowned, thinking about how Pei Qiuying was nurtured by Lu Zhiyuan, who was exceptionally talented. Even as an enemy, and despite his reluctance to submit, Chen Rushi had to admit that Lu Zhiyuan was an extraordinarily talented man.
Whether as the Third Master or a racing driver, he stood at the pinnacle of their respective industries.
“Do you actually have feelings for Lu Zhiyuan?”
“No!” Pei Qiuying chuckled.
“I love the Third Master, Chen Rushi. You’ve entered the underworld, and I grant you power, wealth, and the well-being of your clan. As long as you remain loyal to me, Black Hawk will return to your control one day. What I want is solely the Third Master.”
Chen Rushi coldly replied, “Lu Zhiyuan’s affections lie with Gu Ci, not you!”
“Shut up!” Pei Qiuying’s anger flared, but she quickly regained her composure. “Lu Zhiyuan may like Gu Ci, but the Third Master doesn’t care for her at all.”
Chen Rushi looked at her indifferently, turning his wheelchair. “I understand, but, Pei Qiuying, let me tell you, focusing solely on your career, once you amass enough power, men will be mere playthings in your hands. If you let real emotions get involved, that’s foolish.”
Guards entered and pushed him out, leaving Pei Qiuying with an unpleasant expression. Her own guards entered and spoke in a low voice, “Mistress, the Dark Lord still hasn’t responded. We can’t obtain authorization without him.” “What’s going on?”
The guard shook his head. “Did something happen to him?”
Pei Qiuying frowned. “He’s in control from behind the scenes, overseeing everything. How could anything happen to him? Continue trying to contact him. Without authorization, there’s nothing I can do.”
“Yes.”
The head of the underworld, with both a public and a shadowy presence, operated with two separate management systems. The public leader managed financial affairs openly and legitimately, while the true master controlled the underworld’s dark forces, including the Black Hawk Eye System, resource allocation, and agent deployment. These three systems recognized only one master, and it wasn’t Pei Qiuying.
He was the true leader of the underworld.
Black Hawk and the underworld had two distinct management systems. Black Hawk divided power among the nine major families, making it easy for the leader to be marginalized, essentially trapping themselves.
The underworld operated under a centralized system. Legitimate business affairs were managed by the leader, but the true master worked behind the scenes, ensuring their protection. Despite several financial battles, Black Hawk had failed to uncover the underworld’s true strengths.
The Ji Chi family.
Inside a dimly lit room in Ji Chi’s villa, when Jiang Junlin woke up, he found his hands bound to an iron pillar at the head of the bed, and it was securely locked. The chain was particularly long, limiting his movements to within its two-meter length.
Jiang Junlin sneered, “Fuck, this is something you don’t see every day!”
Laughter echoed from the darkness, and he hadn’t initially noticed Ji Chi sitting there.
“Brother, after all these years of knowing you, it’s the first time I’ve heard you curse so angrily.”
The room was sparsely furnished, with only a bed, an inset fireplace burning brightly, providing warmth, a toilet about a meter from the bed, a sofa, and not even a bedside table.
“What day is it today?”
“The third,” Ji Chi replied. He was quite comfortable, lounging on the sofa and whistling. He seemed in good spirits. “And, as a bonus, 1 have some bad news for you. Chen Rushi has taken half of Chen’s family’s assets into the underworld and become Pei Qiuying’s right-hand.”
“What’s so bad about that? It’s what I intended,” Jiang Junlin said indifferently. “Just losing half of the assets.”
Ji Chi chuckled, “You hoped that after Chen Rushi brought the assets into the underworld, she and Pei Qiuying would tear each other apart, leaving you to clean up the mess, eliminating the Third Master, who was placed in the underworld as a pawn. It would have been a win-win for you. But now that you’re here, while Pei Qiuying and Chen Rushi fight each other, who will handle the aftermath?”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying!” Jiang Junlin squinted his eyes. When he had chosen Pei Qiuying back then, it was because of her intelligence and usefulness. Pei Qiuying couldn’t possibly be so foolish as to reveal the secrets of the underworld to Lu Zhiyuan out of love!
If she were that foolish, she wouldn’t have been able to navigate between him and Lu Zhiyuan, leveraging their strengths effectively!
Ji Chi calmly walked over, sat on the bed, and gently ran his hand over Jiang Junlin’s calf. It seemed like flirting, yet also like pacifying his prey.
Then, Jiang Junlin kicked him away, and Ji Chi didn’t seem to mind.
“The Third Master suspected the underworld many years ago. Black Hawk’s businesses are diverse, and finance isn’t the most profitable sector for Black Hawk. We only needed the financial system to handle our vast funds. But the underworld is different. It’s a financial company based in the Country M, yet its assets are extremely vast. In several financial battles, we lost. The funds we could mobilize were much larger than the underworld’s. Where did the underworld get the funds to compete with us? The Third Master suspected that the underworld had two management systems, with the true underworld operating behind the scenes, protecting each other. In those few financial battles, the Third Master deliberately lost to test what cards the underworld had. The results revealed an endless pit. Later on, we couldn’t afford to lose anymore, considering the real money involved. So, the Third Master changed his strategy.”
“The first internal strife within the underworld, the Third Master didn’t have his full wings yet. He saved Rong Li and also saved Pei Qiuying. Neither of them revealed the secrets of the underworld. Pei Qiuying is indeed intelligent. Even after becoming the leader of the underworld, she never divulged a single underworld secret. She kept an ace up her sleeve to counter the Third Master. It wasn’t until this summer’s financial battle when Black Hawk targeted Asian financial assets, and the underworld stepped in to intercept, protecting our country’s financial system from harm. The Third Master suspected that the underworld was a financial tool for our country. You mentioned on the plane that protecting our nation’s financial assets and safeguarding the domestic financial system’s secure operation is an unshirkable responsibility for us. You didn’t get that wrong,” Ji Chi explained.
Jiang Junlin looked at him with a calm expression. “Oh…”
Ji Chi leaned in, their breaths mingling, a mixture of ambiguity and danger. He continued, “But you didn’t say it all. The underworld is also a financial tool you established in Europe and America. On the surface, it appears to be a venture capital firm, but in secret, it’s backed by the resources and intelligence you’ve cultivated overseas in the criminal underworld. Its true master must be someone who was nurtured from a young age, someone with impeccable origins..”