Don’t Be a Kept Man

Chapter 27: Like Husband, Like Husband

Humans are naturally evil, and selfishness is innate. When you realize that all you have given is not recognized, no matter how strong your familial love was, everything could change.

Zhang-Shu’s pupils dilated when he heard what Huo Ming Chen said, and he stared at the ticking clock on the wall, eyes full of realization and fear for his upcoming death. He was visibly shaken, but he was still hesitating inside. But Huo Ming Chen had no more patience and stood up from his seat saying,

“Rest for a good long time, perhaps…… this will be our last meeting.”

He turned away towards the door,

One step, two steps, three steps……

“Wait–!”

A sound rang out behind him. After Zhang-Shu called the word out, his entire body was like a popped balloon, visibly shrunken down. Huo Ming Chen’s mouth tugged up slightly and he stopped his footsteps.

As he could get that recording, it naturally meant that the Zhang Zhi Qiang couple was in his hands. How could they be coming over? Zhang-Shu has a timid yet ambitious heart to cause harm for greed, but he was certainly not very bright.

Huo Ming Chen walked straight out of the hospital in plain sight, as if he did not care whether there was any surveillance on him.

Chen Lian Dong was going to see if the Zhang Zhi Qiang couple came to pick up Zhang-Shu today. Who knew that he would see Huo Ming Chen walk out of the hospital, and his heart instantly froze up. He quickly dialed a number, but no one picked up.

His face changed, and he couldn’t help but be suspicious and start to overthink things. Out of other options, he could only notify Huo Yuan Guang.

“It should only be a coincidence, Zhang Zhi Qiang originally was not reliable…..”

Huo Ming Cheng was still treating him with respect, and Huo Yuan Guang did not think he leaked anything. But underneath the surface, he was a cautious and vicious person, preferring to kill everything than to let anything slip by. Otherwise, there would be no end to his sleepless nights.

“If they aren’t coming, then you go. You will have no end to your choice of benefits if you finish this job.”

Chen Lian Dong almost dropped his phone. It was one thing for him to be the middleman to an assassination plan, but that was only as a middleman. He just needed to be the bridge for the money and the people. If he came under investigation, it’d be easy to wash the crime off of him. But to do it himself is another thing. If things go south, Huo Yuan Guang can walk away scotch free, but the one who’s going to suffer is him!

He broke out in a cold sweat, feeling that he has boarded a pirate ship, one that you can’t get off of and stuttered out,

“Chairman…… I….. I can’t…… Why don’t I go find, find someone else……”

He didn’t finish before he was angrily cut off by Huo Yuan Guang,

“Idiot!”

“The less people who know the safer we will be. You want to find someone else? Who are you going to find? Do you think they can be depended on? What if they leech on to us? There would be no end to their greed!”

Huo Yuan Guang seemed to become more agitated the more he talked and roughly coughed a few times from his outburst of anger. Through the phone, Chen Lian Dong thought he heard a cigarette being lit, and after a long while, he heard a heavy voice say,

“Young man, if you don’t have any ruthless ambition in you, how can you stand on top? When the time comes for the annual meeting, and I kick off Huo Ming Cheng, a newborn child who still needs to suck on his mother’s milk, how will I feel safe handing you the reins to be the second in charge?”

Following his every word of temptation, no matter how much Chen Lian Dong did not believe it, he was still tempted. If nothing else, right now he is Huo Yuan Guang’s only confidant. Whatever thing he needed done, hidden out of everyone’s sight, could only be handled through him. When the board comes to the decision to change the chairman, Huo Yuan Guang would be hesitant to toss away his chess piece. He was the best option that Huo Yuan Guang had if he needed something dirty to be done.

Young man, if you don’t have any ruthless ambition in you, how can you stand on top?

This sentence kept swirling in his mind, and he gritted his teeth. He slowly hung up and made up his mind.

It was night and the hospital was shrouded in darkness. The shadows of the trees were elongated by the cold and dim streetlights, making the atmosphere feel sinister and tense. In this setting, Chen Lian Dong waited past the early morning hours before getting out of the car.

He did not dare to turn on any lights, and in the dark, stumbled his way into the hospital. The hallway was empty at this time, and the nurse on duty at the reception desk was snoring away. Besides that, it was so quiet that he could hear his own footsteps.

Nervousness filled his brain, and Chen Lian Dong did not think about why there would only be one nurse here, did not wonder why he was able to sneak into the hospital so smoothly. He easily, from habit, cut the security cameras, and with one slow and quiet step at a time, walked towards the room where Zhang-Shu lay.

His fingers just touched the handle, and he shivered with how cold it was. Down the hall, he could faintly hear a doctor on duty complain about the power shortage, and he steadied himself. He lightly pushed the door open a sliver and then slipped inside.

It was pitch black inside so he could only slowly and blindly reach around with his hands to orient himself. He found the ice cold hospital bed and then the bed sheets. He lightly moved forward, and he could faintly feel something that was human shaped. Chen Lian Don’s hand made sure to feel for the head of Zhang-Shu and then inched downwards, feeling for the edge of the pillow.

He took in a deep breath and then a cruel beam of light flashed in his eyes before he quickly and brutally squeezed with force onto Zhang-Shu’s neck. His other hand flipped the pillow over to press into Zhang-Shu’s face to suffocate him. All of a sudden, Chen Lian Dong felt his back being hit with a strong force which sent him crashing onto the floor.

He was disoriented from the shock and pain, and before he recovered, lights flashed brightly into his eyes. He subconsciously closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he discovered that the one lying on the bed was not Zhang-Shu but a human doll. He didn’t find out before only because he was too anxious and tense.

Clap clap clap–

Beside his ear, he could hear the sound of clapping. Chen Lian Dong looked towards the source and found that it was Huo Ming Chen sitting on a nearby chair, and somehow during all this, a guard had stepped in, blocking the door from any escape.

“My uncle will be very happy and relieved when he sees you.”

Huo Ming Chen shook his head and bent down at the waist in interest, looking at him. After staring at him for a while, he finally concluded,

“What a loyal dog.”

Chen Lian Dong wanted to climb back up from his sprawled out position on the floor, but after he tried, he realized he couldn’t. He could only feel his legs and stomach shivering in weakness. The only thing he could manage to do was slide backwards, shaking his head and pretending to be dumb,

“Huo Er-Shao. I don’t understand what you are saying.”

“I said you were dumb, and you are really dumb. Of course, that type of owner will raise that type of dog.”

Huo Ming Chen has been suppressed by and lost to Lu Qi so many times now, that his poisonous tongue has leveled up quite a bit,

“I already had the ability to know that you would act today, and I was here so early to ambush you. Do you really think that just cutting the camera feed outside is of any use to you right now?”

Hearing this, Chen Lian Dong lowered his head, face grey like ash, courage beaten out of him and regretted that he decided to do this at all. Huo Ming Chen told the person beside him,

“Alright. Just turn him in. I wonder how many years someone gets for attempted murder?”

He stood up and was about to leave when Chen Lian Dong threw himself forward and grabbed his leg. The latter could not hold it in and cried like he was about to die,

“Er-Shao! Er-Shao, please save me! Er-Shao! I was blindly used by him, it has nothing to do with me!! I didn’t want to kill someone, I didn’t!”

Huo Ming Chen emotionlessly kicked him away,

“You can keep those words for the police. If you really were innocent, they absolutely wouldn’t be saving you a room in jail.”

“This was directed by the vice chairman! It’s all on the vice chairman! Er-Shao, you have to help me! I know a lot of things, a lot of things, the vice chairman wants to harm the chairman!!”

Chen Lian Dong has always been a coward. At this critical moment, after being threatened and scared out of his wits, he blurted out everything that he knew, like a bowl of beans spilling onto the ground,

“He bribed Zhang-Shu to sabotage the chairman’s car, used company funds to buy stocks in secret from the board members, and- and Huang Yi’s construction project, because he embezzled the company funds, he could only use inferior materials. He already conspired with the people from Fu Hai to let this pass by, and after a few days he will pretend to be sick and pass the reins of the project to the chairman. At that time there would be problems and holes and it would all be blamed on the chairman! When the annual meeting for board members starts, Huo Yuan Guang will use this time to make them vote for a change in chairman, and he’s already gotten some of them on board with that!”

Even though Huo Ming Chen already knew of those plans, hearing them being spoken out loud again made him grind his teeth in anger. He took in a deep breath to calm himself, and coldly laughed,

“All talk and no evidence, how can I believe you?”

Hearing that there may be a chance for him, Chen Lian Dong quickly said,

“I do! I have evidence! Every time we talked, I recorded it! And there’s the balance statements, I have copies of the original, including him doing drugs, it was always me acting as the middleman for all these things for him!”

Huo Ming Chen suddenly felt it was quite a hollow victory, winning over these people. Like minds gather together. Huo Yuan Guang was an all talk, no action kind of man, the same as his followers,

“Dogs can’t change their genetics to keep from eating poo. Ten years ago, he was kicked out of the Huo family for doing drugs, and he still dares to do it today.”

A carrot after a stick was enough to pry the evidence off of Chen Lian Dong’s hands. Huo Ming Chen sent them straight to Huo Ming Cheng and commanded Chen Lian Dong,

“I’ll let you go after a while. You should know very clearly what you should say and what you should not. Don’t try to betray us. I can protect myself, but Huo Yuan Guang may not protect you, do you understand?”

Chen Lian Dong quickly nodded his head, and swore over and over again that he would do as Huo Ming Chen said. When he exited the hospital and the howling wind blew him awake, he felt like he was shivering out of his skin and found that his back was already covered in sweat.

He sat in the car and nervously dialed Huo Yuan Guang. He swallowed dryly and tried to keep calm as he said,

“Vice chairman, it’s done.”

Huo Yuan Guang had not slept, and when he heard that, he breathed out a sigh of relief. In a voice that suddenly sounded older than he was, he said,

“How did you do it?”

“Zhang Zhi Qiang, that gambling idiot was cornered by the loan sharks at home. I found him and helped him return the money. Then I forced him to come to the hospital to pick up his father. That old man Zhang was too scared by the threats, and he became angry enough to hit and scold his son. Zhang Zhi Qiang angered his father so much so that the old man just died like that, from the outburst. Zhang Zhi Qiang’s going back to their old home tomorrow, and he’s going to bury him in their ancestral grave. No one will know.”

“I see.”

Huo Yuan Guang seemed to be very satisfied,

“I’ll send you the money. Don’t come to the company tomorrow. Ask for a leave of absence. Drive the car with the body yourself. Make sure you see it get buried.”

“Understood.”

When Chen Lian Dong realized he had muddled through somehow, he released a quiet sigh of relief. After he hung up, with his voice shaking, he said to the person behind him,

“I have completed what Er-Shao has told me to do.”

The person did not make a noise, and after a vibration rang out in the silence, he got out of the car. The door shut with a bang, and the sound shook Chen Lian Dong with fear. A high end black sports car stopped by Chen Lian Dong’s car, and the car window rolled down to reveal the devilish face of Huo Ming Chen. He made words with his mouth instead of voicing them, smiling and complimenting him,

“This is what a clever man would choose.”

The window rolled back up, and the car disappeared into the night like a ghost. In a good temperament, Huo Ming Chen dialed a number, and after ringing three times, it was picked up,

“Hello?”

Lu Qi seemed to be working overtime, and over the telephone, Huo Ming Chen could hear nonstop tapping noises on a keyboard. Huo Ming Chen gave a flirtatious look, not caring that the other would not see it and said flirtatiously,

“Hey precious baby, were you thinking of me?”

Lu Qi calmly replied,

 

“I think you are thinking of my precious baby.”

Huo Ming Chen was driving his car on his end, Lu Qi’s driving the car on his end, no one losing to the other.1

The author has something to say:
Author (waving a flag): Please slow down.

 

Notes:
*1 “Driving the car” or starting the car is a slang phrase that is meant to say starting sex or something related to sexual intercourse. It’s usually associated with a more knowledgeable person “driving the car”, teaching the other person, or making them enjoy/understand sex. In this way, it’s kind of like … slang that hints towards sex, or like Huo Ming Chen is driving his physical car, Lu Qi is starting the metaphorical car ride for/towards sex. And the author is referring to that for them to slow down for the ride. 

Also a little tidbit for the title: you can take it as like a play on words of “like father like son/like mother like daughter”, but more in reference that they get along well(one following the other).