Wan Qingsi didn’t force him, for he knew Jiang Rui’s feelings for Liuliu.
“Okay, I’ll look for her. Be careful.”
Hanging up the phone, he saw Chen Chen standing at the door and looking at him with a worried look.
“It’s okay.” Jiang Rui walked up to her. “Your brother wants you to go back. I already told him your answer.”
Chen Chen nodded. “Or… Shall we send Tuan Zi back?”
“Tuan Zi will be safer with the Wen family,” Jiang Rui said. “The Wen family controls more than half of the Asian economy, no one would be ready to lay a finger on them.”
“Won’t that be too much of a bother for them?”
Jiang Rui chuckled and said, “No.”
It was not bothersome to protect their own daughter-in-law…
“What about your grandma?” Chen Chen had heard Jiang Qianren’s words over the phone. “Was she abducted by terrorists?”
Jiang Rui led her into the house. “We have sent so many people to look for her. There will always be clues. What you should do is to keep healthy and then try to cure Ah Zi. That is your strength.”
“Yeah, I see!” Chen Chen felt that she regained her courage.
It was strange that after each time she talked with Jiang Rui, she would become more motivated. Thinking of how the man looked like while staring at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s while in the room in the afternoon, Chen Chen shivered again. Jiang Rui seemed to be eager to eat her at that time.
“But… Brother Xiao Rui has become more and more gentle recently. Haha!”
After breakfast the next day, they gathered around the computer. Tuan Zi started the game and a door appeared on the screen, accompanied by a notice that after starting the game, the player had to get out of the maze; otherwise, the player would still remain in the game when starting the computer again, unless the computer was powered off and the system restored.
“What a scary game!” Ah Zi held a cup of milk tea. “Players may be overwhelmed by the atmosphere.”
Tuan Zi opened the door calmly, and it was an endless maze full of winding paths. There were three entrances and a box ahead. Tuan Zi manipulated the character to walk up to the box and open it. Then there was a clue.
“There are three candy boxes, respectively containing coconut candies, durian candies, and a mix of the two kinds of candies. There is a label on the outside of each box, but the labels are all wrong. You need to take a candy from a box at a time and then put the correct label on the box. How many candies do you need to take out so as to finish the work?”
“PS: The answer means the direction!”
When Ah Zi and Bear got confused and stared at each other for a long time, Tuan Zi chose an entrance and stepped into the maze.
Ten minutes later, she encountered a fork, where there was a box. She needed to answer another question.
Jiang Rui saw all three of them look confused, and laughed. “I’ll be with Tuan Zi alone. Bear, you take Ah Zi to Hua Tuo for the checkup. Liuliu, you do the experiment. Don’t waste time here. Anyway, you can’t help her.”
“Okay!” All three of them wanted to leave early because they couldn’t understand the questions at all.
Time pa.s.sed quickly. When the alarm clock went off, Chen Chen found that it was already noon. She ran out and saw Ah Zi sitting and playing with her mobile phone, while Jiang Rui was sitting beside Tuan Zi.
“How’s it going?”
Ah Zi said frustratedly, “She is just one third of the way through the maze after this morning…”
Chen Chen glanced at the screen. It seemed to be another map. The mark in the upper right corner showed that the player walked less than half the journey.
“No wonder that person said it was too difficult to go make it out within twenty-four hours.”
Bear pushed the dining car in. “Let’s eat first!”
Tuan Zi shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”
“I’ll feed her.” Chen Chen sat next to her, and brought up bits from Tuan Zi’ favorite dishes to her mouth. Tuan Zi stared straight at the screen, chewing the food instinctively.
Jiang Rui also wanted to feed Chen Chen, but Chen Chen would feel embarra.s.sed. He had to eat quickly and then feed Tuan Zi, so that Chen Chen could have lunch as soon as possible.
“Alas, I didn’t expect our boss to feed a kid one day.” Bear whispered while eating, and then smirked at Ah Zi. “Ah Zi, when you recover, let’s get married!”
Ah Zi almost got the rib stuck in her throat, coughing and kicking him. “What’s wrong with you? No way!”
“Why?” Bear was so aggrieved. “How can you not marry me when you have taken all my money and estates?”
“I knew earlier that you would loathe to give up!” Ah Zi said fiercely, “Well, go and take them all back.”
Bear was terrified, and hurried to say flatteringly, “No, no! I mean that, who are you gonna marry if you don’t marry me?”
“Do you mean that no one except you wants to marry me?” Ah Zi had wanted to say that Long Zhen’ao might marry her. But thinking that Long might be the f.u.c.king guy who had spread the virus to her, she said, “No proposal? If you don’t propose to me, I won’t marry you!”
Bear finally reacted. “No problem. I’ll propose to you after you recover!”
Ah Zi suddenly quieted down and looked blankly at him for a few seconds. “What if I can’t recover?”
If she failed to recover finally, she might die. Or she might die at any time. In fact, Ah Zi was very afraid that the virus couldn’t kill her. She even wondered if she would become a zombie and bite people everywhere.
The virus could not kill her but keep torturing her hard, which was the most terrible thing.
But she pretended not to care, because she knew that everyone cared about her, and she didn’t want her emotions to affect the others’ mood. Especially Chen Chen, she would keep crying every day if she was sad.
In that way, everyone would be unhappy, so Ah Zi kept telling herself to be brave and strong. Many people were working hard to save her, so she must not disappoint them.
“I’ll marry you either way, even if you’re still sick.” Finishing his words, Bear picked up a pig’s trotter for her. “No matter what you look like, I’ll marry you.”
Ah Zi’ eyes turned red. When she was about to speak, she heard the man opposite her say proudly, “I have already learned that in our country, there is a secret research base that has the technology to freeze people.”
“If you can’t recover, let’s be frozen together. When Boss works out the medicine, they will unfreeze us!” Bear smiled cheerfully. “At that time, we’ll be younger than them!”
Ah Zi bowed her head and gnawed the trotters. Seeing that she continued to eat, he filled her bowl with the dishes. “Just eat. Eat more!”
“Uh-huh.” Ah Zi whispered with a tw.a.n.g, quietly holding back her tears.
Accompanied by such a man, she even considered that death was not a big deal…
When it was getting dark, Tuan Zi had already been sitting before the computer for eleven hours. For a child under seven years old, she was completely exhausted by then. Seeing Tuan Zi yawning continuously, Chen Chen was anxious but had no way to help.
“How is it going?”
Jiang Rui had gone out to deal with something, asking as soon as he came in.
“It’s still unfinished!” Chen Chen showed him with her hand. Jiang Rui saw the tears in her eyes, frowning and walking over to look at the screen. The mark in the upper right corner showed that the player had walked four fifths of the journey.
Ah Zi applied some cooling balm to Tuan Zi’s forehead. “Are you feeling better?”
Tuan Zi yawned again, waving her hand and saying, “I’m fine. I’m going to get out of the maze. Only one puzzle left.”
Another box appeared on the screen.
“There are two hourgla.s.ses, respectively marking four minutes and seven minutes. How do you use them to mark nine minutes?”
“PS: The answer means the direction!”
There were a dozen of paths ahead, and Tuan Zi thought about it and chose one of them. After five minutes, another nine paths appeared, and Tuan Zi chose one of them. Finally, when there was only one path left, Ah Zi jumped onto the table and shouted, “Hooray!”
“Eleven hours and forty-five minutes!” Ah Zi regained her strength in an instant, jumping up and down and yelling.
Chen Chen was about to reach out and pick up Tuan Zi, when Jiang Rui had already taken Tuan Zi in his arms. “Let’s go back to sleep.”
Having been highly nervous all day, they were not ready to talk about that until the day after. Tuan Zi fell asleep on the way back. Jiang Rui took her to the Wen family’s residence after lunch the next day. Noticing that the girl she hadn’t seen for two days lost weight, Xie Hong felt quite worried about her.
“Dad, if that person poses a challenge again, remember to tell me!” Before Jiang Rui’s departure, Tuan Zi said to him, “Although it is hard work, I find it very interesting!”
Jiang Rui touched her head. “Okay, call us if there is a problem. “Also, feel free and relaxed with the Wen family. Just say whatever you want to eat!”
“Yes, yes!” Wen Zeyu promised. “I will get her whatever she wants.”
With a mean glance at the little boy chasing after his daughter, Jiang Rui started the car and left.
Ah Zi stared anxiously at the computer, waiting for the e-mail reply.
With the notification tone sounding, she immediately opened the email.
A big smiley face appeared on the screen.
“Congratulations, you broke my record! This is the prescription I promised you as a reward.”
On the bottom of the page, a line said: “So pleased to communicate with you. I’m looking forward to see you again!”
“Hurry up, print out the prescription,” Chen Chen said urgently. Beside them, Bear frowned, and then hurried out.
As soon as Jiang Rui drove out of the Wen family’s residence, he received a call from Xiao Si.
“Boss, Long Zhen’ao ran away.”
Jiang Rui slammed the brakes on. “Ran away? Right from under your nose?”
“We don’t know how he controlled the traffic signals on the street to cause several traffic accidents, so that the road was blocked. Then his building burst into flames, and we couldn’t control the situation.”
Restarting the car, Jiang Rui looked grim. “I see. I’ll go back now.”
Bear had planned to lead someone to catch Long Zhen’ao who was obviously going to run away. However, before he departed, Jiang Rui had come back in a gloomy mood.
“What? He ran away?”
Jiang Rui said with a fierce look, “We underestimated them, and now the clue we had with Long is gone.”
“f.u.c.k!” Bear pounded the table hard. “I should have arrested him earlier. I didn’t believe that he was a man of iron. I won’t stop torturing him until he confesses everything.”
Scar came in hastily. “Boss, shall we impose a curfew to arrest him?”
“It’s no use.” Jiang Rui shook his head. “We know so little about him. We can’t arrest him.”
Bang! The door was opened again, and Xiao Si ran in with something in his hand. “Boss, we found this in the place where Long Zhen’ao lived.”