132 Truth stranger than fiction

Jia Li was trembling now. She couldn't believe that she had lived and shared her life with this kind of a man and she hadn't had a clue to his real self during all that time.

"Your angst is with me, right. As you can see, Tang has been in an accident and his arm is hurt. Can you please let him go? You and I can talk and resolve our issues amongst ourselves. He doesn't need to be present here for that," she cajoled him.

"Despite knowing all this, you still think that I am stupid? If I had to let any of you go, would I have tied you both up in the first place or disclosed so much? And who says that my grudge is only against you? In fact, had it not been for this man, you would have fallen head over heels in love with me long ago," he loomed over her and boasted.

Highway road from Shanghai to Moganshan, 6:00p.m.

Wei looked on in dismay as the tow truck company wheeled his car away. Trying to avoid a swerving car in front of him, he had ended up banging his own, on the side of the road. Now, all he could do was wait impatiently for the cab that he had booked to take him to Moganshan. He had been trying to reach Jia Li for the past hour but her number kept going to voicemail. This time when he saw her, he would surely reprimand her for possessing the worst phone etiquettes.

Outside Jia Li's house, 6:00p.m.

Mei Zhen was getting nervous. She had followed Cheng Fu all the way from Shanghai discreetly. She had been suspicious when he hadn't shared his plan with her and now it had been really long since he had gone inside. But she couldn't see any movement across the hall or the room, standing outside. A couple of passers-by had started to give her a stare. Maybe she was conspicuous in her city clothes versus these bumpkins.

But she didn't have any time to ponder over it. Her main worry was that Tang was in the house as well. She had told Fu categorically that she didn't want him to involve her husband and he had readily agreed. But it seemed that he had only given her lip service. She didn't know what to do in the moment or who to call. There was no way that she could let it be revealed that she had anything to do with this. If Tang had to suffer a little because of that, so be it.

"Maybe he deserved it to have treated me with indifference all these months," she consoled herself, trying to keep the feeling of terror down her throat.

Inside the house, 6:45p.m.

"I am going to take off the tape from your mouth. If you try and repeat any of the stupid stunts from before, this time I would shut your nose AND your mouth," Fu said to Tang.

At his nod, he peeled off the tape with a jerk from his lips. The movement caused Tang's lips to bleed but he didn't seem to care about it at the moment.

Gulping mouthfuls of air, he said, "I am asking you to let go of Jia Li. Like you said, I am the one who is responsible for this. So why don't you and I settle the matter between us?"

"Ooooh, I love this melodrama. It is so sweetly nauseating that I feel like vomiting. I would have imagined you to possess higher IQ that this. I mean why would you waste our time and say useless things. As if you will ask and I would release either or both of you. Maybe you guys haven't realised it but this is not a game. I haven't come here in a fit of anger. There is a plan and everything will happen as per that plan. Did you both think that you could mess with my life and get away scot free…" he ranted on, maniacally.

Tang had asked him the question just to ensure that he starts talking. In the past one hour, he had realised that Fu loved listening to the sound of his own voice. While Fu spouted his long winded nonsense, Tang tried to communicate through gestures with Jia Li. He made her follow his eyes and spot the phone which was lying a few feet away from her. Giving him an imperceptible nod, she waited for Fu to take his eyes off her so that she could reach for it with her hands which were tied behind her back.

"I understand what you are saying and I am truly sorry for what happened with you. But it was never my intention to hurt you or anyone else. I was stuck in my own miserable world for so long that I was clueless to everyone around me," Tang called out Fu's attention towards himself with these remorseful words.