by A Sick Frog
Qin Ke Xuan followed those who stayed behind and watched the others head on.
“Oi, you’re that person from that night right!” Xiao Song walked over to Qin Ke Xuan’s side and squatted down beside her, his voice pressed low as he talked to her.
Qin Ke Xuan swept him a sideways glance, “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Heh, don’t deny it, I recognise you.” Xiao Song pointed two fingers at his own pair of eyes, then pointed at her pair of eyes, indicating the two had looked eye to eye before.
“Say what you want.” Qin Ke Xuan said, still as blandly as before. If he was really sure it had been her, he would not be probing her out.
Xiao Song stared at the pale Qin Ke Xuan, wavering. Did he get the wrong person? Humph, she had escaped him once, but this time, he was not letting her run so easily. As for this person who had the most suspicions pinned to her, he was going to reporting it in and leave it to the leaders to decide whether or not to interrogate her.
After the Outward Bound Training when she returned to the military base, Qin Ke Xuan reassembled the phone battery she had taken apart several days before, ready to contact Wolf, Jackal and Leopard to pick her up. As for going to school, she no longer cared; she had to leave this place immediately. It had always been her in the dark eyeing the target to be assassinated; yet ever since she stepped into the military base, it had been her being targeted by others. To be eyed at by so many people made her, who was in the open, very uncomfortable. It looked like these people were going to make their move. It was not her style to wait to be captured while her hands were tied. Since she could not meet with them with force, she was going to make herself scarce. They were, after all, not among her targets to be assassinated. She was also freer than ever, not being tied down by anything at the moment.
The moment she switched her phone on, someone called. It was a chain of unfamiliar numbers. She flashed into the washroom, and picked up, “Who is it?”
“Is this An Ye mei mei?”
“Enh.” This voice sounds like that of Xiang jie’s who had helped extract her bullet for her. To describe it with a vocab she had recently pick up would be—wacky.
“Aye aye, did you disappear from the face of the Earth these few days? We’ve been looking for you for the longest of times, why are you not picking up your phone?! …… “ The person on the other side babbled on non-stop, preaching her.
Qin Ke Xuan deeply acquainted with how much of a chatterbox that person was promptly warned: “I’m hanging up if there’s nothing.”
“Aye, there’s something, there’s something, don’t you dare hang up! I’m calling you on behalf of Wolf Jackal and Leopard.”
“What is it?”
“The three of them caught Tiao Zi*’s attention these few days. It’s also pretty probable their phones and stuff were tapped; they couldn’t call you so they had me to tell you not to contact them. They’ll contact you if they’ve settled the trouble on their side.”
*T/N: 条子＝tiao zi; police
“Tiao zi?”
“Aren’t you very involved in the underworld stuff around here, how can you not know this word? It just means police! Ah, as expected of a naïve and inexperienced little mei mei!”
“Anything else?”
“Nope, just be careful these few days and don’t attract their attention.”
Very unfortunately, even though they were not the police, she’d already been attracted their attention. When the roof’s leaking, the rain just had to come pouring down was the exact depiction of her current situation. Seeing the current situation, it would be more reliable for her to break out of here on her own rather than count on that second-tier organisation.
After hanging up on the Xiang jie who still had wanted to continue bugging her, she exited the bathroom, walked over to her bed to take out a few bullets as well as some of her relatively more important things, such as money and that black attire. The mini weapons and tools, from the organisation, given to her by Wolf, Leopard and Jackal, were hidden in each of the pockets of the black attire. Apparently, these things cannot be found on the market. Taking into consideration the fact that there were no blacksmith stores around, it would be extremely difficult to get her hands on these kinds of stuff. Qin Ke Xuan especially treasured these, so she was definitely going to bring them along.
A long while after lights out, Qin Ke Xuan opened her eyes and checked the time on her phone. It was 3 am in the morning, the time when people were the most tired.
She gathered her things and carried them with her, masked her face and leapt off the balcony, half-crouching while scanning her surroundings before shooting off in a direction she had long drafted up.
“Xiao Jiang, wake the freaking hell up! That person appeared!” Xiao Song, currently hidden in the bushes a distance away, shook the drowsy Xiao Jiang awake.
Chapter 25 - Borrowing Money
Xiao Jiang cracked open his eyes blearily, asking: “Why? She appeared?”
Xiao Song felt like just shooting him dead. He dragged his elbow, yelling: “Chase after her! Don’t let her escape!”
When they reached the place where Qin Ke Xuan had scuttled past, the person was long gone. Xiao Jiang comforted the Xiao Song whose anger was exploding. “Since we’ve confirmed it’s her, then what’s there left to worry about, we’ll catch her sooner or later! Just go to her house and catch her. I’m dead tired, I’m going back to sleep!”
The second day, there was a missing person in the dormitories, so the girls went looking for their form teacher anxiously. The form teacher told them Qin Ke Xuan had some family emergency so she had to head back first, and everyone started being envious of the fact that she need not endure the pains of the military training any longer. Along with envy, however, was suspicion. Why did she not bring her luggage back with her? They were then instructed by the sergeant to tidy up her things and hand it to him, and that had them even more puzzled. Even if the luggage was going back to Qin Ke Xuan, would it not be more convenient to hand it to the teacher? Unless the sergeant had to personally hand it over to Qin Ke Xuan especially? Sadly, no matter how much quandaries they had, there would not be anyone to answer their questions.
Military training continued on as per normal, save for the military vehicle that took off from the base quietly.
Qin Ke Xuan walked on the streets aimlessly. She could not contact Wolf Jackal and Leopard, and she had not been to the organisation before either. A cold laugh escaped her lips involuntarily. So it seemed that other than killing people, her being alive was no different from being dead. How meaningless! Once she lost the targets the organisation provided her with, she had become an unnecessary existence.
Even if she did know the location of the organisation, she did not want to go. Thank goodness she still had another goal, and that was to find a way back to the world she had come from, and then…… That way, she would be able to truly die. It was perhaps she had yet to complete this task that’s why she came to this world.
Suddenly, the phone in her pocket rang, chopping off Qin Ke Xuan’s train of thought. She took it out and looked at the screen. Oh right, she still had a dabbler of a “disciple”. Despite her never having actually treating him as a disciple, she had still taught him some moves, so she would bid him a farewell.
“Yin Xu Dong.”
“Xuan Xuan! Where are you right now?”
“Yin Xu Dong, I’m going.”
“Go? Go where? The heck! Did the fact that you joined an underworld organisation get discovered? I see a military vehicle outside your house! They’re not here to catch you right? Wait hold on! Even if they were here to catch someone it would be the police moving out instead!” He had been thinking about Qin Ke Xian hurt and her being in the so-called dark organization the past few days. He was afraid that she would go astray. It was a weekend today, and he was ready to leave his house when he saw the military vehicle parked outside. That had scared the hell out of him when his thoughts linked to
her and thought there were people coming to catch her.
“Military vehicle?” Qin Ke Xuan’s eyes darkened. As expected, the military wanted to catch her.
“Yeah, did something happen? Xuan Xuan don’t even think of coming home get it? Where are you? I’ll go find you!”
“Don’t come looking for me. That’s it I’m hanging up.”
“Xuan Xuan! Don’t……”
Xuan Xuan hung up silently. Her phone rang again, this time, the call was from Qin Shu Hua. She didn’t even need to think to know what he called her for, and removed the phone battery expressionlessly.
In the Qin family’s living room, Qin Shu Hua put down his phone and said to the military Instructor Li in front of him helplessly: “Her phone’s off.” A few people from the military had come to pay them an unfathomable visit. They brought the luggage his daughter brought to military training back, and he was notified that his daughter, after doing something bad, escaped from the military base. If he was sure today was not April Fools’ Day and that the military vehicle outside their door was real, he would definitely have thought all this was a joke someone pulled.
Li Xiu minced his lips and muttered to himself irresolutely, before he raised his gaze to meet the Qin Shu Hua who was still caught in his own appal, saying: “We are not sending her to prison, she is after all still a minor, so she’s under the protection of the law. We are however worried if she had been influenced by people with wicked intentions. If so, it would be of essence to have her undergo rehabilitation, else should she commit something of heightened severity in the future, it would no longer be a matter of re-education. So we hope Mr Qin can cooperate with our work. Should Qin Ke Xuan return or contact you, you must keep her here and notify us.”
“Of course, of course.” Qin Shu Hua rubbed his hands together sincerely, nodding.
When they left the Qin family, Xiao Song could not help but ask Li Xiu: “Instructor, we’re just going to leave it like that?”
“Why? Unless you want to guard here?” Instructor Li snorted, “C’mon, we’re going back to the police station to find out about how she saved her little brother from the kidnappers. Perhaps she would turn out to be one with quite the potential.”
Xiao Song whispered, discontented: “What one with quite the potential, she’s just a burglar, bandit.” Xiao Jiang beside him punched him, laughing. That guy was still holding a grudge about the fact that he got knocked out by the little girl.
Meanwhile, in Yin Xu Dong’s room, he and Qin Peng Cheng are currently sitting face-to-face on the floor. He had his brows scrunched up, asking seriously: “You heard it all?”
“Enh, I’ve recorded what they said in a recording pen.” Qin Peng Cheng produced a recording pen from his pocket and pressed play. The two of them listened attentively from the start till the end.
“Dong Zi ge, is jie jie not be coming back?” Qin Peng Cheng asked Yin Xu Dong with a small voice, his eyes red.
Yin Xu Dong send a slap to his forehead, saying fiercely: “Shut your stinky mouth! I’m going to find her!” If he were to let Xuan Xuan just leave like that, she would definitely not come back! No way! He definitely would not allow for her to do such foolish things!
“I’m going too!” Qin Peng Cheng jumped up, shouting.
“Going my ass! You better stay at home obediently!” He was going to look for a misguided and fallen girl, not bring a kid to an amusement park!
“I don’t care, I want to go as well! Can you even find her on your own?”
“Nonsense! What if you got kidnapped again if you went out, then am I supposed to look for you? Or your sister? Don’t add to the chaos, you better stay at home and help me keep a look out if anything happens. Call me immediately if there’s any news about your sister!”
Qin Peng Cheng thought about the time when he had been kidnapped not long ago. It had indeed left a shadow in his heart, and pouted: “Okay then, if you receive any news from jie jie, you need to let me know immediately!”
“Alright, alright, then let’s leave it at that, I’m going!” Yin Xu Dong rushed out hurriedly. When he saw the stupid dog downstairs, an idea hatched in his head. He once again rushed back to his bedroom to climb over to Qin Ke Xuan’s place via his balcony, grabbed the pillowcase and returned to his house. He carried the dog and placed it in the front basket of his bicycle and stepped on the pedal, heading out.
They searched like that for her for a week.
“Sob sob sob… Dong Zi ge, my dad said he’ll stop looking for jie jie… sob sob sob…” Qin Peng Cheng cried a river of tears.
Yin Xu Dong gritted his teeth, scolding him in anger: “What the heck are you crying for! You’re only good for crying! What business is it of mine whether he looks for her or not?” After an entire month, be it publishing a search post on the newspaper or the police searching, they found not even a single strand of her hair.
Xuan Xuan definitely was definitely waiting for someone to find her, so how could he possibly give up? No matter what, even if Qin Shu Hua gave up, he was going to continue looking for her! Other than the times his mother forced him to go to school, he would be out drifting around in the city on his bicycle. No one was able to urge him otherwise. He firmly believed Qin Ke Xuan was still in City B, because he couldn’t come up with anywhere else where she could have went otherwise. Where else could she have went?
“Heh, that Qin Ke Xuan you gonna owe me big time! Just watch if you’ll still dare threaten me again without rhyme nor reason in the future!” Yin Xu Dong said to himself in the mirror.
His phone on the table starting vibrating. He picked it up in a hurry: “Hello?”
“Dong Zi! I saw your sister! She’s at XX store, hurry get over here!”
“Okay! I’ll go over immediately, you better follow her tightly!” He hung up his phone and zipped out like the wind, stuffing the stupid dog, as usual, in the front basket of his bicycle, and warned it fiercely: “If you can’t find Xuan Xuan this time, I’ll chop you into pieces!”
Even if Qin Ke Xuan was able to evade the police, she was unable to guard against all the high school students who looked no different from random passers-by. Yin Xu Dong had photocopied a huge stack of her pictures and distributed them to all his gang of friends, and had them to take note. If they saw his sister who had ran away from home, they had to notify him immediately. These people’s relationships with Yin Xu Dong were not bad, so when they saw him running around every day painstakingly, they were were pretty sympathetic and so they agreed to help him.
However, they had not met the girl in the picture after all this while, and so they assumed she had probably left the city. If it were not for Xiao Tong, who’s people-recognising skills were top-notch, among them when they chanced upon her tonight at the storefront, they probably could have simply brushed past the Qin Ke Xuan wearing her cap.
Qin Ke Xuan carried the few cups of instant noodles she bought from the store, and slipped through the masses with her head down low, before zipping off in a flash of light into a little alley.
The few boys following tightly behind, after turning the corner, realised she was gone!
“Shit! We lost her!” One of the guys who dressed like hooligan spat out.
“Geh, she’s spiderman? How did she disappear with a flash?”
“Hurry call him…”
“Why are you following me?” Suddenly, a voice from above their heads sounded.
The bunch of them looked up, and freaking hell! Was she a legitimate spiderman?!
Qin Ke Xuan jumped down from the railing above their heads, asking icily: “Who are you?” They did not appear very old. Not the police or the military, high school students probably. Yet, they tailed her for so many streets. “Who are you informing?”
“Xiao Tong you sure this is Dong Zi’s little sister? She doesn’t look like it.”
Qin Ke Xuan threw down the bag in her hand, and grasped that person’s chin with a slant of her body. A tightening of her fingers, and she disl
ocated that person’s lower jaw, and said to the rest of the flabbergasted bunch of people: “Don’t beat around the bush, who exactly are you people? Who did you want to call just now?”
“You, you’re Qin Ke Xuan right? We, we’re your brother’s friends.”
“I have no brother.” Qin Ke Xuan squinted, exuding a murderous and threatening aura.
The guys upon seeing her murderous-looking eyes glinting under her cap could not help but shiver, and said, trembling: “Dong, Dong Zi said you’re his sister.” Dong Zi this time was sure sending them to their deaths! How the hell was she a friend’s sister? She’s a reincarnation of a soul-reaping king of hell goddamnit!
“Dong Zi? Yin Xu Dong?” Qin Ke Xuan’s hand moved, and she reconnected that fellow’s jaw again with a move of her hand.
“Yes, yes, yes! He had us come to find you. If you’re unhappy about this, go back and tell him that!” Not look for them for trouble! Dong Zi, we will leave your little sister to you to handle, your friends’ frail little hearts cannot handle it!
“Since you’re his friends, lend me some money.”
Chapter 26 - I’m Your Brother
By the time Yin Xu Dong ran into the dim alley, the stupid dog with him, he was greeted with Qin Ke Xuan standing on a “corpse”, and was even bending down clearing the ‘corpse’, a stack of money in her hand, and several emptied wallets on the ground beside her.
Yin Xu Dong squatted down to check if the “corpse” was still alive, before scolding angrily: “Didn’t I say not to damage her?!”
The bunch of “corpse”s were all feeling very wronged, they didn’t attack her at all! They didn’t even touch a finger of hers from the very beginning okay?!
The stupid dog Ke Ke wagged his tail happily and licked Qin Ke Xuan fondly, it hadn’t seen her in a long time. Qin Ke Xuan threw the last emptied wallet on the ground, and said to Yin Xu Dong: “You’re Yin Xu Dong’s friend as well? Hand me your wallet.”