Their opinions and views on many things were frequently the same.When the police busted the hideout at the cement factory, Operation Heaven"s Wrath was basically rendered useless.
An Ying could be very desperate and might really do something drastic. There was a high possibility that he might bring forward the plans, even though he couldn"t achieve his intended goal.
Especially so that even though the police got hold of their name list, they wouldn"t be able to contact each and every member on the list in such a short period of time.
Thus, there would be a period of time that they could catch the police unawares.
Huff!
Such a possibility was too high!
She got to help Bai Muchuan out.
The more Xiang Wan thought about it, the more fl.u.s.tered she got. Her heart was pounding away like a freight train.
"Bai Muchuan, do you need me?"
"I do." Bai Muchuan"s voice had a smiling tone.
"Where are you? I"ll come to you right now."
"Aren"t you silly? I don"t need your help, at least not now."
This was a fact. A fact that made Xiang Wan feel rather dejected.
"Fine then. Do keep yourself safe. I"ll wait for you to come back."
Bai Muchuan smiled. "You have completed your work for the day. Do go home and rest."
"I"d be worried about you and wouldn"t be able to get the latest news if I went back. Bai Muchuan, is it alright for me to wait for you at the Criminal Investigation Unit?"
She spoke softly with a slight pleading tone. When heard through the phone, it felt just like the times when she muttered at his ear.
Bai Muchuan found it difficult to turn her down but he couldn"t bear to see her standing guard at the Criminal Investigation Unit during the festive season.
With that, he puffed a sigh. "Don"t you want to go back to check out your mom and your youngest aunt?"
He reminded her about the important thing that she should also be concerned about.
Xiang Wan had all of her attention on the case earlier. His words pulled her back to the issues in the family.
It should be quite chaotic at home now?
"Alright, I better get back home," said Xiang Wan who couldn"t resist letting out a chuckle, "Sir Little Bai, you"re really good now. You even know how to make use of my shortcomings…"
"Shortcoming? No way, every part of you is long…"
"You"re the one who"s long!"
"Is that so? I think so too."
"You! Bleh!…"
Xiang Wan was grinning and wanted to continue teasing him when he suddenly calmed down.
"I need to get back to work now. Little Xiang Wan, do watch out for your safety when going back home. Get Uncle Zhao to pick you up."
"Mm… I will."
And he hung up the phone.
Xiang Wan was a little reluctant to end the call. Only when the "dduu dduu" sounds were gone, she held the phone back down.
…
That night was not destined to be a peaceful night.
When Xiang Wan got home, everyone in the family was seated in the living room.
And the living room was brightly lit.
The Tan sisters, Fang Yuanyuan and eldest uncle-in-law were keeping youngest aunt company and were talking to her.
Both Xing Yuanhang and Xing Feifei were taken away by the police. They didn"t know what was happening, neither were the relatives. Rumors started to circulate around and there would be relatives calling on and off to show their "concern", trying to find out more. They couldn"t do anything about the situation but to wait anxiously to see what would happen.
Xiang Wan"s appearance was no doubt, similar to their ray of hope.
"Little Wan." Youngest aunt was the first to stand up from the sofa. "How"s Feifei?"
Xiang Wan looked at the weariness on her face then glanced at her worried mom and sighed quietly inside her head.
Even though she didn"t like Xing Feifei, being relatives with her and youngest aunt meant that she could never cut off relations with the former.
"She"s just being willful as usual. She did something not so nice to Zhou Yun." Xiang Wan ran her fingers through her hair and changed her shoes without maintaining eye contact with her youngest aunt, as well as the rest of them.
"What happened? What did she do to Zhou Yun?"
The mention of Zhou Yun made her youngest aunt looked stiff and brooding.
As this matter involved her daughter, her emotions were clearly more agitated than when she was in the hospital.
Xiang Wan walked over to her, looking at her youngest aunt seriously than glanced at her mom before talking in an apologetic tone. "The police has rules that before a case is closed, all matters relating to the case cannot be revealed…"
With regards to this matter, it was better that they didn"t know much about what was happening.
Xiang Wan"s mom took a look at her before holding her youngest sister"s arm. "It"s true that the rules are really strict. In the past whenever I asked her about her work, she wouldn"t tell me much. Just be rest a.s.sured, Feifei will be alright… What can a kid like her do? Don"t worry."
Her mom"s consolation didn"t help.
Tan Yuechun"s level of intelligence did not get compromised just because she suffered an emotional blow.
"If it"s not serious, the detectives wouldn"t be involved, much less to involve Little Bai and his team…"
She said that calmly, and her gaze moved to Xiang Wan again, seemingly trying to read something out from her expression.
However, she failed to get anything.
"Little Wan," said Tan Yuechun, "you don"t have to tell me what is the case about. Just tell me, is what she did serious?"
"Well…" Xiang Wan was a little at a loss of what to do.
It was not that she didn"t want to tell youngest aunt. It was simply because she didn"t know as well.
Just by solely on the matter of letting Zhou Yun consume the drug, as her life was not in danger, her crime was not considered too serious. However, as this matter was also related to the Dark Clan, as well as Operation Heaven"s Wrath, it was hard for Xiang Wan to tell the seriousness of Feifei"s crime…
"Youngest aunt." Xiang Wan held her hands and helped her to sit back down. "I promise you that the moment I got hold of such news, I"d let you know right away. I can only tell you that, what Feifei has done… is something that is beyond my level of authority. I"m unable to give you an answer."
Tan Yuechun"s face turned colorless at her reply.
She seemed to understand something. She didn"t continue to make things difficult for Xiang Wan but sat down on the sofa.
"Xing Yuanhang, it"s all because of him!"
Xiang Wan felt her heart being clasped.
Tan Yuechun did not ask about Xing Yuanhang at all.
After parting their ways at the hospital, she had completely excluded Xing Yuanhang from her life.
The few of them started to persuade and console her again.
Tan Yuechun, however, was actually more open-minded than them.
"I"m alright. Life is like that, full of ups and downs. Until the day I die, no one would be able to tell what would happen… When things crop up and we couldn"t avoid it, just face it."
"Aye!" Most of them couldn"t help letting out a sigh at her remark.
Xiang Wan chatted with them for a while then went up to her bedroom, get changed and turned on her laptop.
In order to overcome the anxiety of waiting, she played with her mobile phone for a while before opening a doc.u.ment to prepare for writing a more detailed plot outline and arrangement of her story…
Before writing, she took a look at her previous chapters to reconnect her thoughts, then she checked out her reviews and comments page.
Her reviews and comments page were full of the festive atmosphere.
Her readers were wis.h.i.+ng her as well as each other, "Happy New Year". Most of the content was about the same.
However, when Xiang Wan went on to the second page, she caught an especially eye-catching comment.
That was an account that Xiang Wan had never seen before.
That comment read: "Just how optimistic is Rong Xiaonuan? After all these cases she wrote, why did it never occur to her that she might very well be related to these cases? She"s so laughable! What a fool she must be to keep thinking of herself as an outsider?"
Xiang Wan felt a tug in her heart.
That reader had commented about her female protagonist, Rong Xiaonuan, in her novel.
Nevertheless, Xiang Wan had a feeling that…
That reader seemed to be hinting at her.
But in those cases that happened, other than her novel, what else could she be related to?
Xiang Wan looked at her laptop screen with her hands propping her chin.
After ruminating over for a while, she suddenly opened the file which was a chart that she did for the characters and their relations with each other for all of the cases—
…