Confronted with something so odd and shocking, Zhao Ai also froze for a while and almost forgot she was there to hail a cab. Yet when she did remember, instead of fetching her co-worker who was waiting patiently for her at the entrance of the mart, she chivalrously picked up the unconscious guy lying in the cold hard ground. This she did without hesitation, her face wreathed in righteousness that made her appear so holy and pure in the eyes of the onlookers.
"Please make way! We don"t even have time to wait for the ambulance so stop blocking us!"
With the help of some kind-hearted men, the b.l.o.o.d.y young man was carefully laid at the back seat of the taxi and ferried to the nearest hospital which was thankfully only half a kilometer away.
"I hope this poor guy will not pa.s.s away before reaching the hospital."
They had Lady Luck to thank for there was no heavy traffic on the road which could have delayed them.
"I"m sorry, sister Chen." Once done leaving the half-dead patient to the care of the nurses who then pushed the person into the ER, Zhao Ai came back to herself and recalled the colleague she left without notice. On her way to the elevator, she repeatedly apologized before explaining the situation. "It"s not really on purpose. I swear. You must have heard about the accident or seen the unusual gathering of people in front of the grocery store…. I got unlucky because I was the one closest to the person."
Chen Ning spoke grumpily. "No matter what you said, you still made me wait for half an hour in vain. That person is just a stranger and looked at how you treated him. How about me who is your acquaintance?"
"I"m really sorry. Please, don"t be angry anymore, okay? I"m going back now. Where are you?" Zhao Ai unconsciously quickened her steps, guilty for making Chen Ning carried everything on her own. However, she felt no regret for helping the person just now. In her opinion, nothing mattered than saving a life that she thought she had just proudly done.
"I"m now at the mansion. What happened anyway? Is that guy abducted for ransom?"
"I don"t know. I only sent him to the doctor then left. The uncle who went with me said he is a traffic enforcer. His colleagues tried to check the plate number of the car but it"s not registered in the system so it could be fake."
Within the elevator, Zhao Ai filled the details to the half-mad, half-curious girl. To appease the latter, she promised to buy her a meal on the next payday. This female lead had no idea she had just successfully dipped her feet into another trouble. The one she saved was none other than Zhang Jian, the villain who was also the sole successor of the black organization responsible for 70 percent of the illegal dealings and cases in the country.
…
3 days after.
Zhan Rong was successfully distanced from the leads and her troublesome and dramatic friends. The panel that she had once tried to forget when her pet ghost disappeared became a frequent thing plastered on her field of view again.
Yet her side was having a fairly slow progression.
On the other hand, Jiang Li was having a spectacular time.
He traced the important members of the black organization through the information gotten from Brother Duan. The means of torturing some sc.u.ms of the societies... the process of driving them insane through several epic scare tactics to the point they became afraid of going outside, much less kidnapped people. It was all extremely exhilarating!
"Great. If this continues, although I would have to be careful of falling into madness, I might be able to become as strong as a local deity." The man thought happily after observing himself and testing out how long he could grasp tangible objects.
By the way, last night, he was able to lift a few pots of flowers which he dropped from the seventh floor of a building onto a s.h.i.+ny black sports car of an annoying dude who tried to flirt with Zhan Rong when she went out for a meal.
The girl didn"t know this because she was too preoccupied with lots of worries.
System: The great villainess desperately wants to see her pet ghost but she has no idea "host" is frequently haunting others.
The child spirit didn"t know whether to shake his head as he watched from the void, or laugh at Zhan Rong. Even now, the young lady was sporting a grim expression pondering how she would proceed with the mission.
When night fell, at the city closest to Haowen Town which was only one and a half hours away from the villainess" location, she checked into the first hotel she saw with the same expression plastered on her face. Jiang Li naturally followed, although he left shortly for the city mayor who was actually in touch with the traffickers and was the main supporter of those goons collecting protection fees from small shop/stall owners. The corrupt politician was the one he planned to use for experimentation and for farming of fear energy that would help strengthen him.
Zhan Rong was left to her devices. No other ghosts lingered around her due to her talisman.
After getting a room for herself, she pulled up her netbook to check the first batch of doc.u.ments sent over by a private detective. The call and chat records and all pieces of evidence that could rat out her ident.i.ty from the side of the investigator were unceremoniously deleted by Jiang Li without her knowing. Er, the fact that Zhan Rong was quite brainy still counts, although, in this matter, Zhan Rong forgot to pay attention to due to inexperience and stress.
Crossing her arms above her chest with her back leaning on the armrest of the sofa, she spoke absent-mindedly to herself, "Seven days... Only four more days left…"
Her eyes were on the first few rows on the screen.
Zhang Yazhu, a name Mr. Zhan especially warned her about. The name left an impression because, in the few, rare times that her father spoke to her without shouting, mostly at banquets where she had no choice but to attend, Zhang Yazhu"s name was mentioned four times.
How evil could this guy be that even heartless, blood-sucking profiteers like her father would be so wary?
She shook her head to clear her thoughts, resuming the review of the reports. A few minutes later, a general conclusion formed in her mind.
"It will be tough…"
"My greatest hurdle is to predict where these sc.u.mbags would appear because they are too slippery and quick to move. Once I get ahold of that information though, it would easy to report to the police. I could also just get a group of men to pretend that they are also in the same line of business… to have them take away every prospective victim before the syndicate does."
Seven days. That was the total number of days given to her. Now three days had pa.s.sed. It was not that she was not taking things seriously, resulting in her only tracing now the place where the traffickers were currently active. It was that her soft heart caused her to do something for the poor children that were forced to beg, steal, and touch porcelain[1].
When she was not focusing on them but being like the other people minding her own business, it was easier to not care, or pretend to not care. Because everyone else was doing the same, the guilt would be lesser.
But now that she was forced to face them, Zhan Rong just found herself doing something crazy.
Before she knew it, she was involved in a ma.s.s kidnapping case!
Yup. A ma.s.s kidnapping.
Zhan Rong somehow grew a liking to the term "abduction" and first employed the strategy that would make her famous in the future to the kids loitering around the central area of City B.
It was a spur of the moment, a result of great impulsiveness that she didn"t know was still present within her.
These sc.u.ms took joy in the misery of others while profiting from them, no? Thinking they were so cool for they could defy laws and get away with it, and that for this coolness, it was okay to make others pay the price?
In Zhan Rong"s view, this kind of people should die and suffer in h.e.l.l.
Unfortunately, they were still alive, tougher than c.o.c.kroaches.
But hey, since they were alive, teaching them a lesson was very possible! Even if it was limited to one type, wouldn"t it be good revenge to make those pieces of garbage get a taste of their own medicine?
Money was spent on hiring a group of security personnel that she instructed to dress up like bad guys in masks. These people moved separately and took away every child forced to work by the syndicate. As the latter was caught by surprise, by the time the higher-ups sent manpower to help, the perpetrators were long outside the city, delivering their "victims" to orphanages all over the mainland.
While this was happening, Zhan Rong was not idle too. It was her who personally phoned every director of the orphanages, styling herself an anonymous philanthropist promising a yearly lump of money in exchange for settling the ident.i.ties, accommodations, and education of the orphans.
There were other loose ends that she took care of. Sealing off the mouths of her accomplice was one example.
It was a relief that her efforts paid off. The system acknowledged the impromptu operation as part of the mission which meant she only needed to do two more.
Perhaps, it was because some of the younger kids who would not be able to follow orders properly might end up sold to mountain villagers or given to "black" doctors to play with. In line with this reasoning, a future trafficking slash illegal human trading was sabotaged in advance due to her actions.
"This is good... But..."
Despite this progress, Zhan Rong still found it hard to relax. Because, after that, she learned from her source that the syndicate became like provoked hornets. They were too irrational that they spread warnings even to company and conglomerate owners yet too careful that every place manned by their people was spotted with a few more suspicious and dangerous-looking individuals.
This development indirectly told her that she would no longer be able to rely on luck and half-baked schemes.
"I need a plan. A good, no, a foolproof one. And I also need to contact another group of helpers." She sunk into contemplation after carrying her laptop on the bed.
All of a sudden, a chat box popped up. When she checked who just PMed her, she saw that it was Guo Hanying and the rest, with the Fan siblings as exceptions, planning one last outing before the resume of cla.s.ses to comfort the depressed Guo Hanying.
For a moment, she suddenly felt like telling this bunch that she was also depressed. But of course, that only remained as one of the many thoughts in her heart. As a girl forced to mature early, it would be very embarra.s.sing to ask for comfort from others.
To be an adult means to know how to handle stress and temptations, she told herself.
Not long after though, her eyes slightly shook at the fascinating pictures of tourist spots uploaded. Deep within her, there appeared a resounding voice urging her to reply that she, as usual, was more than ready to join the escapade.
A moment later, her eyes briefly closed and when she opened them again, her face looked so gloomy.
Would she dare to fail her current task and be thrown to another h.e.l.lish dungeon?
Just so she could join a trip like this that she could make any time in the future after settling her current problems?
The answer was clear. No. So she could only close the tab with shaking hands.
Yet because those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and b*tches kept sending replies to the group, the chatbox also kept expanding and notification alarms resounded every few seconds. Even though she muted it, the words still flashed in the s.p.a.ce below.
When the frustration became too much and there was n.o.body around to pick on her manners, Zhan Rong finally voiced it out. "This is so unbelievable! Why does a fragile woman like me have to suffer from severe headaches from all of this… this… ssshh.... Ugh!"
Her voice was loud. However, her upbringing stopped her from uttering a foul word that could have perfectly described the situation she got herself in.
[1] touching or b.u.mping porcelain is the practice of crooks placing ostensibly expensive, fragile items (usually porcelain) in places where they may easily be knocked over, allowing them to collect money when the items are damaged. In modern context, it refers to people pretending to be knocked down at the slightest touch so they could demand compensation.