Chapter 22: Who dares to move

Lin Yiwei ran towards the south gate nearest to the art academy, calling Ye Anning as she hurried along.

Ye Anning deliberately hung up several times, but Lin Yiwei persisted in calling her back.

Finally, the call connected and an impatient voice came through—

“Lin Yiwei, what on earth do you want? I told you I want to break off our friendship. Stop calling me!”

“Where are you?” Lin Yiwei asked, breathlessly. “Tell me, where are you?”

“Why do you care? I told you we’re through! Xie Bo also said you’re not a good girl and told me to stay away from you!”

Lin Yiwei, hearing the loud background music, alertly asked, “Are you at a bar?”

“Yeah, I’m at a small tavern, hanging out with some new friends I’ve met,” Ye Anning boasted as if to show off, “I have new friends too, Lin Yiwei. You’re not the only friend I have! You’re not important at all!”

“Anning, tell me the name of the bar.”

“Why?”

“I’ll come to you and apologize in person, okay?”

Ye Anning hesitated, “Who needs your apology? I don’t want to see you. Don’t contact me anymore.”

“If you don’t want to see me, that’s fine,” Lin Yiwei said urgently. “Listen, stop drinking and leave the bar now. Don’t go back to school, go home.”

“You’re not the boss of me! Even my dad doesn’t tell me what to do this much!”

“Ye Anning, if you don’t want to die, listen to me!”

Ye Anning was stunned by her sudden sharp scolding, “What… what do you mean?”

“Chi Xiyu has hired people to harm you, tonight. Be careful.”

“She… why would she want to harm me?” Ye Anning’s voice became tentative. “I don’t even know her.”

“Why do you think? What else could it be?”

“I’ll go home right away,” Ye Anning, easily persuaded and trusting, immediately left the dance floor, grabbed her bag from the booth, and hurriedly left.

“Anning, you’re leaving just like that?”

“Aren’t you going to stay and play a bit longer?”

“Have one more drink!”

Seeing the newly met “friends” and their ingratiating smiles suddenly seemed sinister to her.

“I… I still have something to do, I’m going back first!”

“Don’t go!” A girl grabbed Ye Anning’s arm. “Hang out with us a bit longer, it’s only just past nine! Have another drink, it’s still early!”

She pushed a cocktail towards Ye Anning’s lips, seemingly intent on getting her drunk.

Ye Anning, overwhelmed by the strong perfume of the girl and feeling nauseated and dizzy, insisted, “I need to go back!”

“Just stay a little longer.”

Ye Anning broke free from the girl’s grasp and hurriedly ran out of the private room.

The girl gave a knowing look to a boy nearby: “Tell Mr. Chi she’s leaving, have someone block the exit.”

Ye Anning, panic-stricken, ran towards the bar’s main door only to find two men standing at the exit, scrutinizing each outgoing girl, apparently searching for someone.

Her sixth sense told her these were Chi Xicheng’s men.

Ye Anning ducked back into the crowded dance floor, trembling as she called Lin Yiwei: “Wei Wei, I… I’m at Bai Yin Club. It’s true, Chi Xicheng seems to have sent people looking for me. I’m really scared, I can’t get out. What should I do?”

On the other end of the phone, Lin Yiwei was already in a taxi: “I’m coming now.”

Ye Anning’s voice trembled with fear: “I’m so scared, my legs are shaking, I can’t walk…”

Lin Yiwei, experienced in dealing with such incidents, spoke in a low, calm voice: “Don’t panic, the more panicked you are, the more likely you’ll slip up. Go hide in a stall in the women’s restroom and don’t come out.”

“Okay… don’t hang up, let’s keep talking.”

“Alright, I won’t hang up, now go.”

Ye Anning squeezed through the crowd and staggered into the women’s restroom, locking herself in a stall and finally letting out a sigh of relief.

“Are you hidden?”

“Yes! I… I’ve hidden myself.”

“Shh, from now on, don’t talk anymore.”

Ye Anning covered her mouth.

Voices of her “new friends” occasionally reached her from outside; they were searching for her, checking the women’s restroom repeatedly.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know, maybe she ran off.”

“That’s impossible, someone’s watching the exit, she can’t have escaped.”

“That’s for the best. If Mr. Chi doesn’t see her, you’re in trouble!”

Ye Anning’s heart was pounding, her legs shaking uncontrollably as she leaned against the wall, barely able to stand.

About twenty minutes later, Lin Yiwei’s voice came from outside the stall: “Anning, where are you?”

“I’m here!” Ye Anning, relieved as if she had seen a savior, quickly opened the stall door.

Lin Yiwei slipped in like a fish, carefully locking the door behind her.

Ye Anning hugged her, sobbing in fear.

She was terrified, having never encountered such a situation before.

Lin Yiwei put her finger to her lips, signaling silence, urging her not to make any noise.

Outside, a lazy, husky voice of an older woman sounded: “Ye Anning, I know you’re in the restroom. How long can you hide? Just come out, Mr. Chi just wants to meet you, to talk. It won’t be bad, come out soon so we can all wrap this up! It’s tedious to keep this up.”

Ye Anning, gripped by panic, clutched Lin Yiwei’s hand, her tears muffled, her body trembling with nerves.

Lin Yiwei whispered into her ear, suggesting, “Let’s swap clothes. I’ll go out first to draw them away, and you leave in my clothes.”

The two did look somewhat alike, and though Lin Yiwei was slightly slimmer than Ye Anning, it wouldn’t be noticeable once dressed.

Ye Anning was in such a panic that she had no idea what to do and simply did whatever Lin Yiwei said. She took off her black off-shoulder cocktail dress and put on Lin Yiwei’s milk tea-colored sweatshirt and jeans. After changing, Lin Yiwei let down Ye Anning’s originally tied-up bun, fluffed her hair to make it messy and hung some strands beside her face to cover her cheeks, while she herself tied her hair into a bun. This switch in appearance made them hardly distinguishable at a cursory glance.

Lin Yiwei unlocked the door to the partition, and only then did Ye Anning belatedly realize that Lin was going to draw those people away by pretending to be her. She quickly grabbed Lin’s wrist, looking at her urgently and shaking her head repeatedly.

“Don’t be afraid,” Lin whispered, “They won’t recognize you. Just be careful when you go out and head straight home by taxi.”

“How… how do you know Chi Xicheng is looking for me?”

Lin Yiwei paused for a moment and honestly replied, “I was sent by Chi Xiyu to be by your side. She hopes you’ll stop bothering Xie Bo.”

“You are from Chi Xiyu’s side, then… why would you help me? Aren’t you afraid she’ll be angry?”

Lin Yiwei gently stroked her fair and plump cheeks, saying, “I dream… of being a girl like you, affluent, innocent, naive.” She gave a bitter smile, “Take care of yourself.”

Then, she ran out of the restroom compartment. Chi Xicheng’s men were waiting at the entrance of the women’s restroom. Seeing “Ye Anning” come out, they quickly approached her—

“An An, I told you you’d have to come out eventually. Young Master Chi invites you to sit in his private room; don’t run away again, obey me.”

Lin Yiwei pretended to follow them; in the dim corridor, she slipped away at the first chance, even knocking over a floor sculpture to block their way. The men hurried after her.

“Stop running, Miss Ye, you can’t escape!”

Listening to the silence outside the door, Ye Anning covered her head with the hoodie and walked out of the restroom with her hands in her pockets. Indeed, after the costume change, no one noticed her. She hurriedly left the Bai Yin Club; two of Chi Xicheng’s men were there, including his assistant Yun Hui. However, they thought Ye Anning was wearing a black dress, so they did not recognize the girl in the sweatshirt, allowing her to leave the club smoothly. Ye Anning hailed a taxi on the roadside and finally breathed a sigh of relief. Thinking of Lin Yiwei, she became extremely anxious and called her several times without answer. Since Lin Yiwei was one of Chi Xi’s people, Chi Xicheng should not harm her. Why worry about her? She was originally… originally meant to harm her. Ye Anning was very conflicted inside, thinking about how Lin Yiwei had said she dreamed of being a girl like her… And now, she had taken her place to face everything. After hesitating for a few seconds, her trembling hand dialed Xie Bo’s phone.

Xie Bo was drifting through a curve, his dark eyes scanning the lit-up screen on the stand. He usually didn’t take calls during races, even more so from Ye Anning, dismissing her multiple times. Until he saw the text message from Ye Anning—

“Chi Xicheng wants to meet me. Weiwei switched clothes with me and got caught at the Bai Yin’s Club. I don’t know what to do, Xie Bo, I’m really scared she might be in danger…”

Her message was jumbled, clearly in a panic.

Xie Bo, upon reading about Chi Xicheng and Lin Yiwei, felt as if his heart was suspended by a thread over a razor’s edge. The events of that night… he absolutely could not tolerate them happening a second time. If she were violated, Xie Bo felt he might truly kill Chi Xicheng.

The sharp screeching of tires as his sports car turned around, racing towards the Bai Yin Club…

“How could she run away!” In the private room, Chi Xicheng couldn’t contain his anger, “So many people, and they can’t even catch a little girl?”

Yun Hui awkwardly said, “Who knew this girl would risk her life, several people watched as she jumped from the second-floor window.”

“Damn!” Chi Xicheng frowned, “Don’t let it turn into a fatality!”

“No, no, we went downstairs to look, she should still be able to move, she’s already run away… definitely fine.”

“This Miss Ye of the Ye family, she’s so tough?” Chi Xicheng was secretly shocked, grateful that no lives were lost, and that there were no major injuries, as he would have a hard time explaining it to the Ye family if there were. “Go check if she’s alright!”

“Okay!”

As Yun Hui just stepped out of the private room, he was suddenly kicked back inside, crashing into the sofa, unable to straighten up from the pain. Chi Xicheng abruptly stood up, only to see Xie Bo, emanating an icy chill, walk in. Just about to run, Xie Bo grabbed his head and smashed it hard against the wall. The action was rough and full of menace.

Chi Xicheng’s head spun as he shouted to the people around him, “What are you standing around for! Damn!”

Several men at his side thought of rushing up, but Xie Bo coldly swept them with a glance and said in a deep voice, “Try moving, see what happens.”

No one did not know Xie Bo; his methods were far more ruthless than Chi Xi Cheng’s. Besides, he was from the Xie family, and they dared not offend him lightly. Hesitating, no one dared to step forward.

“My person,” Xie Bo demanded, clutching Chi Xicheng’s hair and pressing him against the wall, “hand her over.”

“I didn’t fucking catch her! That Ye woman, she’s tough, she just fucking jumped out the second-floor window and ran off!”

Lin Yiwei jumped from the second-floor window. Fortunately, it wasn’t too high. The bushes in the garden below cushioned much of her fall. Aside from some cuts on her hands and cheeks from the bushes, and a slightly sprained right leg, she was largely unharmed. Limping with her injured leg, she made her way to the roadside and hailed a taxi.”Where to?” the driver asked, turning back.Lin Yiwei thought it over; she couldn’t return to school. Wearing Ye Anning’s clothes and looking so disheveled, Chi Xi Yu living right across her in the dorm would definitely notice something was off. If she knew that Lin Yiwei had helped Ye Anning tonight… it would all be over. But if not the school, where could she go?Her aunt’s house… Forget it, after being tricked by Su Andi into going to Bai Yin Clubhouse and the fallout that followed, Lin Yiwei hadn’t been back to her aunt’s house since.”Where to?” the driver asked again.Lin Yiwei turned back and saw Yun Hui and others coming out of Bai Yin Clubhouse, searching for her on the street. Panicking, she blurted out two words— “Ramon Apartments.”