12. The Home Visit (Part Two)

"Put out the cigarettes, now." Seeing this, Gao Weizhao barked urgently, "Open all the doors and windows, and turn on the fan."

And so, on that chilly November night, the cold autumn wind mixed with the fan's breeze, leaving everyone shivering for no clear reason, while the You mother and daughter sneezed helplessly, one after another...

After about ten-odd minutes in the cold draft, Wen Mingjuan's breathing gradually eased, and she slowly got to her feet.

"Brother Wei! Teacher Wun... this... this... what kind of problem does she have?" The leading big brother, still oblivious to the disaster he'd caused, crept up beside Gao Weizhao and asked cautiously, head bowed low.

"Damn it!" Gao Weizhao chopped a hand down on his head and said furiously, "What were you smoking for, you idiot?"

"Smoking?" Even after getting hit, the guy didn't seem to have quite figured out what had happened. He'd smoked ten or twenty cigarettes a day for years without incident; what evil star had he offended today that a single cigarette would cause such trouble?

"Teacher Wen is allergic to cigarette smoke, and you still lit up?" Gao Weizhao glared at him viciously, a murderous cold light flashing in his eyes.

"How the hell were we supposed to know?" The three "offenders caught red-handed" instantly lined up in a row, each hanging his head, submitting to Gao Weizhao's scolding.

"Don't you have eyes? If you'd coughed her to death, none of you would be living either." Gao Weizhao lecturing them looked more imposing than any teacher.

Wen Mingjuan thought so, deeply.

But why did the things he said always sound almost right, yet somehow off?

"But how could someone react like that just from smelling smoke?" the leading big brother asked, puzzled.

"Hey!" The moment she stood up and heard what he said, Wen Mingjuan grew quite unhappy.

"Am I not a person?" Her color had barely recovered before her face fell again.

"Sister-in-law Wei is definitely a person." The leading big brother, looking flustered, quickly lowered his head.

"What are you even saying?" Before Wen Mingjuan could explode, Gao Weizhao actually beat her to it, chopping the leading big brother on the head once more.

Wen Mingjuan shot Gao Weizhao a resentful glance and gave his arm a light poke with her index finger.

"What?" Gao Weizhao turned to ask.

"Can you tell them to leave You Chunjing's family alone?"

"Stay out of it." Remembering his purpose for coming, Gao Weizhao scolded Wen Mingjuan.

"This isn't 'none of my business.' My student doesn't even have money to eat or go to school, and you people still come demand money from her mother. Don't you know how pitiful You Chunjing's situation is?" Wen Mingjuan was getting a bit angry herself.

"There are too many pitiful people in this world; you can't take care of every single one of them." Gao Weizhao's tone wasn't good either.

"She's my student, so I have to take care of it. Besides, it's Mr. You who gambles—what does that have to do with his wife and children? Why won't you people leave even his wife and kids alone?" The more Wen Mingjuan talked, the angrier she got. "Even under the law, one person's crime is one person's burden—why should the innocent suffer for it?"

"Well said." Gao Weizhao looked at Wen Mingjuan coldly. "There's no justice in this society. If that A-Tong hadn't known I know you, you'd probably be caught up in this disaster too, right along with them—how could you still be standing here playing the righteous defender?"

"You scoundrel." Wen Mingjuan couldn't hold it in any longer and cursed at him.

"Who are you calling a scoundrel?" Gao Weizhao got worked up too, glaring furiously at Wen Mingjuan.

"I'm calling you one, so what?"

The two of them, inexplicably, launched into a full-blown argument, utterly oblivious to everyone else around them.

The five brothers standing to the side, stunned into silence, had no idea what to do. They exchanged glances, looked at Gao Weizhao, then at Wen Mingjuan, their faces cycling through shades of pale and flushed.

"Brother Wei, Sister-in-law Wei, could you two maybe pause for a moment?" The leading big brother looked troubled—if the two of them kept arguing like this, he had no idea how they'd ever wrap things up properly.

"Shut up!" Gao Weizhao, without even turning his head, jabbed a finger back at the leading big brother, his tone absolutely final.

Scolded like that, the other brothers tugged at the leading big brother, signaling him not to make things worse.

"Gao Weizhao." All at once, as if a light had flashed before her eyes, Wen Mingjuan tugged at his sleeve.

"What now?" Gao Weizhao glared at her.

"Lend me your ear."

Wen Mingjuan rose up on her toes, gesturing for him to bend down.

She murmured something into Gao Weizhao's ear, and his expression immediately turned troubled.

"You... are... so annoying." Gao Weizhao's brows knit tightly together.

"Every debt has its debtor, right? I'm just saying they shouldn't come demand money from his wife and kids—how hard is that?" Wen Mingjuan flipped her mood faster than flipping a page, breaking instantly into a smile. "Okay! That settles it."

After mulling it over for a good while, Gao Weizhao finally addressed his underlings: "Go on back for now. Don't come bother his wife and kids anymore. As for what's owed, don't add any interest—whatever's owed is owed, and collect it only from the man himself."

"But... we can't explain this back at the den!" Two of the brothers said anxiously, faced with this hundred-eighty-degree reversal.

"Idiots!" The leading big brother gave them a smack upside the head right then and there. "Who's bigger—Brother Wei, or the hall master?"

"Brother Wei, obviously," they answered timidly.

"Well, there you go."

After a good deal of noisy back-and-forth, the whole matter was finally settled. The five fierce-looking thugs filed out one by one.

As if suddenly remembering something, Wen Mingjuan hurriedly raised her wrist to check her watch.

"Oh no! It's already eight twenty-five." Wen Mingjuan muttered anxiously.

The You family lived two townships away from the school, and the last bus ran no later than eight-thirty. Worried she wouldn't make it in time, Wen Mingjuan grabbed her bag without another thought and dashed outside.

"Teacher, why are you running so fast?" You Chunjing called after her hurriedly.

"Catching the last bus, eight-thirty, I'm almost out of time—whatever it is, we'll talk tomorrow." She explained as she ran.

"Wen Mingjuan." Suddenly, Gao Weizhao called out to stop her.

"What is it? I don't have time." She kept running forward without even turning her head. "Whatever it is, say it tomorrow—unless you want a gorgeous young lady like me walking ten kilometers home down a pitch-black country road at night?"

"I'll take you home, then." Gao Weizhao took off running after her.

"Really? You'll take me home?" Apparently overjoyed at the thought, Wen Mingjuan could barely believe she'd get a free ride, and asked, "Don't you need to go back to the gambling den?"

"Doesn't matter whether I go back or not. I was just wrapping up the aftermath of that favor A-Cai asked of me last time, and it's more or less handled now."

Hearing this, Wen Mingjuan slowed her pace.

"Gao Weizhao." She called out to him.

"What?"

"Honestly, do I keep causing you trouble?" Hearing that Gao Weizhao was still cleaning up the mess from the Chen Hongjia affair even now, Wen Mingjuan suddenly felt quite sorry.

"Good that you know it." Gao Weizhao looked a bit taken aback, muttering, "Your nerves are as thick as a telephone pole, you know that?"

The two of them walked slowly through the narrow, winding lane, with no streetlights, dim and dark, unable to make out each other's expressions.

When Gao Weizhao said those words, she had no idea what his expression had been. A reproach? A warning? Or some kind of complaint?

"I just didn't want to see a student suffer." Wen Mingjuan said, subdued.

"I understand." Gao Weizhao said quietly. "It's just that a lot of things aren't as simple as you imagine. Just as a nation has its laws and a family has its rules, a gang has its own code too. Even the boss of a gang can't just do whatever he pleases, say whatever he wants."

"You mean I just caused you trouble again, didn't I?" Catching the meaning behind his words, Wen Mingjuan stopped walking.

"A little bit, yes." Gao Weizhao nodded.

Wen Mingjuan's heart sank, feeling rather uneasy.

Just now she'd been too clever for her own good, using the incident where Gao Weizhao had accidentally struck her before as leverage to ask him for a favor. At the time, all she'd been thinking about was solving You Chunjing's problem, without considering that solving one person's problem might create trouble for someone else.

Chen Hongjia was a perfect example, yet she never seemed to learn.

Trading favors had won Gao Weizhao's consent, but it hadn't necessarily solved the problem—it had simply shifted the burden from the You family onto him, that was all.

Was this the lesson he was trying to teach her, and was that why he'd offered to walk her home?

"I'm sorry." Wen Mingjuan felt a deep pang of guilt.

But before she could get the words out, a sudden, furious barking erupted, and a dog came charging out of nowhere.

"There's a dog..." Wen Mingjuan, who had always been terrified of dogs with that snarling, about-to-bite look, instinctively ducked behind Gao Weizhao. "I'm scared of dogs."

"You're scared of quite a lot of things, aren't you." Gao Weizhao's tone carried a note of helplessness. "But scared or not, could you not grab onto me?"

Realizing she had unconsciously clamped down on Gao Weizhao's shoulder, Wen Mingjuan quickly let go.

"Kick it!" Wen Mingjuan said, pointing at the dog.

"Quiet." Gao Weizhao replied coldly. "I've only ever kicked people, never a dog."

"Same thing!" Wen Mingjuan patted Gao Weizhao's shoulder in the same motion. "I'll step aside, you hold the line."

With a snarling, clawing dog right in front of him, Gao Weizhao had no attention to spare for Wen Mingjuan. He steadied his breathing, keeping his eyes on the huge wolfhound that looked like it could move mountains, focusing on how he'd handle it if it lunged at him.

He'd barely finished running through the scenario in his head when a voice calling for the dog came from a house nearby.

"Lucky! What are you doing?"

The wolfhound turned and gave a couple of affectionate barks, then turned back to keep glaring murderously at Gao Weizhao.

"Lucky, no." A little girl who had called out ran over, waving her hand at the dog.

Seeing the little girl, the dog wagged its tail as if under a spell, the murderous air from before instantly dissolving into perfect peace.

"Sorry! We don't get many strangers passing through here at night, so we let him out to roam a bit." The little girl said, embarrassed.

"No trouble at all." Gao Weizhao nodded at her in thanks.

After bowing politely, the little girl led the dog back inside. Gao Weizhao looked around, but couldn't find Wen Mingjuan anywhere.

"Wen Mingjuan." He felt a flicker of panic—where could she have run off to at a time like this?

"I'm up here." Wen Mingjuan's voice came from somewhere above his head.

Gao Weizhao looked up and found Wen Mingjuan sitting quite comfortably atop a wall.

"What are you doing climbing that high? You can come down now, can't you?" Gao Weizhao stared blankly.

"I know I can come down, but it's so high, how am I supposed to get down?" Wen Mingjuan said, looking troubled.

"However you got up is however you get down—do I really have to explain something that simple to you?" Gao Weizhao looked thoroughly unconvinced.

"Don't talk nonsense." Wen Mingjuan kicked her legs and said righteously, "I don't even know how I climbed up here. In the heat of the moment, my adrenaline must have kicked in, and somehow I ended up up here."

"Honestly..." Gao Weizhao muttered helplessly. "I've heard of a dog jumping a wall in a panic, but never a person climbing one."

"Well, now you have—me." Wen Mingjuan said, as she took off the high heels on her feet, holding them in one hand. "Step back, I'm going to jump."

Easy to say, but after watching her hesitate for a long while, she showed no sign of actually jumping.

"Gao Weizhao." After a moment, she asked, "You're at least a hundred seventy-something centimeters tall, right?"

"Why ask that instead of jumping down already?" Gao Weizhao was starting to look impatient.

"If you're a hundred seventy-something centimeters, and this wall is even taller than you by a fair bit, then it's got to be at least two meters high..." Wen Mingjuan swallowed hard.

"That high, I... I don't dare jump." She finally got to the point.

"You really are all bark and no bite—scared of a little height like this? And here you were playing the righteous defender just a minute ago." Gao Weizhao rubbed his temples, looking like he had a headache.

"I'll just carry you down, then." All at once, Gao Weizhao raised both arms up toward Wen Mingjuan.

"You'll carry me?" Wen Mingjuan thought she'd misheard, but seeing Gao Weizhao earnestly holding out both arms, she was quite taken aback.

In her entire life, aside from that one time at the police station when she'd been injured and Lin Yitan had held her, she had never been carried by a man. And besides, she still hadn't fully ruled out the suspicion that Gao Weizhao might be the other pervert!

"Forget it, then." Seeing Wen Mingjuan hesitate, Gao Weizhao abruptly withdrew his hands and turned to walk away. "Stay up there yourself, I'm heading back."

"Come back here." Anxiety flooded Wen Mingjuan's whole face. "Fine, carry me then, who's afraid of who?"

Just as Gao Weizhao set Wen Mingjuan down on the ground, a breeze drifted past, lifting the strands of her hair, and a faint scent of her hair lingered, almost imperceptibly, at the edge of Gao Weizhao's breath. It was because of that scent that Gao Weizhao hesitated for a moment before letting go of her hand.

"You... can let go of me now, can't you?" Wen Mingjuan reminded him kindly.

"Right." He hurriedly let go, looking somewhat embarrassed.

Fortunately, it was pitch dark all around, so not even Wen Mingjuan could make out the look on his face.