Ruan Nianchu glanced down at Chen Guozhi on the ground, frowned, and asked Li Teng, “What should we do with this person? Should we just take him to the police station?”
As soon as these words were spoken, Chen Guozhi’s face changed instantly, and he hurriedly exclaimed, “No! Please don’t… Hey, miss beautiful, what grudge do I have with you? I haven’t harmed you, so why resort to such extreme measures like breaking my arms and sending me to the police station?” His expression became even more pitiful, “I didn’t even ask you to compensate me for medical expenses. I’m being quite considerate.”
Ruan Nianchu coldly snorted, “Scoundrels like you, if we don’t take you to the police station, are we supposed to let you continue causing trouble?”
“You’re just making things up. I don’t have the ability to cause trouble.” Chen Guozhi smirked at her, “At most, I harm a few ignorant girls. It’s not my fault I’m so handsome.”
Ruan Nianchu’s mouth twitched, “…”
A few seconds later, she fetched a towel from the bathroom and stuffed it into the man’s mouth. Chen Guozhi couldn’t speak anymore, so he could only bite on the towel.
The whole room finally quieted down.
“Sorry, you were just too noisy.” Ruan Nianchu smiled faintly, clasped her hands together towards the bewildered man, and spoke sincerely, “Please forgive any offense.”
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Ubld Qwsgbk: “…”
G qlo xkdwvlp zyvla, Nk Mldt vbalo vbl tyttle Ubld Qwsgbk kdvs vbl cyvbassx yde psxlbso qswde y asrl, iwknjzu vukdt bkx wr yde plnwakdt bkx vs vbl vbknjlpv oyvla rkrl.
Swyd Lkydnbw zlydle ytykdpv vbl essa yde oyvnble yp Ubld Qwsgbk’p pbswzela vokpvle yde bkp qynl vwadle ryzl. Plprkvl qllzkdt y ckv psaau, pbl ypjle, “Ebyv ycswv bkp yax?”
Ubld Qwsgbk’p lulp zkv wr yv bla osaep, zssjkdt vsoyaep Nk Mldt, bkp qynl qwzz sq ydvknkryvksd—vyjl xl vs vbl bsprkvyz, rzlypl vyjl xl vs vbl bsprkvyz!
Nk Mldt jlrv bkp blye esod, lmralppksdzlpp, tayccle csvb ldep sq vbl asrl, yde vkle y vktbv jdsv. Mbld, okvbswv lhld zssjkdt wr, bl pyke, “Oypu.”
“…” Ubld Qwsgbk pweeldzu okeldle bkp lulp kd qlya, pldpkdt psxlvbkdt oyp oasdt.
Rd vbl dlmv kdpvydv, Nk Mldt vokpvle bkp pbswzela.
Ubld Qwsgbk zssjle elprlayvl, wpkdt bkp lulp vs ypj, “Jas, obyv vbl blzz yal usw tsddy es?”
Li Teng replied coldly, “Endure it.”
Then, there were only a few crisp sounds of bones realigning under the force. Chen Guozhi endured two bouts of intense pain in a short time, gritting his teeth as sweat poured down from his forehead, almost rendering him weak.
Li Teng stood up abruptly.
Ruan Nianchu glanced at Chen Guozhi’s condition, cleared her throat, and asked, “Have you finished dealing with him?”
Li Teng replied, “Yes,” as he searched Chen Guozhi and then closed the door behind him.
“How do you plan to handle Chen Guozhi?” Ruan Nianchu asked quietly.
Li Teng casually swept his gaze towards the door, his expression calm and indifferent. “When it’s light out, throw him at the police station gate. If he dares to take another step, I’ll chop off his hands and feed them to the dogs.”
Understanding immediately, Ruan Nianchu raised her voice a bit, “Just chopping off hands isn’t enough. Since Chen Guozhi is so noisy, we should also cut out his tongue and feed it to the pigs!”
Inside the room, Chen Guozhi’s temples twitched, his face turning as dark as a pot bottom.
Outside, Ruan Nianchu suppressed a smile, her eyes narrowing as she glanced at Li Teng. He returned the glance but remained silent, leading her to the farthest window from the bathroom. He stood still.
She continued to stare at him without blinking.
Finally, Li Teng frowned. “Why do you keep staring at me?”
Ruan Nianchu’s voice was low, tinged with amusement. “After tormenting Chen Guozhi like that, you still had to scare him. You’re so bad.”
Li Teng retorted coldly, “I didn’t scare him.”
Ruan Nianchu shrugged. “There’s a dialect term called ‘acting like a harmless villain.’ Do you know what that means?”
He lowered his eyes and lit a cigarette, not responding.
“It means appearing gentlemanly on the surface but always causing mischief in earnest.” Ruan Nianchu pointed at him. “That’s you.”
Li Teng turned his head away to look out the window, flicking the ashes and smiling faintly. Seeing him smile, Ruan Nianchu’s mood improved, and she smiled too.
But soon Li Teng’s smile faded. In a moment, he looked back at her, his expression completely calm. He said, “Do you understand your situation now?”
Ruan Nianchu leaned against the windowsill, nodding. The smile faded from her face.
Li Teng continued, “Daren is not easy to deal with. Our people are in the light, his are in the dark. So, Ruan Nianchu, you need to behave.”
“Got it.” She recalled the previous incident and paused before continuing, “Last time was just an accident. I won’t act out like that again. Whatever you say, I’ll do. I’ll cooperate with you.”
Li Teng assessed her. The girl’s gaze was calm, and there was no fear or panic on her face. She was composed. This was different from what he expected her to be like after knowing the truth.
He hooked a finger under her chin, squinting slightly. “You don’t seem too afraid.”
“It’s my life at stake. How could I not be afraid? But what’s the use of being afraid?” Ruan Nianchu sighed lightly, feigning casualness and said with emotion, “It’s better to face reality as a person.”
Li Teng stared at Ruan Nianchu’s face bathed in the warm light for a while, then smirked lightly. “You’ve grown up.”
Ruan Nianchu also smiled. “I believe you. But you also need to protect yourself.”
Li Teng nodded slightly, not pursuing the topic further. “It’s getting late. You should rest.”
“Okay,” she agreed, then hesitated before adding, “…But since Chen Guozhi is in this room, I’ll go sleep in your room.”
Li Teng refused outright, “Just sleep here.”
“Why?” It wasn’t convenient to leave a person locked in the bathroom.
“Someone is tracking us,” he said.
Ruan Nianchu frowned, not understanding. “I know that. But isn’t Chen Guozhi already here?”
Li Teng replied, “It’s not Chen Guozhi. It’s someone else.”
“…Someone else is tracking us?” Ruan Nianchu was genuinely shocked. “Is it also someone sent by Mr. Zheng?”
Li Teng said it wasn’t. “It’s another pair. A man and a woman.”
Ruan Nianchu was speechless, raising a hand to her forehead.
Li Teng continued, “Tonight, Chen Guozhi’s appearance has alerted them. They should be moving soon. You can’t leave my sight.”
She lowered her eyes, struggling to digest this information, nodding. Suddenly, she remembered something and looked up in shock. “…Are you suggesting we sleep in the same room?”
“Yes.”
“…There’s only one bed.” Her face suddenly felt hot for some reason. She coughed dryly. “And there’s someone else in the bathroom.”
Li Teng raised an eyebrow, knowing exactly what Ruan Nianchu was concerned about. He rubbed her head with a big hand. “Girl, what are you thinking? Do you really think I’d have such thoughts at a crucial time like tonight?”
She became even more puzzled. “Then…”
He said, “You sleep, I’ll keep watch.”
Ruan Nianchu pursed her lips, feeling unsure. She went to another room to wash up, then returned, wearing clothes, and lay down on the bed, covering herself tightly with the blanket. Li Teng dragged a chair and sat by the bedside. Without speaking, he just watched her.
Before falling asleep, she felt a bit uneasy and propped up her head. “Hey, staying up late is bad for your health. Not sleeping all night, can your body handle it?”
Li Teng leaned his head against the back of the chair, staring at her, raising an eyebrow slightly. He said calmly, “Whether I can handle it or not, you’ll have to find out.”
Ruan Nianchu realized what he meant, her cheeks suddenly flushed red. She bit her lip, pulled the blanket over her head, and ignored him. Within three seconds, her true colors emerged. Who was he kidding?
The next morning, just as dawn broke, Li Teng took Ruan Nianchu and Chen Guozhi away from the inn.
Chen Guozhi, who had spent the night locked in the bathroom, was sore all over, his back aching, legs cramping, and he was filled with anger. When Li Teng untied him in the morning, he entertained thoughts of revenge, but seeing Li Teng’s expressionless face, he assessed the situation and realized his chances of winning against someone who could defeat elite special forces soldiers were slim. So, he could only swallow his pride.
Afterwards, Li Teng drove and indeed dumped Chen Guozhi at the police station gate. He was dumped like a banana peel.
With his back against the ground, Chen Guozhi cursed in Cantonese at the departing SUV, his teeth gritted in pain, “I’ll curse your lungs, I’ll poke your eyes, damn it!”
The curses were left far behind.
Ruan Nianchu adjusted her seatbelt and asked Li Teng, “When are we going back to the urban area?” There would be more people in the city area, which should be relatively safer.
“The news said the highway will be reopened before 12 p.m. today,” Li Teng replied calmly. “We’ll leave after lunch.”
Ruan Nianchu nodded, not asking any further questions.
So, for the entire morning, the two of them strolled around the ancient town.
The landslides caused by the heavy rain had led to the closure of the highway. Therefore, even though it was Sunday, there weren’t as many tourists in Baixi Town as there were yesterday. It seemed much quieter.
Shops selling various souvenirs lined both sides of the main street. Normally, Ruan Nianchu would have enjoyed hopping from one shop to another, but after what happened last night, she had no desire to play.
She just wanted the performance group to gather early and then to return home as soon as possible.
Lost in thought, Ruan Nianchu unconsciously turned her head and saw Li Teng standing at a small stall. His gaze was lowered, looking at something.
She approached a few steps and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Li Teng, without much expression, didn’t answer but simply took her right hand. Then, he slipped a grass-woven ring onto her ring finger.
Ruan Nianchu was a bit stunned.
After looking at it for a few seconds, Li Teng said lightly, “Looks good on you.” Then he turned to the shopkeeper and asked, “How much is this?”
The shopkeeper grinned, “Fifteen yuan each. Handsome guy, these rings are usually bought in pairs. Why don’t you buy one for yourself too? A pair costs only twenty-five yuan!”
“Just this one,” Li Teng handed over the money.
Ruan Nianchu looked at the grass-woven ring for a while, furrowing her brows. “Why did you suddenly buy this for me?”
He took her hand and said in a calm tone, “Because your hands are fair, it looks good on you.”
“…?” She blinked, then laughed, “Hey, did you buy this to cheer me up because you noticed I wasn’t in a good mood?”
Li Teng glanced at her. “You know the answer.”
“Tch, you’re trying to get rid of me with just fifteen yuan,” she teased, her lips curling up at the corners, “Am I that easy to please, boyfriend?”
Li Teng asked, “Then how should I please you, girlfriend?”
Ruan Nianchu lifted her hand to poke his chin mischievously. “Call me ‘Your Majesty.'”
Li Teng replied coldly, “Your Majesty.”
Her smile blossomed into a full one. “You’re such a good boy.”
After lunch, the clear sky clouded over again. Afraid of encountering road closures again, the two of them didn’t dare to delay and set off. The earth-yellow SUV drove out of the gate of the ancient town.
In front of a folding fan shop stood a woman wearing sunglasses.
She watched expressionlessly as the SUV drove away, then picked up her phone and dialed a number, saying coldly, “They have left Baixi Town and are on their way back to the city. Detonate.”
After finishing her sentence, she hung up the phone.
The road from Baixi Town to the border city area, which had just been repaired in the morning, encountered another accident in the afternoon—several large rocks lay across the center of the highway, and the guardrail on the side of the curve was twisted and deformed, making it impassable.
The road was closed again.
Looking at the large rocks in the middle of the road, Ruan Nianchu frowned, wondering if it was just bad luck or if her horoscope had warned against traveling today.
At this moment, a man carrying a shoulder pole leisurely walked onto the highway. Wearing a sweatshirt, canvas shoes, and smoking a cigarette, he looked like a local.
Li Teng rolled down the car window, gave the man a cigarette, and asked if there were any other roads leading to the border city.
The local said there was, “You go back the way you came, towards Qilong Mountain. When you get off the highway, you’ll see Lin’an County. But don’t go in, just turn left, and that road will also take you back to the border city. It’s just a bit of a detour.”
“How far is the journey?”
“About two hundred kilometers,” the local smiled, “Hold on tight, you’ll definitely make it before dark.” After saying that, he walked away while smoking his cigarette.
Li Teng frowned and pondered for a moment, then extinguished the cigarette and turned the car around.
The car continued to speed. The sky grew increasingly overcast.
Around 3:40 in the afternoon, their car exited the highway and onto the road the local mentioned for returning to the border city.
The local forgot to mention that this road was an old one from several years ago, with no toll stations, electronic eyes, or surveillance.
Outside the car window, there were continuous green mountains, with peaks almost touching the clouds.
Ruan Nianchu leaned on the car window to admire the beautiful scenery, taking photos with her phone as she looked. Click, click.
Suddenly, Li Teng’s voice rang out unexpectedly, calling her name, “Ruan Nianchu.”
“What is it?” she replied casually.
His face was serious, his speech quick, but his tone extremely calm. “Fasten your seatbelt.”
“…?” She was puzzled but still reached out to tug on the belt over her shoulder, securing it, and answered, “Yeah, it’s fastened.”
The moment she finished speaking, the rear of the SUV suddenly swerved, and she was stunned, gripping the handle tightly, almost being shaken out by the violent bumps.
“Ding ding”—
Two bullets hit the back, deviating and embedding into the car’s metal.
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