Chapter 511

Chapter 511 Selling for a Good Price

Zhang Rongyuan had clearly heard Su Rui’s words and was howling incoherently inside, but the space in the suitcase was too cramped to make out anything he was saying.

“If you can’t speak clearly, then don’t bother.”

Su Rui delivered a heavy kick through the suitcase, slamming it squarely into Zhang Rongyuan’s face.

The latter let out a wretched howl — his face was nearly caved in by the kick, and several teeth had been knocked loose. He could barely get another word out.

“Better not suffocate you in there — a dead man won’t fetch any price.” Su Rui loosened the zipper at the opening of the case a little.

Lijie Street Dock had once been a small wharf in its early days, left idle for many years, and now it mainly handled sand transport by boat — with no shortage of sand barges coming and going.

Su Rui approached the unremarkable residential house on the riverbank and gave a gentle knock.

The rhythm sounded hurried on the surface, but if you listened carefully, the knocking followed a specific pattern.

After finishing, Su Rui waited quietly for more than ten seconds before the door cracked open just a sliver, and a weasel-faced man poked his head out, asking, “What are you knocking on doors for this late at night?”

“My wife’s gone back to her folks’ place. Came by tonight to play a round of mahjong and try my luck.”

“Whether your luck’s good or not isn’t for you to say — we’ll have to take a look ourselves.”

The two were simply exchanging code words.

The weasel-faced man opened the door and let Su Rui in, then cast a wary glance in every direction. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he pulled the door firmly shut.

Su Rui stepped inside and noticed that the weasel-faced man’s gun already had its safety off, and two more figures lurked in the shadows behind the door, almost certainly training their weapons on him. He couldn’t help but give a resigned curl of his lip — these people were seriously on edge. One wrong word in his countersign and he’d probably have been put down by those silenced pistols.

The weasel-faced man glanced at the large suitcase in Su Rui’s hand but didn’t ask how he’d found this place. Instead he said, “Follow me.”

Su Rui followed him into the living room of the house. It was a bare, simple space — a sofa, a coffee table, a TV stand, and almost nothing else. Anyone looking at it would take it for the most ordinary of residences.

The weasel-faced man lifted the rug in front of the coffee table, revealing a dark opening in the floor, and gestured toward it. “In you go.”

Su Rui gave a nod, then dragged the wheeled suitcase down into what looked like a bottomless hole.

The moment he descended, the weasel-faced man covered the opening with the rug, and Su Rui was instantly swallowed by darkness.

But in the very next second, lights flickered on inside the deep underground tunnel — nothing more than the most ordinary old incandescent bulbs, yet enough to illuminate the dark passage.

Step by step down the narrow staircase he went, and this was the real misery for Zhang Rongyuan, who’d been “folded” inside the rolling case — Su Rui dragged the luggage with no regard whatsoever for his comfort, and after what must have been countless steps, Zhang Rongyuan had been rattled until his head was spinning and he was on the verge of vomiting.

“Looks like this was no small construction job. Then again, a business like this — it’s practically wearing your head on your belt. Can’t be too careful.”

Su Rui estimated he’d gone thirty or forty meters underground, winding through several bends, before arriving at a brightly lit hall.

Several bare-chested men were huddled together playing cards. Seeing Su Rui drag a suitcase in, one of them said directly, “We only want men, not women.”

Su Rui smiled faintly. “I know. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come.”

“Good. Open the case — let us have a look at the quality of the goods.”

Behind each man stood a bikini-clad woman in high heels kneading his back. The women spotted Su Rui and collectively began batting their eyes at him — one of them even squeezed her own peaks firmly, demonstrating their softness to him.

That little display left Su Rui at a complete loss whether to laugh or cry.

He unzipped the suitcase, and Zhang Rongyuan — covered in blood and stripped to the waist — tumbled out, looking dazed at the people in the hall.

The oxygen deprivation from the whole ordeal had already done a number on his brain, and he was still too woozy to make sense of what was happening.

“He’s a bit old. Smooth skin, pampered look — clearly spent his life living off the fat of the land. Won’t hold up to hard labor. Won’t fetch a good price.” One of the men frowned as he spoke.

“I never said I was selling him to Africa for hard labor.” Su Rui gave Zhang Rongyuan a kick and let out a cold laugh.

“What do you mean?” one man asked with a spark of interest.

In truth, this was a human trafficking den — though they didn’t deal in women for that kind of trade. Instead, they collected able-bodied men and sold them to Africa as laborers. Of course, this was illegal as well — if it ever came to light, every person in that house would be shot multiple times over.

“Isn’t it true there are plenty of big men in Africa with that particular taste? You could package him accordingly — I think you take my meaning.” Su Rui narrowed his eyes. “That way, the money you’d make would be a lot more than what you’d get from a laborer.”

“Not a bad idea. Flat price — twenty thousand.” The man in charge spoke up.

“Twenty thousand isn’t worth the risk I took.” Su Rui said — not that the money mattered to him, but he at least couldn’t let them smell anything off.

“Twenty-five thousand, that’s as high as we go. If it weren’t for the idea you brought us, we wouldn’t even take a man his age.”

“Fine then.”

Wearing a look of reluctant resignation, Su Rui took the twenty-five thousand yuan and left the pitiable Zhang Rongyuan right there.

This middle-aged man who had played so many women could never in his wildest dreams have imagined that one day he would come to such an end.

Sold to Africa — it was something he hadn’t dared even think about before.

Listening to the exchange between Su Rui and the men, Zhang Rongyuan trembled with unrelenting terror.

“Let me go — I’ll give each of you a hundred thousand. No, a million each…” Zhang Rongyuan was on the verge of complete breakdown. With several teeth gone, his words came out with a whistle of air through the gaps.

“A million each? What are you thinking? If we let you go, you’d turn around and sell us out in a heartbeat. We’re not about to dig our own graves like that.”

Seeing that they didn’t budge, Zhang Rongyuan was nearly frantic. “I mean it — I would never betray you. Please, I’m begging you, let me go.”

Su Rui had no interest in listening to the exchange in the hall any further and had already turned and left.

He knew that once Zhang Rongyuan had entered this place, the chances of him walking out in one piece were slim. If the fierce woman from the Ouyang family was capable enough, she could always fly to Africa and rescue her man herself.

“Here’s hoping your chrysanthemum stays intact.”

Su Rui silently offered Zhang Rongyuan this “warm wish,” then left the residential house for good.

By the time he returned to the room where Mo Bafen was staying, he found her sitting on a yoga mat in front of the mirror, draining a full glass of red wine in one go.

She refilled the glass and kept drinking. Two empty wine bottles already lay beside her.

Su Rui shook his head — it really was something, drinking that much. How many trips to the bathroom would that take?

Well, Su Rui’s mind always worked a little differently from everyone else’s.

Mo Bafen sat there on the yoga mat — she’d clearly showered again, and had changed into a new nightgown. Only it was obviously an ultra-short style: it didn’t cover the peaks above, and below it exposed just enough to make it quite a challenge for Su Rui to channel his inner gentleman.

“Drinking that much — don’t you feel awful?”

Su Rui walked onto the yoga mat and reached out to take the wine glass from Mo Bafen’s hand.

In his eyes, this woman was also to be pitied. Once Su Rui had learned the whole story between her and Zhang Rongyuan, he found himself not nearly as angry about her using him as a shield.

“Let me drink — I hold my liquor well. This much won’t get me drunk.” Mo Bafen said as she started to stand and reach for the glass back.

Everyone who’s had too much always insists they haven’t — and true to form, Mo Bafen had barely gotten to her feet before she lost her balance, tipping forward and about to crash to the floor.

Su Rui moved fast, stepping forward and catching her in his arms, one forearm sweeping around her slender waist — met instantly with the soft, generous warmth of her.

Night. Alcohol. A nightgown. A man and a woman, alone. The atmosphere was unmistakably charged with something warm and intimate.

And the two at the center of this scene had known each other for only a few hours.

He steadied that soft body and settled onto the yoga mat beside her, taking a quiet sip of the red wine. “Truth is, I came here just to chat with you — I never expected anything like this to happen.”

Mo Bafen still didn’t seem to have the strength to hold herself upright. She pressed a hand to her swimming head, then let her body sink entirely against Su Rui.

That one gesture made his breathing go just a little heavier.

“Just ‘chatting’ — and you couldn’t use the front door, had to come in through the balcony?”

“Just ‘chatting’ — and you had to brew a cup of coffee and lounge around waiting for me while I was in the shower?”

Mo Bafen tilted her head up, one hand lifting Su Rui’s chin, her gaze hazy, her voice thick with provocation. “Little brother, you’re not being very honest, are you.”

The gesture was pure teasing — the kind a man usually directed at a woman — yet here was Mo Bafen turning it on Su Rui.

“I’m perfectly honest. You’ve really had too much.”

That wasn’t Su Rui trying to be saintly — he simply felt it wasn’t right to take advantage of a heartbroken woman like this.

“So what if I’ve had too much? I want to drink. I want to get back at that bastard Zhang Rongyuan.”

With that, Mo Bafen dropped the subject of Su Rui’s uninvited entry entirely and redirected everything toward Zhang Rongyuan.

All these years, her heart had carried a quiet sorrow. Deep inside, she had never been able to shake the shadow of being “the other woman.” Young and naive, she had given herself to that man — something she had regretted for half a lifetime.

“Since he’s a beast, why let him matter to you? Torturing yourself with someone else’s mistakes is the most foolish thing you can do.”

Su Rui patted Mo Bafen on the shoulder. “Don’t worry — he won’t be showing up in front of you for a very long time.”

“What did you do with him?” Mo Bafen raised her head and asked.

“What do you want me to have done with him?” Su Rui fixed his eyes on hers, as if trying to see through to what she truly felt.

“Dead would be best.” Mo Bafen’s voice was cold.

“Then just think of him as already dead.” Su Rui patted her shoulder again.

At that, Mo Bafen suddenly swayed to her feet, looked into the eyes of the man before her, and said, “Su Rui, thank you.”

Hearing her call out his name, Su Rui froze.

But before he could react, a body of absolute softness came pressing down onto him.