Poor Wei Yan was still bound and Ming Guang knew him well enough to imagine the look of fear on his face.
"Did you guys forget about him?" Jingwei asked in a whisper, watching poor Wei Yan struggle like a fish on a hook. "He's going to be so upset."
And Jingwei wouldn't even begrudge him for it. It was one thing to be tied up and left on the floor, it's another thing for everyone to forget about your existence when there were criminals entering the home! He could have died - or in this case, ended up thrown outside the window!
His body landed on the floor with a sharp thud.
"Oh my god, are they killing him?" Jingwei muttered to himself, aghast.
"No, they would have thrown him off the roof otherwise," was Tai Cheng's helpful rebuttal.
"Stabbing is more efficient," Ming Guang added. Jingwei could only stare at them blankly. Clearly he wasn't as well-versed in the art of murder as they were!
"Oh, they're moving him," Tai Cheng said, and the three of them observed Wei Yan being dragged via his legs, possibly to the main road. Jingwei winced in sympathy as he witnessed Wei Yan's face being used as a floor cleaner. He had rolled his suitcase up this very path, and it was gravelly and uneven and generally a menace, even for durable, plastic wheels.
It must be hell on human skin! Ouch!
"Why are they taking him away?" Jingwei asked.
"They're kidnapping him," Tai Cheng said with gritted teeth.
Ming Guang frowned. He couldn't just watch as criminals took his junior away to torture. "I'm going to save him!"
"I'll help."
Before Jingwei could ask what they were planning to do, Tai Cheng and Ming Guang had already leapt ahead. His mouth dropped open - how was Xue Ning's old father even faster than Ming Guang, a professional bodyguard?
"Hey -" One of the goons turned around at the noise, but before he could yelp out a warning to his partner, Tai Cheng had already sliced the back of his knees, causing him to buckle to the floor in pain. Meanwhile Ming Guang took care of the other by slicing through his wrist, causing him to drop Wei Yan's legs. As expected, the knife cut cleanly through the skin with barely any resistance!
Luo Lan howled in pain - or he would have, if not for Ming Guang following up with a strong punch to his gut. He fell on the floor, winded and gasping for breath.
"Give him back," Ming Guang demanded, pointing his knife at Luo Lan's throat. "How dare you kidnap him!"
"Excuse me?" Luo Lan choked at the fear and indignity of it all. He glanced at Wei Yan, who was pointedly stil face down. "This man told us to take him along!"
"Impossible." Ming Guang growled out.
"You're an idiot," Zhong Qing gasped out and smacked Wei Yan's back with his bloody hand. He had gingerly touched the back of his knees when he fell, and nearly shat himself when he saw that his fingers were coated with blood. He barely felt the blow, but the pain was excruciating!
Now he wiped them on this man's back. This was all his fault! If they weren't lugging his stupid body, they wouldn't have been caught!
"Yah, don't pretend to sleep!" Zhong Qing would have kicked him, but his legs weren't feeling up to it. "I knew it! You were planning to betray us all this while! You were buying time for your reinforcements to arrive!"
Wei Yan continued to pretend to be unconscious. He backed the wrong horse this time, but as long as Ming Guang and Li Tai Cheng believed he was just a poor victim of circumstances, he could still survive this!
"Hey don't try to argue out of this!" Jingwei complained as he strolled up to them. "We literally caught you in the act!"
"Sun… Sun Jingwei…" both goons gasped out, disbelievingly. Right in front of them was the same face they were greeted with in the group chat, the same man they believed their teammates had captured!
"Yes, I heard you guys were looking for me and my wife." Jingwei said cooly, raising an eyebrow at the shell-shocked looks. "Now you'd better tell me why you're doing this, or I'll let you bleed out right here like the rest of your teammates."
Luo Lan and Zhong Qing paled. They finally realised that their teammates were nowhere to be found!
"I'll go inside to see if everything is alright. Ming Guang, stay with Jingwei and keep him safe." Tai Cheng said. He knew Yue Niang was fully capable of handling herself, but he was still worried about her. His children were another problem!
As he walked through his house, he followed the smell of blood in the air to his daughter's room, where his wife was apparently whacking one of the men with a stake.
"Wife, is everything okay?" Tai Cheng asked worriedly, staring at the mess that was his daughter's room. With bloodstains on the walls and furniture strewn everywhere, how could one sleep in such a place?
"Nice of you to finally show up!" was his wife's loving reply. Yue Niang looked at him, scowling initially, but then the look changed to concern when she spotted his blood-stained clothes and twin knives. "What happened to you? Did you kill people again?"
"I'm fine, no injuries, yes I had a good time, thank you for asking." Tai Cheng replied sarcastically. "Of course I didn't kill people! Those days are behind me. I just had to get rid of some pests."
If her husband could still make smartass comments, then he was perfectly fine. Yue Niang internally heaved a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived when she heard his next words.
"But does our insurance cover attempted arson?"
"No it doesn't!" She squawked. "Don't tell me…" Yue Niang turned and glared at Ding Fei, who cowered behind the fallen curtain, holding it in front of him as though it was a steel shield instead of a flimsy piece of cloth.
"Some thugs tried to burn down our restaurant." Tai Cheng explained before his wife had a heart attack from shock. "But don't worry! They've been taken care of! I'm more worried about the smell of kerosene."
Yue Niang whipped back to the poor soul on the floor, hauling him up by his collar.
"Your people tried to burn down my restaurant?! You have some nerve! Clearly I must teach you a lesson today!"
Ding Fei paled; if this man was her husband… who was supposed to be at the restaurant, that meant… the other half of his team had failed!
"How… how…" Ding Fei wheezed out, feeling breathless.
"That's not important." Tai Cheng said casually. "But if you don't tell us who is behind all this, your team will bleed to death."
"You… how could you…you monster…" Ding Fei's one remaining eye widened at how easily this man seemed to be treating the lives of his people.
"I'll let you think about it," Tai Cheng shrugged. "I'll go check on my kids."
Without a second thought, he patted his wife's shoulder and handed her one of his knives, and turned around to look for his children, and he found his son standing in front of the bathroom door, squabbling with someone from the other end.
Ah, that must mean his daughter was inside too!
"Children! Are the both of you alright?" Tai Cheng asked worriedly.
"Of course we're - HOLY SHIT DAD, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!" Tai Xuan screamed as his eyes captured his father's new look.
He was just about to go and hug his father, before his brain caught up to him and told him it was a very bad idea. His father's bloody clothes, along with the knife in his hands, was sending chills down Tai Xuan's spine.
"Do we need to call an ambulance?"
"What happened?" Xue Ning demanded from inside the toilet, her mind racing with the worst-case scenarios. She frantically tried to beat the door down. "Open the door!"
"I will, I will," Tai Xuan quickly pulled away the chair, and Xue Ning burst through it as though she was an angry buffalo. She had been trapped for so long, all the water from the shower had long dried on her skin.
She stopped still at the sight of her father covered in blood.
"Dad!" She cried out, horrified. "What happened?"
"Oh good, both of you are fine," Tai Cheng smiled, relieved. Now he could breathe without feeling like his heart had been squeezed by a fist. "Let's go see your mother!"
"Is Mom alright?" Xue Ning asked.
"Why wouldn't she be?" Tai Cheng replied.
"You have no idea, Meimei, no idea at all," her brother added.
Xue Ning scowled and stormed to her bedroom, only to stop short at the entrance.
"Mom… Don't tell me… you did all this?" Xue Ning asked hesitantly, her eyes darting around her room. And the smell… the smell…
There were too many things that she had to take note of, yet her brain didn't seem to register much of anything. Her breathing quickened, and her hands grew clammy.