Chapter 82: Seeking Only to Slay the Enemy, Unmindful of Collateral Harm

As soon as he stepped out of the hospital room, the first thing Guo Lin did was call his mistress. He had indeed kept one. She had just finished work, and when she answered his call, her first words were, “Cousin, what brings you to call me now?”

In their secret code, if she replied like this, it meant someone was nearby and it wasn’t convenient to speak.

“I need to see you urgently. When can you get home?”

She understood at once that “home” referred to their love nest.

She replied, “Should I go to your place for dinner? It'll take me another twenty minutes—I’m still with a colleague, finishing up some work.”

“Hurry, it’s a matter of life and death!” Guo Lin said, then hung up. He dismissed his driver, walked out of the hospital alone, and waited for a taxi by the roadside.

Li Mu and Zhao Kang sat across the street in a Passat, using their new binoculars to observe Guo Lin’s every expression.

The car was borrowed from Song Liang. Li Mu had said he wanted to take a female classmate for a spin, so Song Liang immediately offered to send his Mercedes with a driver. Li Mu refused, saying the Mercedes was too conspicuous and insisted on something more low-key, so the driver brought him the Passat instead.

They had been tailing Guo Lin from Xiling Coal Mine and followed his car to the hospital, hoping to catch him out.

“He’s looking pretty nervous,” Zhao Kang, in the passenger seat, put down the binoculars and said to Li Mu, “He must have just found out about what we’re doing.”

Li Mu nodded. “When he entered the hospital half an hour ago, he was calm. Now he’s so anxious—it must be that he’s just learned.”

Zhao Kang asked, “Is it worth following him?”

“It is.” Li Mu’s reply was unwavering. “Even though the posts we’ve put online are fabricated, Guo Lin’s corruption is a sure thing. As for whether he’s involved with that female teacher from School Five, I don’t know. I made up those details to make it more believable. But I do think he’s very likely kept a mistress outside.”

“Why?”

“Because his wife is so ugly and always dresses herself up like a ghost, with heavy makeup and dyed hair. Do you think Guo Lin could be interested in her?”

Zhao Kang thought of Xue Guilan’s appearance and nodded. “She is notorious for being flashy.”

Li Mu continued, “So I believe Guo Lin definitely has another woman. Whether she’s a university student, I don’t know, but she exists. Something this big happens, and instead of conferring with his wife at the hospital, he rushes out to catch a taxi. Who do you think he’s going to see?”

“His mistress?”

“Likely.”

Li Mu watched as Guo Lin flagged down a taxi and climbed in. He immediately lowered the binoculars, started the car, and followed. Ten minutes later, the taxi stopped in front of Wan Ying International Garden in the city center. Guo Lin got out and walked into the complex. Li Mu drove after him, keeping ten meters behind, watching until he entered Unit 4 of Building 8.

“See? He didn’t go back to Xiling Coal Mine’s neighborhood. What else could he be doing here?”

Zhao Kang grinned. “Keeping his beauty hidden in a golden chamber, of course.”

“We just don’t know who she is yet. If we can dig out her identity and get the online trolls to attack again, Guo Lin’s wife will explode first. Once his home life goes up in flames, he’ll be busy enough.”

The apartments at Wan Ying International Garden were all six stories and had no elevators, meaning twelve households per unit. Figuring out exactly which one Guo Lin went into would be a challenge.

Zhao Kang suggested, “Should I buy a barrel of purified water and go door-to-door, pretending to deliver it?”

“No!” Li Mu rejected the idea outright. “We can’t show our faces at any point. I’m intent on getting Guo Lin sent to prison—this must be handled with extreme caution. If we get exposed, he’ll fight us to the bitter end.”

Zhao Kang was sobered by Li Mu’s seriousness and nodded. “Got it.”

Li Mu checked the time. “Let’s just stake out the place. Any woman who enters or leaves the unit alone, especially if she’s young and attractive, could be the mistress. We’ll shortlist suspects and work it out from there.”

“What if she’s already inside, waiting for Guo Lin?”

“Then we wait until Guo Lin comes out.”

“Understood.”

A few minutes later, a woman in her thirties, holding a young boy’s hand, entered Unit 4. She was good-looking. Zhao Kang chuckled, “If it’s her, then Guo Lin has an illegitimate son. Xue Guilan would go ballistic.”

Li Mu laughed. “Keep an eye on her—maybe it really is.”

After a while, a woman in her forties went in alone—not likely her. If Guo Lin kept a forty-something as his mistress, he’d have to be out of his mind.

Ten minutes passed. Suddenly, Zhao Kang pointed at a woman walking past their car. “Hey, I know her!”

Li Mu looked up. A stylish young woman walked from left to right, not far from the car. Her profile was pleasant.

Li Mu asked casually, “How do you know her?”

Zhao Kang replied, “She was my tutor in junior high. My mom hired her when she was in teachers college, doing tutoring part-time. She taught several kids in our neighborhood—I was just one of them.”

College students doing tutoring jobs were common, a favorite way to earn money. That was three years ago, so Li Mu didn’t think much of it and let it go.

But as the woman hurried into Unit 4 of Building 8 under their watchful gaze, Zhao Kang suddenly slapped his thigh, shouting excitedly, “Damn! Guo Lin’s mistress is definitely her! I just remembered, she tutored Guo Yuhang too!”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m a thousand percent sure!”

Li Mu and Zhao Kang had been waiting for a young, pretty, single woman to enter the unit, but the one who finally arrived was Zhao Kang’s tutor from three years ago.

Given that she had tutored many kids in the neighborhood, including Guo Yuhang, Li Mu and Zhao Kang immediately concluded she was the woman Guo Lin kept.

Li Mu reasoned that as a mine director, Guo Lin had more money than he could spend, but his wife was hideous. As long as he still had any virility left, he would certainly seek pleasure elsewhere—and now they finally had proof.

Zhao Kang told Li Mu, “Her name is Zhao Lina, but it’s been so long I can’t remember where she’s from.”

Li Mu didn’t care. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is, we’ve confirmed her relationship with him. She tutored Guo Yuhang over three years ago, and I bet they got involved back then. We just need to spread this information online, and Guo Lin’s wife will be the first to go after him.”

“Guo Lin had an affair with his son’s tutor, and it lasted over three years. When his wife finds out, she’ll go mad.”

Li Mu nodded, started the car, and said, “Once netizens hear he hooked up with a university student three years ago, they’ll tear him apart. Let’s go—no need to know their exact apartment number.”

Zhao Kang asked curiously, “If we expose this, won’t Zhao Lina’s reputation be ruined too?”

Li Mu was unmoved. “I have no energy to worry about her reputation. This is a life-or-death battle between me and Guo Lin—I only care about taking him down, not collateral damage.”

Seeing Li Mu’s resolute gaze, Zhao Kang nodded lightly.

Li Mu sneered, “Anyway, she chose to be his mistress before graduating university. She’s no saint. If she made that decision and stuck to it for over three years, she should be ready for the consequences.”

Zhao Kang agreed, “If Guo Lin were targeting my dad, I’d want to kill his whole family. And Zhao Lina is disgusting, too. Guo Lin's almost a pig now—I can’t even imagine the two of them together…”

Li Mu drove out of the neighborhood and said calmly, “Once we expose Zhao Lina, Guo Lin will face trouble at home and work. But this alone isn’t enough to topple him.”

Zhao Kang raised an eyebrow, “We’ve got proof he kept a mistress—isn’t that enough?”

Li Mu shook his head. “He’s a company manager, not a government official. The only charge we can prove is his affair; the rest are still based on rumors. At most, he’ll be accused of bad conduct. If his superiors cover for him, this will blow over soon.”

Zhao Kang thought for a moment and nodded, “So where do we get concrete evidence?”

Li Mu shrugged, “I don’t know yet. But for now, this will keep Guo Lin on his toes. We’ll figure out the next step as we go.”

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