Xue Ning leapt up in surprise, causing Jingwei to stumble backwards. He managed to right himself with their clasped hands.
"Jingwei, are you alright? Someone tried to kidnap you!" She exclaimed, pulling her hands away from his only to squish them against his face, as if to confirm that he was real and not a figment of her imagination.
"Don't worry, I'm fine," Jingwei reassured her, his voice slightly muffled from her hands squishing his lips into a duck pout. He used this chance to wrap his arms around her, cuddling her tightly. "How can anyone kill me? Wait - don't answer that."
"If you can still bullshit, then you must be fine," Xue Ning replied, her heart finally calming down at his words and at his familiar scent. "You're not injured, are you?" She pulled away slightly, and her eyes travelled down his body. There were unfamiliar blood stains on his borrowed outfit.
"Oh this? This isn't my blood." Jingwei shrugged, seeing where Xue Ning was looking.
"You beat them up?"
"Would you think I'm cooler if I said I did it?" Jingwei asked hopefully.
"No?" Xue Ning scoffed. "I'd think you were lying."
"You know me so well," Jingwei replied, shaking his head fondly. He placed her hand on his heart. Xue Ning could feel the calm, steady beat of his heart, and felt her heart calm even further.
Of course, the fact that she got to touch his well-developed pecs was another contributing factor. It wasn't her fault that the way through his heart was through his muscular chest! It was like a stress ball providing her emotional support!
Jingwei looked down at Xue Ning who was blatantly squeezing his chest muscle as though it was a stress ball, and stifled a laugh. Behind them, Yue Niang made a face and discreetly walked away, trying to give them more privacy. There was no point in chaperoning them, since they've already done it!
"And you're right, it wasn't me. But you wouldn't believe me if I told you who actually knocked out three men." Jingwei continued, his hands drifting to Xue Ning's waist.
"Try me."
"It was your father! But knocking down isn't the right word - he held two knives and straight up sliced through their wrists! It was awesome! He cut through their wrists like it was nothing! I swear, your father was a master assassin. Or an acrobat from a circus. Was your father an acrobat?"
"....What?" Xue Ning asked faintly. "You're joking right? Of course my father isn't an acrobat! He has a bad back! Bad knees! His eyes aren't too good either!"
"Nope, cross my heart, on my honour as a man - I'm telling the truth!" Jingwei said, with wide-eyes. "I swear Xue Ning, I saw your dad slice through three men. If your father can do all this with these health issues, he must have been incredible when he was our age!"
"Then where are the men now?" Xue Ning asked, her eyebrows furrowing.
"At the restaurant. Come to think of it, we should get them medical help. They're probably bleeding to death now. So are the two people lying outside." Jingwei added.
Xue Ning choked. "So they're FIVE other people sent to kidnap us in addition to the two people in my room?"
"What? Someone entered your room?" Jingwei exclaimed, a hot surge of fury coursing through him. "I'll kill them!"
"Don't bother; my mother gouged out their eyes." Xue Ning said flatly.
"Oh." Jingwei said, relieved. "That's fine then."
"That's not fine!" Xue Ning protested, pulling him down by the collar. "Someone sent a team of seven people to kidnap the both of us! We have seven people that are nearly dying! I think my parents are professional serial killers!"
"Huh? How did you reach that conclusion?" Jingwei asked, smiling slightly. His wife was too cute! "There's no way they could be serial killers. After all, none of your annoying townspeople were killed," Jingwei replied. "If I were a serial killer, they'd be the first people I target!"
Xue Ning paused, thinking it over. Jingwei was right. She was letting her imagination run away from her!
Jingwei helpfully continued enthusiastically. "In fact, I think they're more likely to be professional hitmen! Or mafia!" He did remember how his future father-in-law threw two knives and eliminated two men with such practised ease.
"How is that more likely?" Xue Ning exclaimed.
"You haven't seen your father in action. If I took a video and posted it online, I'll have netizens accusing me of doing CGI. He was like some martial arts pugilist!" Jingwei declared, waving his hands around like the blades of a windmill. It made him look demented.
"Please, if they were mafia or hitmen, then why would we be living in the middle of nowhere? And have so little money?" Xue Ning scoffed. "Hitmen are supposed to earn a lot from their missions! Either that, or my parents were really shitty hitmen."
Which would be terrible too, come to think of it. Xue Ning didn't like the thought of her parents being incompetent at anything!
"Actually maybe he's a stuntman." Jingwei added, with a tone of someone that solved a deep mystery. "Not a hitman. I mean, it's more reasonable, isn't it?"
"That can explain my dad," Xue Ning conceded with a nod. "But not my mom!"
"Why?"
"Go to my room, and you'll know why," Xue Ning said, dragging Jingwei to her bedroom where they saw her parents were frantically muttering in a corner, while her brother kept a beady eye on the two men with an increasingly constipated look on her face.
Once she overheard her parents' words, she didn't need to ask why.
"We don't have space to bury so many people!"
"Maybe we can just squeeze in the neighbouring plot...ah, but we don't have time to bury them too."
"If only we lived near the ocean," her father lamented. "We could just toss them out into the waters on a fishing boat!"