Chapter Eighty-Four: Han Ning Is Attacked

“No, no, I’m not getting mixed up with the underworld!”

Yang Jiekai shook his head so hard it was like a rattle drum. After returning to China, all he wanted was an ordinary life; asking him to join the criminal world was utterly impossible.

After thinking it over for a while, Yang Jiekai still decided to give up. He could no longer keep the private detective agency running. He might as well find somewhere to work as a humble security guard, wait until his wife made her fortune one day, then divorce her, claim a share of the assets, and quietly retreat to some secluded place to live a small, peaceful life.

China had always been regarded as a forbidden land for mercenaries. The Chinese government took an uncompromising zero-tolerance stance on this matter; once anyone dared to enter China with weapons, the outcome would be catastrophic.

Yet China was also one of the most stable countries in the world, and many mercenaries, after hanging up their guns for good, chose to live in seclusion there. Yang Jiekai knew of several such people, though he had no idea where they were.

Just as he stepped out of Dragon Palace Bar, his phone rang. It was Wang Ma.

“Aunt Wang, I’ll be back right away for dinner.”

“Son-in-law, hurry to the hospital. Something’s happened to Miss.” Her voice on the other end was nearly in tears.

“What!” Yang Jiekai jerked upright. “Which hospital? I’m coming right now!”

He drove like the wind all the way there, his heart clenched as though a vice were closing around it. Even he himself did not know why he had been so terrified upon hearing that something had happened to Han Ning.

Perhaps he had never realized that, over the long time they had spent together, his feelings for Han Ning had quietly and subtly changed.

By the time he arrived in a frenzy at the hospital, Han Ning was already lying in bed with an oxygen mask on, unconscious.

“Han Ning!” The sight struck Yang Jiekai like a knife driven hard into his heart.

“Son-in-law!” Wang Ma wiped at her tears. “Thank heaven, Miss is out of immediate danger now. The doctor said she’ll be fine after she sleeps.”

“What happened?” Hearing that Han Ning was not in mortal danger, Yang Jiekai finally let out a breath.

Wang Ma’s eyes were red. “When Miss was getting off work today, a huge truck suddenly hit her. Luckily she kept her life, but she was badly hurt.”

“A truck?” Yang Jiekai frowned. Han Ning had always been careful behind the wheel. How could she have gotten into a crash?

At that moment, Han Wei, standing nearby, said, “I think that truck was intentional. I was driving right behind my sister’s car. When the light turned red, the truck beside us suddenly swung around and rammed into her!”

“Did you call the police?” Yang Jiekai asked.

“The truck driver was taken away by the police. I don’t know what’s happened to him now.”

Yang Jiekai’s brow furrowed. He took his phone and stepped outside the ward, dialing a number. “Wang Ying, my wife was hit by someone. Do you know anything about this case?”

Wang Ying’s voice came through the line. “I know. I’m handling it now. The truck driver insists he simply dozed off and ran into her.”

“That’s pure nonsense!”

Yang Jiekai exploded with profanity. “You can’t sideswipe someone from the side just because you were nodding off. It was clearly deliberate!”

“We think there’s something suspicious about it too, but the truck driver keeps insisting it was an accident, and there’s nothing we can do. At most, we can charge him with traffic manslaughter.”

After hanging up, Yang Jiekai’s frown deepened. He called Long Xiaoman next and asked whether this might have been Wu the Blind Man’s doing.

Long Xiaoman said that was impossible. Since Yang Jiekai had already chosen to back down, Wu the Blind Man had no reason to go that far. Still, someone had definitely ordered it. A truck driver taking money from someone else, then going in to serve a few years for it—that sort of thing was common on the streets.

“Help me look into it. Tell me the moment you find anything!”

Yang Jiekai slammed the phone shut. This time, he was truly enraged.

When he returned to the ward, he asked Han Wei whether Han Ning had offended anyone.

Han Wei’s eyes were also red. After thinking for a moment, she said, “My sister is in business. It’s unavoidable that she offends people, but not to the point of wanting to kill her. If she hadn’t been lucky today and reacted in time by yanking the steering wheel hard, she might have lost her life.”

After being unconscious for a little over two hours, Han Ning finally woke up. “Wang Ma, water...”

Her lips were cracked and dry. Before Wang Ma could move, Yang Jiekai hurriedly poured a cup of warm water. Since Han Ning’s back was injured and she couldn’t sit up, he could only feed it to her one spoonful at a time.

“Wife, do you know who did this?” Yang Jiekai kept his emotions under control as best he could and asked softly.

Han Ning weakly shook her head.

Just then, Yang Jiekai’s phone rang abruptly. It was Long Xiaoman.

“I found it. It was a woman named Han Chunhua who hired someone to do it!”

Long Xiaoman was efficient; in just over two hours, she had found the culprit. That did not mean the police in China were incompetent, only that certain things were known better by people from the underworld.

But Yang Jiekai had no intention of calling the police. As long as the truck driver refused to talk, there would be no evidence proving who the mastermind was. So this matter would have to be dealt with by his own hand.

“Aunt Wang, stay here with Han Ning. I’m going out for a bit. Let me know immediately if anything happens.”

After leaving the hospital, Yang Jiekai ground his teeth in fury. At that moment, Long Xiaoman called again. “Han Chunhua is eating at a restaurant right now. I’ve already got people watching the place.”

Yang Jiekai smiled coldly. “Good. I’ll come right over. Keep her pinned down.”

Han Chunhua was the fat woman who, when Yang Jiekai had first entered the Han household, had fought against Second Master Han for her own interests and ended up with one of her legs broken. He had not expected her to cling to vengeance so stubbornly that she would now strike at Han Ning.

At first, Yang Jiekai had intended to handle this alone. But when he saw Long Xiaoman arrive with more than a dozen people to back him up, he instantly felt delighted.

“I can handle this myself. There’s no need to make such a big scene.”

Long Xiaoman arched a brow. “I can’t help you with other things, but kidnapping people is my old trade.”

If he wanted Han Chunhua’s life, it would be easy for Yang Jiekai; he could simply kill her on the spot. But this was China, and he had not yet been driven to the point of shattering everything and making a huge mess.

Fortunately, Han Ning was not in mortal danger. If anything had happened to her, Yang Jiekai would not have bothered with so much trouble. He would have rushed in and torn Han Chunhua into pieces.

After waiting near the restaurant for a little over an hour, he finally saw Han Chunhua walk out, surrounded by more than a dozen bodyguards.

“She’s even got her legs fixed now. Fine, we’ll make sure they’re broken again in a little while.”

“We’ll take a drive first. I guarantee we’ll bring her to you shortly.”

Saying that, Long Xiaoman personally got behind the wheel and drove Yang Jiekai toward the outskirts of the city.

“Honestly, I could have handled this myself.” Yang Jiekai felt it was rather embarrassing to keep troubling her.

“You don’t know this,” Long Xiaoman said as she drove, “but this woman hired someone to hurt your wife. If you show up in person, you’ll either kill her outright or leave behind endless trouble.”

“How would that leave endless trouble?” Yang Jiekai looked puzzled.

Long Xiaoman went on, “You really do have a pig’s brain. Even if she did it, we have no evidence. If she calls the police afterward, you’ll be the one in deep trouble.”

“Then aren’t you afraid she’ll come after you later?” Yang Jiekai asked.

Long Xiaoman gave a cold laugh. “I’m not showing my face either. Just wait and enjoy the show.”

The two of them parked beside an abandoned building on the outskirts.

After about half an hour, a white van drove up. A person got out and said, “Sister Long, the person is here.”

Long Xiaoman nodded and turned to Yang Jiekai. “How do you want to handle her?”

Yang Jiekai sneered. “I’ll do it myself.”

As he spoke, he was about to get out of the car.

“Wait!”

Long Xiaoman stopped him. “Aren’t you afraid she’ll recognize you and come after you later?”

Yang Jiekai smiled, then lightly tapped her on the head. “You’ve already done enough for me. I can’t drag you into this.”

Although Yang Jiekai did not know the Chinese underworld very well, he was not stupid. Long Xiaoman could only be counted as a small outfit, not even enough to truly be called a gang.

But Han Chunhua controlled assets worth hundreds of millions. Since Long Xiaoman had been able to find out that Han Ning was harmed by hired hands, Han Chunhua would surely be able to trace it back to Long Xiaoman as well. By then, Long Xiaoman and her people would likely face a devastating calamity.

Han Chunhua had been stuffed into a burlap sack. Yang Jiekai lifted the nearly two-hundred-pound sack with one hand and carried it upstairs, then tossed it casually onto the floor and told someone nearby to open it.

Han Chunhua was tightly bound and gagged, emitting muffled cries from within.

Yang Jiekai stepped forward, ripped the cloth out of her mouth, and Han Chunhua recognized him at once. She immediately cursed, “Yang Jiekai, what do you want!”

Yang Jiekai gave a cold smile. “To help my wife get a little justice.”

Han Chunhua denied it outright. “What proof do you have? Why would you say it was me?”

Yang Jiekai smiled, picked up half a brick from the floor, weighed it in his hand, and said, “This is proof.”

With that, he walked toward her step by step.

Han Chunhua’s face turned livid with fear, the flesh on her cheeks trembling as she hurriedly said, “It really has nothing to do with me.”

Yang Jiekai let out a faint sigh, walked over, and crouched beside her, still holding the brick. “I’ll ask you one last time. Was it you who hired someone to hurt Han Ning?”

“It really wasn’t me!” Han Chunhua still refused to confess.

Yang Jiekai smiled coldly and suddenly brought the brick down hard on her knee. There was a sharp crack as the kneecap was shattered outright.

He reached out and pressed a point near Han Chunhua’s temple. It was an acupoint used to prevent fainting. He had done his share of torture in the mercenary world before, and this sort of thing came to him as naturally as breathing.

Han Chunhua let out a pig-slaughtering scream. Yang Jiekai pointed to her other kneecap and said, “I’ll ask again. Was it you?”