Shi Fengyue's eyes moved across the container. After carefully identifying it, he raised his hand to make a mark and continued walking inside.
About ten minutes later, he stopped beside two stacked red containers. Further ahead was an open space with a diameter of about fifty meters. In the middle was a container with an area of about four square meters. In front of the door of the container, two people were standing, looking around vigilantly.
Shi Fengyue retracted his gaze, leaned against the container, raised his right hand, bent the knuckles, and knocked on the container. A dull yet crisp sound rang out. The two people in the container looked at each other, and several sounds, some heavy, some light, but very rhythmic, followed the previous sound.
One of them frowned and looked in the direction of the sound: "What's going on?"
The other person took a half step and said hesitantly, "Let's go take a look?"
At first the man raised his hand, and another heavier knocking sound was heard. He said in a deep voice: "I'll go, you stay here and guard."
The man walked towards Shi Fengyue step by step with cautious and almost inaudible steps. He vigilantly paid attention to every movement and walked into the container area.
Shi Fengyue leaned against the wall of the box, lowered his eyes and listened to the footsteps approaching step by step. Before the footsteps reached his ears, he quickly turned sideways and stretched out his hand. In less than a breath, the person who came was already pinned by his elbows.
He covered the man's mouth, lowered his head and whispered in his ear, his words were low and almost whispered, and his other hand holding the lighter was suspended beside the man's left ear, his slender fingers flicked casually, and the gray metal lighter opened and closed with a strange rhythm.
The man's struggling movements slowly stopped, and his eyes gradually turned from clear to confused. After a moment, he regained clarity and Shi Fengyue let him go.
He seemed not to see Shi Fengyue and walked out without saying a word.
The people waiting in front of the container hadn't heard any movement, and their hearts were in their throats until they saw him coming out. They relaxed and walked towards him, cursing and laughing, "I thought something had happened, you fucking——"
The moment the two men approached each other, the smiling man's expression froze. He looked at the switchblade on his stomach in disbelief. Just as he was about to speak, he was knocked unconscious by a knife.
Shi Fengyue walked out, brushed past the man, opened the door of the container and walked in. However, the man seemed not to see him and ignored him.
Jiang Chen heard the noise outside and the conversation that came to an abrupt end. Just as he was about to listen carefully, he saw the door being opened and a tall figure appeared in the sunlight.
The sudden light made him squint. When his eyes regained their sight, the person was already standing less than half a meter away from him. Jiang Chen opened his eyes slightly, and asked with a tone of surprise that was difficult to conceal: "Shi Fengyue?"
Shi Fengyue squatted down in front of him, with a faint smile on his lips, but there was no smile in his eyes: "Is it fun?"
Jiang Chen was stunned. Shi Fengyue's sudden appearance made his brain go blank for a rare moment. At this time, he heard his question which was completely incomprehensible and didn't know how to answer for a moment.
About half a minute later, he hesitated and asked, "...Why are you here?"
"You seem to want to play the kidnapping game." Shi Fengyue fiddled with his lighter and said calmly, "Come along and see the fun."
Jiang Chen's mouth twitched, and after a few seconds, he asked, "How did you get in?"
"Come in."
Jiang Chen paused, listening to the quiet sounds outside, and suddenly didn't know what to say.
Shi Fengyue raised his eyes. With the light behind him, his eyes were dark and deep. His voice was just like his eyes, and it was hard to tell his emotions: "Everyone is alive. Even if the people who left come back, they won't notice. It won't affect your plan."
Jiang Chen suddenly met his gaze, and the moment their eyes met, he saw himself reflected in Shi Fengyue's eyes - surprise and astonishment, all revealed - since he had been seen through, there was no need for him to continue pretending, he said, "Thank you."
Shi Fengyue paused while playing with the lighter, and the cold metal lighter pressed against the boy's chin, raising his gaze. Shi Fengyue looked at Jiang Chen's eyes carefully and scrutinizingly, and saw only a frank, clear, and bright look in them.
He suddenly withdrew his hand, and paused with his fingertips touching the lighter. There seemed to be a slight temperature different from that of the metal. He removed his fingers, put the lighter back into his pocket, and said in a calm voice: "I don't care what your plan is. If you don't come out within an hour, I will send someone to get you out."
When he reached the door, Shi Fengyue paused, then turned around and walked back.
Jiang Chen was thinking about the difference between one hour and the time he had planned when he felt a candy being stuffed in his mouth. He raised his eyes, but before he could say anything, several more candies were stuffed in his mouth one after another. The sweet taste of milk spread in his mouth.
"Protect yourself."
A few words were spoken and the door of the container closed again.
Jiang Chen held a piece of candy in his mouth, and the sweet taste diluted the stuffiness in the container. He looked at the few rays of light that struggled to get in through the crack in the door, and seemed to be thinking about something.
One hour ago.
Jiang Chen has not returned since he went out for a morning run. Yang Si didn't have to go to the hospital today, so she bought a lot of Jiang Chen's favorite dishes to make up for the guilt of letting him eat out alone during this period of time. So before Jiang Chen went out, she specifically told him to come back early for lunch.
Unexpectedly, the wait lasted until one o'clock in the afternoon, Jiang Chen still hadn't shown up, and the phone call was unreachable.
At first Yang Si thought he had gone to see Chen Xu and the others, but after contacting Chen Xu and Huo Bo she realized that Jiang Chen had not gone to see them, which made her worry. She knew her son very well, and he had never failed to keep a promise since he was a child, and he was very punctual. She was talking about lunch, and Jiang Chen would never be home after twelve o'clock.
The wall clock in the middle of the living room ticked away, and with every movement of the minute hand, Yang Si felt more uneasy. She wondered if this was because her mother would have wild thoughts when she couldn't find her child. She always had a bad feeling.
At 1:15 in the afternoon, Yang Si's cell phone rang.
She answered the phone immediately, her tone was anxious and unconcealable: "Chenchen?"
"Yang Si?"
The voice on the other side was a deliberately low and vague male voice. Yang Si had a premonition almost as soon as she heard the voice. She clutched the pillow on her legs tightly and said, "It's me."
"Your son is in our hands. If you want him back, prepare 300,000 yuan. I'll send you the account number and give you two days. We'll release him once the money arrives. I advise you to raise the money honestly. If you call the police, I can't guarantee whether your son is dead or alive."
When she heard the first sentence, Yang Si's face had already lost all color. She tried her best to calm herself down in the strange voice of the man, but as soon as she thought about what might happen to her son, all her rationality was instantly drained away. As soon as the man finished speaking, she immediately said, "I'll give it to you right away. Don't hurt my son. I'll transfer the money to you right away."
Yang Tianci, who was hiding near the park, showed a hint of joy on his face when he heard the words, but after a moment, his expression darkened again. He didn't even hesitate and took out the three hundred thousand yuan immediately. His sister was much richer than he thought. It was obvious that before she had money, she came to their house to ask for money, and said she would break off relations with them if they didn't give her money, without any regard for the relationship between siblings.
Since she is unkind, don't blame him for being unjust.
Yang Tianci sneered in his heart and said slowly: "I was wrong before. It's not 300,000, but one million. I'll give you half a day, two and a half days. If the money arrives before noon the day after tomorrow, your son will not lose a single hair. If not..." He didn't finish and hung up the phone.
Yang Si put down his phone and immediately ran to the room to look through all the passbooks in the house.
Of the money Jiang Chen took out, there was still about 100,000 left for Jiang Zhuo's medical expenses. The family had some savings before, so together they made up about 270,000. If it was 300,000, she could probably borrow the rest from friends, but one million... where would she get it?
Just as Yang Si was holding the passbook anxiously, her cell phone rang again.
"Hello, are you Ms. Yang Si?"
Yang Si was stunned, and his heart was in a knot again: "I am..."
"We are from the Yan City Zhonghai District Public Security Bureau. Half an hour ago, we received a call from the public that someone kidnapped a boy at the west gate of the park. The boy was wearing a white T-shirt and black casual pants and was about 1.78 meters tall. Do you remember what your son was wearing before he left the house?"
Yang Si opened his mouth and said with difficulty after a long while: "It's my son."
"Ma'am, don't worry. We have already located your son based on surveillance footage and photos sent by the public. He is now in the neighboring city of Xing. We have dispatched police and contacted the Xing police for assistance. We will do our best to protect his safety and rescue him. Please wait at home and don't alert the enemy."
"I just received a call... The kidnappers told me not to call the police. They said they would kill me if I did." Yang Si's hand turned pale as she gripped the phone. She said word by word, "Mr. Police, I beg you to protect my son's safety. If you can't do it, I can raise enough money to give them. I don't want my son to get hurt at all."
"Ma'am, we understand your feelings very well. We promise to do our best to protect your son's safety and rescue him. During this period, we hope you can remain calm. If the kidnappers contact you, please contact us immediately."
"good……"
After hanging up the phone, Yang Si knelt on the ground exhausted, her mind a mess, full of images that were difficult to even begin to think of. She held the phone tightly, forcing herself to calm down. The clock ticked away, and the worry in her heart grew heavier.
When the clock pointed to four o'clock, her cell phone finally rang. Almost in the first second that the ringtone sounded, she picked it up: "Hello? This is Yang Si, is it..."
"Hello, we are from the Public Security Bureau of Zhonghai District, Yan City. We have successfully rescued your son Jiang Chen and are taking him back to Yan City. It will take about an hour. You can go to the Public Security Bureau and wait first."
"Is he injured? Did those people hurt him? Where was he injured? How is he now?"
"Ma'am, don't worry, your son is safe and not hurt in any way."
Yang Si breathed a sigh of relief and said incoherently: "I'll be there right away. Thank you, thank you so much, police comrades. Thank you so much, thank you..."
…
Jiang Chen sat in the police car, replaying the scene in his mind.
Less than twenty minutes after Shi Fengyue left, the two people who had left earlier came back. Not long after, a quarrel broke out outside. The three people spoke too fast and in various dialects. Jiang Chen could not hear clearly, but he pieced together the reason for their quarrel: one of the two people who were guarding the door was injured and unconscious, and the person who stabbed him was the other person who stayed behind to guard him.
The noise lasted for nearly fifteen minutes until it was interrupted by a phone call. The call was very short, but after hanging up, they immediately started to move more vigorously. Jiang Chen heard their hurried footsteps and conversation:
"The cops are here, and it seems the boss has been discovered. What should we do?"
"We did it so covertly, how could we be discovered so quickly..."
"I told you that bastard Huang Kai was a traitor, and you didn't believe me. He must have leaked the information!"
"Why are you still talking so much? Run!"
"But what about the one inside?"
"Who cares if he lives or dies?"
"No, if the boss is arrested, we will lose a person. If we don't continue this business, we will lose a lot. Doesn't the boss want this kid's life? Let's kill him first. At least we have completed the mission."
"Is this okay? The boss said that the other party's identity is unknown, and we have to wait until the money arrives before we can take action."
"It's already this late, we can make as much money as we can, and he's seen what we look like..."
The door of the container was opened and three men walked in, one of them holding a knife.
Jiang Chen watched them calmly, backed away little by little, and when the approaching man swung his knife, he broke free from the rope on his hands and avoided his attack.
The unexpected situation stunned the three of them. They looked at each other and surrounded him.
Jiang Chen calculated the time and delayed them as much as possible.
Sure enough, seeing that they couldn't catch Jiang Chen, the three of them became anxious. The police were outside, and the longer they delayed, the greater the chance that they would be caught. After Jiang Chen escaped after several attempts to catch him, one of them lost his patience and said, "Forget it, don't worry about him. The police are coming soon. If we don't leave now, it will be too late!"
"But……"
"But what? Let's go!"
The three men retreated in a hurry, but Jiang Chen's attack was different from his previous defense. His moves became fiercer and the man closest to him was thrown over his shoulder, and the phone in his pocket slipped out. Jiang Chen glanced at the countdown displayed on the screen, dodged the man with a knife, but was lightly grazed on the face by a punch.
Just then, the police arrived.
The absolute suppression of numbers and force quickly ended the rescue.
As a victim, Jiang Chen was naturally protected and got into the last car. Before he got on the car, the man who the three thought had already been arrested was also escorted over by another group of police. This man was the only driver whose appearance the system could not identify from the surveillance footage.
What concerned Jiang Chen was that the black trench coat this man was wearing was very similar to the one Shi Fengyue had just worn when he came in. This seemed to be just a coincidence, but it made him inexplicably concerned. He always felt that it was related to the answer he wanted to know.
Thinking of Shi Fengyue coming and going as if in an uninhabited place, Jiang Chen frowned slightly. He always felt as if he had grasped something and overlooked something. This feeling of being blocked by an unknown force when he was about to get the answer made him unable to help but think over and over again, recalling the scene of meeting Shi Fengyue for less than two minutes, as well as all the clues known now.
The knocking sounds outside before Shi Fengyue appeared, Shi Fengyue's long black windbreaker that was similar to the kidnapper's, kidnapper A who had clearly seen Shi Fengyue but seemed to have lost his memory and stabbed his companion, kidnapper B who was stabbed silently and was considered a traitor, what Shi Fengyue said to him, the lighter in Shi Fengyue's hand at the time...
lighter!
Jiang Chen had a flash of inspiration in his mind, and the answer was about to come out.
At this moment, the conversation started by the police who came up interrupted his train of thought.
The young policeman lowered his voice mysteriously and said, "We were interrogating them just now and have already found out something. Do you know that the one who was injured was stabbed by one of their own people because of an internal conflict?"
Jiang Chen raised his eyes and looked ahead.
The other two were also curious: "Why the internal strife?"
"Didn't you discuss the stolen money?"
"It seems that neither is the case. It is said that the injured person had a conflict with their leader before, and he leaked the news out of resentment."
"Who knows. It took us less than half an hour from the time we received the call to the time we located the victim. The suspect's picture, hiding place, and license plate number were all provided by someone else. Apart from someone inside their organization, who else could have given us real-time navigation like this?"
“That’s right…”
"If you really put it that way, it seems to make sense."
Hearing this, Jiang Chen withdrew his gaze, but after being interrupted, he wanted to regain the little inspiration he had before, but he couldn't find a clue.
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