Chapter 33 "I saw your little girlfriend."...
For the next week, Tang Ci received no news from Sheng Yu.
The holiday has returned to its old routine, passing by in eating, sleeping, and studying.
However, occasionally, when Tang Ci was doing coding problems late at night, some inappropriate images would still pop into her mind.
Beneath the floor-to-ceiling windows of the shopping mall, Rong Yue's smile faded, her eyes brimming with sorrow. "After my sister passed away, Xiao Yu gradually gave up on himself. It was your appearance that slowly brought him back on track."
She pleaded earnestly, "Xiao Ci, please help your aunt. Persuade him to come to Australia to study and completely break away from the Sheng family. This was his mother's last wish."
Tang Ci blinked, looking at the key points and difficult points on her notebook, which was the only connection between her and Sheng Yu.
Rong Yue was wrong; Tang Ci was just an ordinary classmate in Sheng Yu's life.
They have no right to cross the line.
/
New Year's Eve.
Early in the morning, Tang Jianwei squatted on the living room floor, muttering as he packed his luggage, while Qin Ling sat on the sofa folding her change of clothes.
The two elders of the Tang family passed away a few years ago, and they are going back to Qin Ling's hometown to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
Qin Ling's hometown is a county town in the northwest, which is notoriously poor. In addition to Qin Ling, there is one older sister and three younger brothers and sisters-in-law in the Qin family. All of them are married and have children in the county town. The whole family lives in a three-story self-built house.
Therefore, when they went back this time, they could only stay in a guesthouse in the county. Tang Jianwei had been complaining ever since he saw the photos of the guesthouse sent by his father-in-law a week ago.
Even though they were about to leave, he kept muttering, "Is this the only guesthouse in your county?"
Qin Ling nodded: "My dad knew you were going too, so he booked the best room."
Tang Jianwei chuckled, "The bed is so broken, and you still praise it?"
Qin Ling put down the folded clothes, supported her belly, and squatted down next to him: "Honey, just bear with it for a few days. We'll go back and ask a master to calculate the baby's fortune, then we'll leave."
In the past, Tang Jianwei would never have agreed to take the old-fashioned green train to Qin Ling's hometown. It was only after his parents-in-law persuaded him several times over the phone for the sake of the child that he finally relented.
“The poorest and most remote places are the most superstitious.” Tang Jianwei squinted smugly and said half-jokingly, “You insisted on coming with me back then because you thought your hometown was too poor, right?”
Qin Ling's face paled, and she hurriedly closed her lips, angrily hitting him: "Stop slandering me. If you hadn't been waiting for me at the kindergarten every day, how could I have ended up with you?"
When Tang Jianwei saw that she was angry, his attitude immediately softened: "I was just talking nonsense. Of course I married you because I like you, otherwise my son wouldn't have come to our family."
Seeing Tang Jianwei lovingly stroking his belly, Qin Ling's stiff expression softened, and her voice lowered a notch: "For our son's sake, you have to do a good job on the Jiangcheng project. Our son appeared in my dream and said he wants to go to school in Jiangcheng."
At this moment, Tang Jianwei stopped talking about feudal superstition and patted his chest proudly: "Whatever my son says goes."
As she left, Qin Ling glanced at Tang Ci's tightly closed door and whispered, "Aren't you going to tell your daughter?"
Since returning from school last time, Tang Jianwei had been quite critical of Tang Ci, scoffing and waving his hand: "She's almost an adult, do you expect me to give her all these instructions?"
Qin Ling's lips twitched almost imperceptibly, but she still advised, "Leave her two or three hundred yuan, just as a New Year's gift."
Tang Jianwei slammed his suitcase out the door: "I don't have that kind of spare money."
The door slammed shut with a loud bang, even making the desk in the bedroom tremble a few times.
In the past, Tang Jianwei would always lower his voice when expressing his dissatisfaction with her, but now he seems eager to openly mock and ridicule her to her face.
However, it was because Tang Ci made him lose face at school, which was a bigger deal than anything else to him.
Tang Ci was hunched over her desk, reviewing past exam papers. She paused briefly when she heard the sound, and her blank expression softened slightly when she saw the message on her phone.
[Xiao Ci, do you have time for a part-time job tonight? The shop is packed and we can't keep up!]
It was a message from Xi Jing.
Tang Ci glanced at the nearly completed exam paper and replied to Xi Jing: 【It's okay, Sister Jing.】
Xi Jing immediately sent her her work schedule, followed by a row of rose emojis, and finally a generous red envelope with a note that she had to accept it.
Tang Ci could feel Xi Jing's enthusiasm even through the screen. Her eyes crinkled into a smile, and she sent a hug emoji.
As Xi Jing said, the billiard halls during the Chinese New Year were packed with people, with heads bobbing everywhere.
Tang Ci set up three tables as soon as she arrived at the store, and then she didn't have a chance to sit down. She was either busy with cashier duties or helping to set up tables.
It wasn't until half an hour later that she finally got a cup of hot water, sat down, and caught her breath.
The hot water in the cup was steaming, and she held it, waiting for it to cool down, when Miao Miao stormed over and slammed her phone onto the front desk.
Tang Ci put down her cup and asked gently, "What's wrong?"
Miao Miao puffed out her cheeks, sat down next to her, and said in a low voice, "That bunch of hooligans at table number seven, when I went to set up the table just now, they gave me a lecture."
She rolled her eyes at the number seven pool table in anger, and muttered a few more curses before she felt better.
Tang Ci brought the cooled water to her side: "Drink some water, and don't go over there later."
As she said this, her gaze swept to station number seven but suddenly stopped, and her brows furrowed even more tightly.
They were a group of boys dressed in racing suits, with various colored hair dyes. One of them was bald and was handing a cigarette to a guy with a buzz cut who was standing to the right of the table.
Tang Ci recognized the man with the buzz cut as Lin Yao, and the bald man was the one Sheng Yu had almost stabbed between the eyebrows with a knife.
They were casually playing billiards while chatting and laughing loudly, talking about Sheng Yu.
"I heard Sheng Yu is staying at a hotel now? Was he really kicked out of the Sheng family?"
"Who knows, let's see what he has left to be arrogant about in the future."
"His grades, I heard he improved his grades by more than 200 places in the final exam, isn't that hilarious, hahaha."
The thugs seemed to have heard the biggest joke in the world, and their jeers and jeers continued.
The bald man hesitated and said, "I heard that President Sheng has been begging Sheng Yu to go back. President Sheng only has this one son, and he won't abandon him for the sake of his reputation."
The tense atmosphere instantly cooled down, and the thugs looked at each other, their expressions showing some apprehension.
At this moment, Lin Yao, who had been keeping a stern face, sneered: "A young master who's just a bully can scare you like this?"
“Sheng Yu just relies on the Sheng family to act arrogantly,” Lin Yao said, grinding his back teeth. “Without the Sheng family, he’s nothing.”
The thug with dyed yellow hair spat on the ground: "If it's a one-on-one fight, I'll beat him to a pulp."
Tang Ci suppressed her emotions and looked away.
Holding her water glass, Miao Miao said with a mixture of suspicion and anger, "Damn it, are these bastards talking about Sheng Yu?!"
Tang Ci tugged at her with a serious expression, signaling her to lower her voice.
With a tug, the cup that Miao Miao was not holding firmly slipped from her hand and crashed to the floor.
Lin Yao looked up at the sound and met Tang Ci's gaze.
He looked at the girl's pale face, tapped the cue stick on the table, and smiled wickedly.
Over the next ten minutes, Tang Ci was called over four times, each time by Lin Yao to either pour water or set up a table.
Tang Ci had just finished setting up the pool balls and straightened up when Lin Yao blocked her way, asking with a mocking smile, "Sheng Yu is such a coward, letting his woman work hard at the pool hall?"
The remaining thugs surrounded her, laughing and teasing her.
"Stop with Sheng Yu, he doesn't know how to be considerate. What do you think of us?"
Tang Ci's face was so white it was almost transparent under the light. She pointed to the camera on the wall and said in a voice that sounded completely calm, "I'm working right now, and the boss is watching. Could you please move aside?"
She thought mentioning the boss would make them wary, but Lin Yao burst out laughing, placed his palm on her shoulder, and sneered, "Tell your boss that you'll be serving this table tonight."
Tang Ci took a deep breath, knocked his arm away, and turned to go outside to find the security guard, but her arm was suddenly grabbed by Lin Yao.
Lin Yao tightened his grip and, amidst Tang Ci's disgusted expression, abruptly pulled her in front of him.
Seeing this, Miao Miao, who was busy at the next table, shouted, "Let her go! What are you trying to do?!"
Miao Miao had just run over when she was blocked by a thug standing on the edge.
She was both anxious and angry, and was about to rush inside when a calm voice sounded from behind her.
"Let go of my hand, or I'll call the police."
Tang Ci turned her head and saw Xi Jing standing behind her with several security guards, and immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
Lin Yao released her arm but still stood in front of her, looking up at Xi Jing with disdain: "You can't even cooperate with your waiters setting up a table, and you still have the nerve to call the police?"
Tang Ci pursed her lips, glanced at Xi Jing, and shook her head slightly.
Xi Jing closed her eyes comfortingly, reached out and pulled her to her side, and looked at Lin Yao with a smile: "If our service is inadequate, then we should scold you, but if you take action, then this matter could be a big or small matter."
Lin Yao scoffed, "I just helped her up, it's going too far to say I hit her."
Xi Jing smiled and said, "If there's nothing else, then I won't disturb you any longer. If you need anything else, just call me."
As she spoke, she led Tang Ci and Miao Miao back to the front desk and instructed the security guards to sit inside.
Lin Yao and his team didn't get any advantage, and their faces were quite grim. After playing two or three more rounds, they put down their cues and left the court.
Only after their figures completely disappeared into the night did Tang Ci's tense nerves finally relax.
As midnight approached, the number of customers in the store did not decrease.
Young people who had finished their late-night snacks started coming over to hang out, so Tang Ci worked an extra half hour before packing up and going home.
The street outside the billiard hall was dimly lit due to the long-term disrepair of the streetlights, with only strings of red lanterns illuminating the road.
Tang Ci wrapped her clothes tighter and quickened her pace toward the main road not far away.
As she reached the corner, she suddenly heard a faint buzzing sound.
At first she didn’t pay attention, until the buzzing sound got closer and closer, and motorcycles appeared in the night.
A group of seven or eight thugs, led by Lin Yao, blocked her path from both the front and the back on motorcycles.
Lin Yao took off his helmet, and a pair of narrow eyes flashed with a cold light in the darkness: "Since Sheng Yu isn't here, why don't you play with us for a while?"
Her slightly cool palms were sweaty. Tang Ci suppressed her heaving chest and glanced around very little. By the light of the lantern, she could see piles of unkempt tree branches by the roadside.
She took a barely perceptible deep breath, turned around abruptly, grabbed a few tree branches, and threw them at Lin Yao with all her might.
As Lin Yao dodged to the side, Tang Ci seized the opportunity to run away from his car.
Tang Ci took deep breaths and plunged into the maze-like dark alley before taking out her phone to dial the police.
A small tree branch suddenly struck her shoulder; the branch wasn't very strong, but it knocked her phone to the ground.
Before Tang Ci could turn around to pick it up, she heard the sound of a motorcycle running over the phone screen.
She gritted her teeth, ignored her phone, gripped her backpack strap tightly, and started running through the familiar alley.
After winding through several alleys, Tang Ci finally ran towards the main road.
Just as her body was bathed in the orange glow of the streetlights, several motorcycles came buzzing up in front of her. The leader took off his helmet and rode towards her.
Tang Ci was on the verge of tears, so she turned around and fled into the alley again.
Qin Zhe, clutching his helmet, muttered to himself in bewilderment, "Why is she running? Do I look that scary?"
His teammates behind him also expressed their confusion.
Just as he was wondering, two more cars drove out of the alley. At a glance, they had raced each other. Lin Yao, his face full of hostility, gestured and asked Qin Zhe, "Hey buddy, see a girl? She's pretty thin, about this tall."
Qin Zhe paused for a moment, then shrugged with a smile: "Didn't see it."
Lin Yao clicked his tongue and gestured to the thugs behind him: "She's still inside, keep blocking her way."
As they spoke, the group drove back into the alley.
After Lin Yao disappeared, Qin Zhe took out his phone and made a call. The call was answered after about twenty seconds, and the loud noise typical of a bar could be heard through the receiver.
Sheng Yu's voice was slightly hoarse as he lazily asked, "What is it?"
Qin Zhe glanced at the dark alley and said, "I just saw your girlfriend. She's being ambushed by Lin Yao and his men."
There was a sudden, dead silence on the other end of the line. A second later, the sharp scraping sound of a coffee table and Sheng Yu's cold, stern voice rang out: "Where are you?"
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