Chapter 2367 — Blinded by Panic
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
This was the only man in her life, and the man she hated most! Drunk and lustful, he had brought Chen Xi and her mother so many years of hardship! How hard it was for a woman to raise a child all alone?
"Xiaoxi, she... ah, it's a long story!" Zhao Guangyin sighed, putting on a show of helpless lament. He was playing the part of a down-and-out man today, so although he had come in a luxury Mercedes, his entire outfit was ragged and worn—of course, the raggedness was fake.
"What on earth happened to Xiaoxi? Say something!" Mother Chen was losing her composure. Chen Xi was her very life, and now that Zhao Guangyin was hemming and hawing, she instinctively sensed that something was wrong.
"This matter has to start from when I found Xiaoxi..." Zhao Guangyin began to spin his tale. "After I found Xiaoxi, I treated her to a meal, wanting to express the remorse I've felt toward her all these years. But who would have thought that my enemy would track me down—I owed him money... In the end, he simply seized Xiaoxi to settle the debt, saying that the father's debt should be paid by the daughter..."
"What! Xiaoxi was taken?" Mother Chen was stunned, glaring at Zhao Guangyin in fury. At that moment, her worry for her daughter made her dizzy—so dizzy that she forgot to ask how Zhao Guangyin had found Chen Xi, or how he had found this place. Her mind was filled with only one thought: what to do? What was she going to do?
"Yes, there was no other way. I could only come to discuss it with you..." Zhao Guangyin did not want to say another word. Seeing Mother Chen so alarmed, he was delighted; if she had not been frightened, or had not believed him, he would have had to invent piles of nonsense to explain everything back and forth, which would have been truly troublesome. But who would have thought Mother Chen would be so easy to fool—she believed it at once!
"Then what are we to do? You wretch—why did you go looking for Xiaoxi? All these years, you never came to see us, so why look for her now? Aren't you just ruining her?" Mother Chen was beside herself. "What does your enemy want with Xiaoxi?"
"I... well... ah! I just thought, after not seeing her for so many years, I would make it up to Xiaoxi. Who could have known my enemy would show up..." Zhao Guangyin said with a bitter face. "He took Xiaoxi to a casino on the commercial street of Donghai City. I hear he wants to curry favor with some Southeast Asian gambling king named Pu Huotai, and he's preparing to present Xiaoxi to him. I had no way to stop him... ah, it's all my fault for being useless..."
"What..." Mother Chen was struck dumb. A Southeast Asian gambling king, a casino—it all felt so remote from her life, utterly unconnected to her world! And that Southeast Asian gambling king, since he was called a gambling king, must surely be some formidable figure of wealth and power. How could she, an ordinary weak woman, possibly contend with such a person?
She hated Zhao Guangyin to the bone. Why did he have to come now, of all times? It was nothing short of a disaster for her and her daughter!
Just then, Foreman Zhu burst through the door in a fluster, shouting, "Disaster! Disaster! Little Chen—Chen Xi has been taken!"
Foreman Zhu's appearance was of course arranged beforehand, all to make Mother Chen believe it was real! If only Foreman Zhu had appeared, perhaps Mother Chen would not have been so easily convinced—after all, why would anyone seize a little girl who collected scraps?
But with Zhao Guangyin present, it was different. His very appearance threw Mother Chen into confusion, and then the bombshell that Chen Xi had been taken left her floundering, with no chance to doubt or probe whether the matter was true or false!
Foreman Zhu's timely arrival in particular seemed to corroborate Zhao Guangyin's words!
Mother Chen was already at a loss, and now that Foreman Zhu had appeared, telling her that Chen Xi had been taken, she was utterly dumbstruck!