Chapter 52: Kidnappers
Huo Beixing stood under a red umbrella, which made him stand out all the more amidst the surrounding buildings of simple, austere tones.
The sky was overcast. Without sunlight shining down on the high-rises, the gray-blue tones of their exteriors looked much duller.
An Yi was holding his suit jacket. The moment he saw Huo Beixing, his whole reaction slowed, his eyes full of surprise.
“What are you doing here?”
Huo Beixing walked over and pulled An Yi under the umbrella, then pointed upward. “It’s pouring. I came to take you home.”
He remembered that his wife hadn’t brought an umbrella when he left in the morning. And since the other man had refused to let the driver pick him up, he had come himself.
Otherwise, his wife would’ve had to get soaked in the rain.
Huo Dabao absolutely could not bear that.
An Yi’s gaze followed Huo Beixing, and something subtle stirred in his heart.
Coming to pick him up on a rainy day—this was a first for him.
He looked around. “Did you only bring one umbrella?”
Huo Beixing draped an arm over An Yi’s shoulder and spoke bluntly. “Yeah. That way we can share one.”
As he said it, he broke into a bright smile, like someone whose little plot had succeeded.
He had seen it in dramas. On rainy days, the male and female leads always shared a single umbrella.
The red umbrella wasn’t small, but for two full-grown men to share one, it was just barely enough. Afraid that rain might splash onto An Yi, Huo Beixing tilted the umbrella more toward his side.
The heavy rain brought a trace of coolness to the summer day. Rainwater slapped against the umbrella under the wind, crackling noisily by their ears.
The two walked forward. Ahead, they came across a puddle. The white cloth shoes on An Yi’s feet shifted direction, and he was about to step out from under the umbrella to go around it.
Huo Beixing didn’t let him.
With one arm around An Yi’s waist, he exerted a little force and lifted him right up, only setting him back down after stepping past the puddle.
An Yi: Oh-ho!
His young, strong, handsome husband.
Though Huo Beixing was foolish, he was genuinely very considerate. Other than those times when his dog temper flared and he became stubborn, the rest of the time he truly was a qualified good partner.
Huo Beixing himself didn’t show much change in expression. It was only when they stopped at a crosswalk waiting for the light that he bent slightly at the waist and blushed shyly. “Wife, aren’t we being really romantic like this?”
Walking in the rain together, after all.
Thinking back to the automatic-lift-style puddle crossing from just now, An Yi wasn’t sure whether it was romantic, but it had definitely been dramatic.
Looking at the rain-blurred traffic light, An Yi said, “Thank you for coming to pick me up today. Thanks to you, I didn’t have to walk home in the rain.”
Praised like that, Huo Beixing felt delighted inside.
“Then I’ll come pick you up every day from now on.”
That way, he’d also get a bit more time with him.
An Yi thought that would trouble him too much. Huo Beixing knew that he didn’t take the family car, so today he hadn’t come by car either.
Shaking his head, An Yi said, “No need. You should just go do what you like.”
Huo Beixing refused. If that happened, then wouldn’t the time they spent together shrink again?
Deliberately trying to scare him, he said, “It’s dangerous for you to go home alone. I should still come pick you up.”
An Yi: ?
Tilting his head up to look at him, he asked, “Dangerous how?”
Huo Beixing casually came up with one. “Like if you run into kidnapping or robbery.”
An Yi fell silent for a moment, then asked, “Has Where Does the Runaway Bride Escape To been airing that kind of plot lately?”
“……”
Huo Beixing insisted, “It really could be dangerous. What if it actually happened?”
An Yi said, “It’s okay. I’d just yell for help.”
After all, a person had a mouth for a reason.
Seeing that he still wouldn’t agree, Huo Beixing immediately grew unhappy and muttered, “I really do want to come pick you up.”
An Yi noticed the change in his mood and explained, “It’s not that I’m not letting you come. But if you do come pick me up, then every day you’ll have to take the bus home with me.”
Huo Beixing had always been pampered and spoiled. Whenever he went out, he had cars picking him up and dropping him off. If they happened to catch the bus during rush hour, it would be crowded and stuffy. He was afraid Huo Beixing wouldn’t adapt well.
But Huo Beixing didn’t care about that. “It doesn’t matter. As long as I can go home with you.”
“Really?”
Looking at his wife’s upturned face, Huo Beixing felt something restless stir in his heart. “Mm. Because I like you.”
That sudden line made An Yi feel a little embarrassed too. He didn’t say anything more, but he didn’t refuse either.
From that day on, Huo Beixing would wait downstairs outside the brand building at around six every evening to pick An Yi up from work and take him home.
Sometimes An Yi came out late, but Huo Beixing never got impatient. He just waited obediently.
And so, for a whole month, An Yi was picked up by someone every day on his way home.
—
As autumn drew near, the design process also reached its final stage. After surviving the intensive revision period, the atmosphere on the twenty-first floor grew visibly more relaxed.
At lunch one day, Lin Jiu sat in the cafeteria and sighed, “It really feels great now that the studio workload has lightened.”
An Yi immediately echoed him. “Exactly. It’s an unprecedented feeling.”
Gu Lingling asked, “What feeling?”
An Yi answered, “Like the King of Hell just added a few more years to your lifespan in the Book of Life and Death.”
Gu Lingling: ……
You really do know how to describe things.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Wang Meng and Li Xiaomu sat in the lounge discussing strategy. Now that the autumn designs had all been completed, the cooperative relationship between the two studios had ended as well. Their full attention could now be placed on fighting over the competition slot.
It was about time to make a move.
Wang Meng took a sip of water. “Did you investigate An Yi’s background?”
Li Xiaomu said, “He’s just someone from some mountain backwater. No real background. We also found someone who can be used to threaten him.”
“Who?”
“A man. We don’t know the exact relationship, but every day he comes to pick An Yi up after work.”
As he spoke, he pulled out a stack of photos and placed them in front of Wang Meng.
All of them had been taken secretly, and the man appeared almost entirely from the back in nearly all of them. There were a few shots of his profile, but they were too blurry to make out his face clearly.
Looking at the man in the photos walking beside An Yi, Wang Meng felt he looked a bit familiar. But since the side profile was blurred, even after staring a few more times, he still couldn’t remember who it was.
Since he couldn’t remember, he stopped trying. No point making life difficult for himself. The man probably wasn’t anyone important anyway, or else Wang Meng would’ve remembered him.
Not taking it to heart, Wang Meng said, “Fine. Find a few people and get moving as soon as possible.”
Li Xiaomu understood.
Wang Meng added, “Find professionals. The kind with tight mouths. There can’t be any mistakes.”
That way they’d be able to wash their hands of it cleanly afterward.
At six o’clock that evening, Huo Beixing set out on foot as usual to pick An Yi up from work. With autumn nearing, by six o’clock the sun had already mostly dipped away.
A small black van was parked along the roadside not far from him. Inside sat several kidnappers, talking on the phone while peering out at Huo Beixing.
They were specialists in this line of work, highly professional. They had never once failed a job they’d taken.
Looking at Huo Beixing standing not far away—one meter ninety tall—the kidnappers frowned. He didn’t look especially easy to deal with.
Into the phone, one of them said to Wang Meng, “This job’s going to be a bit difficult.”
Wang Meng said, “Aren’t you supposed to be professionals? What difficulty could there be?”
The kidnapper replied, “It’s different this time. The target doesn’t look easy to handle.”
Already impatient, Wang Meng snapped, “So are you doing it or not?”
The kidnapper answered, “Then it’ll cost more.”
Wang Meng: ……
He took a deep breath and agreed to the demand, promising them an extra amount and ordering them to get it done properly.
With the terms settled, the kidnappers began their plan and brought out their trump card—
an old granny dropping oranges by the roadside.
The old woman was the mother of one of the kidnappers. Since she knew her son made money doing this, she occasionally helped out.
Holding a bag of oranges, she hunched her back and shuffled past Huo Beixing. Then with a flick of her hand, she scattered the oranges all over the ground.
At a time like this, the target would definitely come help.
Turning back to look, the old woman found Huo Beixing staring in fascination at the setting sun on the horizon, not paying the slightest attention to her.
The old woman: “……Aiya!!”
Only then did Huo Beixing look over. Seeing the oranges scattered everywhere, he bent down to help pick them up and handed them back to her.
The old woman said, “Young man, thank you so much. This old lady twisted her ankle. Could you help me over to the bus stop there?”
Huo Beixing checked the time. There were still ten minutes before An Yi would come out.
So he didn’t refuse.
Supporting the old woman, he followed the direction she pointed. But when they passed a narrow alley, someone suddenly yanked him inside. The force came far too abruptly. Before Huo Beixing could react, a cloth was pressed over his mouth and nose.
When Huo Beixing regained consciousness again, he found himself slumped against a rusty oil drum. The air around him was thick with dust, and the moment he woke, he coughed harshly in discomfort.
Several kidnappers stood nearby holding iron pipes. Hearing the noise, they turned back to glance at him.
“This guy woke up pretty fast.”
“Forget him. The drug definitely hasn’t worn off yet.”
“Enough. Since he’s awake, call already.”
They were inside a large abandoned warehouse. The iron-barred windows still had spiderwebs clinging to them. Faced with the filthy surroundings, Huo Beixing looked extremely disgusted.
Staring at the unfamiliar men in front of him, he demanded, “Where is this?!”
He immediately tried to get up, only to discover that his hands and feet were tied and he couldn’t move.
The kidnappers ignored him completely and dialed the number written on the slip of paper.
Huo Beixing also quickly realized that he had been kidnapped, because this happened in TV dramas too. But he had very little fear toward such things. After all, every kidnapped person got rescued in the end—at least that was how it always went in the shows he watched.
So he firmly believed that he too would be rescued.
He flexed his strength, trying to loosen the ropes binding his hands.
One of the kidnappers, cigarette hanging from his mouth, hesitated. “You think that when we call later, besides doing what the client told us, we should extort an extra payment too?”
“Of course we should. We’re already carrying the charge anyway. If we don’t squeeze out an extra sum, that’d be a huge loss.”
“The one we’re calling is called An Yi, right?”
“Yep. Make the call.”
Hearing his wife’s name, Huo Beixing lifted his head. “You’re calling my wife?”
The kidnappers all froze for a few seconds.
“Holy shit, so this is a gay thing too!”
Huo Beixing repeated, “You’re calling my wife?!”
“What else? You’ve been kidnapped, so of course we need someone to pay to ransom you out,” one kidnapper said, looking at him as if he were mentally deficient for asking such a stupid question.
Huo Beixing frowned. “You’re going to ask my wife for money?”
“No shit.”
“How much?”
“Three hundred thousand.”
Huo Beixing went completely still.
The kidnapper sneered, “What, your family can’t come up with it?”
Then again, that An-something looked like an ordinary person.
Huo Beixing shook his head. “Don’t ask my wife for it.”
“Why not?”
Huo Beixing answered, “This little bit of spending money—I still have that in my pocket.”
The kidnappers: ……
