Chapter 8 Sincerity

Wu Xie saw that he was still silent, and seemed impatient. He gave a tut: “Well, I can explain it this way. If I stop being sincere, I can directly intimidate you and you’ll have no choice but to follow me. And I won’t need to do so many unnecessary things. So, in essence, I’m still a very fair person who doesn’t want to hurt others. I’m asking for your help, because the matter I need to handle is very important.”

Li Cu looked into Wu Xie’s eyes and unexpectedly felt some sincerity. But Li Cu still felt that this matter was very unreliable and that these people were very dangerous. Although the rewards were so attractive that a poor man like him could be stunned, his reasoning told him that money wasn’t so easy to earn. He was still a student and unable to cope with the risks. No matter how high the remuneration was, it was all empty talk.

He looked at Wu Xie’s expression and movements and knew that it was meaningless to shake his head and refuse. Without a doubt, this person didn’t want to use violence to coerce him to go, but he would never go without it. He could tell by looking at Wu Xie’s appearance that he would sit here with Li Cu all night. No matter how Li Cu refused, Wu Xie would keep requesting again and again until he agreed.

This was the same principle as the minister kneeling in front of the emperor, refusing to get up until the emperor met with him. The difference here was that Wu Xie didn’t kneel but carelessly crossed his legs.

“I can’t allow him to succeed and I can’t say yes. But I can’t be worn down by him either.” Li Cu thought to himself. “What should I do?”

In fact, this wasn’t difficult for him. Although he wasn’t very old, he had the same talent for such things. He took a deep breath, still feeling a little scared despite himself. If he started to use these tricks with the other party, would they suddenly get angry? Regardless, he still decided to fight.

Li Cu touched his face, and then looked up: “I can agree to your terms, but you must promise one thing first. Only by doing so will I trust your sincerity.”

Wu Xie smiled and made a gesture for him to continue.

Li Cu paused. He wanted to make a request that the other party would never agree to, but at that moment, he made an absolutely reasonable request, so that he could throw the problem to the other party. If Wu Xie really didn’t like violence, then this difficult problem would make him unable to hold on any longer and Li Cu would have a strong excuse to back out. If the other party was simply wearing a polite mask, he would immediately find out and prepare a way to deal with it in advance. He thought for a moment, and then said slowly, “I’ll follow you only if I know the reason why you’re doing this.”

Then he looked into Wu Xie’s eyes, knowing that he would definitely see any changes in Wu Xie’s mood as soon as it happened.

He didn’t think that as soon as he was done talking, Wu Xie wouldn’t even think about it at all before nodding his head and saying, “Ok, that’s no problem.”

“No problem?” How could it not be a problem?!

“Do you really think of us as the kind of people who are vicious and have ulterior motives?” Wu Xie took a puff of his cigarette. “I can tell you my purpose right now. I can even put it on the front page of the newspaper if you’d like, but you may not believe it. You made a promise, and like I told you, you’ll have to come with me. You can’t go back on your word.”

Li Cu looked at Wu Xie and suddenly realized that the other party might be deceiving him, betting that he wouldn’t dare listen, because once Wu Xie spoke, Li Cu had no reason to refuse.

So Li Cu nodded, “Go ahead.”

Wu Xie took another heavy drag of his cigarette and put it out. “Do you know that there’s a place called Gutong Jing in the depths of Badan Jilin Desert?”

Li Cu shook his head and Wu Xie added, “This place is our destination. I’m going there to resolve a doubt in my heart.”

Then Wu Xie spent half an hour explaining his purpose. In other words, he spoke of the source of his doubts. For Li Cu, what he said was simply something that would happen in a novel, but Wu Xie spoke without any hesitation and it wasn’t something that could have been made up on the fly.

Li Cu still listened, wanting to hear the flaw in it so that he could say that the other party was cheating him. But he found that if the other party was lying to him, then the scam must have been designed and deliberated over countless times in advance.

Indeed, as Wu Xie said, if they had to prepare so many tricks in order to get him to go to the desert, then they would have suffered too much. Therefore, either Wu Xie was someone who couldn’t be logically deduced, or he really told Li Cu the truth.

<Chapter 7> <Table of Contents><Chapter 9>

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Question for you lovely people: would you prefer Li Cu’s personal thoughts to be in italics? I’ve been putting them in quotes and tweaking the words to try to make sure you all could tell he was thinking stuff instead of speaking out loud but wasn’t sure if you all would find it easier if they were italicized instead? Not a big deal or anything, but figured I’d get your input.