The Car Crash Ten Years Ago

Welcome to Trapped in the Same Day for a Thousand Years, produced exclusively by Feilu Novel Network, written by Sang Ze and narrated by Wang Xiaomo and Lao He.

Wu Chen played along with Lei Cheng's boasting, showing a flicker of surprise when he saw the contact name on the screen.

"Hello, godfather! The call went through!"

Wu Chen faintly heard a sweet voice coming from the phone.

Lei Cheng took the phone back and put it to his ear. "Hey, sweetheart. Miss me?"

"Uh-huh. Mm. All right, all right. Hey, stop complaining. You've only been famous for a few days. Just act the way the director tells you to. He's a friend of mine, and I'm sure he has your best interests at heart."

Wu Chen picked up his teacup and took a sip, quietly listening to Lei Cheng's conversation with Tao Manying.

He couldn't make out exactly what Tao Manying was saying, but he could tell she was acting coy with Lei Cheng.

If anyone else had been there—one of Tao Manying's fans, for instance—and knew who the greasy, slovenly, middle-aged fat man in front of Wu Chen was talking to, and what they were saying...

Some fans would have been devastated enough to want to gouge out their own eyes. The more extreme ones might even have jumped off a building. Obsessive fans were capable of anything, because the two seemed so utterly mismatched.

Even by Wu Chen's exacting standards, Tao Manying was a natural beauty who scored a nine out of ten. She had fair skin, a beautiful face, and long legs. She had the looks to play a noblewoman or a young girl, and she embodied the dream woman of 99.9 percent of men.

And the wealthy patron Tao Manying had been with for ten years was the man before Wu Chen.

Yet Lei Cheng looked so ordinary, so greasy and unsavory.

His looks weren't the problem. Lei Cheng's features were decent, and being fat was no great matter. It was his grooming and bearing that made the difference. Put the two of them together, and "beauty and the beast" didn't begin to cover it. It was more like a beauty standing beside a pile of stinking dog shit. That was no exaggeration.

At first glance, Lei Cheng made a worse impression than an average, reasonably presentable person. But impressions could be deliberately crafted.

Wu Chen knew Lei Cheng did it on purpose. Even setting money aside, Wu Chen didn't think Lei Cheng was unworthy of Tao Manying. He thought Tao Manying was unworthy of Lei Cheng.

Without Lei Cheng, Tao Manying might long ago have faded into obscurity. Her looks might have made her some tycoon's hidden mistress, with no hope of appearing in public, much less becoming a huge star.

Wu Chen had seen photos of Lei Cheng from ten years ago many times during his thousand years in the time loop.

He knew that Lei Cheng had been tall and thin back then. At thirty-two, he had been in his prime, handsome and distinguished.

The car crash that had nearly killed him ten years ago had changed him. Or rather, he had deliberately adopted a disguise to protect himself.

He began overeating, keeping women, spending recklessly, throwing money at stars, and acting crude.

It was all a disguise, meant to keep him alive.

His last ten years could be summed up in one word: endurance.

He had endured and waited for a chance to strike a fatal blow and turn everything around, though he knew that chance might never come in his lifetime.

The person who wanted him dead was none other than his own older brother, Lei Zhenhui's eldest son, Lei You.

Lei Cheng had lost a vicious power struggle within his family. Lei You had arranged that car crash ten years ago. Three people in the car had died and one had been gravely injured. Lei Cheng was the sole survivor; among the dead was the woman he had married two years earlier.

Lei Cheng had never beaten his brother. It wasn't for lack of ability. In Wu Chen's view, both men were outstanding, and at the very least evenly matched.

The reason Lei Cheng couldn't beat his brother was that Lei You was eight years older.

Back in the 1970s, people generally married young. Lei Zhenhui had married at eighteen and had his first child, Lei You, at nineteen.

He was already twenty-seven when his second child, Lei Cheng, was born.

Lei Cheng's birth had been an accident. While Lei Cheng was still in the sixth grade, Lei You had already graduated from university and started working at Hongfa Industries.

And by the time Lei Cheng graduated from university, Lei You had become Lei Zhenhui's right-hand man and one of the central figures at Hongfa Industries.

The age gap meant the brothers had never been close. Lei You had always resented his own younger brother, despite their sharing both parents.

That resentment went back to the day Lei Cheng was born. After giving birth to him, their mother had died of postpartum hemorrhaging in the County Hospital operating room. The doctors couldn't save her.

Of course, that old tragedy wasn't the real reason the brothers had turned on each other thirty years later.

Ultimately, the crash ten years ago happened because Lei Cheng had steadily built up his standing in the family business, and Lei Zhenhui had begun to value him more and more.

Lei Zhenhui had even said publicly at a shareholders' meeting that, after he retired, he would hand the company over to both his sons to run together.

Lei Cheng's rapid rise within Hongfa directly threatened Lei You's position.

In other words, the brothers had turned against each other over who would inherit the family business.

After the crash, Hongfa Industries went through a series of upheavals and personnel changes. Some people even disappeared outright.

After leaving the hospital, Lei Cheng had once stormed into Lei You's villa with a gun and nearly shot him. Someone had stopped him.

Yet by the fourth month after the crash, Hongfa had settled down, and nothing had happened to Lei You.

There was never enough evidence to prove Lei You had ordered the crash. People only said he had.

But some things didn't need evidence. Everyone knew.

In the end, Lei Zhenhui sided with his eldest son. It wasn't entirely favoritism; he was thinking about the family business.

At the time, Lei You was already forty and served as Hongfa's deputy general manager. Lei Cheng was thirty-two and had been with Hongfa for ten years. Lei Zhenhui, then Hongfa's general manager, was fifty-nine. He didn't know how many more years he could run the company himself, and sooner or later he would have to give one of his sons the general manager's position.

He could choose only one son and had to give up on the other. There was no chance of the brothers calling a truce.

In the end, he chose his older son, who was more mature, better connected, and more decisive. That was the whole reason Lei Cheng had become the man he was now.

He lay low, endured, and waited for an opportunity. In truth, Wu Chen hadn't paid Lei Cheng much attention at first during his thousand years in the time loop. In East Sea, Lei Cheng was an outsider who kept a low profile and guarded his privacy.

But as Wu Chen investigated more and more of East Sea's billionaires, he gradually discovered that many of them seemed to have private dealings with Lei Cheng. Private dealings only. They had no public contact and never appeared together at social events, yet they met fairly often in private, despite having no business dealings.

It was strange.

Wu Chen sensed something was wrong and investigated Lei Cheng thoroughly. That was how he learned about his past.

During his investigation, he had even gone to Huaixi City. Over several successive July Sevenths, he followed Lei You, eventually kidnapped him, and questioned him about the details. Huaixi was only a little over four hundred kilometers from East Sea, just over two hours away by high-speed rail.

Wu Chen found out everything. He didn't know what else Tao Manying said on the phone.

Lei Cheng laughed a few more times, then said, "All right, all right, sweetheart. Listen, take some time off and come back to East Sea as soon as you can. I'll speak to the director."

"Yeah, it's urgent. I've got you a cosmetics endorsement. Don't worry about breaching your contract. I'll pay them."

"Okay! Give me a kiss. You're so funny. Bye."

Lei Cheng hung up, looked at Wu Chen, and smiled. "The next flight out won't be for another four hours or so. There's no direct flight to East Sea, so she'll have to transfer in the capital. I reckon she can get here around eleven or twelve tonight. How's that?"

"See, brother? I wasn't bluffing."

Lei Cheng burst out laughing again.

All settled?

Wu Chen smiled at Lei Cheng, a thought flashing through his mind. Since Lei Cheng had shown such sincerity, perhaps it was time to give him something in return. He could tell him a few things about Lei You.

Originally, Wu Chen had intended to make an exchange of benefits with Lei Cheng.

Meeting through a game had only been an opening. Lei Cheng had plenty of women, and he had backed his share of actresses, but the one he cherished most was Tao Manying, the first woman he had taken under his wing.

What they had said in their private game chat alone wouldn't have been enough to make Lei Cheng go to such lengths and call Tao Manying back from Thailand.

Wu Chen had set himself a deadline: two hours. He had planned to settle everything within two hours of meeting Lei Cheng.

His plan was to trade information about Lei Cheng's older brother for Tao Manying's endorsement of Brilliant Colors.

But Wu Chen genuinely hadn't expected to succeed in less than an hour.

Li Ruobing had given him a boost—a tremendous one.

Those few words Wu Chen had said during his brief call with Li Ruobing had completely changed Lei Cheng's view of him.

Wu Chen had been hired by Li Ruobing to find an endorser for her, yet he had turned that connection to his advantage and gone with the flow.

Without that call, Wu Chen figured he would have needed at least another hour of conversation before Lei Cheng agreed to a deal.

The call had done more than that. It had fundamentally changed the nature of the relationship Wu Chen and Lei Cheng were forming.

Tao Manying already had an exclusive cosmetics endorsement. That meant she couldn't endorse a similar product without breaching her contract and paying damages.

She had signed the deal three years ago, before she was so famous. The fee hadn't been especially high, and the penalty for breach was only thirty million. But Lei Cheng had just said on the phone that he would pay it himself.

In other words, calling Tao Manying back to endorse Brilliant Colors wasn't a casual favor he could arrange with a single phone call. It would cost him tens of millions, and he hadn't asked Wu Chen to reimburse him. No ordinary person would do that for a mere acquaintance. This was no small favor.

Why?

Because Lei Cheng now wanted to befriend Wu Chen. He had spent the last ten years quietly cultivating secret ties with wealthy and powerful people.

He liked having people owe him favors and understood how relationships worked. Over those ten years, he had quietly befriended many people in East Sea. When he said there was nothing in East Sea he couldn't settle, he hadn't been boasting. He had kept his distance from the family, played the fool, made connections in secret, and waited for a chance to strike back.

Not a day had passed in ten years without him making plans. His life had not been easy, and he was frighteningly calculating.

He didn't befriend just anyone, though. He had no ties with Li Ruotai, for example—not because Li Ruotai lacked power, but because he was too conspicuous.

He was on good terms with Lu Guangnian in private, however. He had known Lu Guangnian for years, and Lu Guangnian loved making friends.

Among Lu Guangnian's many friends, Lei Cheng might not stand out, but he was certainly the sort of powerful man Lu Guangnian would remember: someone Lei Cheng had cultivated in secret and might call upon someday.

And Lei Cheng had already decided Wu Chen was someone worth befriending.

He didn't even know what sort of backing Wu Chen had. Li Ruobing's call had led him to the wrong conclusion.

Wu Chen truly hadn't anticipated this outcome. They had only just met. He had expected an exchange of benefits and, at most, a new contact. Instead, Lei Cheng was taking the initiative—eagerly, urgently trying to become his friend.

"Little brother, what's wrong?"

Lei Cheng asked when he saw Wu Chen fall silent for several seconds.

"We really were fated to meet, weren't we?" Wu Chen said with a smile.

"Of course! Ha ha! Let's drink to our extraordinary luck."

Lei Cheng laughed.

They raised their tea in place of wine and drank together.

"Boss Lei, there's something—"

Wu Chen set down his teacup and started to speak, but Lei Cheng cut him off. "What's with 'Boss Lei'? We hit it off so well, and I'm a few years older than you. Would it be too much to call me 'brother'?"

Lei Cheng gestured as he spoke.

"Not at all. Of course not."

Lei Cheng was more than a few years older than Wu Chen. He was twenty years older—only two years younger than Wu Chen's father.

Because Wu Chen knew Lei Cheng so well, he could guess what the man was thinking no matter how good his act was. He could sense how badly Lei Cheng wanted to make this connection. "Brother Cheng," he said with a smile.

"All right, Brother Wu. What were you about to say?"

Lei Cheng called him "Brother Wu" without the slightest hesitation. Wu Chen took it as a reminder.

The smile suddenly vanished from Wu Chen's face. He grew serious.

"Brother Lei, when I first got here, I did think about your promise to find me an endorser."

"I know you have connections in the entertainment industry. Finding me a top-tier star would take you one phone call. But you went straight to your own woman—a star at the height of her fame—to endorse my woman's company. I didn't expect that."

Lei Cheng couldn't quite tell what Wu Chen was getting at.

"What's the matter?"

"Is she not good enough?"

"Even I never expected Manying to get as famous as she is now. She still isn't good enough?"

Lei Cheng looked at Wu Chen questioningly.

"No, that's not it." Wu Chen paused, then said seriously, "You'd be getting drawn into the dispute between Ruobing, Ding Ruilong, the Ding Family, and the Li Family. You'd be making an enemy of Ding Ruilong and the Ding Family. He won't be stupid enough to use the same tactic twice."

"Tao Manying is too famous now. If something happened to her, the uproar would be too big to contain. So she'll be fine."

"But what about you, brother?"

"That madman Ding Ruilong is capable of anything."

Wu Chen laid out the situation in full. It was less a reminder to Lei Cheng than a warning.

Wu Chen had thought this over repeatedly. He needed to make it clear beforehand.

If he didn't, Lei Cheng would suddenly find himself caught up in the Li and Ding families' mess. He would have tried to help, only to land himself in trouble. Wu Chen wouldn't gain a friend that way; he might make an enemy instead. Being upfront changed everything.

Lei Cheng rested a hand on his teacup and narrowed his eyes. He understood what Wu Chen meant. The choice was his.

"Brother Lei, I honestly don't want to drag you into this trouble. It has nothing to do with you. You can call Tao Manying right now and tell her not to come back. We'll find someone else."

Wu Chen finished speaking and watched Lei Cheng calmly.

He had given Lei Cheng a way out. He also wanted to see just how sincere the man was.

Bang!

Lei Cheng slammed his teacup down on the table and snapped, "Oh, come on!"

"Brother Wu, are you looking down on me?"

"You think I'm afraid of that bastard Ding Ruilong?"

"To hell with him! Tao Manying will report to Brilliant Colors first thing tomorrow morning. She's signing that contract, and she's going to be the endorser!"

"If Ding Ruilong dares come after me, I'll tear him apart!"

Fury. Impulsiveness. Recklessness. Not a thought for the consequences!

Lei Cheng was an excellent actor. After ten years of practice, he could hardly be otherwise. He had made his decision: for the sake of befriending Wu Chen and, through him, Li Ruobing and even Li Ruotai, he would confront Ding Ruilong head-on. He simply expressed that decision in his own peculiar way, pretending it was a rash impulse when he had actually thought it through.

"Brother Lei, calm down. Sit, sit. I wasn't looking down on you. Don't get so worked up. All right, since you aren't worried about Ding Ruilong, I won't waste my breath trying to talk you out of it."

Wu Chen soothed Lei Cheng and got him to sit down. Then he met his eyes, his gaze intent, and smiled. "Brother Lei, I'll show you that becoming my friend was the best decision of your life. We really were fated to meet."

Lei Cheng sensed something odd about Wu Chen. His words were strange, and both his tone and his gaze seemed to hint at something.

"Brother, what exactly do you mean by 'fated to meet'?" Lei Cheng wasn't sure what to make of it. He had brought up their lucky meeting first, but Wu Chen had repeated it so many times.

Wu Chen didn't answer Lei Cheng. Instead, he took out his phone and quickly typed with one hand. "Check your messages."

Wu Chen hit send as he spoke.

Lei Cheng picked up his phone. Wu Chen had sent him a string of digits: a phone number.

"Find the person who owns that number and get hold of him. He'll tell you the whole truth about the car crash ten years ago."

Wu Chen smiled. Lei Cheng shot to his feet.

That concludes this episode. Please keep listening!