"Qin Mei, very good, you are very good." Young Master Lei could never have imagined that the spy for the Lei family had been under his nose all along, someone he had promoted himself.
There was no further sound from the other end of the phone, only a sound of a panicked gasp, and then the call was hung up.
Young Master Lei's eyes were sinister. He finally understood what Mr. Gu had meant.
It had to be Qin Mei... a stray child who had nearly frozen to death on the streets eight years ago, someone he had brought back to the Lei family and adopted, a trusted confidante who had been loyal in front of him since she was ten.
He wanted to ask Qin Mei himself, how dare she betray him!
But when Young Master Lei found Qin Mei, he only found a corpse.
"Young Master, it was suicide," the person who examined Qin Mei's cause of death reported back to Young Master Lei in a low voice.
Young Master Lei looked at Qin Mei's bloodless face, his hands clenched into fists at his sides: "Investigate! Keep investigating!"
As Young Master Lei, his face full of anger, ordered a thorough investigation of the entire Lei family, Xia Qingtian was still in the hospital room, plagued by nightmares.
She seemed to be completely trapped in her dreams.
The night of her escape.
The road was so long, she didn't dare to stop.
She knew that if she stopped, she would die.
She didn't know how many people were after her, nor where she should escape to.
She was very unfamiliar with City C, and the place she was taken to was a sparsely populated fjord.
Her clairvoyance ability had expired, and her adrenaline seemed to have been metabolized away. Only the instinct for survival drove her to keep running forward.
She knew that the other party definitely had accomplices, so she didn't dare to escape to overly open spaces.
Xia Qingtian was grateful that she had been training with Xia Qingyu every day for so long, which allowed her to have the stamina to keep going.
But this stamina also had a limit.
Just like now, she couldn't run anymore.
Stumbling to lean against a tree, Xia Qingtian looked around. The place offered good concealment, and she should be able to rest for a bit.
The moment she had this thought, Xia Qingtian's body weakly slid down, and the world before her eyes flickered on and off.
Fatigue and hunger struck at the same time. Her eyelids were heavy, but she dared not sleep.
"Rest, just rest for a bit... then keep running..." Xia Qingtian thought this, breathing heavily.
However, adrenaline had not only stimulated her potential but also exhausted all her physical strength.
With just a moment of relaxation, a blink of her eyes, and when she opened them again, Xia Qingtian hazily found that dawn was approaching!
She had no idea if she had truly fallen asleep, but the state of being unguarded made her feel terrified.
There seemed to be footsteps behind her, the sound of leather shoes breaking dried branches so clear.
It seemed like more than one person!
Her heart leaped into her throat. Xia Qingtian pushed herself up, leaning on the tree trunk, and without daring to look back, she was about to flee again.
At that moment, a hand abruptly grabbed her arm.
Almost instinctively, Xia Qingtian shouted, "Don't touch me!" and simultaneously threw a punch at the person grabbing her.
Her fist landed squarely on the other person's eye socket. Xia Qingtian also caught a glimpse of the person's face: "Young Master... Lei..."
"You!" Young Master Lei seemed to be stunned by Xia Qingtian's sudden punch. Before he could get angry, the woman who had delivered the heavy blow rolled her eyes and fainted.
Young Master Lei, with a belly full of unexpressed anger, felt like a fuse suddenly extinguished by a water gun, leaving only a wisp of smoke.
Gritting his teeth, Young Master Lei deigned to pick up Xia Qingtian, his face grim, and said, "Notify Gu Yaoyang, his woman has been found. Search the rest of the area immediately and find those reckless kidnappers."
Dare to kidnap Young Master Lei's guests on his turf, no matter who the kidnappers were, they deserved to die!
Xia Qingtian was thus sent to the hospital by Young Master Lei. When Gu Yaoyang arrived, Xia Qingtian's wounds were being disinfected and bandaged.
She was truly exhausted. Even the stinging pain of the disinfectant alcohol touching her wounds only made her let out a few whimpers of grievance.
Gu Yaoyang's face was terrifyingly grim.
Even Young Master Lei dared not speak lightly. It was only when Gu Yaoyang asked him what had happened to his face.
Young Master Lei mumbled, "It's nothing, I just... bumped into something."
Gu Yaoyang didn't ask further, his attention returning to Xia Qingtian.
...
When Xia Qingtian woke up, it was past noon.
With a scream of terror, she suddenly sat up.
Was it a dream? Was it a dream or...
"Be careful." A hand pressed down on Xia Qingtian's arm.
Xia Qingtian flinched at first, then noticed that the hand holding her was connected to an IV drip.
She looked up along her arm, and then met a familiar face, a pair of worried eyes: "Mobius?"
"Mm," Mobius nodded. "Your assistant came by earlier, she..."
Her throat itched, her nose felt sore, and tears uncontrollably streamed down her face.
Xia Qingtian truly thought she might die.
That feeling was truly terrifying.
To be burned alive, she had almost gone through it again.
The burning sensation on her skin was still so clear, the smoke choked her throat, making it burn, her eyes stung from the heat.
To be burned alive...
Mobius's subsequent words were interrupted by Xia Qingtian's crying. He fell silent for a moment, then stood up, placing one hand on the edge of the bed and the other gently tapping the back of Xia Qingtian's head, causing her head to rest on his shoulder. He softly comforted her, "You must have been scared, don't be afraid, it's all over now."
Xia Qingtian sobbed in Mobius's arms, her whole body trembling.
At the doorway, Ling Feng Han and Li Meng Xiao were about to push the door open to see if Xia Qingtian was awake. Ling Feng Han first saw the scene through the door's window and immediately grabbed Li Meng Xiao's hand as she was about to push the door.
"?" Li Meng Xiao turned back curiously to look at Ling Feng Han.
"I... I think this water is too cold. Mr. Gu would be better off drinking something hot," Ling Feng Han said, making up an excuse, and then unceremoniously pulled Li Meng Xiao away. "Let's go buy some hot drinks. You have some hot drinks too, my treat."
"Eh?" Li Meng Xiao was completely dazed, her gaze fixed on the large hand Ling Feng Han was holding hers with, her earlobes turning slightly warm.
Ling Feng Han's mind was racing. He suddenly remembered what Mr. Gu had asked him last night about why he came out of Xia Qingtian's room...
It turned out that Mr. Gu wasn't worried about his artists dating at all; he was just...
Ling Feng Han swallowed hard.
Fortunately, fortunately, he hadn't concealed anything last night, hadn't lied.
He felt a strong sense of surviving a disaster.
At the same time, at the corner of the hospital corridor, a young girl held her phone up to take a picture of Ling Feng Han's back, then enlarged the photo, freezing it on the clasped hands of Li Meng Xiao and Ling Feng Han. Beneath her bangs, her eyes flashed with jealous and frenzied light.