Chapter 2363 — A Kidnapping Encountered on the Road

"Yes. Xiaochao is in your hands now," Father Han said. "All right, enough talk—I have business to discuss on my end. As for those medicinal herbs you asked me to look for, they're proving truly hard to find. As for the colored steel, blue crystal powder, and pure yellow jade—I've never even heard of them."

"That's fine. Keep looking, slowly. If you can find them, wonderful—I want to surprise him," Han Jingyi said.

"I'll do my best. That's enough—I'm hanging up." Something had come up on Father Han's end, so he naturally ended the call.

Han Jingyi set down the phone, picked up the tablet computer beside her, and reverted to her former bookworm demeanor.

Donghai City was a provincial capital, and its commercial street was utterly different from Songshan City's—more prosperous and far more orderly. Shops lined the street in dazzling variety, with specialty stores for nearly every international and domestic brand. In the parking lot, luxury cars were everywhere; by comparison, Wei Zhao's Grand Cherokee truly did not stand out.

Not far off, an Audi TT sports car had just pulled into the adjacent parking space, and Wei Zhao's expression grew somewhat distant, as though he had returned to Songshan City—accompanying Yaoyao and Xiaoshu out, meeting Feng Xiaoxiao for the first time...

The scene stirred old feelings—except that the driver who stepped out of the Audi TT was a fat woman, shattering Wei Zhao's reverie...

Shaking his head, Wei Zhao felt a certain bitterness in his heart. Feng Xiaoxiao... He had thought that once he mastered the Spring Rain from Heaven, he could help Han Jingyi refine pills. But now it seemed that dream had been shattered. When would he ever be able to refine a third-grade pill?

It seemed the only way was to advance to the Heaven rank himself, then raise Han Jingyi's strength to the late Earth rank's peak, and find a Qi-Gathering Pill for her to take. Only that was a viable path.

But he was still a long way from the Heaven rank, and Qi-Gathering Pills were not so easy to find...

This trial at the Xuandan Sect made Wei Zhao hesitate. Originally he had wanted the colored steel, blue crystal powder, and pure yellow jade—but a Qi-Gathering Pill seemed the better bargain? Wei Zhao sank into conflict, his head beginning to ache.

In truth, what the young miss and Xiaoshu enjoyed was mainly the process of shopping; they did not actually need to buy anything. Especially after entering university, Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu had grown even more low-key. Though they had been named the school's beauties, they competed for no spotlight—fearful of bringing Wei Zhao unnecessary trouble.

After all, there were far more people at university, drawn from every corner of the land, with backgrounds of every kind—unlike in Songshan City, at the private high school under the Gu Group, where the two of them had not needed to worry about much.

"Kidnapping! Help! Aaah—mmph—" Suddenly a scream cut through Wei Zhao's thoughts. He looked up to see that the fat woman who had just stepped out of the Audi TT had been seized by the scruff of the neck by a burly man who had leapt from an unlicensed Mercedes-Benz van. The man clamped a hand over her mouth and stuffed her into the van!

It all happened in an instant. Once the fat woman was shoved into the Mercedes-Benz van, the burly man climbed in after her, and the van sped away...

Wei Zhao frowned. If he wanted to stop it, he certainly could have—but he did not move. For one thing, the fat woman was a stranger to him, with no connection whatsoever; for another, he was out shopping with the young miss and Xiaoshu, and naturally would not let such a baffling incident delay them.

Wei Zhao had no burning sense of chivalry. He merely glanced indifferently at the departing Mercedes-Benz van and paid it no further attention.

"Huh? That black van—why does it look just like the one that kidnapped Wang Xinyan? No license plate, and the same model?" Shen Yushu said in surprise.

"Could it be the same crew?" Gu Mengyao had noticed it too, and was startled. "It looks like a Mercedes-Benz B200... and the method is very similar!"

"Oh?" Wei Zhao was slightly taken aback. Since his return, he had not yet questioned Wu Chengtian and Old Master Pi in detail about how Wang Xinyan had been kidnapped—but he had never expected that a kidnapping in this busy commercial district would be connected to Wang Xinyan's case!

That made coincidence all the more unlikely, since Wei Zhao did not know the fat woman at all, and the kidnappers' method was unfamiliar to him as well.

"Let's go. It has nothing to do with us," Wei Zhao said mildly to the young miss and Xiaoshu.

Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu had no wish to meddle either. They nodded and were about to follow Wei Zhao when, unexpectedly, two patrol officers from the commercial street came running toward them at full speed, calling out to Wei Zhao and the others nearby: "Everyone, please don't leave yet—you're all witnesses. Would you mind giving a statement?"

Wei Zhao thought such statements were of little use, but there was no help for it—he stopped with Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu.

Afterward, the two officers questioned Wei Zhao and the others about the kidnapping they had just witnessed. Their accounts were much the same: a black, unlicensed Mercedes-Benz B200 van had abducted the fat woman who had gotten out of the Audi TT. As for other details, no one had paid them much mind—at that moment, everyone had been scared stiff.

Soon after, a Cheetah off-road vehicle came racing up and stopped at the scene. Out stepped the dashing Qiu Lingshan and a grave-faced Liu Wangli.

"Captain Song!" The two patrol officers immediately went over and saluted, handing Qiu Lingshan the statements they had taken.

"What's the situation? Any similarities to the earlier cases?" The moment Qiu Lingshan heard "kidnapping," she reflexively thought of the previous kidnapping cases.

"Much the same—a black, unlicensed Mercedes-Benz B200 van," one of the patrol officers said. "But this time the scene isn't near the university town, so we can't rule out someone using the same vehicle to deliberately mislead us!"

"Mm!" Qiu Lingshan nodded. Indeed, in the earlier kidnapping cases, many people knew what vehicle had been used; if someone chose the same vehicle now, it could well be meant to confuse the police.

"Have you identified the hostage?" Qiu Lingshan asked.

"We've already run a check on the license plate of the car she was driving, but no results have come back yet. We're taking statements from the witnesses now," the patrol officer said.

Qiu Lingshan nodded and looked up toward the witnesses. When she caught sight of Wei Zhao's figure, her eyes lit up at once, and her heart leapt with joy!