5. First Clash

Reluctantly, Wen Mingjuan went downstairs. In the distance, she saw a black Mercedes sedan gradually pulling up toward her.

"Why bother driving such a fancy car for no reason? It's not like this is a date!" Once in the back seat, Wen Mingjuan grumbled, her tone thick with disapproval. "Showing off how rich you are?"

Hearing Wen Mingjuan's remark, Gao Weizhao showed no reaction at all. It was Little Tao who tugged at Wen Mingjuan's sleeve and said, "This is my dad's car. My uncle came back by train — his own car's still up in Taipei."

"Oh, really?" Wen Mingjuan glanced at Gao Weizhao in the rearview mirror; his default expression hadn't changed one bit.

Unfortunately, that was when Wen Mingjuan caught the smell of cigarette smoke.

"Smoking?" The word flashed instantly through Wen Mingjuan's mind. Heaven knew, ever since childhood she'd feared and despised cigarette smoke more than almost anything; if anyone lit up even several meters away, it would set her eyes and nose streaming, and send her coughing until she nearly retched blood.

"Do you have any consideration for others? Don't smoke in front of us — are you trying to give Tao Muwei and me lung cancer?" Wen Mingjuan's anxiety flared, and without thinking twice, she barked at Gao Weizhao to stop.

"You're a real nag, you know that?"

In the rearview mirror, Wen Mingjuan watched Gao Weizhao slowly exhale a stream of smoke, his face displeased. But before Gao Weizhao could get another word of scolding out, Wen Mingjuan's allergic reaction to the smoke erupted all at once — within a few minutes, she'd used up every last tissue she carried, and was coughing so violently her stomach churned.

"Stop the car." Wen Mingjuan managed to squeeze out enough breath to order Gao Weizhao to pull over. Before the car had even fully stopped, she'd already thrown the door open and bolted out, crouching by the roadside, still coughing.

Her sudden fit seemed to stun both Gao Weizhao and Little Tao. Gao Weizhao immediately flicked his cigarette far away, and uncle and nephew both rushed over together to check on her.

"Are you okay? Do you need anything?" It was Gao Weizhao who spoke, and his voice unmistakably betrayed how flustered he was.

Obviously not! She was coughing so hard she couldn't even speak — how could that possibly be "okay"?

Meanwhile, Tao Muwei pulled an entire box of tissues out of the car and held it out to Wen Mingjuan.

"Why... why didn't you say something sooner?" Gao Weizhao stammered, asking Wen Mingjuan: "This is the first time I've ever seen someone react this badly to cigarette smoke." At that moment, Gao Weizhao looked exactly like a child who'd done something wrong, bracing for punishment.

"Did you even give me the chance to say anything?" After coughing for a long while more, Wen Mingjuan finally found a gap to answer him.

"You went from fine to that in no time at all." As he spoke, Gao Weizhao gently patted Wen Mingjuan's back.

"Get your filthy hands off me." Feeling him patting her back to help ease her breathing, Wen Mingjuan flatly rejected his good intentions.

"Hey! My hands aren't filthy. You're being completely unreasonable — I just held a cigarette, and suddenly my hands are filthy by association?"

Clearly, Gao Weizhao had completely misread her meaning; naturally, he had no idea that what Wen Mingjuan actually meant was that whole lewd, perverted business. Wen Mingjuan decided it was best not to dwell on the subject any further, lest it remind Gao Weizhao that she was the very "culprit" who'd once taken him down with a spray canister.

"Never mind." Wen Mingjuan stood up, blew her nose one last time, and glared fiercely at Gao Weizhao.

"Don't look at me like that. Anyone who didn't know better would think I'd done something to you." Gao Weizhao's tone carried a note of helplessness.

"You already did do something you shouldn't have to me." Wen Mingjuan said without a shred of mercy.

"You are something else..." Hearing what Wen Mingjuan said, Gao Weizhao seemed about to say something, then stopped himself. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked her up and down.

"What are you looking at?"

"Aren't Chinese teachers supposed to be refined and cultured? How are you so far off from that?" His expression was one of genuine puzzlement.

"Who says a Chinese teacher has to be refined and cultured?" Wen Mingjuan said, unconvinced. "Besides, I happen to be plenty refined — you just don't know how to appreciate it."

Just then, Wen Mingjuan saw Tao Muwei collapse into unhelpful laughter off to the side, now the one with tears streaming down his face.

"Well, you'll have to show me sometime, then." Gao Weizhao said flatly.

* * *

This Western-style restaurant was one of only two decent places to eat around here. The dim, warm lighting and soft piano music helped Wen Mingjuan gradually forget the unpleasantness from earlier. Gao Weizhao, perhaps thoroughly spooked by her, hadn't so much as glanced at his cigarette pack since they'd sat down.

But wouldn't you know it, at the table right beside them sat six "young punks," somewhere in their teens to twenties. Having finished their dinner, they carelessly pulled out cigarettes, ready to puff away without a thought for anyone else.

Good heavens — six industrial-strength smokestacks firing up at once? Might as well ask her to drop dead on the spot.

"Please don't smoke in public places!" Before anyone could react, Wen Mingjuan, quick as lightning, spoke up to stop them just as they were about to light up. "I can't stand cigarette smoke."

"The hell! Since when is it your damn business what I do?" one of them snapped, his face turning ugly.

Wen Mingjuan never dreamed she'd find this kind of riffraff in an upscale Western restaurant. Only once she saw their hostile, coarse reaction did fear finally register — but her fear had come far too late, because all six "young punks" had already risen from their seats and were coming straight toward her.

"What do I do now?" Wen Mingjuan thought, alarmed. The only person she could rely on right now was Gao Weizhao — but honestly, if this ended with the two of them, uncle and nephew, getting dragged into a beating on her account, she'd feel terrible about it. Even if Gao Weizhao really was some gang boss, he was still just one man; there was no guarantee that would count for much.

Wen Mingjuan picked up her bag and rummaged inside — the spray canister should still be in there. If it came down to it, she'd have no choice but to grit her teeth and use it.

"Miss." The six of them closed in around Wen Mingjuan's table, legs jittering, faces twisted with irritation. "You've got some nerve, sticking your nose into our business."

By now, everyone else in the restaurant was scrambling to get out of the way.

"We'll beat you till you're crawling like a dog!" the punk closest to Wen Mingjuan snarled furiously. A moment later, she felt a gust of movement and instinctively squeezed her eyes shut, ducking her head to try to dodge whatever was coming.

It all happened in a flash. She never saw exactly what Gao Weizhao did to the guy — she only knew that the young man staggered back three steps, a fresh bruise blooming on his face.

"Even beating a dog requires respecting its owner." She heard Gao Weizhao bite out those words coldly.

"Hey!" Wen Mingjuan wanted to lodge a serious protest — she was no dog, and Gao Weizhao was certainly no owner of hers; the comparison was infuriating. But the situation hardly seemed to allow room for her objections, because the moment the first man went down, a second one lunged forward like a madman.

"Don't worry." Tao Muwei whispered into Wen Mingjuan's ear. "A measly six pawns like these — my uncle doesn't even register them."

Before he could finish speaking, Gao Weizhao had already delivered two solid slaps, leaving all ten finger marks clearly branded across the man's face. Gao Weizhao's grip strength was evidently nothing to sneeze at.

"Those two slaps were on the lady's behalf. What kind of hero goes around hitting women?" Gao Weizhao said coldly once more.

"The hell! I was hitting you, not her!" the man snapped, rubbing his swollen cheeks, seething with resentment.

"Same thing!" Gao Weizhao was thoroughly displeased. "You didn't even ask around before coming here — you dare lay a hand on me too? Talk about digging your own grave."

Looking at the state of those six men, it seemed safe to assume none of them had much education — was that idiom Gao Weizhao just used a little too advanced for them?

Wen Mingjuan considered pointing this out, but before she could, the man who'd just been slapped, humiliated and unable to save face, let out a roar and threw another punch.

This time things spiraled further out of control — all six exchanged glances and rushed in together, a move that forced Gao Weizhao to abandon his seat entirely.

Wen Mingjuan had seen dazzling fight choreography in kung fu movies before, but what unfolded before her now wasn't a movie — it was real life. With that fair, refined face of his, it was hard to imagine Gao Weizhao possessed such agile, formidable skill.

Spinning around, Gao Weizhao landed a beautiful roundhouse kick, sweeping down two men at once with overwhelming force. Wen Mingjuan silently cheered inside, though as a teacher, she felt it wouldn't do to actually applaud out loud.

Tao Muwei, apparently reading her mind, leaned in close and said to Wen Mingjuan: "Judo, taekwondo, karate, plus traditional Chinese martial arts — my uncle's a master at all of them."

"Seriously?"

"I'm not making it up." That reverent, hero-worshipping gleam rose in Tao Muwei's eyes again. "Don't underestimate him — he's actually pretty impressive. He's got a master's in mechanical engineering from National Taiwan University!"

"How is that possible?" Good heavens! Hearing Tao Muwei's words, Wen Mingjuan very nearly choked on her own spit.

A master's graduate in mechanical engineering from NTU, actually brawling here with six thugs? Was he a gang boss or a highly educated intellectual? Wen Mingjuan's head spun in confusion.

Suddenly, one particularly cocky little troublemaker seized the chaos as a chance to sneak up on Wen Mingjuan. Gao Weizhao suddenly leapt in, blocking her path, grabbed the man, and drove a hard kick into his stomach.

"Ow, that hurts!" the man wailed, immediately collapsing to his knees, clutching his belly.

"I warned you not to touch women, and you just wouldn't listen." Gao Weizhao raised his arm furiously — Wen Mingjuan guessed he was about to deliver another two slaps.

But Gao Weizhao never got the chance, because outside, the wail of police sirens had begun.

A flicker of disappointment crossed Gao Weizhao's face as he muttered: "The cops are here."

Apparently he disliked visiting police stations just as much as Wen Mingjuan did.

Having gone in and out of the police station twice already on account of Tao Muwei, Wen Mingjuan was already on familiar terms with several of the officers who walked in.

"Ah! Teacher Wen, you again?" The moment the officer walked through the door, he recognized her instantly.

"Those six thugs were about to attack me — Mr. Gao only fought them to protect me. Please don't arrest him."

"Whoever's right or wrong, everyone's coming back to the station with us first." one officer replied, somewhat sheepishly. "Teacher Wen, you'll need to come make a statement too."

Good heavens! What kind of world was this?

Her third trip to the police station.

* * *

Walking into the station, everyone had to hand over their ID first. Of the nine people present, hardly anyone had thought to bring their ID out to dinner — except for Gao Weizhao and Wen Mingjuan.

It wasn't that Wen Mingjuan made a habit of carrying her ID out to eat — it was that, being the scatterbrained sort who could forget her ID exactly when she needed it most, she simply kept it in her bag at all times to avoid the hassle.

Strange! Wen Mingjuan dug through her entire bag — she even found a sanitary pad in there — but no ID in sight.

"Where did it go?" She grew anxious — not that she desperately needed it right this second, just that she had no idea where it might have ended up, and couldn't recall a thing. Worst of all, if she'd actually lost it, a whole pile of troublesome paperwork would be waiting for her.

Ugh! Why was she always so scatterbrained?

Just then, she heard the officers muttering among themselves, scrutinizing Gao Weizhao's ID. Wen Mingjuan looked up blankly.

"Gao Weizhao? Why does this name sound familiar?"

"Now that you mention it, yeah — could he be some wanted criminal?"

Wen Mingjuan figured the officers were probably just chatting idly to pass the time, but inwardly, she broke into a nervous sweat on their behalf. If they weren't police officers, saying something like that might have earned them a fate similar to the six groaning men nearby.

These small-town officers evidently hadn't seen much of the world, and in the end, never did place who Gao Weizhao actually was.

"How could you people get into a brawl like this?" one of the officers began questioning them.

"Sorry, but your choice of words is quite off." Gao Weizhao, clearly losing patience, turned his default icy expression fully on the questioning officer and said disdainfully: "What do you mean, brawl? Do you see any weapons? Don't go slapping labels on people carelessly."

"……"

"Besides, I, Gao So-and-so, never carry weapons on my person — that's common knowledge on both sides of the law. Calling this a brawl is a tremendous insult to me."

"Both sides of the law?"

Wen Mingjuan watched the officers' faces shift from astonishment to outright alarm; they began whispering amongst themselves, and soon one officer quietly slipped off toward the records room.

"Don't bother checking — I have no criminal record. You could search until your hair turns white and you still wouldn't find anything." Gao Weizhao began idly fiddling with a pen on the desk, delivering the line with an air of complete nonchalance.

The officer who'd just reached the records room door froze mid-step, spun around abruptly, and scratched his head, looking thoroughly flustered.

Ugh, Gao Weizhao, wasn't that a bit too cutting? The poor man just happened to be prematurely gray, and you had to go and hurt his feelings like that?

After much deliberation, these small-town police officers never did manage to figure out exactly what kind of man Gao Weizhao was, and in the end, had no choice but to let everyone go.

"Sign your name at the bottom of the statement." the officer told them.

"Oh!" Wen Mingjuan bowed her head and scribbled away, signing the three characters of "Wen Mingjuan" in under two seconds. Looking up, she happened to catch a glimpse of Gao Weizhao's signature.

"Why is your handwriting so ugly? It looks like something a grade-schooler wrote." Out of habit, she critiqued his handwriting exactly the way she'd critique a student's — an occupational hazard, compounded by her blunt, say-whatever-comes-to-mind personality. The words were already out before she could stop herself, and inwardly, Wen Mingjuan couldn't help cursing herself:

There was a path to heaven, and you refused to take it; the gates of hell had no door, yet in you barged.

Ah! Provoking a gang boss was really not a wise move.

"None of your business!" He shot her another one of those icy glares capable of killing a million cells at once.

Wen Mingjuan had no choice but to obediently lower her head.