Chapter 1234 — Once You're Here, Don't Leave

"It's me. Xiaoxiao's boyfriend." Wei Zhao regarded the man with perfect calm as he answered. Since he had been spotted, he saw no point in putting on an act any longer and simply spoke the truth. He had no wish to enrage the thing before him and drive it to swallow poison.

"Mm -- mm --" The moment Feng Xiaoxiao saw Wei Zhao come in, she grew wildly excited, thrashing and gesticulating, trying to say something. But her hands and feet were bound, so all her flailing amounted to twisting back and forth across the sofa. With her mouth gagged besides, she could do no more than whimper and cry out incoherently.

The man listened to Wei Zhao's self-introduction with some puzzlement. The one who had come up was neither a policeman nor a man of the Mysterious Investigation Bureau, yet he was Feng Xiaoxiao's boyfriend? And from how agitated and tense the girl was, the two of them certainly did know each other.

"Stay where you are. Don't come any closer, and don't try any tricks on me. I warn you, don't think of using a tranquilizer gun either -- the pulse of a man knocked unconscious differs from that of a waking man. Once my heartbeat slows past a certain point, the explosives will detonate!" The man shot Wei Zhao a glance and delivered the warning.

His words were no empty bluster meant to frighten Wei Zhao; they were simply the truth. This, too, was a safeguard against anyone trying to bring him down with a tranquilizer dart. A man in drugged slumber has a slackened pulse, and the detonator for the explosives would trigger in response.

"Rest assured, I won't make a move." Wei Zhao's face was drawn with anxiety. "I only fear for my girlfriend's safety. I don't want anything to happen to her -- and if something did, I wouldn't go on living either. So when I came up, I came ready to die beside her. You needn't worry about anything: I'm not carrying a gun. I'm not a policeman."

"I dare say most of what you've told me is true. But I'm sorry -- I still can't trust you." The man spoke evenly. "As it happens, there's no word from Feng Tianlong's side yet, and I'm growing rather bored. Since you've delivered yourself to my door, why don't we play a game? Heh heh!"

So saying, the man snatched the towel from Feng Xiaoxiao's mouth.

Her mouth had been stuffed for so long that she was half suffocated. The instant the towel came out, she sucked in great ragged lungfuls of air, then cried out in a rush: "Hubby Wei Zhao, what are you doing here? He means to blow me up -- if you came up, you'll be blown to pieces too! Go, this is none of your business, don't come sticking your nose in!"

Seeing Wei Zhao come up, Feng Xiaoxiao was moved and furious at once. She was moved because he had been so good to her, refusing to abandon her even in this perilous moment, walking into the jaws of death of his own accord. But the same Wei Zhao had other girlfriends besides her -- Tang Yun among them. If he died with her, what was to become of Tang Yun?

And there were Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu as well. Feng Xiaoxiao could see that while she could not be sure whether Gu Mengyao held any feelings for Wei Zhao, Shen Yushu certainly did. With so many girls' love weighing on his shoulders, if he died, those young women would hate her, Feng Xiaoxiao, to the end of their days.

"He's not going anywhere! Once you've come up, you don't leave!" The man laughed a cold laugh. "Did you take this for some place where you come and go as you please?"

"Even if I walked out this very moment, I don't believe you'd dare to set off the bomb and kill yourself." Wei Zhao tested him coolly. "Right now Uncle Feng is negotiating with the higher-ups to have your second-in-command released. Set off the charge, and your second-in-command won't be freed either."

Wei Zhao only wanted to confirm whether the fanatic before him had, as he had surmised, freeing the second-in-command as his first objective, with living or dying as a secondary matter. That was why he had spoken of leaving -- though in truth, even if the man drove him away, Wei Zhao would not budge.

If Wei Zhao left, would his coming up not have been in vain?

The man, however, had no idea why Wei Zhao had come up. Hearing him speak so, he gave it no further thought, merely cackling: "Leave? Of course you may! You're quite right -- freeing the second-in-command was my aim all along. As for dying, I don't fear death, but only after I've made certain he cannot be freed will I teach Feng Tianlong and the Mysterious Investigation Bureau a lesson!"

"And if I do leave?" Wei Zhao shot back.

"If you leave, I'll strip your wife bare and ride her hard. For hours on end, until Feng Tianlong releases the second-in-command or refuses, I'll use your woman without letup. I'll play her to death!" The man licked his own lips with the relish of a lunatic and spoke through bared teeth.

Sure enough, at the man's words Wei Zhao's expression darkened horribly. He stood at the doorway, his face a thundercloud, unable to go and unable to stay.

"Hubby Wei Zhao, go! If he truly dares do that, I'll drag him down with me! Rest assured, Xiaoxiao is yours for this life -- she belongs to no one else. And you still have Sister Tang Yun. Whatever you do, don't let him frighten you into staying!" Seeing Wei Zhao's face change, Feng Xiaoxiao assumed he meant to remain and hurriedly tried to talk him out of it.

In truth, Feng Xiaoxiao could never have guessed that Wei Zhao's ghastly expression was put on for the man's benefit. If he meant to stay, he needed some fitting reason; stay for no reason at all, and the man would grow suspicious.

The man's own words had handed him precisely the excuse he needed. One way or another, only by staying could he act as circumstances warranted.

"Xiaoxiao, I'm not leaving you behind." Wei Zhao set his jaw and spoke gravely.

"Hubby Wei Zhao, don't be so stubborn! And what of Sister Tang Yun? What of Mengyao and Xiaoshu? What becomes of them? You absolutely must not die with me!" Feng Xiaoxiao was beside herself, flashing him look after frantic look.

She knew her father's organization at least a little. How could men once captured ever be let go? So she harbored no hope of it whatsoever, and she did not want her father making mistakes on her account.

That was why she had come up this time with her mind made up to die. She had not long to live in any case -- so let death come. It was only a matter of time; it would happen sooner or later, within these few weeks at most. Dying a little early would spare Wei Zhao and the others some of the burden.

"Go on, coward. I'll finish her off. Muahahaha!" The man seemed to savor the feeling of scaring people.

Such fanatical operatives were all, to one degree or another, a little insane. Wei Zhao saw nothing strange in that. If the man had truly been interested in doing anything to Feng Xiaoxiao, he would not have waited until Wei Zhao arrived before saying these things -- he would have acted on it long ago.

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