The late-autumn night wind swept fallen leaves across the asphalt road, and Zhou Ruo An’s fingers around the steering wheel had gone slightly stiff.
The woman in the passenger seat hummed softly while rummaging around for a charging cable. After turning her bag upside down and still finding nothing, she leaned over sweetly and asked, “Young Mr. Zhou, do you have a charging cable in the car?”
The suburbs were remote, with few cars and wide roads. Looking ahead and behind, there were only two vehicles on the road.
The car moved forward as dead leaves rustled beneath the tires. Zhou Ruo An withdrew his gaze from the rearview mirror and smiled at the woman. “Check the storage compartment. There should be one there.”
His phone vibrated lightly against him. His lashes trembled once as Zhou Ruo An turned the wheel and pulled over to the roadside.
“I need to take a call,” he said.
The family car that had been following behind them sped past. Zhou Ruo An glanced at it casually, only looking away after its taillights vanished at the end of the road, then unlocked his phone.
“Talk.” Zhou Ruo An lowered the window, letting the chilly air flood into the car.
“We found your personal assistant. He knew he’d caused trouble, so he got scared and went into hiding.”
“What did he say?”
“He was too eager to claim credit, so he gave Fang Fei…”
“Wait.” Zhou Ruo An covered the receiver, then turned and pasted a smile over his cold expression. “Shanshan, there’s a gift for you in the back. Go take a look.”
The woman brightened and turned around, only to find an entry-level monogram tote bag sitting in the rear footwell. It showed obvious signs of use, with several badges pinned to it. Her pale fingers flipped one badge aside, revealing an ugly cigarette burn hidden underneath.
“This?” Her voice carried obvious distaste.
The moment Zhou Ruo An’s gaze locked onto the bag, a faint tremor spread uncontrollably from his fingertips through his entire body. A few days earlier, when the birthday banquet had finally cleared out, this bag had been left sitting alone and conspicuous on the far-right end of the sofa. That was where Fang Fei had spent the entire night.
“Your present is in the trunk.” Words gentle as clouds concealed the emotion that had surfaced for an instant. Zhou Ruo An watched the woman happily get out and open the trunk before uncovering the receiver again. “What did he do to Fang Fei?”
“He drugged him with a knockout drug.”
Shit.
“Where did you even find this assistant?”
A cheer suddenly came from the rear of the car. The trunk was packed with flowers and gifts, enough to keep the surprise going for several minutes.
The moment he heard, “Love you, babe,” Zhou Ruo An covered the receiver again as though he had anticipated it.
He tossed a smile toward the back of the car, then uncovered the phone once more. “He’s from one of the Zhou family’s neglected side branches. I used him because I liked how unconventional he was in the way he handled things. Never thought it would backfire on me instead.”
Zhou Ruo An pinned the phone between his shoulder and cheek and adjusted the rearview mirror. Through the narrow gap between the car body and the open trunk, he could see the woman tearing open the second gift box. Once he had confirmed the scene, he sat upright and switched on the in-car computer.
A man’s photograph appeared on the screen.
He wasn’t particularly young-looking. Buzz cut, narrow eyelids, a scar at his temple. He had the bearing and build of a mature man, enough to make people instinctively wary.
Zhou Ruo An narrowed his eyes. He felt that if Lin Yi were another ten years older, he would probably look something like this.
A few days earlier, when Lin Yi had tossed this man’s information in front of him, he had tapped the photograph with one finger.
“Zhang Xu Yao, thirty-three years old, mathematics teacher at Xinfa Town No. 1 High School. He was the one who took Fang Fei from the mountain villa that night.”
“A teacher?” Zhou Ruo An still remembered his own shock at the time. “The bodyguards at the villa couldn’t stop a teacher?”
“Ever heard of Yanyue Security? That famous bodyguard company. Zhang Xu Yao used to be their ace, firmly holding the number-one spot. Later he went off to become a teacher, but every vacation he still goes back to Yanyue to train their bodyguards. Bai Jiu was trained by him.”
Zhou Ruo An couldn’t hide his surprise. “He’s that impressive? Then why did he change careers?”
Lin Yi answered lightly, “His ambitions weren’t in that line of work. If someone with his abilities had stayed in the business, Yan City’s entire power structure might have been reshuffled.”
The worry in Zhou Ruo An’s eyes deepened as he asked the key question. “What’s his relationship with Fang Fei?” Lin Yi’s answer came after a slight pause. “Teacher and student. Zhang Xu Yao was Fang Fei’s math teacher in high school. But… from the looks of things now, they seem a little closer than just teacher and student.”
Both of them understood what those words implied. Zhou Ruo An had become quick on the uptake when it came to matters between men these days, and the turmoil in his eyes deepened further.
“If that’s the case, he won’t let me off.”
“He probably won’t let you off.”
The two voices overlapped eerily.
The car door opened and the woman slid back into the passenger seat. Zhang Xu Yao’s profile happened to switch over to business data on the screen, and Zhou Ruo An put on a smile. “Do you like it?”
Then he spoke into the phone. “That’s it. Hanging up.”
The other end fell silent for a moment before a slightly hoarse voice said, “Be careful.”
“Mm.” His goodbye was abrupt, only: “Got it.”
He stepped on the accelerator, and the car resumed moving forward. As they went deeper into the area, the woods grew darker, layers of fallen leaves piling beneath the wheels before the autumn wind dragged them into the tires. Just as the car rounded a sharp bend, Zhou Ruo An caught sight of a dark figure flashing through the bushes.
In the next instant, a black net lined with sharp road spikes stretched across the road ahead.
Zhou Ruo An slammed on the brakes. The tires shrieked violently against the pavement, but the car had been moving too fast. It was already too late. The vehicle plunged straight into the trap. The tough black net tangled tightly around the tires while the spikes easily punched through the rubber.
The woman’s scream and the sound of the tires bursting exploded at the same time. The car began shaking violently, swerving uncontrollably from side to side until it finally lost momentum and came to a stop. Zhou Ruo An gripped the steering wheel tightly, the muscles in his face twitching slightly. The woman beside him was still screaming, and in irritation he simply clamped a hand over her mouth. “Shut up!”
Then, just as quickly, he smoothed the sinister look from his face and coaxed her, “I’ll get out and see what’s going on.”
Undoing his seat belt, Zhou Ruo An pushed open the door and carefully stepped out. The soles of his shoes brushed against the ground with faint scraping sounds. The surroundings were eerily silent, save for the autumn wind whispering through the forest.
His gaze swept casually toward the roadside, and his pupils suddenly contracted. Half a vehicle was faintly visible deep within the woods. Looking more closely, it was the very family car that had been following behind him earlier before overtaking and driving ahead.
Before he could react, footsteps sounded nearby. When he looked up again, a tall man in a baseball cap was already standing in front of him.
There was no chance to escape. Leather-gloved hands seized his collar with terrifying strength and shoved Zhou Ruo An back into the car. The man grabbed his hair and slammed his head hard against the steering wheel. Bang. Sharp pain exploded through him. As Zhou Ruo An sagged sideways against the steering wheel, he finally saw the face beneath the cap.
Not particularly young. Narrow eyelids. A scar at the temple.
Zhang Xu Yao.
The next instant, the world plunged completely into darkness.
He didn’t know how much time had passed. In a daze, Zhou Ruo An felt himself being dragged along before he was thrown heavily down somewhere.
A hollow, distant voice drifted faintly into his ears. “Zhou Ruo An, you’re only an illegitimate son of the Zhou family’s third branch. If something happens to you, do you think the person you’ve been currying favor with will seek justice for you?”
No. Zhou Ruo An answered inwardly. He even wanted to offer up a self-mocking smile, but he couldn’t break through the haze clouding his mind.
He didn’t know how much longer had passed. When Zhou Ruo An finally regained consciousness, the back of his neck was pressing painfully against a crack in the wooden slats of a park bench. In the distance, the dilapidated amusement park’s rotating sign flashed intermittent blue light while two hunched shadows argued above him.
“Drunk? Pretty young. Looks like I hit the jackpot today.” A hoarse, elderly voice pierced the darkness as fingers like dry twigs pinched Zhou Ruo An’s chin and turned his face from side to side.
“I saw him first…”
“Same old rule. We take turns…”
Rough fingers covered Zhou Ruo An’s cheek. A sensitive spot was grabbed several times through his clothes as the two hunched figures fought over his arms, dragging him behind the rockery.
Fifty meters away, beneath a locust tree, Zhang Xu Yao lit a cigarette. Only when the sound of fabric tearing came from behind the rockery did he put the cigarette between his lips and walk toward the park exit, the hem of his trench coat brushing across low shrubs and gathering the cool night dew.
＊
When a rough palm stroked the taut line of his waist, Zhou Ruo An clenched his hand around a stone buried in the dirt.
He was bitten hard on the shoulder and couldn’t suppress a soft grunt.
As though stimulated by the sound, a grimy hand hurriedly reached for Zhou Ruo An’s belt.
Zhou Ruo An slowly opened his eyes and stared at the dark sky above. He nearly ground his teeth to pieces before managing to suppress the urge to raise the stone and smash it down with all his strength.
He was betting that Zhang Xu Yao would leave early.
Finally, the sharp snap of a dead branch came from the bushes.
A man in camouflage trousers flashed out from the shadows of the trees and immediately kicked the old man pinning Zhou Ruo An down, sending him flying.
The old man was little more than skin and bones. He had barely raised a hand to beg for mercy when his wrist was brutally snapped into a sharp angle.
“Was this the hand that tore his clothes?” The instant the words fell, the sound of breaking bone followed.
A heart-rending scream tore through the dark corner. The other man beside the rockery turned and fled in terror, only to be seized by the collar and violently dragged back. A hand locked around his throat before his entire body was slammed heavily into the rockery.
Zhou Ruo An struggled to push himself upright. Still gripping the stone, he walked over to the screaming old man and raised it high, only to receive a warning before he could bring it down. “Don’t hit his head.”
Zhou Ruo An abruptly froze. Then he turned his wrist, and the stone came down with a rush of air, smashing heavily into the old man’s hand. With a crisp, brutal crack, the bone broke.
Seeing this, the man quickly took off his own jacket, strode forward, and gently wrapped it around the disheveled Zhou Ruo An. “We need to get out of here quickly.”
Zhou Ruo An rummaged through the jacket around his shoulders for cigarettes. Several spilled onto the ground before he finally managed to get one into his mouth. Clenching the filter tightly between his teeth, he asked through his trembling, “Zhang Xu Yao left?”
“He left.” The arms around Zhou Ruo An suddenly tightened. “If he hadn’t left soon, I probably would’ve ruined your plan.”
A wavering flame lit the cigarette. Zhou Ruo An drew in a deep breath before saying, “Lin Yi, you’re never going to amount to anything in this lifetime.”