CHAPTER 106: CHAPTER 106: DOG EAT DOG

"An Yan, actually, we want you to know that we have truly turned over a new leaf."

"That’s right. We won’t be fickle about relationships anymore. Since we are students, we should focus on our studies first and foremost. We will never again resort to underhanded methods!"

"An Yan, believe us."

An Yan noticed that as these words were spoken, the fortunes of these four people seemed to begin to turn for the better.

Since that was the case, she didn’t mind speaking with them a bit more. "You need to understand that the beneficiaries of turning over a new leaf are yourselves, not me! So whether you change or not isn’t for me to judge. Of course, if you think that by changing, I will think more highly of you, then I’m telling you now, I won’t! Right now, I’m just questioning your intelligence! Did you work so hard to get into Luocheng University just to be someone else’s lackey?"

An Yan’s words sent a jolt through the hearts of the four. They had always thought that young masters and misses from wealthy families, like An Shimeng and Xu Muwei, took pride in having followers! They hadn’t realized that, in the eyes of someone truly capable, their behavior was nothing but a joke!

"Only when you excel will others look up to you!"

Noise from outside filtered in. Chen Xiangyu, having finished picking up trash, was brought back to the police station. Who knew what the elderly people were thinking, but Chen Xiangyu was still wearing that couplet:

*There’s a path to Heaven I refuse to take, a gateless Hell where I insist on diving.*

Arrogance! Such utter arrogance!

The officers in the station were infuriated upon seeing this.

"Truly unrepentant!"

"Do you think you’re being unique?"

"People like this must be dealt with severely!"

"I didn’t do this!" Chen Xiangyu hastily explained, terrified the police would indeed give him a harsh sentence. "It was An Yan! She did this! She deliberately framed me with a bag of joss paper! And she purposefully wrote these words to make people hate me!"

"Kidnapping and extortion involving such a large sum, and you still blame others for framing you!"

"Would anyone even bother trying to make people hate you? With what you’ve done today, you’ve pretty much said goodbye to the outside world for the rest of your life."

"No, no, no, you’ve got it wrong! I’m just an accessory!" Chen Xiangyu, having gone through the college entrance exams, knew the difference between a principal offender and an accessory, even without formal legal training.

To get a lighter sentence, Chen Xiangyu didn’t hesitate to sell out An Shimeng. "Officer, it was An Shimeng! She’s An Yan’s sister, and she orchestrated everything today..."

While Chen Xiangyu was eagerly denouncing her, An Shimeng arrived. Hearing Chen Xiangyu’s voice, An Shimeng was immediately overcome with a torrent of dramatic tears, as if possessed by a soap opera character. "Chen Xiangyu, how could you do this?"

An Shimeng denied everything, her words implying complete ignorance of the situation. "Officer, how could I possibly conspire with outsiders to kidnap my own father? I’m not that heartless! Chen Xiangyu did all of this!"

Chen Xiangyu no longer felt any sympathy for An Shimeng. His mind was entirely preoccupied with the thought that the principal offender would rot in jail.

"It was you! An Shimeng, you planned it all! Otherwise, how would I know your father’s and An Yan’s phone numbers? How would I know your family was rich? How would I know..."

"An Shimeng, I’m begging you! I’m the only son in my family. It wasn’t easy for my parents to raise me. My life has just begun. Please don’t ruin me, okay? For the sake of how much I love you, spare me, please?"

Unexpectedly, An Shimeng cried even harder. "I should be the one begging you to spare me! You were the one who said we’d have no future after leaving Luocheng University, that we should go for a big score! Chen Xiangyu, I tried to stop you! I said we couldn’t do anything illegal, but you wouldn’t listen! Now that things have blown up, you want to pin it all on me. How could you be so cruel?"

Chen Xiangyu was rendered speechless.

SMACK!

Chen Xiangyu forcefully broke free from the two police officers restraining him and landed a fierce slap on An Shimeng’s face. "You’re lying! It was clearly you!"

An Shimeng’s head buzzed from the force of the slap. All the grievances she had suffered recently flooded her mind. An Yan hit me, Elder Brother abandoned me, and now even Chen Xiangyu, who vowed to love me forever, dares to slap me? How did I, An Shimeng, fall so low? Why does everyone bully me?

An Shimeng furiously raised her hand and scratched at Chen Xiangyu, screaming, "You kidnapped my father, and now you hit me! I’ll scratch you to death, you bastard!"

Chen Xiangyu hadn’t expected An Shimeng to have such a shrewish side. Moreover, with his arms restrained by two policemen, his face was quickly covered in bloody scratches. Pain instinctively made him raise his leg, and he kicked An Shimeng, sending her flying two meters away.

An Yan sat on the chair Officer Xiaohe had brought for her, silently observing the Bai Wu in her mind. Within the Bai Wu, another Yezi gradually became clear. It seems An Shimeng finally made a small contribution!

Alas, police investigations require evidence. Even though she knew An Shimeng was wicked, without supporting evidence, she still couldn’t send An Shimeng to jail.

An Yan, having deduced the outcome, rested her chin on her hand and watched An Shimeng’s performance. An Shimeng wept pitifully, her face tear-streaked, and even turned to An Zhongbo for help. "Dad, I don’t understand what I did wrong. Why is everyone bullying me?"

An Zhongbo took out his phone. "Why would others bully you? Clearly, it’s because you have malicious intentions!

"Officer, although I was kidnapped by that young man, the mastermind is indeed An Shimeng! She sent me a message saying she had another of my wife’s paintings and asked me to retrieve it.

"As soon as I went out, I was kidnapped. The kidnapper was waiting on the very road I had to take!"

The police took An Zhongbo’s phone and photographed it as evidence.

An Shimeng shook her head vehemently, as if it might fall off. "No, that’s not true! I never sent you any messages, Dad!"

Saying this, An Shimeng handed her own phone to the police. "If you don’t believe me, you can check!"

Officer Xiaohe immediately had the phone sent to technical experts. After an inspection, the staff confirmed that the message An Zhongbo received had not been sent from An Shimeng’s phone. The sender had used a Blinding Spell, employing a profile picture identical to An Shimeng’s to send the message. The SIM card used for the message had likely been destroyed long ago. No wonder An Shimeng was so confident.

An Yan wasn’t too disappointed, though. If An Shimeng were really that easy to deal with, she wouldn’t have been able to deceive Dad and Elder Brother for over a decade.

Upon leaving the police station, An Zhongbo hung his head, not daring to make eye contact with An Yan. My daughter had warned me, yet I still fell for it. If it hadn’t been for that umbrella, would I be lying in a hospital bed right now, immobilized? Oh, right, there was an air cushion below. An air cushion?

An Zhongbo was taken aback, looking at his daughter in shock. "Yanyan, how did you figure it all out?"