In the depths of the of the alley, a pedestrian walked away hurriedly, as if there was some kind of terrifying beast behind them; they walked faster and faster, and in the blink of an eye, turned into another alleyway, after making sure that no trouble had followed the pedestrian, they pressed their backs against the cold wall and drew in big breaths as they urgently banged on their own front gate’s rusted door.
The light in the house lit up, and a woman replied, “Coming,” the inner gate opened with a clang, and then the outer iron gate was opened.
Before the door was completely open, the frightened pedestrian squeezed inside with a terrified face, “Get inside, get inside quick.” The voice was quiet and hurried, as if afraid of being seen by someone else.
The woman of the house was also frightened by this scene, “What’s going on?” And switched off the lights along the way.
The man of the house who was working overtime until 11 o’clock felt around the darkness for his chair; after sitting down, did he realize both his legs were shaking, “A bunch of gangsters was ganging upon a young girl, I found a stick and wanted to help, but then I saw they even pulled out knives, I almost pissed myself, I didn’t dare to help, so I quickly came home.”
They were in the village of the city, where public security is at its worst. Everyone from everywhere lived together, and nobody knew each other; robbings and muggings were common occurrences over the years.
But… holding someone up with knives, that was his first encounter.
Gasping for cold air due to fright, the woman of the house was so nervous she was stuttering, “You you… you’re fine, right, you… you better keep yourself from meddling in such matters. Our whole family relies on you; you say if something happens to you, what are the three of us going to do?”
“I didn’t meddle, didn’t meddle; I don’t dare even if I wanted to; all five or six of them had knives.” The man of the house had quite a fright, after wiping his face, he made the woman of the house pour him a cup of cold water to calm down, after a while, he exclaimed: “That young girl, sigh, probably…”
The woman of the house notice that he was bringing it up again, scolded lowly, “Alright, we shouldn’t meddle in other’s affairs, even if you see it just pretend like you didn’t see anything, so keep your mouth shut, and don’t bring trouble to our home, do you hear me!”
“I know, I know, I just believe…, sigh.”
“What use does your belief have? Can you win against multiple people with knives? Put it out of your mind, hurry up and shower… You still need to wake up early for work tomorrow. Next year when school starts, we need to pay the school fees again, and your parents are also expecting you to send some money back so your little brother can get married; you better not meddle.”
The woman of the house was afraid that their family would get involved in trouble; while quietly scolding the man of the house, the voices in the house was getting more and more quieter until it was enveloped in silence.
On the other side of the alley, the sounds of someone’s heels grinding on the floor and struggling gradually disappeared, two men keeping watch glanced at their surroundings and told their other two companions: “We’re clear, hurry up and get into the car.”
Disorderly footsteps stepped on the uneven cement road, “Thud thud thus,” making them seem extremely in a hurry, the sound of a car’s engine starting could be heard in the quiet night, and a van zoomed past the street and very quickly disappeared at its end.
“Brother Zi, they took Miss Ye away.” Someone glanced at the direction the van disappeared to, a phone with a glowing blue screen in his hand as he spoke with Hou Zi on the phone, “They went towards Chengnan Middle Road.”
Hou Zi had already returned home and was currently making supper for Xia Yiwei, who had yet to return home from work; in a blue-white checkered apron, he turned off the furnace’s power supply and walked out from the kitchen, “Pay attention, call me if anything happens.”
“Brother Zi, Miss Ye alone… is that really okay?” The assistant asked without being reassured, “Boss Sun had sent six men, and all of them had knives; I’m afraid something would happen to Miss Ye.”
The most important thing was if something happened to Miss Ye, how would Brother Zi answer to Sister Wei? How would they answer to the Xia family’s young Prince?
