Chapter 59 "Now, we are accomplices."...
An hour ago.
Queen Auction House backdoor.
Teng Zaiye glanced at the Mercedes rushing into the rain a couple more times with a strange look, then his phone rang.
The moment I answered, a cold voice burst from the receiver: "Where the hell have you been?"
"Wife!" Teng Zaiye immediately closed his umbrella, turned around, opened the iron gate, and hurried inside. "Are you done?"
"Um."
"Let's go eat then. What do you want to eat?" The voice came into the office. Teng Zaiye poked his head in, his phone still to his ear. "A new Italian restaurant opened next door. They have your favorite seafood paella."
"You've already made up your mind, why are you asking me?" Jiang Ziyu finished tidying up the table, stood up, and pushed the swivel chair under the table.
Teng Zaiye hung up the phone, picked up his coat, shook it a couple of times, and put it on him. "Of course I have to ask. What if you don't want seafood risotto today? There's a private restaurant a bit further away that's pretty good."
"It's raining outside, so let's not go too far."
After putting on his coat, Jiang Ziyu noticed dried water stains on his shoulders, and further down, his trouser legs and shoes were also wet.
"You went out?"
"Yes, my younger brother just arrived."
As Jiang Ziyu walked out of the office, she turned off the wall light and asked, "What's he doing here?"
"It's nothing serious, he just came to ask me for a baseball bat." Teng Zaiye sighed as he walked, "It's raining so hard outside, and he still went to play baseball. He's really energetic at eighteen or nineteen."
Jiang Ziyu frowned in confusion: "He can play baseball?"
"I don't know," Teng Zaiye guessed. "Maybe he just recently developed a liking for it. Your brother is always acting on a whim; wasn't he like that during the races before?"
"You still dare to mention racing?"
"No, no, I won't." Teng Zaiye waved his hands repeatedly, pushing him forward, "Come on, let's go eat, I'm starving."
As Jiang Ziyu drove out of the underground parking garage, he realized that the rain outside was much heavier than he had imagined.
He couldn't help but turn his head and ask again, "It's raining so hard, why is Xiao Luo still going to play baseball?"
…………
At exactly seven o'clock, Pei Yanli and her team began negotiations with an overseas company regarding their latest research and development of intelligent technology.
The phone lit up twice during that time.
While the other party was studying the project proposal, I clicked on it and found out it was my brother-in-law.
"Chen Zhao," he whispered to the person behind him, "check the security camera footage in the garage."
Garage surveillance?
Chen Zhao quickly replied with an "okay." He stepped back, turned on the monitor screen on the backup machine, and saw that there were originally three cars in the villa's garage, but now only two remained.
The new Mercedes I just bought for my boss's wife not long ago is gone!
This ancestor!
It's raining late at night, where did they go?
Chen Zhao quickly dialed the number, but the phone was switched off.
The meeting went much more smoothly than expected. Halfway through the agenda, Pei Yanli turned her head and glanced behind her.
Chen Zhao was so anxious that he didn't know where to look.
Pei Yanli: "What's wrong?"
"The boss lady's Mercedes drove off." Chen Zhao blinked quickly, then turned his head away guiltily. "I guess... I guess she went shopping."
"He's not home." Pei Yanli pressed her temples together, the scene before she left replaying in her mind. Remembering Xiao Luo's abrupt question, she quickly added, "Go and find out where Pei Hengzhi is. Be discreet."
Chen Zhao nodded repeatedly.
After turning several corners, I heard from a maid who cleaned the courtyard of the old house that "the eldest young master has gone out."
Pei Yanli hurriedly asked, "Where did you go?"
"They said they were going to pack their belongings at their old place." But no one knows the actual situation.
"Don't worry." Even at this point, Chen Zhao was still deceiving himself: "The landlady couldn't possibly do anything."
“He bought a baseball bat from Teng Zaiye and said he was going to play baseball!” Pei Yanli forcefully lowered her hand from her forehead.
But they all knew that Xiao Luo couldn't play baseball at all, so what did he need that bat for? And why did he repeatedly confirm Pei Hengzhi's departure date abroad?
The answer is already available.
Chen Zhao, however, was still defending him: "Aren't you overthinking this? Besides, how would he contact Pei Hengzhi? Does he think Pei Hengzhi would just come out if he called him? Pei Hengzhi isn't stupid."
“Yes, he’s not stupid.” Pei Yanli forced herself to calm down. “He must have found a reason to make him go… Xiao Luo can’t do this alone.”
He's been spending all these days with Xiao Luo, so it's easy to see who he's been in contact with.
"Hurry up, go through the contacts in Xiao Luo's phone and find out who he knows and has contacted recently. You have to be quick."
Luo Yunqing knows many people, but the depth of their friendship varies. If he were to talk about people he has met recently... Chen Zhao suddenly remembered another person besides Jiang Ziyu: reporter Yang Kang.
Pei Hengzhi's drunk driving incident and the Song brothers' affairs were both exposed through his hands.
Chen Zhao called to ask, just to give it a try.
"Luo Yunqing? Little Luo." Yang Kang brewed a pot of goji berry tea, sat in front of the computer, took out a cigarette from the pack, and lit it. "He did contact me recently."
Chen Zhao was overjoyed: "What do you want?"
"Well...we reporters also have professional ethics." If someone comes along and answers the question directly, won't things get chaotic?
"Oh my god, you're still using this trick on me?" Chen Zhao was extremely anxious. "Our boss is looking for someone everywhere but can't find them. Please stop keeping me in suspense and just tell me already. If something happens to the boss's wife, not only will Tianxiang Entertainment be affected, but I will also be fired."
Yang Kang was shocked to find the cigarette butt burning his hand, so he quickly threw it away, muttering, "It can't be that serious, can it?"
Xiao Luo just asked him to look up some information, that Liu Yishou... He belatedly realized, why was Xiao Luo looking up this Liu Yishou?
"Whether it's serious or not isn't up to you to decide. Here's the deal: you tell me secretly, and I won't tell anyone else, I absolutely won't say I heard it from you, okay?"
Chen Zhao used both soft and hard tactics, and after nearly twenty minutes of persuasion, he finally managed to pry out the three characters "Liu Yishou" from the saw-mouth gourd.
The man who smothered Xiaoyu and took her away.
The matter is now clear: from the very beginning, Luo Yunqing never intended to let the group that kidnapped Xiaoyu go.
"It's my fault." Chen Zhao had no choice but to confess: "The day Pei Hengzhi was released from the detention center, the landlady told me to take a detour and I happened to see Liu Yishou being bailed out by his uncle. He was probably unwilling to accept that the person who harmed Xiaoyu was released so easily."
“Why didn’t you do this sooner… Never mind.” Getting angry with him wouldn’t help. “Go and find out about this Liu Yishou, and his address.”
"I've found it, Lane 5, East Street." Chen Zhao also bears some responsibility for not noticing it in time, so he quickly added, "It's less than three kilometers from here, I'll be there right now."
Pei Yanli: "I'll go too."
"But the project..."
"The manager sent a message saying that the other party has clearly expressed their intention to sign. The rest is up to them." Pei Yanli said to the manager, then left for East Street Market.
During the journey, the vehicle slowed down due to heavy rain.
Looking at the rain winding its way down the window, all the questions turned into "What if I catch a cold from getting wet in this heavy rain?" and "What if there's thunder?"...
As I worried and fretted, a bolt of lightning struck with a deafening clap of thunder.
The whole sky lit up.
Pei Yanli looked out and slowly drove past the alley entrance when a cold, metallic object suddenly caught her eye.
"Go back!"
Chen Zhao subconsciously stepped on the brake and obeyed the order to reverse several meters. Without the boss telling him to stop, he turned his head and saw the scene in the alley.
A specially customized wheelchair identical to the boss's, a person half-lying on the ground with their face hidden by a pair of Doc Martens, and the boss's wife holding a baseball bat.
A beam of light slanted into the alley, illuminating half of a person's profile. Their features remained delicate and beautiful, yet suddenly a murderous aura emanated from them.
As the baseball bat slammed down, a few drops of hot blood splattered down his cheeks, but that couldn't quell the hatred in his eyes.
For the first time, Chen Zhao directly felt that straightforward, surging, and endless hatred, like... a desperate gamble after losing everything.
After the two blows, there was no more movement on the ground.
Luo Yunqing tilted her head back, breathed a sigh of relief, and let the few drops of blood slide down.
The next second, their eyes met as the person who rolled down the car window looked over.
Lightning flashed and thunder roared in the sky.
Her hand loosened, and the baseball bat clattered to the ground. Luo Yunqing glanced back at the man lying on the ground, his life hanging in the balance, and frantically wiped his ashen face, again and again…
"Honey," he said, trying to shield himself from the scene behind him, his voice high-pitched as if they were in a good mood, "It's thundering, I'm scared~"
Come and comfort me.
"Honey~"
Just pretend you didn't see it, just pretend none of this happened, don't scold me.
"husband……"
He wiped his face countless times, until his cheeks were red and it was impossible to tell whether the water was blood or tears.
Why don't you get off the bus?
Are you scared?
Yes, they must be scared.
He's not well-behaved at all.
Even though he had already paved the way for Pei Hengzhi to have an easy time abroad, he still couldn't help but take action.
But he had no choice!
The thought of Xiaoyu lying on the sofa with a knife pointed at her, the children who left him one by one in his past life, the grandmother who hanged herself to avoid being a burden to him, and him, who endured several days and nights of mental breakdown and finally picked up hope to live a good life only to be murdered... this hatred was like a mark on his bones, which could never be erased!
But—only he knew.
All those experiences, all those past events, were experienced by him alone.
What has he become in Pei Yanli's eyes now?
Luo Yunqing lowered his head and stretched out his hands, with traces of blood still remaining between his fingers, telling everyone that he would stop at nothing and was ruthless in order to get revenge.
Beneath that beautiful exterior lies nothing but filthy and ugly scheming.
"You don't want me anymore... It's better that way."
Luo Yunqing murmured, curling her palms.
The torrential rain suddenly seemed to be separated by something, and the ordinary gold ring on his ring finger caught my eye. I gripped his wet and cold hand tightly.
His pupils suddenly dilated.
I stiffly looked up at the person holding the umbrella, watching his mouth open and close, the sound of rain filling my ears, his voice broken and indistinct through the rain curtain, what was he saying?
Snap!
Until the car door closed.
Once inside the comfortably warm car, Luo Yunqing finally came to her senses. Her soaking wet baseball cap had been removed, and a clean towel was draped over her head as she gently rubbed it.
He touched his lips, his voice hoarse: "What did you say?"
Outside the window, a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky.
Pei Yanli stopped what she was doing, covered his ears with both hands, and said each word with utmost seriousness: "Don't be afraid, your husband is here."
As soon as he finished speaking, thunder roared through the sky.
Luo Yunqing was immediately pulled into someone's arms, and all she could hear was the sound of a vibrant heartbeat.
He clutched the suit he had ironed himself, choking back tears, "Husband."
"I am here."
With just two words, Luo Yunqing was utterly defeated.
She looked up, tears streaming down her face, and said, "I hit him, I hit Pei Hengzhi."
"I know."
"I……"
Pei Yanli wiped away the tears that wouldn't stop on his face and sighed softly, "He must have suffered a lot of injustices in places I can't see."
He had never seen Luo Yunqing argue with anyone, whether it was classmates, friends, or servants in the old house. She was considerate of others in every way, and she was especially loyal to the orphanage that raised him.
They must have been forced into a corner to do something like this.
It's his fault; he never noticed his pain and left him to suffer all of this alone.
“It’s my fault as a husband.” Pei Yanli gently patted the trembling man. “Regarding Xiaoyu, I initially planned to send him to jail, whether it was for three years or one year. But after my anger subsided, I listened to the recording of the phone call you made to me. Because of the fall off the cliff, because of me, he blamed everything on you. If he mentions your name, this matter will be even more difficult to resolve. His mother will hold you hostage, even if it leads to mutual destruction. So I thought I should give in first, forcing them to send Pei Hengzhi abroad. Once abroad, the world is vast and the distance is great, their reach won’t be so far. I’ll send Pei Hengzhi to a mental hospital. But this method takes a long time. I wanted to wait until he was in jail before telling you… I should have told you sooner.”
I told him earlier, and maybe it would ease his pain and allow him to open up to me, even if it's just to complain a little.
"I've already done it." Regardless of his intentions, Luo Yunqing had been beaten, her life hanging in the balance, and now that he'd discovered it, "What do you plan to do?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the front door suddenly opened, and Chen Zhao, soaking wet, came up, bringing back the "murder weapon".
Pei Yanli then cupped his face in her hands, "Now, we are accomplices."
"accomplice!"
“Yes, I am your accomplice.” Pei Yanli took the hand that had been carefully wiped clean and kissed it. “I will take care of the rest.”
He asked, "When will Liu Yishou arrive?"
“Pei Yanli…” No, no, how could he become an accomplice?
“Xiaoyu and I made a promise to protect you.” Pei Yanli cupped his hand and pressed it against her face. “Lying is punishable by swallowing needles. As an adult, I cannot break my promise.”
He asked again, "When will that person arrive?"
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