WMSR — QT Chapter 79

Chapter 79

Having successfully breached the first layer of obstacles, Qiao Qianqian led her entourage straight to the villa she had been monitoring for so long. The moment she laid eyes on the property's exterior, she spotted an eerie anomaly: the greenery within the courtyard was planted with suffocating, oppressive density, leaving virtually zero aesthetic breathing room—if one had to choose an apt description, it could only be completely sealed off without a single leak.

Qiao Qianqian tilted her head, signaling the bodyguards in tow to press the doorbell. Of course, she harbored zero intention of breaking in via peaceful diplomatic means; having conducted exhaustive reconnaissance on this villa, she had rolled out fully prepared with an ample reinforcement of personnel.

Inside the safehouse, Fang Ruoming maintained his post directly beside Bai Yichen. Due to the suddenness of the operational timeline, compounded by the extra bodyguards Xu Jiangzhe had recently stationed around the property, Fang Ruoming had lacked an opportunity to tip Bai Yichen off that the rescue would initiate today. No matter—he would remain steadfastly by his side throughout.

Very soon now—he was on the cusp of reclaiming his absolute freedom.

Amidst Fang Ruoming's quiet vigil, a sudden, thunderous crash erupted from downstairs, instantly followed by a chaotic wave of commotion. Fang Ruoming's brow twitched sharply as his eyes instinctively flicked toward the battered, old-fashioned watch strapped to his wrist: What on earth is happening? Why did the operation trigger ten minutes early?

Down in the main hall, the bodyguards previously assigned to secure the villa lay sprawled across the floor in scattered disarray. The property management general manager, who had rushed over hoping to respectfully pander to visitors, stood paralyzed in utter shell-shock, caught in a deadlock where intervening felt suicidal and turning a blind eye felt treacherous.

One of the dazed bodyguards sprawled across the hall managed a careful, agonizing crawl behind a row of sofas. Using the furniture as cover, while clutching his throbbing, bruised chest, he whipped out his mobile phone to frantically dial his employer: "Director Xu, Miss Qiao... she has forced her way inside with a squad of men..."

Hearing the commotions echoing from below, the guard stationed upstairs in the second-floor hallway snapped to attention. He shot a wary glance toward Fang Ruoming inside the room, ultimately judging that whatever unknown threat brewed downstairs carried far greater peril than this familiar, docile caregiver. He pivoted to step outside and investigate; yet barely seconds after crossing the threshold, a muffled gasp escaped his lips, followed instantaneously by a rapid, rolling surge of heavy footsteps.

By this juncture, Fang Ruoming sensed that a profound, critical anomaly was unfolding. Staring toward the doorway where an invisible danger loomed, he instinctively planted his body directly in front of Bai Yichen's wheelchair.

The next second, Qiao Qianqian swept into the chamber, flanked by a cluster of fierce bodyguards. Stiding across the threshold, she cast a fleeting, dismissive sweep over the rustic, drab-looking figure shielding the wheelchair, instantly snapping her laser-focused glare straight onto the seated man behind him.

If her deductions were accurate, this was the exact target she had hunted.

Stepping forward, Qiao Qianqian watched as her bodyguards aggressively shoved Fang Ruoming aside, exposing Bai Yichen fully to her line of sight.

A man...

The microsecond she locked eyes on Bai Yichen's breathtaking visage, Qiao Qianqian's complexion cycled violently between pale ash and dark green. To say she had entertained a myriad of hypotheses prior to storming the compound would be an understatement; yet a male lover was a contingency she had never once conceptualized.

As her gaze traced the exquisite, indescribably alluring features of the man seated in the wheelchair, an overwhelming surge of suffocating fury metastasized deep within her chest. A searing, white-hot sense of humiliation bloomed in her veins, driving her elaborately manicured fingernails deep into the flesh of her palms.

A man—so this was the grand, closely guarded secret Xu Jiangzhe had gone to such monumental lengths to conceal?

Heh. No wonder Xu Jiangzhe treated her with such callous, perfunctory indifference; his true sexual appetite was fixed entirely on men!

Right at that exact juncture, the phone resting in Qiao Qianqian's handbag erupted into a frantic, high-pitched shriek—the distinct, customized ringtone she had exclusively assigned to Xu Jiangzhe. That aggressive, insistent clamor only poured gallons of gasoline onto the bonfire of her rage.

Snatching the device from her bag, she savagely swiped to accept the call. The very next instant, Xu Jiangzhe's voice blasted across the receiver—stripped entirely of its habitual composure, vibrating with a terrifying, apocalyptic register of raw fury: "Qiao Qianqian, have you lost your absolute mind?"

A glacial, mirthless smile cracked across Qiao Qianqian's face: "Have I lost my mind? You're the one who belongs in an asylum! How dare you treat me like a fool and play me for laughs? I promise you, you're going to pay a catastrophic price for this."

Without granting him a second of rebuttal, Qiao Qianqian resolutely smashed her thumb down to sever the call, leaving the phone to shriek with unanswered, manic urgency while ignoring it entirely. Pivoting her gaze back to the wheelchair-bound kept toy belonging to Xu Jiangzhe, her eyes narrowed into dangerous, venomous slits. While her fury toward Xu Jiangzhe burned hot, she harbored zero fragments of charity for this accomplice who had conspired to make a fool of her.

Sweeping her eyes up and down over the fragile, immobilized figure seated before her, she curled her lips into a razor-sharp, vicious sneer: "What, is he a cripple? Never imagined that even cripples had sunk this low and become so desperately insatiably thirsty. Exactly how wide do you spread those useless, dead legs to service men in bed?"

Emboldened by her own venom, Qiao Qianqian impulsively thrust out a foot, attempting to deliver a malicious kick directly against the seemingly paralyzed limbs resting on the footrests. Yet the microsecond her shoe twitched forward, a sudden, violent force slammed into her, knocking her clean off her feet and crashing her hard onto the floorboards.

"You—!" Stunned and disoriented by the sudden counter-attack, Qiao Qianqian blinked in absolute bewilderment. Lurching upward with a humiliated gasp, she discovered that the entity who had violently shoved her to the ground was none other than the rustic, subservient caregiver she had written off as a complete non-entity moments prior. Enraged beyond reason, she shrieked at the top of her lungs: "Somebody! Grab this bastard right now!"

Yet zero compliance answered her command; absolute silence blanketed the room. Just as a creeping prickle of unease tickled her spine, the man who had shoved her—wearing his heavy, old-fashioned black-rimmed glasses, his cascading bangs shrouding the upper half of his face—slowly straightened, leaning down over her trembling form to deliver a voice cut from glacial ice: "You should consider yourself profoundly blessed that my personal code strictly prohibits me from ever hitting women."

Truthfully, he had never felt such an overpowering, homicidal urge to strike a woman in his entire life.

Staring up into Fang Ruoming's obscured face, Qiao Qianqian shivered violently from head to toe. Though the thick lenses shielded his eyes from view, an oppressive aura of extreme, lethal peril radiated outward in suffocating waves. Panicking, she whipped her head around to summon her bodyguards—only to freeze dead in her tracks, her breath catching in her throat. The elite detail she had brought along had already been systematically bound and neutralized by an invading force.

"Tie every single one of them up securely. As for her—bind her extra tight."

Fang Ruoming's cold directives were executed with terrifying, military precision. Within moments, Qiao Qianqian and her retinue had gagged rolls of fabric jammed firmly between their teeth and were bound tightly with industrial cordage. Specifically, Qiao Qianqian's bindings were knotted with merciless severity; that brutal, agonizing pressure resembling a medieval torture device reduced the pampered high-society heiress to a helpless mess of streaming tears within mere minutes.