Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

Still, on Valentine's Day so many people send messages that the base stations get overloaded, so a failed delivery was nothing strange. Only now, even though Yang Ce had found it, he could not send it again — Valentine's Day was already half a month past. He deleted that one too.

The light turned green just then. Yang Ce dropped the car into drive and was about to hit the accelerator when the phone rang again. He glanced at the number: 0019065. Yang Ce was baffled — that was plainly not a normal number.

He had received calls like this before, and they had always turned out to be swindlers announcing that he had won a prize. So he paid it no mind, pressed reject, and drove on.

But before long the same number called again. Yang Ce had to admire the swindler's patience. As a rule these people called once, and if no one answered they moved on to the next target. This one simply would not give up.

There was nothing for it. Yang Ce pulled over to the side, let the car crawl slowly along, and answered: "Hello. Who is this?"

Since he had already decided the caller was probably a swindler, his tone was not especially polite.

"Is that Yang Ce?" the other side asked tentatively.

"Speaking. And you are?" Yang Ce was rather surprised that the man knew his name, though his tone softened somewhat.

"Yang Ce, this is Huang Lin," said the somewhat familiar voice on the line.

"Second Brother?" Yang Ce was taken aback. Only days ago he had been unable to find Huang Yan. By any reckoning, he had been back in Songjiang this long; Huang Yan ought to have flown the Donghai route at least once. Yet she had not contacted him either.

And when Yang Ce called Huang Yan's mobile, it was still switched off. He was anxious but helpless. Now that Huang Lin had called, it struck him all at once: Huang Yan had this elder brother. If he wanted to know where she was, why not simply ask Huang Lin?

"Yang Ce, where are you?" Huang Lin asked, his voice a little agitated.

"I'm in Songjiang. What's wrong, Brother Huang? Has something happened?" Yang Ce wondered why Huang Lin would suddenly call him, and why he sounded so anxious.

"Lele — the eldest brother and Father have locked her up," Huang Lin said hurriedly from the other end.

"What?" Yang Ce was startled, and asked in something close to alarm: "Second Brother, what did you say? Huang Yan has been locked up? By her eldest brother and her father?"

"That's right," Huang Lin said. "I only just learned of it myself, so I called you at once so we could work out what to do."

"What on earth happened? Why would they lock Lele up?" Yang Ce's mind was in turmoil; he had no heart for driving now. He pulled the car to a stop and questioned him closely.

"A while ago, after you left Macau, I went to Hong Kong for a collectors' exhibition. When I got back to Macau, I found that Lele was no longer there," Huang Lin said. "I was just panicking over where she had gone when my eldest brother called and said something had come up at home and I was to set out for home at once. When I got back, I learned that Lele had returned before me, and that Father and my eldest brother had put her under house arrest."

To be continued.

1048. The Evidence in the Cabinet

"Second Brother, be more specific. What do they want with her, keeping her under house arrest?" Yang Ce frowned. This was Huang family business, and the ones holding Huang Yan were her own kin — but Huang Yan was his woman, and to have her treated like this for no reason still made Yang Ce angry. If Lele really had been dealt with unjustly, Yang Ce did not care whose family they were; he would teach them a lesson all the same.

"It's like this. After I got home I learned that the family company's cash flow had snapped. I don't understand much about business; the long and short of it is that the family enterprise is in a bad way, and if it can't get past this, it may go bankrupt," Huang Lin explained. "Specifically, it is probably a project in Africa. The local provisional government ran into trouble and was overthrown. Now that the new regime is in place, they refuse to honor the contract signed with the old provisional government.

Our family had already put in the first round of investment, so now we are stuck. If we go on, we have to sign a fresh contract with the new regime and pay a whole set of related fees again; if we pull out, everything already invested is wasted.

But that project swallowed far too much capital. The family simply has no spare funds to pay the new government's contract fees a second time."

"What the hell does any of that have to do with Lele?" Yang Ce found it absurd. The Huang family's eldest son really did have nerve. Africa — was that a place any ordinary businessman could work? With no backing at all, and he dared go there to dig for gold; it was sheer overreaching. The people who plant their feet in those small countries are usually armed factions of one kind or another. No matter how the provisional governments change, these are people no one can afford to offend — and any government that wants to rule smoothly must have the support of such groups. But pure businessmen like the Huangs are exactly the prey these provisional governments bleed.

"Father wants Lele to marry into another family, to bring in financial support," Huang Lin said. "But Lele refused. So my eldest brother suggested to Father that they put her under house arrest first and work on her slowly."

"Fuck his mother!" Yang Ce burst out. He could hardly be blamed for the crudeness; anyone in his position would have been crude. But the moment the words were out, he felt it was not quite right, and explained: "Sorry, Brother Huang — I meant your eldest brother, not you."

Yet once he had explained, Yang Ce found that the explanation had only made things worse. Cursing the mother of Elder Brother Huang, and cursing the mother of Second Brother Huang — what was the difference?

"It's all right, curse away," Huang Lin said, unperturbed, and then came out with something truly astonishing: "My eldest brother and I were not born of the same mother. Lele and I are."

"Ah?" Yang Ce was stunned, and thought to himself that he had cursed the right person after all. Thank goodness he had not said "fuck his grandmother" or the like; that would have taken Huang Lin down with him.

"Yang Ce, I know Lele is fond of you, and that is why I am calling you. You have to find a way to get her out. Otherwise, if Lele really becomes the sacrifice of a marriage of convenience, she will never be happy for the rest of her life," Huang Lin said.

"You are a Huang yourself and you are helpless. I am a thousand miles away — what can I do?" Yang Ce could only smile bitterly. He had never expected to run into this sort of plot from a television drama. Judging by the scale of the Huang family business, the family must have capital of at least several billion yuan, perhaps even over ten billion.

If the Huang family had run into a financial crisis, then the hole must be no small sum. Yang Ce truly had no wish to be mixed up in such a thing. It would not be difficult for him to produce the money to plug the Huang family's shortfall, but apart from Huang Yan and Huang Lin he had no fondness for a single one of the Huangs — and the eldest son he detested above all.

He was most unwilling to hand these people his money. But if there were no other way, then for Huang Yan's sake, Yang Ce would still do it.