However, He Ruize didn’t stop. Instead, he continued walking towards her.
Lin Xinyan continued backing away. She was so frightened that her face had lost its color completely, and it now looked like a blank piece of paper.
How did he manage to get out?
She suddenly felt a scream rise to her throat. It was getting harder and harder for her to breathe.
“Are you surprised to see me?” He Ruize asked, giggling maniacally.
He Ruize was much scarier now than he had been when he kidnapped her.
Lin Xinyan forced herself to calm down. Trying to keep her composure, she warned, “Don’t you dare come over. If you take one more step towards me, I’m going to scream for someone!”
“Haha!” He Ruize burst into laughter, as though he was trying to tell her that he wasn’t scared of anyone.
When he wasn’t paying attention to her, Lin Xinyan groped around her pockets and realized that she had left her phone in the room. There was only the toilet behind her—she had no way of escape now.
She gazed at He Ruize. “What do you want to do to me?”
He Ruize laughed again. “Do you know something? He Ruilin is dead.”
The last time Lin Xinyan heard of her, He Ruilin had been locked up in prison.
How could she have died?
“Zong Jinghao framed her for killing someone and got her locked up. Unable to stand life without her freedom, she committed suicide in jail.” He Ruize gritted his teeth, a look of anger flashing across his brutal face. “Because of my sister and I, the entire He family got implicated and lost our repute. We became the laughing stock of the entire B City! Awful, isn’t it!”
“You brought this upon yourself! Nobody made you do it—those who live by the sword die by the sword! You know that perfectly well!” Lin Xinyan retorted as she glanced around frantically, trying to find something she could protect herself with. Other than the flower pot by the wall, there was nothing else on the corridor.
“Yan, you’re very cruel to me. Do you really think you had no part to play in this?” He Ruize walked even closer to her. “If you got together with me instead of flirting with Zong Jinghao, he would have gotten married to my sister, and we would all have gotten our happy endings! But being the wretch you are, you had to go and flirt with another man—my sister’s man! You threw a wrench in my plans and caused our happy ending to turn into this tragedy. It’s all your fault!”
He was only two steps away from her now.
Lin Xinyan couldn’t sit still and wait for someone to rescue her any longer. She tried to escape through the gap between He Ruize and the wall. However, the moment she moved, He Ruize shot forward and pounced onto her.
Lin Xinyan screamed, “Shen Pei… Ahh!”
Just as she wanted to yell for help, He Ruize clamped his hand over her mouth.
Lin Xinyan’s eyes were wide with fear.
“Why are you so scared?” He Ruize whispered into her ear. “I won’t hurt you, so why are you so scared of me?”
Lin Xinyan shivered uncontrollably.
With He Ruize’s arm still clamped over her mouth, she prayed he would let her off.
He pressed a kiss to her neck. Lin Xinyan froze in horror—her entire stomach started churning again, and she suddenly felt the overwhelming desire to throw up.
“Ahh!” she tried to scream.
He Ruize looked furious. “Does my touch disgust you that much?”
Lin Xinyan’s voice sounded through a crack in his fingers. “Yes, you disgust me!”
He Ruize went even further, grabbing hold of her face and pressing kisses all over it. Lin Xinyan struggled, but he was much stronger than her; she couldn’t shake herself free at all.
As she struggled, she suddenly realized that there was something hanging from He Ruize’s waist.
She grasped at it wildly and saw that it was a gun.
She grabbed the gun and pressed it against He Ruize’s stomach. “Let go of me right now, or I’ll fire.”
He Ruize froze for a second before laughing. “You don’t have the guts to do that.”
He continued pulling at her clothes.
In her frenzied state, Lin Xinyan’s mind was completely blank. There was only one thought in her mind—she couldn’t let He Ruize touch her as he pleased!
Bang!
With a loud crack, she fired a bullet into his stomach.
However, He Ruize didn’t look surprised. He looked down and saw a huge red stain spreading over the thin fabric of his shirt.
He looked at Lin Xinyan and smiled cruelly. “I know where your kids’ kindergarten is. I’ll kidnap and torture them.”
He Ruize had crossed the line when he brought her children into this matter. Lin Xinyan would never allow anyone to hurt them.
“How dare you!”
“You dare fire my own gun at me. Who’s to say I won’t dare to kidnap them?” He Ruize pressed a hand to his injury. His brows were covered in sweat, and there was a tremor in his voice that wasn’t there a minute ago.
Lin Xinyan looked at him with red eyes. She continued pointing the gun at him but refused to pull the trigger.
Just then, the door to her room swung open. The gunshot had alerted Shen Peichuan and Su Zhan, and they quickly dashed out of the room to see what was going on. Seeing the gun in Lin Xinyan’s hand, they knew that something was terribly wrong and ran up to her immediately.
“Xinyan…”
At that moment, He Ruize flung himself upon Lin Xinyan. Grabbing her arm, he pointed the gun at himself and fired it twice.
“Ah!”
“A murder has happened!”
He Ruize looked at Lin Xinyan and laughed. His legs finally gave way, and he collapsed onto the floor.
A pool of blood started forming under him.
Lin Xinyan was still in a daze. She held on to the gun, her hands trembling.
“He Ruize?” Seeing the man on the floor, Shen Peichuan felt that something was amiss. He Ruize had been locked up in jail with Shen Peichuan’s men guarding him day and night. There was no way he could’ve escaped. If he managed this escape, it must mean that he was being backed by someone of great power.
“Something’s wrong. Su Zhan, take Xinyan and leave immediately.”
Shen Peichuan had his suspicions that this whole thing had been a setup. Someone had been plotting against Lin Xinyan.
Su Zhan nodded. Stepping over He Ruize’s corpse, he grabbed Lin Xinyan’s arm and said, “Xinyan, let’s go.”
Just as they were about to leave by the front door, a group of policemen rushed through the door and secured the entire area.
The head of the police stepped forward and announced, “We’ve received a call informing us that there has been a murder here.”
Shen Peichuan narrowed his eyes. It had been barely a few minutes since Lin Xinyan fired the gun—even if someone had called the police, there was no way they would be able to arrive so quickly.
If he had his suspicions just now, Shen Peichuan was now certain that this whole thing had been a setup for Lin Xinyan.
Thinking quickly, he tried to understand why He Ruize had forced Lin Xinyan’s hand and made her shoot him.
What was his motive? Was it to frame Lin Xinyan for his murder?
As he thought of this possibility, Shen Peichuan realized that the gun would be evidence of her guilt. He needed to snatch the gun away from Lin Xinyan and destroy it right away. Just as he made a move to walk towards her, someone stopped him.
“Captain Shen, this is my case, so I’m the one calling the shots here.” The policeman was very firm on the matter. Besides, he seemed to have pre-empted Shen Peichuan’s move towards Lin Xinyan. Evidently, this had all been planned beforehand.
The head of the police waved his hand. “Take the suspect away.”
Su Zhan jumped in front of Lin Xinyan. “Don’t you dare touch her!”
The head of the police walked over to him and spat, “I’m upholding the law here! What do you think you’re doing? I’ll charge you for hindering official duties if you don’t get out of our way now.”
Su Zhan wasn’t scared of the law. Even if he faced court charges, there was no way he was going to let them take Lin Xinyan away.
Shen Peichuan shot him a look. There was no way they would be able to sneak Lin Xinyan away under the watchful gaze of these policemen. They would have to cause a diversion somehow. Shen Peichuan decided to stay and keep the attention of the police on himself long enough for Su Zhan to slip away with Lin Xinyan.
“Hello, Captain Chen.” Shen Peichuan knew this man vaguely. He had just been promoted and had gained a reputation as a tough and hard-headed officer.
Now, it seemed as though his ascension through the ranks hadn’t been a coincidence.
Someone important had backed his promotion.
Everyone at the police station knew of Shen Peichuan’s relationship with Zong Jinghao. However, these policemen were insistent on giving him a hard time now. They definitely had the backing of someone incredibly powerful.
Shen Peichuan tried to shift the blame onto himself. “The person who died was one of my criminals. He escaped prison, and I shot him to stop him from escaping. Is there something wrong with that?”
