Chapter 272: Climbing A Tree
Liancheng’s proximity to the window at the station, the clouds above suddenly moved away, and a lot of intense, blinding sunlight streamed in. She instinctively closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, the man’s chest was in front of her eyelashes, and with every rise and fall of his breath, his powerful and magnificent heartbeat struck her cheek.
She didn’t look up.
Liang Chaosu didn’t capture her either.
The atmosphere was like a desert baked by the sun, their two bodies trapped in the desolation, unable to break free.
Liancheng spoke first, “Are you hungry?”
Liang Chaosu looked down at her, but she still didn’t look up.
After a moment, the man cupped her chin. “If you’re hungry, eat. After the check-up this afternoon, I’ll return to Nan Province.”
He yielded, letting go of the storm regarding Lin Xianzi just now, but insisted on the initial source of turmoil. Liancheng didn’t want to have gone through all the trouble for nothing.
“Tomorrow, I’ll go for the check-up tomorrow.” She disliked lying, but she had lied for four years, and lied to him the most. Now, she suddenly didn’t want to, yet she couldn’t be completely honest.
Hesitating, avoiding, unable to express, a feeling of confusion and helplessness flowed out.
She added, “Today is very important. You said before that you didn’t care what my mother thought, or how she felt. I do care.”
Liang Chaosu’s gaze fixed on her eyes, silent.
Liancheng sincerely, after four years, expressed her thoughts that he hadn’t personally acted against Lin Xianzi, “I want today to be calm, with everything proceeding as planned.”
“You want Lin Xianzi to win.”
Liang Chaosu’s fingertips caressed the corner of her mouth. The long-lost sparkle in her eyes, contrasting with the pigment deposition from healed wounds, was like clouds covering the moonlight, or pests gnawing at white camellias.
Whether Lin Xianzi lived or died was not as important as her illness, but in her eyes, it was, “I’ll be back before eight tomorrow.”
Liancheng was surprised for a moment, then fell again.
It seemed Liang Chaosu genuinely didn’t know about the passport, thinking she had agreed to move in and return to his house.
“He Jinian—”
Liang Chaosu had already calmed his emotions and regained his reason. “That’s the second issue.”
Liancheng understood that the quota for his true words was insufficient.
………………………………………………
Because of Gu Xingyuan’s phone call, Liang Chaosu returned to Nan Province after lunch, leaving Xiao Da to protect her.
Liancheng was not surprised and planned to stay until seven. Using the excuse of not having collected all her clothes, she left through the side door of the house opposite.
Lin Lanfeng’s villa, which had been used years ago to hide his mistress from paparazzi while she was pregnant, had a side door that was undetectable. On the wall of the tool shed on the east side, facing the alley, it looked normal from the outside. Only from the inside, by entering a password, could a small gap be pushed open.
As a result, around five o’clock, Feng Shien suddenly sent a message.
There were rumors in Qi Province that the kidnapper’s location had been leaked online. The police had to abandon their plan for an evening arrest and act in advance, telling Liancheng to leave immediately.
The flight had already been rebooked and boarding was in half an hour.
Liancheng’s heart pounded. She walked out of the living room. Xiao Da was on the phone in the courtyard. He glimpsed her descending the stairs and covered the handset to ask, “Is something wrong?”
“I forgot my things at the house opposite, I’m going to get them.”
It wasn’t far to go to the opposite house, and he had returned at noon. Liancheng felt as if she and Liang Chaosu had reached some agreement, and they had had a pleasant lunch together. She calmly saw Liang Chaosu off.
A feeling of peace.
Xiao Da felt that Liancheng should have taken his advice.
“But Director Liang instructed that it wouldn’t be peaceful after he left, so you should stay indoors.”
Liancheng clutched her phone. “It’s only a few steps. Does Mo Shicheng dare to guard the door and kidnap me?”
Xiao Da said solemnly, “He might not just guard the door. Desperate revenge might even lead him to break in. You sent the Lin family people back this morning, the culprits might have already taken advantage of the situation.”
Liancheng froze on the spot for two seconds, then suddenly laughed. “Hong Kong isn’t the Middle East. With two houses so close together, if there was any trouble, the bodyguards would have already noticed. You don’t need to scare me.”
The bodyguards guarding the door indeed showed no abnormality, but Xiao Da insisted.
Liancheng wrung her hands and frowned, very flustered. “I must go back,” she said, even more embarrassed, “for physiological reasons.”
This statement was obscure, and Xiao Da’s reaction took a few seconds, leaving him blank.
Liancheng raised her hand to cover her lower abdomen. He was startled and suddenly remembered that night years ago when he had brought Liancheng back to Jade Mansion.
At that time, in the mainland, it was called express delivery. Now in Hong Kong, it’s also called that, but the delivery person might not be safe. Having a bodyguard go out to buy it would mean one less person, one less person to share the burden. He didn’t dare to risk it, so it was better to go to the house opposite.
Hurrying back to the opposite house, Xiao Da and the bodyguards were still there. Liancheng couldn’t openly go to the east side, so she had to go upstairs to the bedroom.
The small balcony of the master bedroom was close to the large banyan tree, and below the tree was the tool shed. In high school, she often took Shen Lichuan to the back mountain of the Liang family. If she found a fallen bird’s nest, she would do her best to help, earning praise from Shen Lichuan and forging a small secret that belonged only to them, defying the demeanor of a young master.
Now, relying on her experience, sliding down the tree trunk was clearly more feasible than fighting several large men alone.
“You wait for me here,” Liancheng said, pointing to the stairwell. “I’m not comfortable with the opposite sex entering my room.”
Xiao Da knew this. Liancheng detested any sudden intrusion into her private space.
He didn’t insist. “Please be quick.”
Liancheng quickly locked the door, wrapped her hands in a pillowcase, and returned to the door. She called out to Xiao Da through the door, “Sorry, my clothes got dirty, I want to take a shower.”
Xiao Da’s footsteps approached. Liancheng wouldn’t listen to any objections.
The sound of water was gushing from the bathroom. She quickly climbed over the balcony and half-fell, half-carried herself down the tree. After all, it had been nearly five years of disuse, and her movements were clumsy. Fortunately, the sound of water masked it, and no one noticed her.
Feng Shien was already anxiously waiting. There were many flights from Hong Kong to Europe, with several classes per hour to different destinations. By chance, today there was strong wind and heavy rain, causing flight control issues. The only flight available was the one within half an hour. Waiting longer would mean waiting until eight o’clock.
Three hours was enough for turbulent waves to rise and fall several times. And just returning to the opposite house with so many bodyguards surrounding her showed that she was not free and it was difficult to escape.
As Liancheng got into the car, he was clutching his phone, hesitating whether to get out and force his way in. Liancheng slammed the door shut with a bang. “Let’s go quickly.”
The situation was urgent. Feng Shien scanned her from head to toe at a glance. Apart from her disheveled clothes, there were no abnormalities on her exposed skin. He immediately breathed a sigh of relief and stepped on the accelerator.
“Did they do anything to you?”
“No.” Liancheng looked out the car window.
The alley wound out and happened to pass under a ramp. The ramp was quiet. Xiao Da probably hadn’t discovered the anomaly yet. The breath she had been holding loosened.
Feng Shien accelerated again. As they passed the next intersection, a van suddenly rushed out. Their car was fast, but the oncoming vehicle was even faster. The two cars collided head-on at a ninety-degree angle.
Liancheng had been in a hurry earlier, and the seatbelt wasn’t fastened tightly. The car lurched violently, her forehead slammed heavily into the tool case, and she was thrown against the car window, her elbow hitting the door handle.
Then, the world spun, and she felt folded, her head squeezed into her thighs, and she rolled to the base of the wall.
Not far away, Feng Shien’s car window was smashed. A thick, dark arm grabbed his hair. He recognized him.
“Brother Ya, this punk is Feng Shien.”
“What is this? Look at the car, and see if that cheap-life girl is in there?”
“She’s not, there’s no one inside.”
Brother Ya pondered for a few seconds.
“Never mind him. Liang Chaosu arranged quite a few bodyguards. We brought our weapons, let’s handle the main business first. You tie him up, and we’ll deal with him when we get back.”
