Chapter 426

Chapter 426 This Is a Trap

“This isn’t your fault.”

Su Rui looked at Zhang Ziwei and smiled gently: “Even if it were someone else, I would have stepped in all the same. Those guys deserved to die, every last one of them.”

Zhang Ziwei gave a soft hum. Even though she knew those guys deserved to die, whether they deserved it was one thing, and whether they were actually killed was another. Once they were dead, it was a fundamental change.

From Su Rui’s phone call just now, Zhang Ziwei seemed to have gathered that the person he’d reached out to hadn’t been able to provide any real help, and in the end it still fell to Su Rui to handle it himself.

When Su Rui let out a quiet sigh into the phone, Zhang Ziwei felt as though her heart were being cut with a knife.

For her sake, this man had put himself in danger again and again!

“Promise me one thing.” Su Rui said.

“Go ahead, I’ll agree to anything.” Zhang Ziwei wiped away her tears, doing her best to keep the trembling out of her voice.

“When the boat docks, if anyone comes to arrest me, don’t step forward.” Su Rui narrowed his eyes slightly and said, “It’s best if those people don’t even know you’re there.”

“But I can testify for you.” Zhang Ziwei said. At a moment like this, she clearly wasn’t willing to just look out for herself.

“All five of them are dead. No testimony, no matter what kind, will make any difference. If you get taken in along with me, you’ll only become a burden to me. Do you understand?”

Su Rui was blunt about it, using the word “burden” without any hesitation. Zhang Ziwei understood the simple logic of it, but emotionally she still couldn’t quite make peace with it.

He was being arrested because of her, suffering through interrogations inside, while she sat safely outside without a scratch. How could she possibly feel at ease?

“You can still do things for me from the outside. If you get taken in too, then everyone will be completely in the dark.”

Seeing that Zhang Ziwei wasn’t saying anything, Su Rui understood her feelings all too well, but there was no choice in this matter: “Ziwei, you should understand, judging by how quickly the other side responded, this whole thing may have been a trap from the very beginning.”

“A trap? From the very beginning?” Hearing Su Rui’s words, Zhang Ziwei’s mind buzzed like a swarm of bees, every thought thrown into chaos.

Five lives sacrificed, just to set a trap? From start to finish, there hadn’t been even the slightest hint of a snare!

“This was just my inference, but looking at things now, it seems like that inference is already infinitely close to the truth.”

“But I didn’t notice anything at all…” Zhang Ziwei struggled to suppress her swirling thoughts and her shock, and said in disbelief.

“This trap may have been nothing more than going with the flow. If I were the one setting it up, after learning that we were boarding the ship, all it would take is a subtle hint to those five young heirs, something about there being an exceptionally beautiful woman on board. With their lecherous nature, they’d rush over without a second thought. And what I’d do in response would be entirely predictable.”

Zhang Ziwei felt a chill run through her entire body. Could someone really set up a scheme like this so casually, just to harm another person?

In truth, after so many years fighting in the dark underworld of the West, Su Rui had seen countless situations like this and fallen into more than a few such traps himself. Gradually, he had transformed from a reckless hothead who believed only in the supremacy of force into a fairly capable strategist. Of course, in this regard, he still had a considerable gap to close compared to the Advisor.

The latter was a true master of strategy, effortlessly pulling schemes out of thin air.

Having seen so much, he naturally saw through things more clearly, and that was how Su Rui arrived at this conclusion.

“The truth is, the other side has already figured out my personality. Even if I knew it was a trap, I’d obviously still walk right into it.” Su Rui said: “Those people had to die. Leaving them in this world would only bring more harm.”

“And the person behind this is genuinely formidable. The trap may look simple, but it has me completely figured out.” After a brief pause, Su Rui continued: “Five years ago, to avenge a comrade’s family, I went up against the five great families alone. Five years later, killing a few people for a girl who was wronged is really nothing.”

Watching Su Rui’s calm and unbothered expression, Zhang Ziwei felt a sadness that made her want to cry.

“Five years ago and five years later, the two situations are so remarkably alike.” At this point, a faintly dangerous light flickered in Su Rui’s eyes: “So I believe the mastermind behind this must be someone from one of the five great families, someone who is very familiar with what happened five years ago.”

“When you made your move, did it cross your mind that this might be a trap?” Zhang Ziwei took out a tissue and gently dabbed the corners of her eyes.

“My blood was rushing to my head at the time, I wasn’t thinking that clearly.” Su Rui gave a small laugh: “I only thought of it after killing the first two. But since I’d already killed two, killing three more wasn’t really a problem.”

Zhang Ziwei was too distressed to say a word.

It turned out that with one moment of carelessness, she had already become a pawn and a piece of bait for the person pulling the strings behind the scenes.

“You have absolutely no reason to feel bad. None of this is your fault.” Su Rui’s eyes narrowed again as he looked at the stunning beauty across from him: “Ziwei, you’re now the first deputy leader of the Azure Dragon Gang. You should learn more of these go-with-the-flow tactics. Of course, I’m not asking you to become underhanded, it’s just that sometimes this kind of setup can be far more efficient and effective than openly marshaling your forces for a straightforward confrontation.”

“I understand.” Zhang Ziwei said, her voice tinged with bitterness.

With her level of comprehension, she could fully grasp what Su Rui meant. Take this very incident, for example. If the other side had openly mobilized hundreds or even thousands of people to surround and eliminate Su Rui, it might not have had any effect at all, and they could very well have been wiped out by Su Rui instead.

Yet this time, by sacrificing the lives of just five fringe members of the great families, they had been enough to plunge Su Rui into enormous trouble.

Zhang Ziwei understood all of this, yet she simply couldn’t shake the heaviness in her heart.

She didn’t want to see Su Rui end up in this situation because of her.

“Can you tell me what I should do on the outside to help you?” Zhang Ziwei said with a bitter edge in her voice.

“This matter has already reached the level of a high-stakes power struggle. The Azure Dragon Gang won’t be much help here. Don’t think about mobilizing people to storm any government offices, that will only backfire.” Su Rui analyzed things slowly, but one idea after another was flashing through his mind.

“What about asking your subordinates for help?” Thinking back to the breathtaking combat power the Solar Guard had displayed the night before last, Zhang Ziwei’s eyes lit up again.

“Even less so. Not only can you not ask them for help, you need to make sure my message gets through clearly: no one is to act on their own, or things will spiral into an even bigger mess.”

“Why not?”

Su Rui pointed a finger at the ground beneath them: “This is Huaxia, not the dark underworld of the West. If the Solar Guard gets involved, the entire nature of this incident changes completely. By that point, even if someone in the upper echelons wanted to speak up for me, they’d likely be powerless to do so.”

“So I can only stand by and watch you suffer in there?” Zhang Ziwei seemed to have a hard time accepting this arrangement.

“Don’t worry, I won’t be suffering much in there. At most I’ll be held for a few days. If they dare lay a hand on me, I’ll make them regret it far more.” Su Rui said reassuringly: “And it’s not like I’m asking you to just stand by and watch. There are three things for you to do.”

Hearing this, Zhang Ziwei immediately nodded: “What three things?”

“First, after you and Jin Taizhu leave, have him contact the Advisor right away. He knows how to reach the Advisor, and the Advisor will have better ways to handle this than I do. Second, manage the Azure Dragon Gang well. The ten-year grand tournament is in its final stage. Even though gangs like the Yuanwei Gang and the Desert Wolf Gang have already withdrawn, I’m still worried that someone might take advantage of my absence to pull some underhanded moves.”

“Third, spread the news of my arrest, including the full story of how everything unfolded, the more detailed the better. You can have your intelligence hall handle that.”

Zhang Ziwei carefully committed all of this to memory, then looked at him with a complicated expression and said: “Can you promise me one thing in return?”

“Sure.” Su Rui hadn’t expected Zhang Ziwei to say that, and agreed without a second thought, figuring she was probably going to say something like take care of yourself and don’t act impulsively.

“Let me kiss you.”

Zhang Ziwei worked up her courage to say it, her pretty face flushing slightly, her eyes filled with sincere affection.

She was genuinely worried. The next time she saw Su Rui, there was no telling when that would be. She didn’t want to let the moment pass.

Whether he accepted it or not, at the very least she wanted him to know how she felt.

“Kiss me?” Su Rui’s expression froze on his face at those words, looking almost comical.

Even if he had racked his brain, he never could have guessed that Zhang Ziwei would make a request like this.

“Is that really necessary?” Su Rui rubbed his nose and laughed awkwardly, a little embarrassed. Since when had his personal charm grown this powerful?

Romantic luck turning into romantic trouble, beautiful women getting tangled up with him, was this something to celebrate or something to lament?

He never would have imagined that after less than a month of contact with Zhang Ziwei, she had already fallen for him.

“You promised me.” Zhang Ziwei said, a glimmer of tears showing in her eyes, with a touch of stubbornness.

“Then… alright.”

Su Rui felt a little conflicted himself. A light, fleeting kiss didn’t seem like that big a deal. He wasn’t losing anything, he was actually getting the better end of the deal, so he should be happy about it.

But why couldn’t Su Rui feel happy about it?

Xue Ruyun had kissed him passionately and then left. The situation with Qin Yueran still wasn’t resolved. Things with Lin Aoxue were starting to stir as well. And now Zhang Ziwei was actively asking to kiss him.

“What a mess, what a complete mess.” Su Rui shook his head. These entanglements were truly impossible to sort out, and the more he tried to untangle them, the more tangled they became.

Seeing Su Rui agree, Zhang Ziwei stood up nervously. Since Su Rui was still sitting on the edge of the bed, she would have to lean down to kiss him.

“Go ahead, I’m ready.”

Su Rui tilted his face up and closed his eyes, looking very much like a little lamb waiting to be led to slaughter.