The teenager glanced at Xiaonian and said to her, "Thank you for inviting me to a movie tonight, but right now, I’m solely focused on getting into a university and don’t want a girlfriend. Also, I don’t want to date a girl with poor grades; it’ll affect my studies."
As he spoke, he checked the time on his wristwatch, "I need to get back."
Xiaonian stomped her foot and yelled as she watched the boy walk away without turning back, "Feng Lin, you son of a bitch, so what if you study well? I’ll have you know, it’s your good fortune that I fancy you, and you dare to complain about my studies? Just you wait, I’ll get into university just to show you."
She just didn’t want to attend; if she wanted to, she could even make it into Top Academy.
Xiaonian, seething with rage, clenched her teeth. She stood by the road to hail a taxi; a van pulled up before her, and before she could speak, someone grabbed her and covered her mouth, dragging her into the vehicle.
"Who are you people, what do you want?" Once freed, Xiaonian looked around the inside of the van, glanced at the people inside, certain she didn’t know any of them.
This meant she might have been kidnapped.
"You don’t need to know who we are; we’re taking you somewhere now."
"Do you know who I am? If you don’t, I can tell you." This was just her luck; she just wanted to watch a movie with a classmate, but now she’d been kidnapped.
Could it be those same people from before?
"Girl, we don’t care who you are. We were just passing by and happened to see you alone, so we thought we’d take you out for some fun. Don’t worry, we won’t harm you."
Xiaonian frowned; these weren’t the same people from before.
The vehicle quickly stopped at a location.
The place was secluded, and the buildings were somewhat old. Hearing the sound of the vehicle, people inside came out to greet them, "Ah, you’ve brought back a young girl."
"Just picked her up on the roadside." The people in the vehicle instructed others to watch Xiaonian, "She looks decent and is a student, so we brought her back."
"Indeed, she’s quite pretty," commented the people in the house after a glance.
Xiaonian stayed quiet, not saying another word.
Sister Xiaofeng had said before: no matter what happens, the first rule is not to panic.
First, she needed to find out who these people were and what they wanted with her, then she could think of a way to send out a distress signal.
"Young lady, where’s your family from? Give us your home phone number," a man smoking a cigarette stepped forward.
"Xiaofeng." Chu Qing’s heart rose to her throat when she received the call, "Someone just called home, saying they have Xiaonian and are demanding we deliver fifty thousand cash. Xiaofeng, is Xiaonian with you?"
"Mom, Xiaoyan and I are out looking for Xiaonian. The caller indicated Xiaonian has encountered kidnappers. Where did they say to deposit the money?" Evidently, there was a transaction method involved.
"They want me to deposit the money in a passbook account, which happens to be Xiaonian’s own passbook." The other party was cunning, using Xiaonian’s passbook for the transaction.
Quan Sifang was away on a business trip, leaving Chu Qing somewhat frantic.
Xiaofeng told her not to panic, assuring her that she would figure something out.
She dialed Ye Cheng, and An Yi picked up after one ring, "This is Su Xiaofeng, I’m looking for Dragon King."
Before An Yi could hand over the phone, Ye Cheng had already taken the call, "Hello."
"Dragon Lord, this is Su Xiaofeng. My sister was kidnapped after school. The kidnappers called me, asking me to prepare fifty thousand. Dragon Lord, you have more connections in the underworld; can you help me out and check where my sister might be right now?"
See, once you know someone, it makes a difference. When trouble arises, you can call them directly.
"Was she at any particular place that evening?"
"She might have taken bus route number 9 that night, possibly been spotted at Starlight Cinema." All this was speculative.
It’s the nineties, not the twenty-first century.
If this were the twenty-first century, one could just report it to the police, track her movements, and quickly find out where she had been earlier.
"Alright, I’ll have someone look into it." While Ye Cheng said this, he promptly made a few calls and personally went out with a group to search.
Ye Cheng met Xiaofeng and her group outside the cinema.
Xiaoyan and Shuiling were uncertain about the man before them, unsure whether he was a friend of Sister Xiaofeng or held some other relationship.
Xiaofeng didn’t have time to explain, merely discussing with Ye Cheng some details about Xiaonian’s disappearance.