Li Tianpeng’s breathing turned heavy as an ox’s. He whipped his head around and slapped the dealer across the face.

The blow carried enormous force. The dealer’s left cheek went blood-red and swelled at once. He knew perfectly well how serious the situation had become, and he stammered, “It’s not possible… I shook a one, I know I did… It can’t have been eighteen… it absolutely cannot… He must have done something… he must have…”

“Hey!” Su Feifei’s temper flared right back up. She jabbed a finger at the dealer, who was clutching his cheek and slurring his words, and let fly. “With which eye did you see my man do anything? Go on — which eye? Did anybody see it? Do you take all of us for blind?”

This ferocious side of Su Feifei, one she had never shown him before, left Ye Tianxie faintly sweating.

The dealer dropped his head and couldn’t produce another word. He was a hundred percent certain his dice had been tampered with, and no amount of thinking could explain how… How had a one silently become an eighteen?

“A loss is a loss. What is it, Li Tianpeng — are you thinking of welching? Or perhaps you’d like another wager?” Ye Tianxie toyed with a chip in his hand, entirely offhand. Welching? If he were worried about someone welching, he wouldn’t be Ye Tianxie.

Li Tianpeng’s face flickered dark and darker. He had gambled countless times, large and small, and with his position and his pride, welching was something he could never bring himself to do — it would cost him his character, his name, and his face. But this time he had lost a full two hundred million… and he could not afford it.

Once he’d made his decision, his expression actually settled. His gaze, cold as a blade, swept the room, and everyone it touched felt a chill run through them. He barked, low, “Now. Everyone not involved, get out!! Your entertainment expenses at the Li complex this afternoon are on us. Move.”

Anyone with sense understood instantly what that meant… He couldn’t afford the loss, and he intended to “settle it privately.” But when the Li Group’s eldest son gave an order, who would refuse him the courtesy — especially when he was dismissing them while also giving them face, with a free afternoon in the complex.

The good show that followed would go unwatched, though its outline could be guessed. In short order the crowd packing the casino emptied out. Apart from Ye Tianxie, Su Feifei, and Li Tianpeng, only the casino’s staff remained — dealers of both sexes, guards, attendants, and the casino manager, who had been standing silently behind Li Tianpeng the entire time.

In a situation like that, who couldn’t see what Li Tianpeng intended? Several dozen men closed in together, encircling the table where they sat. His calm restored, Li Tianpeng sat back down, even crossing one leg over the other, and said at his leisure, “Well then. How shall we resolve this?”

“How would you like to resolve it?” Ye Tianxie rubbed the bridge of his nose, his smile widening noticeably.

This was a man with violence in his blood. It didn’t show under ordinary circumstances — but the instant someone crossed him, it came out in full. Because this was a man who permitted no one to cross him… Li Tianpeng had challenged him over Su Feifei, so he had intended to bleed him a little, squeeze some money out of him… And now it seemed that squeezing out some money wasn’t going to be enough.

In the past, a scene like this would have drained the color from Su Feifei’s face. But pressed against Ye Tianxie, thinking of how strong the man beside her was, she wasn’t frightened in the slightest — she was thrilled by the danger of it, anticipating what came next, and had to stop herself several times from giggling out loud.

“The hundred million that’s yours, take it and walk out of here safely. If you’re thinking of taking the other two hundred million as well… heh, I’d advise you to weigh that carefully.” Li Tianpeng said it coldly. Facing two people who could produce four hundred million on a whim, anyone could see they had considerable backing. Short of being forced to it, he didn’t dare actually raise a hand.

Su Feifei tightened her grip on Ye Tianxie’s arm and laughed sweetly. “Tianxie, I’ve had such a fun day. Lulu told me before how handsome and dashing and refined and gracious her older brother was — and it turns out… hee hee hee hee, it turns out he’s just a very funny little sore-loser dog.”

Lulu?

The young mistress of the Li Group… was named Li Lulu.

Several dozen pairs of eyes turned involuntarily to Li Tianpeng. His expression shifted, and he swallowed his fury at being publicly humiliated. “You know me? You know Lulu… Who is your father?”

“Lulu? Sure, I know her. As for who my father is, what’s that got to do with you? Why would I tell a sore-loser dog?” Su Feifei pursed her lips and delivered the insult without mercy.

“You—!” Humiliated like this by a woman in front of this many people, Young Master Li would have exploded if he were made of iron. He shot to his feet, on the verge of losing his temper — and then heard a familiar voice behind him. “Big brother… are you in here? What’s going on?”

Li Tianpeng and Su Feifei both froze. It was a voice familiar to both of them, because it belonged to the very person they’d just been discussing: Li Lulu.

The crowd parted, bowing respectfully and murmuring “Young Mistress.” A girl of about twenty came trotting through, her hair dyed a shade one could only describe as excrement-yellow. As she got closer, Ye Tianxie’s gaze rested on her face for exactly one second before fleeing… The powder was at least three feet thick, visibly shedding with every step she took even from a distance, and her eye makeup made her look like something out of a ghost story. Her figure was slender — skeletal, really. Her chest, by contrast, stood impressively high, high enough to be conspicuously out of proportion with her frame, and whether the material within was genuine or otherwise was a question worth researching. Clearly, this was a woman desperately using cosmetics to disguise an ordinary face… But loving beauty is not a crime; dressing up as a ghoul to frighten passersby is.

“That’s the friend you were telling me about?” Ye Tianxie asked into Su Feifei’s ear, his tone extraordinarily peculiar.

Su Feifei, quick as she was, caught the strangeness in his voice at once. She squirmed slightly and murmured, “I said we were only acquainted, she’s not a friend…”

“…Just as well.”

Su Feifei: “…”

“Huh? Feifei? You really came! I heard you were coming to play, so I rushed straight over — because it just so happens the big brother I mentioned to you last time is here too—” The woman brightened visibly on seeing Su Feifei, then immediately noticed Ye Tianxie, whom she was leaning against so intimately. Her expression changed, her gaze made a circuit of his face and his clothes, and unmistakable contempt crossed it. “Feifei, and this is…?”

“My boyfriend,” Su Feifei answered. Having clearly detected Ye Tianxie’s instinctive aversion to this woman, her tone lost a good deal of its warmth and gained a good deal of distance. After all, they’d met once, and had gotten along tolerably. At the same time, she pinched Ye Tianxie’s arm discreetly, with a very clear meaning: Don’t contradict me. Don’t you dare contradict me.

Ye Tianxie: “…”

Having gotten her answer, Li Lulu let out an exaggerated cry. “Feifei… he’s your boyfriend? You’re lying to me, aren’t you? Apart from having real potential as a kept pretty-boy, what about him is remotely worthy of you?”

Ye Tianxie slid his eyes slowly toward the woman, one hand drifting up to touch his own face. Do I really have potential as a kept pretty-boy?

Had Li Lulu opened by insulting her, Su Feifei might not have been half so angry. But her very first words were a sneer at Ye Tianxie, and Su Feifei’s fury came up like a wave. Women are natural defenders of their own, and never more so than where family and the men they care for are concerned. She kept her composure, but the anger was very nearly written across her face. “Lulu, my boyfriend hasn’t offended you. Why would you talk about him like that?”

Li Lulu regretted it the instant it was out. In truth, she dreamed of Su Feifei ending up with her brother, Li Tianpeng. Given the Su family’s standing, such a union would bring the Li family benefits beyond calculation. Seeing a man at Su Feifei’s side — one she called her boyfriend — she’d spoken rashly in her alarm, and now she was beginning to panic a little. Offending Su Luo’s only daughter carried nothing but downside.

Li Tianpeng’s brow tightened. He asked quietly, “Lulu, who is she?”

Li Lulu blinked, astonished. “Big brother, you don’t know who she is? She’s… she’s Su Luo’s daughter. Su Feifei.”

Li Tianpeng’s face convulsed, and the expressions of everyone present changed with it, shocked eyes swinging toward Su Feifei… Su Feifei’s name they might not know. But Su Luo’s name — in China, in all of Asia, in all the world, how many people didn’t know that name?

Small wonder she could produce a hundred million without changing expression, as casually as fishing out a coin. Just how vast the Su family’s fortune was, nobody truly knew, but this much could be said with certainty: never mind one Li family, ten Li families or several dozen couldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as the Su family that Su Luo had built single-handedly. And to hold a fortune like that and remain standing, one could well imagine how deeply he was embedded across government, commerce, and both the white and black sides of the world, and how dense and unyielding his web of connections must be. At that altitude, he was no longer merely a businessman; in business or in politics, very few people would dare provoke him openly.

Su Luo was famously mild and steady in his dealings — and countless people also knew of the ruthlessness he showed in private, and the iron-hearted mercilessness he turned on enemies and rivals. Given how he doted on his daughter, offending her was likely more terrifying than offending him. He might not be able to prevent people from moving against him and those around him, but every single person who had ever tried to kidnap or assassinate Su Feifei had been rooted out and destroyed by every means at his disposal.

Business is a battlefield, and sometimes crueler and more terrible than a battlefield. If he ever went soft for a moment, the consequences might be enough to make him regret it for the rest of his life.

And so, the moment Su Luo’s name was spoken, the entire room was subdued. Under the table, Li Tianpeng’s hand slowly clenched. This time… he had very plainly picked the wrong target. Pay up honestly and see them respectfully out? He would be the laughingstock of Jinghua’s young-master circles by the next morning, his face gone entirely — and on top of that, a two-hundred-million loss was more than enough for his hot-tempered father to skin him alive. Force them to hand the money back and leave anyway? The man he could disregard. But the woman was Su Luo’s daughter. And what were the consequences of offending Su Luo…?

Without realizing it, he was sweating like rain, unable to sit still.

(End of Chapter 132)