A Good-for-Nothing

272. Kidnapping

Translator: Dragon Rider

Outside the restaurant.

Soft night breeze ruffled Chen Qianlin’s and the others’ clothes but were unable to blow away their vexations.

Chen Qianlin, leaning against the car door, became somewhat impatient. “Did He Zheng fall into the toilet? Why is he still not back?” he asked gruffly.

Wei Cheng looked at his wristwatch, furrowed his brows and suddenly felt that there was something fishy going on. “Chichi has been in there for almost ten minutes as well.”

Tao Wujiu hung up the phone, glanced at the screen and saw that there was nothing wrong with the signal. “Why is He Zheng not answering his phone?”

“Who knows what he’s doing?” Chen Qianlin clicked his tongue.

Tao Wujiu said, “Well, I’ll go in there and find out what the two of them have been doing.”

Wei Cheng, finding the circumstances somewhat suspicious, said, “I’ll go with you.”

Chen Qianlin rolled his eyes upwards and continued waiting outside.

It was only three minutes’ walk from the front gates of the restaurant to the restroom. Wei Cheng and Tao Wujiu walked into it and called He Zheng’s and Qi Ming’s names, but there was no response. The two of them were confused. Wei Cheng made another phone call to Qi Ming and with that ringtone suddenly emanated from a gap in the table under the washbasin. Wei Cheng and Tao Wujiu exchanged a glance and then stooped down, lay prone on the ground and saw that Qi Ming’s cellphone was shining and ringing in the gap.

…

“Uh … ” He Zheng let out a groan, aching all over. He moved his neck and managed to open his eyes. It was pitch-black and he could sense nothing.

Where was this place?

His eyes adjusted to the dark very soon. He Zheng noticed that he was in a small room. There were no windows, only four walls. Even starlight couldn’t come in.

His hands and legs were tied, and the Shadow Sword was missing.

He Zheng suddenly recalled what Wei Cheng had said during the dinner party.

Lately a lot of exorcists had been assaulted in Coastal City.

He Zheng had been in the limelight recently, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he had made a couple of enemies, but everybody knew he was married to Li Zong, whom nobody dared mess with.

Who did this to him exactly? Was it those guys from the Neon Kingdom, by any chance? They did have history, for Nakayi Hakute and Honyani Susuhana had indeed died at his hands. But it didn’t make sense. Even if the Neon Kingdom wanted to take revenge, they shouldn’t do it in the Republic of Hua, at least not in Coastal City.

By the way, where was Chichi?

He Zheng found that Qi Ming was gone. He remembered very clearly that he had seen Qi Ming before he fainted.

He Zheng prayed that Qi Ming would be okay, but currently the first priority was to extricate himself from this place.

He closed his eyes, inwardly summoned Dan Zhu and with that it immediately flew out of his forehead. The light it was giving off brightened the dark room somewhat.

He Zheng’s speculation proved right. This was indeed a basement. It was not big, and there was no other furnishings apart from the chair he was tied to.

He Zheng squinted his eyes and instructed Dan Zhu in a hushed voice, “Figure out a way to inform Li Zong.”

Dan Zhu was a spiritual beast, and there was not much he could do. He couldn’t even untie the rope for He Zheng. Brightening this room and keeping him clear-headed was the best Dan Zhu could do. In these circumstances, He Zheng’s best option was to have Dan Zhu go and get help for him.

The little gray chick had a hard job squeezing through the crack between the door and the wall.

He Zheng suddenly heard faint sounds of quarreling voices coming through that crack.

“Are you crazy?! You know who he is! Why did you still do that?!”

The voice that replied to the questions was completely strange to He Zheng. “So what? He’s my prisoner now.”

“Psycho. You’re such a psychopath. You wait. I’m sure as hell going to report this to Master. You bastard!”

As the voice grew louder, He Zheng suddenly felt that the male voice sounded a little familiar.

The voice sputtered, “If you want to die, be my guest, but don’t drag me down.”

Someone pushed the door open and walked inside. He Zheng quickly closed his eyes.

He heard someone walk up to him and say, “You’ve already got on board, and there’s no easy way out of this.”

The man twisted his head back and smiled a faint smile at the other person. “You did something wrong today.”

The other person did not speak.

The man, ignoring his listener’s silence, smiled again and said, “You shouldn’t have come here today.”

He Zheng was pondering who had kidnapped him exactly.

Suddenly, the unfamiliar female voice asked, “Mr. He, are you enjoying this conversation?”

The basement instantly fell silent and He Zheng’s heart gave a horrible jolt.

“It surprises me so much that you’ve managed to send out a message in these circumstances. It would seem I cannot let you live,” said the man, sounding regretful.

Since he had already been seen through, He Zheng stopped pretending and opened his eyes. He had no particular feeling when his eyes fell on the strange man, but as he caught sight of another person in the basement, a somewhat amazed look appeared on He Zheng’s face in spite of himself.

“Zhou Yihao?”

Why was Zhou Yihao, the second son of the patriarch of the Zhou family, in this place?

Zhou Yihao didn’t seem to have bargained on He Zheng coming around. After a brief moment, Zhou Yihao suddenly came to realize what had happened. He fiercely shifted his gaze to that man and said through gritted teeth, “So this is your plan!”

The man chuckled, turned his head and said to He Zheng, “I suggest you run as fast as you can when it starts.”

…

Li Zong was attending to something in the department when he received the message. After hanging up the phone, he began to look into it without more ado.

He Zheng’s fighting skills were not poor, and considering what kind of person he was, under no circumstances would He Zheng leave without telling anybody where he was going.

Therefore, there were only two possibilities of He Zheng being taken away. The first one was that he was knocked out at the very beginning; the second one was that he was drained of energy during the fight and then taken away.

At this time Li Zong could think about nothing else. He could only pray that things had not happened as the second possibility described.

When he answered the phone call, Zhang Jingqiu standing beside him was startled. It had never crossed Zhang Jingqiu’s mind that somebody in this country would be so bold as to abduct Li Zong’s significant other.

Before long, Chen Qianlin called, saying that he had got the security video, that he would send Li Zong a message immediately if he found any clues. Li Zong said it was unnecessary to check the video, gave them an address and told them to go there directly.

With that, he took his sword and walked out.

Zhang Jingqiu wanted to offer Li Zong a few words of comfort, but Li Zong appeared surprisingly composed. Zhang Jingqiu was at a loss what to say. After a while, Li Zong set off.

Right at this moment, Zhao Fei called Zhang Jingqiu to ask about something. Zhang Jingqiu told Zhao Fei about this matter in passing.

On the other end of the phone.

Zhao Fei was lying on a sofa in a hotel room. On hearing Zhang Jingqiu’s words, Zhao Fei shifted his position, sitting up, and smiled, “Someone’s making trouble for Li Zong?”

Zhang Jingqiu said, “Who knows? Li Zong left with his sword. Wei Cheng and the other youngsters have checked the surveillance video and are now trying to track the suspect down.”

Zhao Fei tossed a cherry into his mouth and chuckled lazily, “Checking the surveillance video? That’s totally unnecessary. Li Zong planted the Phoenix Plume in He Zheng, which means there’s a tracking device in He Zheng’s Wisdom Sub-soul. How could Li Zong not sense something that used to be part of him?”

Zhang Jingqiu had forgotten this precaution taken by Li Zong. However, he still found it difficult to set his mind at ease. If He Zheng was unlucky and really got killed, there was no telling what Li Zong might do.

As this thought crossed his mind, Zhang Jingqiu was no longer in the mood for continuing the conversation. Zhao Fei could tell from Zhang Jingqiu’s tone that the man’s mind was troubled, so he hung up the phone.

He had just hung up when the sound of water rushing in the bathroom stopped. Zhou Yize walked out of the bathroom, toweling his wet hair. As his eyes alighted on the cellphone in Zhao Fei’s hand, he casually asked, “You just talked with someone on the phone?”

Zhao Fei, not giving it much thought, tossed his cellphone aside and said, “Yeah. Something pretty interesting has just happened. I’m waiting to see the outcome.”

Zhou Yize silently nodded. He tossed the wet towel to the side, dried his body with another one and then began to dress himself.

Zhao Fei said surprisedly, “You’re not staying here for the night?”

“There’s something I have to attend to. I need to get back.” Zhou Yize turned his back on Zhao Fei and went to the wardrobe to look for his clothes. There were three red scratches on his shoulder, which had been caused by someone’s fingernails.

Zhao Fei smiled a weak smile, looked away and quipped, “The sun must have risen in the west today.”

“You don’t want me to leave?” Zhou Yize paused in the act of dressing himself and turned on his heel to look at him.

Smiling, Zhao Fei waved his hand. “Go and do what you’ve got to do.”

Zhou Yize looked deep into Zhao Fei’s eyes, mixed feelings in his own. Zhao Fei made no particular response to this. A hint of disappointment flashed across Zhou Yize’s eyes and with that he continued dressing himself.

Soon Zhou Yize was fully dressed. He had been coming to this place to spend the night on a frequent basis, and the wardrobe now contained only his clothes apart from Zhao Fei’s. Zhou Yize stooped down and planted a kiss on Zhao Fei’s lips. His gray eyes appeared quite deep. He rubbed his lower lip and said, “Give me a call if you miss me, okay?”

Zhao Fei beamed, making no reply. A disappointed look flitted across Zhou Yize’s gray eyes almost imperceptibly. He withdrew his hand, drew himself up to his full height again, turned around and left.

He was walking towards the door with his back to Zhao Fei and thus was unaware that Zhao Fei’s eyes had been fixed on him until he disappeared through the door …

As the door closed, Zhou Yize’s face quickly turned so cold that he did not look like a normal person. He first made a phone call to Zhou Yihao, but the latter did not answer it. Then Zhou Yize made a second phone call, this time to Zhou Congzhi.

Zhou Yihao did not know that some things could only be missed once.

Though it was only one of the countless calls for him that he had missed.

…

Dan Zhu was Li Zong and He Zheng’s Soul Beast, and Li Zong shared a telepathic bond with Dan Zhu. It was as though the bird were part of his body. Soon Li Zong located He Zheng.

It was an abandoned bungalow in the suburb. There had always been rumor that houses in this area were haunted, and the government had provided the occupants of these houses with subsidies, so almost all of them had moved away, and this area was now like a ghost town.

There was no lamplight at night in this place. The whole area was shrouded in impenetrable darkness but for the faint light emanating from a single-story house. Wei Cheng and some others got out of their vehicle. None of them spoke. Li Zong said, “I want you to wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Chen Qianlin instantly became a little nervous. “You don’t want us to go with you, Supt. Li?”

“There’s no need for that,” replied Li Zong.

“But you alone–”

“You guys are still young. Some scenes can do you no good, and you should avoid seeing them whenever you can.” Li Zong’s voice was still placid, but somehow these words gave Chen Qianlin and the others the willies.

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