3. Uncle and Nephew at War

The next day, Wen Mingjuan stormed into the classroom, and wouldn't you know it, Tao Muwei trailed right in behind her.

"Late again." Wen Mingjuan snapped at him the moment she saw him. Truth be told, she was harboring a bit of a grudge — yesterday's coordinated performance by that uncle-and-nephew duo still rankled her.

"It's not like today's the first time I've been late." Tao Muwei said coldly. "Nobody wakes me up at home. I've told you that a hundred times."

Wen Mingjuan couldn't help noticing how much his cold expression resembled Gao Weizhao's. He hadn't been like this before, had he?

"Aren't you staying at your uncle's place now? Why wouldn't anyone wake you? Where'd your grandparents and your uncle go?" Wen Mingjuan was fuming that Tao Muwei was pulling out this tired excuse again to fool her.

"My grandparents?" Tao Muwei blinked, staring at Wen Mingjuan with a look of genuine confusion.

"What is it?" Wen Mingjuan shot back.

"They moved to America ages ago." Tao Muwei muttered, shaking his head as if mocking his teacher for being an idiot.

"Well then..." Wen Mingjuan did her best to hold back her mounting fury. "At least there's still your uncle, isn't there?"

"You're kidding, right? He's still dead asleep in bed right now. Who's going to bother with me?" Tao Muwei said dismissively. "Besides, Teacher, you've got it all wrong — I didn't move in with my uncle. He moved into my house."

"Oh... is that so?" Wen Mingjuan felt a bit embarrassed — she'd spoken her assumptions aloud before verifying them, and of course it had backfired immediately.

"You have no idea how rarely he comes down south, and even rarer still that he's staying at my place. My mom told me my uncle's staying with us for at least three months. Three whole months!" From the gleam in Tao Muwei's eyes, Wen Mingjuan could actually see something like reverence for a national hero.

A national hero? Wen Mingjuan shook her head. How terrifying — how could she possibly feel that way? That pervert — how could he possibly deserve anyone's admiration?

Spotting the principal making his rounds in the distance, she suddenly remembered it was homeroom study period, and here she was, standing at the classroom door, thoroughly played by a seventeen-year-old kid.

Suddenly, the discipline officer came running toward the principal, gasping for breath, and murmured a flurry of words into his ear with an alarmed expression. Wen Mingjuan had already started to walk into the classroom when the principal abruptly called her to stop.

"Could the principal have found out about the trouble Tao Muwei caused yesterday?" Wen Mingjuan wondered nervously. Something this embarrassing wasn't something she'd volunteer to report to the school — could the Tainan train station have notified the discipline office?

"There's a parent from your class in the discipline office. What's his name... Chen something?" The principal tilted his head, growing more flustered the harder he tried to remember.

"Chen Hongjia." the discipline officer quickly supplied.

"Right." The principal's expression grew grave. "The parents say they work at the night market. When they got home in the middle of the night, they thought their son was asleep — until a call from a gambling den told them otherwise."

"A gambling den?" Wen Mingjuan was stunned. Chen Hongjia's usual behavior had been passable, at least far more normal than Tao Muwei's — she never imagined he'd be caught gambling.

Wen Mingjuan looked at the principal in alarm, unsure what to do next. Surely they weren't going to ask her to march into a gambling den to rescue Chen Hongjia?

She wasn't ready to die yet!

Besides — someone as flower-like and heavenly beautiful as herself — how could the principal and discipline officer possibly bear to send her into such danger?

"What exactly was he doing at a gambling den?" Wen Mingjuan asked, brow furrowed.

"Apparently he went with some friends to see what it was all about, and ran straight into some gang settling a score. In the chaos, he got dragged off." the discipline officer explained hurriedly. "The details aren't entirely clear."

"So... have the police been called?"

"Not sure."

Just as those words left his mouth, Tao Muwei suddenly burst out from beside Wen Mingjuan, shouting: "Don't call the police yet."

"What do you think you're doing? Mind your manners — children should be seen and not heard." Wen Mingjuan scolded him.

"Calling the police might get Chen Hongjia killed." Tao Muwei said.

"Just because you're not talking doesn't mean we think you're mute — get back to your seat." She scolded him again.

"Finding my uncle would probably do more good than finding the police." Tao Muwei clearly wasn't taking Wen Mingjuan seriously at all.

"Mr. Gao?" The principal looked at Tao Muwei in surprise, then glanced at Wen Mingjuan.

Wen Mingjuan shrugged, signaling that she had no idea what was going on either.

"Tao Muwei! This isn't something to joke about — it could cost someone their life." Given that he was the child of the Parents' Association chairman, the principal had no choice but to speak to him politely.

"Ugh, talking to you people is like a scholar arguing with a soldier — there's no getting through. Never mind, I'm not going to bother explaining." Tao Muwei pulled his phone out of his bag and, with everyone watching, dialed a number.

The phone rang for a long time with no answer. Unable to help himself, Tao Muwei blurted out, mouth running wild, right into the phone: "You pig! Still asleep?"

"The hell—!" Suddenly, everyone jumped at a voice that burst from the other end. "What did you just call me? You've got the nerve to wake me up at the crack of dawn?"

"Ah..." Tao Muwei's face instantly went pale. Wen Mingjuan, the principal, and the discipline officer all exchanged glances, each breaking into a cold sweat.

Ugh! Uncle and nephew at war — what an ethical tragedy!

"It's nothing, don't take it to heart." Tao Muwei tried to placate Gao Weizhao's temper. "I got carried away, lost my head for a second. Please don't be mad."

"What is it?" Gao Weizhao's mood was clearly still foul.

"My classmate's been taken. Can you help find him and bring him back?"

"No." The moment those two words left his mouth, the call was hung up, leaving Tao Muwei so furious he let loose a string of curses.

"Let me run home for a bit." Tao Muwei said, grinning sheepishly at everyone.

"Forget it, just get back to your seat. Don't go stirring up more trouble — we need to go see Chen Hongjia's parents." Wen Mingjuan advised him.

"The principal can go see Chen Hongjia's parents just fine. Teacher, you come home with me and beg my uncle. You're a girl — he probably won't yell at you, and even if he does, it won't be too harsh."

"Are you ever going to stop?"

"If we don't hurry, do you want Chen Hongjia to die a horrible death?" Without further ado, Tao Muwei grabbed Wen Mingjuan's hand and took off running.

Wen Mingjuan swore she truly did not want to see that damned pervert again — but how could she bear to let Chen Hongjia meet a terrible fate?

A flash of last night's events at the Tainan train station suddenly surfaced in her mind. Maybe Gao Weizhao really did have some extraordinary power — otherwise, how could Tao Muwei's mess have been resolved so easily?

So as she ran, Wen Mingjuan called back to the principal and discipline officer: "If Mr. Gao can really help, I'll call the discipline office with the details."

Riding the scooter with Tao Muwei on the back, it took less than five minutes to reach the Tao residence.

Tao Muwei leapt off the scooter, unlocked the multiple locks, and dashed inside without looking back, dragging Wen Mingjuan's hand straight to a bedroom door on the second floor, where he pounded on it with all his might.

"Uncle! My teacher's here." Tao Muwei shouted impatiently. "Get up, quick!"

Unfortunately, Gao Weizhao didn't seem to hear him.

"Get up already! My classmate's about to die." At this moment, Wen Mingjuan suddenly recalled that Tao Muwei and Chen Hongjia were practically a pair of inseparable buddies, thick as thieves — no wonder he was so worked up about it.

"What's it to me if your classmate dies?" All at once, the door swung open, and Gao Weizhao stepped out, looking half-asleep. His shirt hung open, only a few buttons done, half-revealing a solid, well-built chest.

Wen Mingjuan held her breath, suddenly feeling her face flush. She had no brothers, and in all her years, had never seen a man's bare chest before. Honestly, Gao Weizhao's physique was top-notch — he wasn't especially tall, but his muscles were firm and solid; he could probably pass for a guest spot in a male revue.

"You looking for trouble? You're driving me nuts!" Gao Weizhao was still grumbling.

"Chen Hongjia was taken by people from the gambling den — if you don't go save him, he could be in serious danger." Tao Muwei was still doing his utmost to persuade Gao Weizhao. In that moment, Wen Mingjuan couldn't help letting her gaze drift from his chest down to his arm — perhaps subconsciously trying to make out that tattoo she hadn't quite managed to see clearly that night.

"Something this small, just call the police. Why wake me up for it?" Clearly, Wen Mingjuan's presence had considerably tempered the murderous fury Gao Weizhao had shown on the phone earlier.

"Hey! Are you even fully awake? Is your brain not working either?" Tao Muwei ran over and smacked him — a motion that happened to block Wen Mingjuan's view, preventing her from seeing the tattoo on his arm. "What if it's your own operation's place?"

Hearing Little Tao's words, Gao Weizhao glanced over at Wen Mingjuan.

"Which place?" he asked coldly.

"What do you mean... place?" Wen Mingjuan asked blankly in return. Their conversation was too cryptic; she couldn't quite follow.

"It means the gambling den." Tao Muwei jumped in to answer for him. "You don't even know that much."

"I... I don't know, I... I'll have to call and ask." Wen Mingjuan stammered her reply.

"Well hurry up and call, then?" Gao Weizhao shot Wen Mingjuan a glare. That single look was enough to send a chill down anyone's spine — even the hand holding the phone trembled slightly.

Getting through to the discipline office, Wen Mingjuan hurriedly asked for some details.

"No need for all that nonsense — just the address or name of the gambling den, or the name of whatever storefront it's using as a cover." Gao Weizhao snatched the receiver right out of Wen Mingjuan's hand and spoke to the discipline officer directly.

Wen Mingjuan stood frozen for a long moment. Listening to the practiced, expert way he discussed the gambling den, it wasn't hard to guess he had some deep connection to that world.

A sudden chill swept through her chest and heart.

Standing before this delicate, heaven-sent beauty of a gentle young woman — was this actually some underworld crime boss?

Was she overthinking it? Why had she read so many wuxia novels by Jin Yong for nothing? She silently scolded herself.

Lost in a jumble of thoughts, she didn't quite catch what he'd said to the discipline officer — she only knew that once Gao Weizhao hung up the phone, he turned and walked straight out.