Chapter 171 — The Threat
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"Hello?" Wei Zhao answered the phone groggily.
"Wei Zhao?" A somewhat familiar voice came from the other end. "This is Qiu Lingshan."
"Oh, the lioness" — you..." Wei Zhao mumbled.
"What the hell? Wei Zhao, what did you just call me?" Qiu Lingshan — upon hearing this, she flew into a rage at once — "You've got some nerve, say that again?" Back then Wei Zhao had found Qiu Lingshan rather violent, and so subconsciously had given her the nickname "lioness"; when fully awake he had never dared use it, but now, muddled with sleep, the words slipped out of their own accord.
"Uh... I was dreaming just now, fighting a lioness!" Wei Zhao was suddenly wide awake — he said, sweating a little. Even if that was what he thought inside, he could not say it out loud!
"Hmph!" Qiu Lingshan gave a cold sniff. She knew Wei Zhao was probably making things up, but she had no mind to wrangle with him over it. "Do you have time?"
"For what?" Wei Zhao asked.
"I'll come find you at your school in a bit" — Captain Yang recommended you to me," Qiu Lingshan said. "Help me solve a case..."
Qiu Lingshan was truly at her wits' end — the difficulty of searching the mountain forest was simply murderous; some of the dangerous areas could not possibly be searched by sending people in one by one, and several days had dragged by with no progress whatsoever. Out of options, she thought of Yang Huaijun's recommendation, and with a let's-give-it-a-try attitude, dialed Wei Zhao's number.
To be honest, if Qiu Lingshan had not trusted Yang Huaijun as absolutely as an elder brother, she would never have made this call to Wei Zhao. Because in her eyes, Wei Zhao was merely Gu Mengyao's bodyguard — what great ability could he have?
"Ha..." Wei Zhao gave a faint smile at this — so Qiu Lingshan had come to him after all. "Sure, but you'll have to get me a leave of absence first — I can't exactly skip class every day, can I?"
"Skip class every day? I'm only borrowing you for one day, all right?" Qiu Lingshan was absolutely exasperated. "The classes you skip normally — what does that have to do with me?"
"Yesterday I skipped class because of Brother Jun, today because of you — isn't it all your police team's business?" Wei Zhao said.
"Brother Jun? Captain Yang?" Qiu Lingshan — froze. She had not expected Yang Huaijun to have sought out Wei Zhao yesterday too. Naturally she did not think Wei Zhao was making it up — there was no need for him to lie about such a thing, as one phone call could verify it — so she said, "All right, then I'll talk to your director first."
"Fine, then wait for me at the food street next to the school" — there's hardly anyone there in the morning." Wei Zhao got out of bed, getting ready to dress.
Originally Wei Zhao had planned to go to school with Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu today — after all, he had missed class for days on end because of one thing or another. Wang Zhifeng would not say anything, but he was still a student, and he could not keep making himself a special case, could he?
The dishes from last night had been hardly touched by Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu. Wei Zhao glanced over — he was too embarrassed to eat them — he would just leave them for the two of them. In a bit he would go mooch a meal off Qiu Lingshan; she wanted his help, so surely she would not begrudge him one meal?
In fact, even if Qiu Lingshan had not come to him, Wei Zhao had wanted to dig out those kidnappers from that day. No other reason — since he had already torn off all pretense with Li Cihua, there was no need to keep indulging him; better to deal with these small fry first and worry about the rest later.
Leaving a note for Gu Mengyao telling her that he had more business to attend to today, Wei Zhao drove out in Shen Yushu's yellow Beetle. He wondered whether Uncle Qing had gotten his driver's license back yet; if he had known, he would have had Yang Huaijun take care of it directly — Uncle Qing still had to go around pulling a few strings.