Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...
Years of Heartflutter · Page 392 of 501
Yang Ce thought about it and knew Liu Jihao would figure it out sooner or later. So he simply did not bother to argue—arguing would have done no good anyway, and Liu Jihao would not have believed him. Better to admit it cleanly: "That's right. I took it."
"Heh heh, impressive." Liu Jihao gave a cold laugh and thought to himself, Damn, just as Ouyang Junwei predicted—Yang Ce took the check back. Looks like I really did bet right. Maybe I won't just get Ouyang Junwei's bounty and his business favors; I might even squeeze a pile of money out of Yang Cenbin.
"Cut the nonsense. What do you want?" Yang Ce had no time to play games with Liu Jihao. In his eyes, Liu Jihao was a nobody—out for money and nothing more.
"It's not about what I want now—it's about what you're going to do." Since Yang Ce was willing to call, that meant he still couldn't leave Wang Mei's parents to fend for themselves. So Liu Jihao had leverage, and his tone turned bold: "You gave me the check, then took it back. What do you say we do about that?"
"Where are you? I'll return the check to you." Yang Cenbin had far too much on his plate in Macau; he had no time to bother with such small fry. On any other day, Yang Ce would have simply erased him from the face of the earth.
"Return it to me? Heh heh, and that's the end of it?" Liu Jihao suddenly felt he ought to squeeze a little more out of Yang Puqi, so he said, "I've changed my mind. I want twenty million."
Yang Xutang could not help but find it somewhat amusing. In truth, ten million and twenty million made little difference to Heng. Yang Ce merely found it funny that Liu Jihao had not asked for a bit more and angered him completely.
Still, twenty million was not enough to make Yang Ce truly angry, and now was not the time to stir up trouble.
"All right, I agree." Yang Ce pretended to hesitate for quite a while before he spoke.
Liu Jihao was secretly delighted—looks like I really did bet right. Twenty million, no more, no less—that should be the limit of what Yang Ce would accept. So he said, "Good, straightforward. Since you're so straightforward, I won't make things hard for Wang Mei's parents. Call me tomorrow morning and I'll tell you where to make the exchange."
"No problem," Yang Ce answered. Whatever happened, as long as Wang Mei's parents were safe, that was what mattered. Everything else could wait.
"How'd it go?" The moment Yang Ce hung up, Zhang Bin asked anxiously.
"Wang Mei's parents are fine. It's just that Liu Jihao is demanding twenty million from me," Yang Yanzhou said.
"And you agreed?" Zhang Bin's breathing quickened. After all, his own family's entire fortune was only a little over ten million.
"I agreed. But you don't need to carry any guilt over it. Liu Jihao—I'll settle the score with him sooner or later." Yang Ce patted Zhang Bin on the shoulder as he spoke.
Heeding Yang Juehuan's advice, Wang Yanqiu set off at once by boat to Hong Kong, then took a car from Hong Kong back to Shenzhen, and from Shenzhen returned to Songjiang. This route was far less strict about identity checks than flying; a fake ID would get him through with ease.
In Macau, inside the Huang family villa, Huang Yan lay on her stomach on the bed, fiercely battling an online opponent at Bubble Dragon on her laptop. A knock came at the door from outside the room.
"Come in, the door's unlocked," Huang Yan said without looking up. No need to guess—it had to be her second brother.
"Lele, still playing on the computer?" The person who entered was indeed Huang Yan's second brother. In this Macau villa there were only the two of them, brother and sister; the rest were nannies and servants.
"Yeah, Second Brother. Is something the matter?" Huang Yan asked while playing.
"This Saturday I'm planning to hold a small cocktail party at the villa, and you'll be attending too." In truth, the real purpose of Second Brother Huang's party was to find Huang Yan a promising young man.