Gao Tinghua just could not fathom what went on within the minds of his family members at times. "Trust me Mother, that's a bad idea. It is one thing if she chooses not to come, but it is a different matter altogether if you don't even invite her."
Qiao Mingran nodded reluctantly, "Alright, I'll send the invite."
After giving his mother a brief hug, he left her to her devices and strode out quickly. He had a lot to do, had to rally his connections together.
No matter what, he couldn't leave all the work to Li Chuanmo. Else, he would have no face left.
*****
On his part, Li Chuanmo was noncommittal as he hung up. In the first place, he wasn't doing it for them. It was all for his wife. She was the light of his life.
For her, he could do anything.
Including using the connections he had planned he would never use.
Taking up his phone, he sent an encrypted message to an unsaved number. In less than a minute, his phone rang.
"Yo, Boss, is that really you?" A voice with the distinct accent of Country F sounded.
"It's me." Not one to waste words, Li Chuanmo's answer was curt.
"Unbelievable! I thought you were never going to speak to me ever again. I've missed you so much." The person on the phone all but whined, giving Li Chuanmo a headache.
This person whining like a teenager was almost as old as his father. Of course it was uncomfortable. So he went straight to the point.
"Charlie, I called because I have a job I need done."
As if he had flipped on a switch, the man instantly became serious, "What is it Boss?"
Li Chuanmo gave him a rundown of the current situation in few words.
The man whistled.
"Sounds like the handiwork of the Black Shadows."
Li Chuanmo had a vague recollection of the name, but not much else. "You know them?"
"Anyone who's anyone in this business of ours knows them. They've been around for decades. A very sneaky and manipulative bunch."
Li Chuanmo didn't speak, thinking.
"Boss, how did you get entangled with them? They're very difficult to deal with ah."
He said that, but his tone was even more carefree than at the beginning.
Li Chuanmo didn't waste words, "Can you deal with them?"
Charlie whined in a fake accent, "Me? Oh please no! I don't want that androgynous pest to kill me!"
Li Chuanmo wished he could reach out through the phone and shake the man until he became serious. This was a bad time to joke!
As if he could feel Li Chuanmo's worsening patience, Charlie became serious again, "Their boss is really troublesome and I can't handle him, but he's unlikely to come for the banquet, so I can handle it.
"As for dealing with their leader, the Second Boss can do that—he has the experience. However, you'd need to tell him yourself."
Li Chuanmo could feel his headache worsen, but the other man continued in an almost gleeful tone, "Oh that's true, you're still on bad terms, right? Hahaha.
"That's why you shouldn't have decisively rejected his kind offer back then...and twice too. You're really bold, Boss. It would be interesting to see you grovel to Second Boss."
Speaking of which, this was an old story, but the gist of it was that Li Chuanmo saved a man that was near-death due to an attempted assassination and was invited to join their syndicate, but declined.
He was on his way back from a nightclub where his first girlfriend had invited him to—who by the way invited him just to inform him that he was a good-for-nothing lowlife that couldn't afford her—when he saw a middle-aged man in a pool of blood.
He was still relatively new to the country at the time, and since he was grieving as well as confused, he wasn't paying attention until he unexpectedly found himself in that dark alley, only coming to his senses when he heard the pained groans.
He offered to help, but the man asked not to be taken to the hospital. Thinking on his feet, he somehow packed the fatal wound, took the man to his home in a taxi and set about tending to his injuries.
Till date, he couldn't even understand what made him take such an absurd and extremely dangerous risk.
Anyhow, the man survived, living with him for a couple of weeks. By the time he was fit enough to leave, Li Chuanmo had made a friend.
A few days after that night, men began visiting the injured man, up until the day he left, and Li Chuanmo got introduced to them.
Turned out that the middle-aged man just so conveniently happened to be the boss of a notorious syndicate.
Li Chuanmo became fast friends with the man's son— known as Lancaster— back then, who was so enthusiastic about his smart brain that he repeatedly tried to persuade him to join them, but with no success. Even the man spoke to Li Chuanmo about the same matter as well.
But Li Chuanmo was adamant. His "smart brain" was for technology, not violence. That made them quarrel pretty quickly.
To make matters worse, the middle-aged man turned Li Chuanmo into "the other family's son", annoying his own son to no end by always talking about how good Li Chuanmo was, how brilliant, etc.
Lancaster was so irritated that he set out to prove a point the moment his father handed the reins over to him, which was dealing with the people that tried to assassinate his father at first.
After all, if not for their foolishness, his father wouldn't have met Li Chuanmo, that arrogant eyesore in the first place.
The offenders just happened to be from the Black Shadows, and Lancaster dealt with them until they retreated, resembling their organization name.
That was why the guy on the phone was confident that Lancaster could handle it.
Needless to say, Li Chuanmo and Lancaster had not spoken in a long time, and their relationship was seemingly nonexistent. Talking to him and asking for help was going to be a project on its own.
Charlie continued, "Maybe you should reach out to the Old Boss. A lot had changed since the last time we heard from you. Let's just say we're now reformed oh."
Li Chuanmo thought for a moment.
"Send me Fred's number." Fred was the man he saved that night.
"That will be difficult. Old Boss Fred has been off the grid for a while. Since Second Boss took over, he has been on vacation."
Li Chuanmo closed his eyes, silently thinking.
"Tell you what, I'll do you a favor. He was last spotted in Country J."
"Thank you."