When Lu Qi woke up, his throat was dry and sore. His head was still dizzy, and he felt nauseated.

He was lying down stiffly, and when he tried to move his hands and feet, he realized that his hands were tied behind his back, his legs were tied together, and there was something firmly stuffed in his mouth.

The colorful patterns in his vision slowed down after a while. Only then did Lu Qi notice that something like a silk scarf was covering his head.

He simply pretended like he hadn’t woken up yet and listened to what was going on around him, recalling what had happened before he fell unconscious.

He had returned to the Garden Community and got the things the young girl had sent him from the landlord. In addition to photos, there were also some origami works folded by the girl herself, all kinds of small animals lying colorfully in the shoebox, each one from the young girl’s heart.

Lu Qi liked them very much, and walked toward Mingqi Secondary School with the shoebox under his arm. When he was about to leave the community, he found an injured stray dog in an alley between the buildings.

He thought about investigating the situation, but he didn’t have the energy to take care of an extra puppy, so he intended to call Xu Hengxing.

He crouched in front of the puppy, and was about to lift it using bathroom tissue in order to check the wound on the little thing’s leg when there were sudden footsteps behind him. There was more than one set, and they were all heavy and forceful adult footsteps. Lu Qi instinctively sensed that something was wrong, and while turning around, took a subconscious step back.

At this moment, an opponent’s hand chop sliced down and Lu Qi looked at him with some astonishment.

Lu Qi couldn’t spare any more attention for the puppy, and put it down, stepping aside quickly. He regarded the tall man warily and shouted loudly to ask him who he was.

He knew the other party wouldn’t tell him, and only asked in order to delay time. His eyes were searching for something to defend himself with or a gap to escape through.

But several more people appeared behind the man. Lu Qi looked at their figures and temperaments, and suddenly thought of their identities. These people were probably private bodyguards!

Then this wasn’t about money.

The alley was narrow, and the few people were unable to swarm up. Even though Lu Qi couldn’t find any tools or chance to escape, he also didn’t sit still, shouting directly: “Fire! Fire!!”

This sort of incident that might endanger someone personally was the most likely to attract attention and commotion, while shouting “help” or “robbery” might make people avoid it. This was what his mom told him when he was a child, but he never foresaw having to use it now. However, the other party didn’t give him a chance to shout. The man who missed hitting Lu Qi just now stepped forward again and reached out to grab him. 

Lu Qi punched him in the nose.

His boxing practice these days was not in vain. Unprepared, the opponent screamed and covered his nose, crouching down. And thanks to the narrow alley, the others couldn’t surge forward, and got stuck.

But in the end, there were many of them. Noticing Lu Qi’s shout of “fire,” someone had already pushed open a window to investigate. One of the group members said: “Hold him down and knock him out! Don’t worry about his face for now!!”

This was the last sentence Lu Qi heard. The group behind seemed to have no scruples, and swarmed over him to hold him down. Lu Qi punched one person in the eye, kicked another one down while struggling, and was finally pinned to the ground. His cheek hurt from the gravel on the ground, and then his mouth and nose were blocked by a pungent-smelling towel.

He didn’t know what happened after that.

He was scared, but comforted himself and calmed down. The other party’s words “don’t worry about his face for now” seemed to reveal their purpose for kidnapping him. Lu Qi never thought he would be sexually harassed one day, but it couldn’t be ruled out that the other party feared that he would be unrecognizable with his nose and face bruised and swollen, and he wouldn’t be able to blackmail Mu Nanqiao…..

He had been awake for a while, but there was no movement here. Lu Qi carefully rubbed his head and opened a small gap in the head covering, looking at the surrounding environment through it.

This seemed to be a KTV lounge. He had seen this kind of layout before when Li Yimiao worked at one. There was a private room at the front and a lounge in the back for drunken guests to rest, and he had recently been tossed onto the bed in the lounge. The room was dark and windowless, with only dim, blue-purple lights on.

There was the faint sound of conversation outside the door. It wasn’t obvious at first, but then one of them seemed to become angry. The other person was unresigned, and started to argue as well.

“Are you fucking crazy!” Along with the sound of things smashing, the man yelled: “Haven’t you watched TV?! The Mu family treats this kid as their daughter-in-law!! Why are you playing with him?! Aren’t you playing with someone else’s wife?!!”

“What kind of TV should I watch, ah? I only watch movies on TV…..” The other boy with the gruff voice didn’t care. “Besides, what daughter-in-law? He has such a big family business, so how can he find a male partner and not have children? In the end, he will have to find a woman to give birth so that he doesn’t lose his bloodline…..”

“Fuck bloodlines!” The other party interrupted him, “Wang Liang! You’re trying to get yourself killed! If this continues, our family’s bloodline will be cut off!”

Wang Liang…..

Lu Qi silently noted down the name.

He had an anesthetic-resistant constitution, and the other party probably didn’t expect him to wake up so quickly. The quarrel was still fierce.

“What? Could Mu Nanqiao fall out with our family because of him?” The gruff voice scoffed coldly, “Wang Duan, you are afraid of him, but I’m not. I have never been afraid of anyone since I was a child! I’ve gotten my way all over Shanghai, so what’s the problem with sleeping with a little duck? It’s impossible for Mu Nanqiao to love him! Where the hell is there love! Why can’t I touch this plaything!”

The man named Wang Duan fell silent, and Lu Qi heard him breathing very heavily, as if he was very angry.

After a long moment, Wang Duan said: “Did you touch him? Did he see your face?”

There was no telling what Wang Liang was thinking, but after a moment, he gave a contemptuous laugh and said, “I touched him, he feels so good. He’s worthy of being the one Mu Nanqiao likes, the best quality! He also saw my face. Let’s put it this way, Brother – it’s impossible to send this person back. You had better figure out how to cover up for me.”

Lu Qi moved his butt, but there was no discomfort. Wang Liang was obviously lying, just to drag the Wang family into trouble and let them take care of the consequences.

This man was selfish, arrogant, and stupid, and it might not be the first time he had done this!

Once he regained some strength in his hands and feet, Lu Qi twisted his wrists a couple of times and found that what was binding him was not rope, but circles of tape. 

This tape stuff was indestructible when intact, but as long as there was a small tear, it could be broken at once. Lu Qi first scratched at it with his nails, but he couldn’t use any force, and the tape didn’t move at all.

At the same time, he heard a person saying outside: “Wang Liang, I’m taking away the bodyguards. From now on, whatever you’re going to do has nothing to do with the Wang family. Do you understand?”

Lu Qi’s heart was ringing with alarm. Wang Duan had not left Wang Liang a way out. It was hard to say what a desperate man would do.

. . . . . .

In Mu Group’s chairman’s office, Mu Nanqiao called the police and was about to go to the police station while carrying his clothes. His expression was overcast and terrible. Mu Chuanbai was sitting on the sofa, also on his phone. Seeing that his son was about to go out, he said: “Son, don’t panic. The other party will make demands after kidnapping him. No matter what they ask for, you must agree first in order to stabilize the other party. If necessary, the company’s interests can be sacrificed. Once we get him back, everything else will be easy to deal with.”

Mu Nanqiao exhaled. He said with a nod: “I understand. Thank you, Dad.”

He took Assistant Zhang down in the elevator and went straight to the underground parking lot. Assistant Zhang opened the driver’s seat door, but his collar was grabbed and he was pushed back. “I’ll drive.”

Assistant Zhang was afraid that something might happen to his boss in this state, but after looking at his cold and solemn expression, he ran to the back without saying a word. Before he could sit firmly and close the car door, the boss had already stepped on the accelerator and was driving out.

But before they left the underground parking lot, a flirtatious pink convertible slowly drove in from the other side. A carefree young man with chains everywhere was driving the car, and blocked Mu Nanqiao’s way.

The sound of the horn startled the other party. He took off his sunglasses and looked over. Only then did Assistant Zhang realize that this was the second young master of the Gao family.

Speaking of this Second Young Master Gao, he was also a bit lucky. He flirted with Boss Mu’s boyfriend, and even if he didn’t die, he should have been skinned by Boss Mu. But according to Boss Mu, his boyfriend was very kind-hearted and thought that being offended by this man was not a big deal. Afterwards, the playboy young master’s reaction when he saw Mu Nanqiao was enough to make him laugh for a week.

Lu Qi did not agree to Mu Nanqiao’s retaliatory punishment. As for Mu Nanqiao, seeing as the other party made Lu Qi laugh, he decided to let him off.

Thus, the matter was lightly unraveled, and Second Young Master Gao was able to drive a sports car here with his body and family property intact, instead of being thrown into a small African country by Director Gao for training. This playboy who bobbed his head in a self-satisfied manner was startled, and looked like he was about to curse someone. Seeing that it was Mu Nanqiao, he revealed a flattering smile and wandered over with a fruit basket to knock on the window of Mu Nanqiao’s car.

Assistant Zhang feared that Mu Nanqiao would run over these second-hand goods with his car, so he quickly rolled down the window and stuck his head out, saying: “Young Master Gao, you’ve come at the wrong time today. Move the car quickly. Our Mr. Mu has something urgent to do.”

“Ohhhh…..” Young Master Gao was embarrassed upon his flattery being rejected, and quickly returned to the car. While reversing, he suddenly thought of something and asked loudly: “Xiao Zhang, since Brother Mu is in a hurry to get out, could it be that…..something has happened to his boyfriend?”

Mu Nanqiao’s expression went cold. He pushed the door open and got out of the car, then lifted the jingling and clanking Young Master Gao out of the convertible. He asked in a cold voice: “Do you know where Lu Qi is?”

“I, I, I’m not sure…..” Young Master Gao was about to cry, stumbling to explain: “It’s, it’s like this, Brother Mu. Some time ago when Wang Liang was drinking with us, he was a little drunk and said he was interested in a babe, but unfortunately he had an owner, and it would take some time to get him and try him out…..”

Glancing at Mu Nanqiao’s expression, he swallowed his saliva and said: “Could…..could it be your partner?”

At that time, he had just been scolded by his father and big brother about how Mu Nanqiao would react, so he always thought of Mu Nanqiao and Lu Qi with fear. So much so that when he heard Wang Liang say this, his first reaction was: Lu Qi has a “master.”

Mu Nanqiao narrowed his eyes.

Wang Liang, he knew, was the third eldest son of the Wang family and was said to be a twin at birth. The older one had a congenital defect and did not survive. On the contrary, the smaller Wang Liang made it, so Mrs. Wang regarded her youngest son as the apple of her eye. He was used to behaving badly from a young age, and had been placed into ordinary people’s homes several times.

Wang Liang fell in love with a male university student the last time, but the person wouldn’t be with him, so he used some tricks and finally forced him to jump off a building. He became a paraplegic when he fell, and the Wang family paid his family a huge amount in compensation. It was a sum that ordinary people couldn’t earn in a lifetime, so the matter was settled. Up to now, that man was still lying in a high-end ward of a private hospital, burning money every day to stay alive through the support of the Wang family.

If Lu Qi was taken away by such an unscrupulous scumbag…..

He had dark intentions, and was about to contact the police to provide these clues. Then Young Master Gao, who had wandered around several times, seemed to have come to a decision and ran over again to say: “Boss Mu, you let me go after what happened last time. Thank you. Otherwise, my father would have beaten me and sent me to Africa to work as a supervisor. I appreciate your kindness in this matter, so let me give you another piece of news. Wang Liang has his own bar. He always does some wayward things there…..the location is in…..in…..aiya, I can’t remember, but I know how to get there. I can show you the way?”

Mu Nanqiao looked at him with bloodshot eyes. He nodded solemnly and said: “Thanks.”

Thus, the troops were divided into two groups. Assistant Zhang drove to the police station, while Mu Nanqiao drove Gao’er in the supercar to the bar he had mentioned. Even though he repeatedly overtook other cars on the road and frightened Gao’er into a screaming chicken, Mu Nanqiao did not run a red light.

While waiting at the red light, Mu Nanqiao said in a hoarse voice: “You should actually thank Lu Qi.”

It was Lu Qi who said with a smile that he didn’t care, and asked him not to take such a trivial matter to heart. Although he indeed felt offended at the time, when he saw Young Master Gao scared to the point of kneeling and crawling by Mu Nanqiao, he felt that this person had learned his lesson and there was no need to be so petty.

When Lu Qi said he was being petty, Mu Nanqiao was dissatisfied, and pressed him down to kiss him over and over again.

However, if Lu Qi had not dissuaded him at that time, he would have suspended cooperation with the Gao family. After careful investigation, Old Mr. Gao would have definitely sent the culprit to the frontier.

And then today, no one would have sent him this important and timely news.

Mu Nanqiao lowered his eyes, thinking of Lu Qi’s beautiful curved eyes and the red lips he had kissed.

Lu Qi had not been let down. The world finally gave him back the gentle kindness that he showed to others.

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Chapter Forty-Seven << Table of Contents >> Chapter Forty-Nine