6. The Kidnapping Incident

Gao Weizhao was getting ready to drive Wen Mingjuan home when, no sooner had they rounded a corner, several cars of various sizes came bearing straight down on them, their blinding headlights forcing everyone to squint.

Gao Weizhao slammed on the brakes, and Wen Mingjuan was startled to notice a faint shadow of worry cross his face.

"The trouble's finally here." Gao Weizhao said.

Before she could even ask what "trouble" he meant, about twenty-some men climbed out of the cars outside and lined up neatly in two rows.

"We humbly request Brother Wei step out of the car. Ah Cai, Hall Master of the Green Water Hall of the Red City Gang, has been waiting quite some time." The speaker was a man in his thirties or forties.

"What's the Red and Green thing?" Wen Mingjuan whispered, pulling Tao Muwei over to ask.

"Rainbow, my foot!" Tao Muwei wanted to laugh but didn't dare — the sheer scale of the formation outside was genuinely terrifying.

"What is it, really?" she pressed again, unwilling to let it go.

"I don't know either."

"Honestly." Wen Mingjuan smacked him on the head. If he didn't know, he should've said so from the start! Treating his teacher like some kind of fool.

Wen Mingjuan studied the scene outside the window carefully, and a chill crept over her — could they possibly have run into the underworld?

"If Brother Wei hadn't shown off his skills tonight and taught those reckless brats a lesson, we wouldn't have known where to find you to properly welcome you!"

"Get out of the car."

Wen Mingjuan's legs were trembling slightly; she really didn't want to step out. But since Gao Weizhao had already told them to get out, how could she dare stay huddled in the car?

"Greetings to Brother Wei." Ah Cai barked at the twenty-odd burly men, who responded in unison, shouting: "Greetings, Brother Wei!"

"Skip the roundabout talk. Whatever you have to say, just say it." Gao Weizhao said.

"If not for that child, how would we have known Brother Wei had graced our southern territory with his presence? You've always been elusive as a dragon, showing your head but never your tail — even getting a glimpse of you is a rare privilege. To catch sight of your magnificence today is truly the fortune of three lifetimes..." Ah Cai said.

That child? Could he possibly be talking about Chen Hongjia? Had that whole incident caused Gao Weizhao a great deal of trouble?

Wen Mingjuan puzzled over this in her mind. She wasn't entirely sure how accurate her guess was, but based on what she was hearing, it seemed close enough.

"Could you not lay it on so thick? I've told you before — if you have something to say, spit it out." Gao Weizhao clearly wasn't impressed with Ah Cai's welcoming speech.

"Yes, sir." The luster drained instantly from Ah Cai's face, which turned notably grim.

"This manner and method of yours for requesting an audience violates the code of the underworld — why bring so many people to ambush me?" Gao Weizhao said, displeased.

"My apologies, we couldn't think of a better way." Ah Cai looked troubled. "Your esteemed gang has recently been collecting protection money beyond your territory, encroaching even into our turf, and last time you even drew knives and guns on our brothers..."

"So you decided to run wild in our operation instead?"

"There was no other way. Otherwise, why would we come ask Brother Wei to mediate? Your word carries weight — one word from you is worth nine tripods. Even your gang's Boss Shi listens to you. Surely Brother Wei doesn't want the conflict between our two organizations to keep escalating?" Ah Cai shot a glance at everyone present, then added: "Perhaps Brother Wei would be willing to take a trip to Green Water Hall — we can talk it over slowly there." One of his men immediately stepped forward and opened the car door.

"Kidnapping?" Wen Mingjuan's mind flashed through news reports of kidnapping cases she'd seen. Was she now about to follow in the footsteps of those victims?

With a crisp jingle, Gao Weizhao tossed the set of keys in his hand to Ah Cai.

"Tell your brother to drive carefully. If so much as a scratch appears on this car, I'll collect double from you." With that, Gao Weizhao got straight into the car by himself.

Honestly! He couldn't even manage a proper goodbye.

Wen Mingjuan grabbed Tao Muwei's arm and hurried to slip into the car right behind Gao Weizhao.

For the first time, she felt she genuinely needed him, so she sat pressed close beside Gao Weizhao — as if that alone would offer her more personal safety.

This was also the first time she'd ever sat so close to this man.

"Do you find this odd?" Suddenly, Gao Weizhao glanced back at Wen Mingjuan.

"Find what odd?"

"Why sit so close to me? There's plenty of room — why not scoot over a little?" he asked.

"I'm terrified! Why are you being so stingy about it?" Wen Mingjuan answered him irritably. "I've been kidnapped, for heaven's sake — how am I not supposed to be scared?"

"Shh..." Gao Weizhao suddenly clapped a hand over Wen Mingjuan's mouth, gently shaking his head in warning: "You must never say that word."

Though he was warning her, Wen Mingjuan caught a faint trace of concern leaking out from behind his eyes.

That feeling was even stranger than everything else.

A pervert was, in the end, still a pervert — that was the only way she could make sense of him.

Green Water Hall turned out to be nothing particularly impressive; from outside it looked like an ordinary shop selling tea eggs, giving no hint whatsoever of anything unusual inside. They climbed a staircase, opened a door, and began winding through a maze of passages, turning and turning until Wen Mingjuan's head spun, before the group of "big brothers" finally came to a stop.

Somewhere along the way, without quite realizing it, Wen Mingjuan had instinctively grabbed onto Gao Weizhao's arm and pressed close behind him. He said nothing more about it and simply let her hold on.

"Brother Wei, please, come in." One of Ah Cai's men flipped the switch for the rolling shutter door, and the thunderous rumble of it rolling up made everyone's eardrums ache.

He must have felt just how badly her body was trembling — her hands were as cold and stiff as raw pork fresh from the freezer, not yet thawed. Only then did he finally speak: "Nothing's going to happen. Don't be this scared."

Good heavens! Wen Mingjuan really wanted to cry. But then she remembered Tao Muwei was right beside her — she was his teacher, how could she possibly cry? If even she couldn't hold it together, what was Tao Muwei supposed to do?

A sense of duty as a teacher welled up within her. No — she absolutely could not cry.

But her tears weren't so obedient; in their tug-of-war against Wen Mingjuan's willpower, they came out slightly ahead. Her eyes brimmed with tears, spinning desperately, threatening to spill.

"It's fine." Gao Weizhao stopped walking, patted Wen Mingjuan's head, and said, utterly unconcerned with who might be watching: "You're the one I brought out here. I'll bring you home safe. Gao Weizhao always keeps his word." The moment he finished speaking, he forced out an expression that was somewhere between a smile and not.

"Un... derstood." Wen Mingjuan nodded. She knew Gao Weizhao was trying to comfort her.

Arriving at the so-called "Green Water Hall," the spacious hall was furnished with a few cypress-wood chairs, two tables, and several tall standing cabinets. That man called Ah Cai bowed deeply, raising his arm to invite Gao Weizhao to the seat of honor, but Gao Weizhao paid him little mind and simply picked a spot at random to plop himself down.

The moment Gao Weizhao sat, Wen Mingjuan had no choice but to sit beside him too, and Tao Muwei immediately squeezed in right next to them as well.

Once the three of them were settled, one of Ah Cai's men hurried over to offer Gao Weizhao a cigarette.

Smoking?

No...

Deep inside, Wen Mingjuan was screaming — she must have screamed it hundreds of times internally — yet she never dared let the sound escape.

"I don't smoke." Wen Mingjuan thought she must have misheard. Gao Weizhao was actually saying he didn't smoke? Especially at a moment like this, when "once you're in the game, you're no longer your own master"?

"Miss Wen is allergic to cigarette smoke. The moment she catches a whiff, it triggers her asthma." Gao Weizhao went on.

Wen Mingjuan was thoroughly confused inside. Asthma? Since when did she have this condition? How was it that even she didn't know?

"Tell you what — either everyone stops smoking entirely, or you find a clean room where the two of them can rest, so Miss Wen doesn't catch a whiff of smoke and trigger an attack. If she happens to die on you, you'll all be finished." It seemed Gao Weizhao was actually threatening Ah Cai.

Asking that crowd not to smoke was apparently more painful for them than being strung up and beaten, so she and Tao Muwei ended up with a comfortable suite where they could rest for a while — at least temporarily separated from that group of self-proclaimed "big brothers." This was, perhaps, the one silver lining in an otherwise unfortunate situation.

As midnight approached, Wen Mingjuan's spirits had thoroughly wilted. Last night she'd rushed back and forth to Tainan over Tao Muwei's fare-dodging, exhausted and short on sleep; today, the whole day had been thrown into chaos over the Chen Hongjia affair. She'd hoped to make up for it with a good night's sleep tonight — instead, things had gone entirely against her wishes. Here she was, unable to even go home, her fate uncertain at that...

She was truly exhausted.

But how was she supposed to sleep in a situation like this?

Wen Mingjuan guessed that before Gao Weizhao and Ah Cai reached some sort of conclusion, she and Tao Muwei — the two "hangers-on" — probably weren't in any real danger.

With her mind somewhat at ease, and perhaps simply too exhausted, Wen Mingjuan curled up in her chair and actually fell asleep. She had no idea how long she'd slept when, drifting in and out of a haze, she began to hear the sound of people talking, and slowly stirred awake.

"How did I fall asleep? What time is it now?"

The moment she woke, these two questions flashed instantly through her mind.

She checked her watch. Seven thirty.

Oh no! She had to get to work — but stuck here, how was she supposed to make it? And once everyone discovered that she and Tao Muwei had both gone missing, what kind of chaos would that unleash?

These worries circled endlessly in Wen Mingjuan's mind, refusing to dissipate.

"Miss, young man! There's a toothbrush, toothpaste, and towels here, and also two hamburgers and fresh milk — please enjoy." The one who walked in was a girl of about twelve or thirteen, quite sharp-tongued for her age.

"Who are you?" Wen Mingjuan studied her carefully.

The girl set down the tray in her hands and said flatly, "I'm Cai Tongzhi's daughter."

"Cai Tongzhi?" Wen Mingjuan looked at her, puzzled.

Just then, Tao Muwei lazily crawled out of bed, yawning enormously. It turned out he'd been sleeping soundly the whole time; only now did Wen Mingjuan realize he really hadn't been worried in the slightest.

"You mean Ah Cai?" Tao Muwei blurted out this question out of the blue.

"Yes." The girl replied casually.

"Shouldn't you be in elementary school? Why aren't you at school?"

"I go when I have time. When there's stuff going on at home, I can't."

How could that be? Elementary and middle school were compulsory education — how could a child be kept from attending?

Wen Mingjuan felt a surge of indignation, but right now she could barely look after her own safety, let alone fight injustice on someone else's behalf.

"Do you know how the talks are going?" Wen Mingjuan asked quietly.

"I don't know." The girl shook her head. "All I know is that a bunch of people just showed up, and none of them are my dad's men."

"What did they come here for?"

"I don't know."

Wen Mingjuan believed the girl really didn't know anything — what would a child this age even be expected to know?

Wen Mingjuan gave up questioning her further. Whatever was going to happen would happen regardless; even if she managed to learn something, it didn't seem like it would mean much anyway. Still, the fact that they'd been talking all night without reaching a conclusion suggested the issue was quite thorny.

After the girl left, Wen Mingjuan brushed her teeth and washed her face in a daze, chewing through her breakfast as if it were made of wax. In twenty-six years, this was the first time she'd ever encountered something like this — her heart felt jittery and troubled.

"Teacher! Why are your table manners so awful?" Suddenly, Tao Muwei hopped over and sat down beside Wen Mingjuan, casually grabbing the hamburger and taking a big bite.

"Who has the mood to worry about table manners right now?" Wen Mingjuan finished off the last of her milk. "Aren't you the least bit worried about your uncle? And the two of us — one skipping school, one skipping work — this is a serious problem."

"Ha!" Tao Muwei laughed easily. "I was just worrying I didn't have an excuse to skip school. This works out great — even the teacher's playing hooky, so you can't scold me anymore."

"I..." Wen Mingjuan was about to scold him when a commotion suddenly erupted outside.

Wen Mingjuan thought she could almost hear the sound of some deity taking pity on her — Gao Weizhao had arrived, and what's more, he looked like a conquering hero returning in triumph. A huge weight lifted from Wen Mingjuan's chest.

But she may have been so worked up with worry that she'd gone a bit mad, because the moment the door opened and Gao Weizhao's figure came into view, she actually dashed forward and threw her arms around him.

"You're finally back." Wen Mingjuan felt her eyes welling up again.

"You..." Gao Weizhao was completely startled by this sudden gesture, frozen in place, at a total loss.

"Do you really have to hug me?" he said awkwardly.

Oh right! Why on earth had she hugged him? Prompted by Gao Weizhao's remark, Wen Mingjuan suddenly realized how absurd her own action had been. "S-sorry about that." She let go of him, blushing with embarrassment.

In truth, what embarrassed Wen Mingjuan wasn't that she'd thoughtlessly hugged a man she barely knew — it was that this man was a pervert, and here she was, hugging him without a shred of dignity.

"Sister-in-law Wei is truly a woman of deep feeling!" At the sound of Ah Cai's voice, Wen Mingjuan looked up and was startled to see over a dozen men standing outside the door, every single one of them wearing an expression of mortified awkwardness.

"Sister-in-law Wei?" Wen Mingjuan was deeply displeased by this title, her eyebrows knitting together instantly. "I am not — I'm not that unlucky!"

"I'm not that unlucky either." Gao Weizhao seconded her coldly.