Chapter 691: Breaking Ties Over Wine

At the entrance of the banquet hall, Xu Mengda was wearing a pair of sunglasses, with Duanmu standing beside him, both coldly peering into the hall.

He seemed to see me and walked straight toward me.

Duanmu, following behind him, hesitated, seemingly wanting to stop him, but seeing Xu Mengda's cold face, he eventually gave up and sighed, following him over.

The smile on my face instantly froze. How could Xu Mengda know I was here? Why was he not in the Provincial Capital and instead coming to our Hengyue City? Could it be that he had caught wind of something? From the anxious look on Duanmu's face, I could surmise that Xu Mengda had not come with good intentions!

I suppressed my pounding heart, trying to inject new vitality into my frozen smile, and walked toward Xu Mengda, extending my hands from afar and shouting, "President Xu, you've come!"

Xu Mengda did not reach out; he stopped in front of me and stared fixedly at me.

He was wearing sunglasses, and I couldn't tell if the gaze behind the lenses was friendly or malicious. His face remained motionless, as if frozen, and he just stared at me like that, making my calves tremble slightly.

The entire banquet hall fell silent, and everyone looked our way. A few people who knew Xu Mengda wanted to come over to greet him, but upon seeing his man-eating expression, they all shrank back.

The scene was very awkward. I felt embarrassed to withdraw my extended hands, so I just kept them stretched out stiffly. Xu Mengda said nothing, just stared at me from behind his sunglasses. Duanmu, on the side, busied himself trying to smooth things over, saying, "Mengda, Mengda, let's find a place to talk."

Duanmu had many acquaintances in Hengyue City; as the Director of the Cadre Division of the Provincial Organization Department, how many provincial-managed cadres in Hengyue City had paid their respects to him? But now, not a single person came over. In the entire hall, only the three of us stood there stiffly.

"Mengda, let's go outside to talk," Duanmu continued to persuade, signaling me with his eyes.

I didn't understand the meaning of Duanmu's eyes. After receiving no response to my extended hands, I withdrew them and smiled sheepishly, saying, "President Xu, do you have something to discuss with me?"

The muscles on Xu Mengda's face twitched, spasming as if in a grimace.

I took a step back, as if avoiding his sharp edge.

He, however, took a step forward, still staring at me intently.

"Why don't we sit down and talk?" I pulled out a chair and asked him ingratiatingly.

"Chen Feng, you little brat, your wings have grown stiff!" Xu Mengda suddenly blurted out.

"What does that mean?" I asked in confusion, reaching out to support him.

"Get lost!" he shouted, almost at the top of his lungs, waving his hand at me and yelling, "You ungrateful wretch! I'll destroy you."

Before the words had even faded, he suddenly struck out, raising a palm to slap me.

In such a public place, how could I suffer such an insult! Not to mention that if his slap landed on my face, I would have no face to live in the world, just the fact that he called me an ungrateful wretch was something I couldn't swallow!

Just as his palm was three centimeters from my face, I reached out and blocked his hand. I didn't hold back at all, secretly channeling my Qi, so that my arm was as hard as a steel pipe; blocking Xu Mengda's flesh-and-blood hand was like using a butcher's cleaver to kill a chicken.

Sure enough, the muscles on Xu Mengda's face twitched again; he was clearly in pain, his expression pained.

I pretended to be very concerned and quickly grabbed him, whispering, "Brother Xu, let's talk things over!"

As I held him, one hand had already controlled his arm, and half my body was leaning against him, leaving him no chance to strike again.

Xu Mengda hadn't expected me to resist. His expression changed several times, and he roared in frustration, "Chen Feng, you must give me an explanation!"

His voice wasn't loud; apart from Duanmu on the side, I estimated no one else heard it.

Duanmu didn't miss the opportunity to turn and shout to the people in the banquet hall, "Everyone, disperse. Director Chen and President Xu have important matters to discuss."

The cadres of various levels, who had been standing there motionless, heard this as if they had received an amnesty and scattered like birds and beasts. Anyone with eyes could see that Xu Mengda was here to cause trouble for me, and significant trouble at that.

The person accompanying Xu Mengda was a cadre from the Provincial Organization Department, whose background could not be underestimated. The person being targeted was me, and I was currently a rising star in Hengyue City's political scene. In other words, none of them could afford to offend any of the three of us. If they stayed and something happened, none of them could escape responsibility. But no one had told them to leave; if they left and something happened, they still couldn't escape responsibility.

Just as they were in a state of constant anxiety, Duanmu's one sentence caused the once bustling banquet hall to be left with only the three of us in the blink of an eye.

I signaled the waiter to close the door and said coldly, "Brother Xu, change your face! I'm not used to seeing you like this!"

Xu Mengda finally took off his glasses, and I saw that his eyelids were swollen, and even his face was much more bloated. He looked particularly haggard, his eyes listless, and his already sparse hair had become even thinner.

"Chen Feng, speak!" he gritted his teeth, his face dark as he sat in a chair.

I smiled and said, "Brother Xu, you've lost your composure today. Dozens of Hengyue City officials are watching you; how could you strike someone?"

"I even have the heart to kill you," Xu Mengda said bitterly.

"Kill me?" I shouted in surprise, "Brother Xu, everything was fine, why would you want to kill me?"

"You know why yourself!"

"I don't know!"

"You don't know?" Xu Mengda laughed coldly, speaking in a strange, mocking tone, "If you don't know, I'll tell you!"

Xu Mengda had lost contact with Xue Bing two days ago. He had searched everywhere through friends in Beijing, but ultimately found nothing.

In fact, he had long had a premonition about Xue Bing's disappearance.

After Xu Mengda learned that I had bypassed him and managed to upgrade the park on my own, he instructed Xue Bing to find people to interfere with me. His instructions were met with refusal from Xue Bing. Not only was she unwilling to stop me, but she also advised him to help me instead.

Xu Mengda was not willing to let me succeed on my own. As long as I succeeded, his agreement with me would not be valid. Our agreement not being valid did not affect his cooperation with Aunt. In other words, as long as I succeeded on my own, Xu Mengda would lose his troops and suffer damage, ending up with nothing.

Xu Mengda invested in Aunt's company, eyeing the list left behind by Lao Can in Aunt's hands. He had an agreement with Aunt that as long as his investment was successful, the list in Aunt's hands would become part of the company's assets. Since it was company property, he, Xu Mengda, naturally had the power to share and control it.

But Xu Mengda had calculated everything except for my intervention.

As long as I upgraded the park's specifications, even if Aunt's company was a shell company, with policy support, it could still operate smoothly.

As a result, when Xu Mengda learned that I was going to succeed, he planned and deployed his forces, intending to trap me in Beijing.

And all of this, I had been kept in the dark about.

Xu Mengda ordered Xue Bing to go and ruin my plans, but he didn't expect that Xue Bing wouldn't listen to him at the critical moment. Not only did she not ruin my plans, but she followed the connections Xu Mengda had given her, visiting them one by one, and under the guise of Xu Mengda's intentions, urged Quan Bi to successfully land the park upgrade.

No wonder Quan Bi sighed afterward, "Little Chen, you really have a noble person helping you!"

When Quan Bi said this, I thought the "noble person" he referred to was himself, so I expressed my gratitude almost to the point of tears, saying that as long as Quan Bi came to our Hengyue City, he would definitely be my most honored guest!

In fact, the "noble person" Quan Bi mentioned was precisely the person Xu Mengda had arranged to ruin my plans. I didn't know what position this person held, but I knew his status was much higher than Quan Bi's and Ouyang Qiu's. In other words, with one word from him, Quan Bi and the others wouldn't dare say a single word of dissent.

As for what method Xue Bing used to get him to help me, I still don't know to this day. But I know that without Xue Bing, the planning for the Hengyue City Industrial Park upgrade would have taken many more detours.

"I was blind!" Xu Mengda sighed deeply, "I misjudged the person!"

I didn't know if the person he said he misjudged was me or Xue Bing, so after he finished speaking, I didn't utter a word.

"Chen Feng! You brat, you're really something!" Xu Mengda glared at me and said, "However, what you use is all petty cleverness, not great wisdom. For a person, petty cleverness can only bring temporary success, while great wisdom allows one to go further."

I said submissively, "Brother Xu is absolutely right. I am just a person with a bit of petty cleverness, lacking Brother Xu's great wisdom."

"You don't need to call me Brother Xu anymore; I'm not your brother of any kind. From today on, we are just ordinary people, not even friends."

"No!" I shouted loudly, "You are my brother for a day, and you will be my brother for a lifetime."

Xu Mengda smiled bitterly, "I can't be your brother; you're more like my brother."

I was speechless; Xu Mengda was determined to break ties with me. Breaking ties with Xu Mengda was equivalent to losing one of my arms. In the entire Central Province, having his connection allowed one to avoid many detours.

Duanmu smoothed things over, saying, "I say, you two, this isn't the place to talk. Why not find a quiet place and talk it out properly? Say everything that's on your minds. Avoid keeping it bottled up, which makes no one comfortable."

"What else is there to say?" Xu Mengda sighed, "Words have reached this point, and the meaning is exhausted. From today on, he, Chen Feng, and I, Xu Mengda, have nothing more to do with each other."

He looked around and suddenly laughed, saying, "In ancient times, people liked to cut their robes to break ties; today, we won't cut our robes, let's drink a cup of wine to break ties."

He had Duanmu find two empty wine glasses, poured them full, handed me one, and without waiting, clinked his glass heavily against the rim of mine, drank it down, threw the glass, and walked out the door without looking back.

Duanmu looked at me awkwardly, then threw me aside and chased after him.

I took a few steps, watching Xu Mengda walk out the door, then stopped, a wave of sorrow in my heart, and slumped into a chair, looking at the resplendent banquet hall and sighing long and hard.

A woman is a double-edged sword! She can let you kill others, and she can just as easily commit suicide.

Xue Bing is like this, Zhu Huayu is like this, and how could Yue Bai be any different!

Only my wife, Huang Weiwei, is as quiet as a piece of skin on one's body, a pair of eyes, or even a tiny whisker, who will always accompany you, never hurting others, and never hurting herself.

A warmth filled my heart, and I took out my phone and called, saying, "Wife, I miss you." ===== CHAPTER 692 =====