It’s rush hour now and almost every taxi has passengers. After standing for a while, she takes out her phone, ready to use the ride-hailing app to book a ride.
Before she could input her destination, a black Range Rover stops in front of her. Tang Tianyou rolls down the window and says, "Get in. I was just heading out for an errand, I can give you a lift."
Gu Qili is really in a rush and opens the car door without much thought.
Only after getting in the car does she rember that she needs to go to Eastern City and doesn’t know if it’s on his way.
"Where to?"
"Eastern City, and you? If it’s out of your way, I can take a cab myself so as not to delay your work."
Tang Tianyou turns the steering wheel and rges onto the main road, reminding her to buckle up, "It just so happens I’m heading to Eastern City too, it’s on the way."
In Eastern City, there’s a glass factory responsible for making customized wine glasses for the French Restaurant. The goods are ready now, and he urgently needs to check them to avoid delaying the opening.
But Eastern City is so distance away from the city center, within the suburban area of Aus City. He has no business running errands to a suburb.
Gu Qili glances at him suspiciously to confirm if he is lying. Yet, Tang Tianyou’s expression is calm and upright, not seeming like he is blatantly lying.
Noticing her skeptical gaze, he explains while driving, "Eastern City is an industrial area, most of the chips for the Aus City casino are produced there."
That settles it. Gu Qili smiles at him, realizing she was overthinking it.
Gu Qili leans against the car window, enjoying the scenery, her gaze unwittingly shifts to the back and sees two SUVs. Normally, it wouldn’t be strange to spot two SUVs on the road, but sothing feels off. They’re not driving fast, yet they keep a consistent moderate distance, flanking them on either side from behind.
"Tang..." She was about to retract her body leaning out slightly to speak to Tang Tianyou.
All of a sudden, Tang Tianyou’s voice becos stern: "Qili, sit tight."
His face looks unusually serious, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that veins are popping.
Gu Qili grips the door’s armrest as her body suddenly lurches forward when the car’s speed abruptly increases to 180 km/h.
As they accelerate, the two cars behind them also ramp up their engines. Gu Qili looks into the rearview mirror, nearly certain now that those two cars are tailing them.
"Tang Tianyou, are we being followed?" Her grip tightens on the armrest, her face slightly pale.
Instead of answering, he turns the car into a secluded forest area. The road in the forest is very narrow; it’s a good thing he knows the map of Aus City like the back of his hand.
Gu Qili keeps her mouth shut, not wanting to disturb his judgnt. The car heads to a hidden spot, and suddenly, he slams on the brakes. Under the force of inertia, Gu Qili leans forward, but the seatbelt swiftly catches her body. At the sa ti, the door on her side opens.
Before she can react to what’s happening, Tang Tianyou suddenly places his hand on her shoulder, unbuckles her seatbelt, and with a strong shove, pushes her out of the car.
It didn’t feel very painful, and when she finally stabilizes herself, Tang Tianyou’s car, with the sound of the engine, suddenly turns around and speeds off in another direction, soon leaving only the fading sound of the vehicle in the forest.
Gu Qili stands staring in the direction he left, feeling dumbfounded, taking a while to regain her senses.
Did he just abandon her?!
But soon Gu Qili dispels this thought. The two cars were clearly targeting them. She has no enemies in Aus City, and those who have clashed with her in Aus City don’t have the ti to bother with her now.
Suddenly she rembers sothing Xiong Da said before: these people might be targeting Tang Tianyou. He must have left her there to avoid involving her and now he’s heading back to lure them as bait.
Gu Qili, both anxious and agitated, quickly follows the last direction the vehicle disappeared to.
Tang Tianyou doesn’t drive too far before encountering the two SUVs head-on. The opponents probably didn’t expect to et him here, and they fail to control their speed. Whereas Tang Tianyou, with his lips tightly pursed and eyes sharp and ferocious, floors the gas pedal and crashes into one of the vehicles.
The driver, clearly intimidated by his do-or-die attitude, freezes up and forgets to dodge.
After a loud crash, the hit SUV gets propelled into the air, rolls several tis on the forest ground, and smashes into a tree, causing the fuel tank to rupture and spill gasoline everywhere.
After flinging one vehicle aside, Tang Tianyou imdiately shifts into reverse, performs a swift drift, and then charges towards the other vehicle.
This ti, the driver is prepared. Since death seed inevitable, they also step hard on the gas, ready to collide head-on.
Gu Qili, wearing high heels, doesn’t run far before she takes off the cumberso shoes and throws them away.
A giant noise ca from the other side of the jungle, shaking her so much that all her internal organs were in pain. She paused montarily in shock and then quickened her pace, the stones and branches underfoot slashing cuts into her feet, but she could no longer feel the pain.
Another loud bang occurred, this ti louder than the last, followed by a series of explosive noises, as if sothing had blown apart. A black smoke rose from the side of the jungle, and the air was filled with a strong sll of scorching.
Gu Qili’s whole body shivered, and she had a bad feeling. Ignoring everything, she sprinted towards the source of the noises.
The scene of the crash was grueso. Half of an SUV had ended up in a tree, its fuel tank empty. The front of another SUV was crumpled, with two of its four tires missing. Gu Qili rubbed her eyes forcefully but couldn’t find Tang Tianyou’s Range Rover.
)
It didn’t make sense. She was certain that those two cars had been hit by him. His Range Rover wasn’t a tank; crashing them so severely, he couldn’t have walked away unscathed.
In a hurry, Gu Qili started searching and soon noticed a slope nearby. Although not very high, nearly seventy degrees steep, she looked down to see Tang Tianyou’s Range Rover lying tilted at the bottom of the hill, completely smashed, and all airbags had been deployed, presumably from rolling down the slope.
Gu Qili gasped, scrambling down the hillside. In her haste, she tripped and fell, scraping her palms.
She finally reached the car and saw Tang Tianyou in the driver’s seat, collapsed over the steering wheel, covered in blood, motionless and frightening.
Gu Qili tried to push away the airbags, but her strength was too little. It took her a while to move one, and then, she suddenly rembered she should have called for help first.
She took out her cell phone from her pocket, only to find, much to her despair, that there was no signal in this remote area.
What to do, what to do, Gu Qili’s mind went blank for a mont.
She put away her phone and continued to move the airbags, all the while calling out Tang Tianyou’s na loudly.
In his daze, Tang Tianyou faintly heard a rushed voice, possibly tinged with sobs, calling, "Tang Tianyou, Tang Tianyou."
The voice sounded so familiar.
But his eyelids were too heavy; he couldn’t open them. He wanted to sleep.
Yet the persistent voice kept calling, not letting him fall asleep.
He wanted to say: Qili, you’re so noisy.
"Qili, you’re so noisy." Gu Qili, who had been calling out for Tang Tianyou, heard these words and looked at him with surprised eyes, then slapped his face, "Tang Tianyou, Tang Tianyou."
With difficulty, Tang Tianyou managed to pry his eyelids open and, seeing her tense face due to nervousness, he even managed a small smile.
Seeing him smile, tears uncontrollably began to spill from Gu Qili’s eyes, dropping onto his face, "Tang Tianyou, I thought you were dead, you scared to death, not making a sound, whimpering, thankfully, you’re not dead."
Tang Tianyou felt dazed by her tears, heart-achingly so. He had seen her laugh but had never witnessed her cry; the one ti she did, it was for him, and the tears she shed for him made it feel as if the whole world was crying.
He wanted to wipe her tears for her, but moving just his fingers caused him so much pain that all he could do was suck in a breath of cold air.
"Qili, stop crying, I’m fine."
"You’re covered in blood and you say you’re fine; are you crazy? It would be nice if you could just run," Gu Qili wiped her tears away, thinking about how he had left her alone in the jungle to fend for herself against others. She knew he was trying to avoid dragging her into his own troubles.
They hadn’t known each other for long, yet he had saved her twice. And this ti, she owed him yet again.
Tang Tianyou just weakly smiled again and then closed his eyes.
Gu Qili, gritting her teeth, moved the last airbag off him, relieving so pressure from his body.
"There’s no signal here. I’ll try sowhere higher up. Don’t move, and by the way, where is this?" Gu Qili spoke as she tore so clothes from within his car into strips to bandage his wounds. There were so internal injuries she couldn’t treat; the only solution now was to call for help.
Tang Tianyou softly grunted in response and ntioned the specific location; afterwards, he didn’t even have the energy to open his eyes, reserving the last of his willpower just for her.
Gu Qili climbed back up the hillside, holding up her phone in search of a signal. Fortunately, one bar appeared; however, she dared not hope that it would enable her to make a call. Therefore, she ran into the jungle and found the tallest tree to climb. She didn’t know how to climb trees and used the most primitive thod, scraping her hands and legs so badly that touching them caused searing pain.
She climbed and climbed until she reached the top of the tree. When she raised her phone again, three signal bars appeared and, surprisingly, a bit of internet connection too.
She swiftly dialed the ergency number 120.
Just as Gu Qili finished making the call and was about to climb down, another call ca in.
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