Release that Man

When Yao Zhixing gave the address, Ye Shuang had felt it sound very familiar. When she arrived, she realized the place was truly familiar.

It was a 24-hour barbeque shop on the left corner of the street. Business was nice, and it provided barbeque seafood and porridge in the morning and barbeque buffet at night. Yes, it was where the group of racers had been enjoying their supper when Yao Zhixing’s car was robbed.

Ye Shuang managed to locate Yao Zhixing in one glance. She walked over to his table and knocked on it lightly. Yao Zhixing pulled his gaze away from the streets to look at Ye Shuang with confusion.

“Brother Yao?” Ye Shuang sat. Even though she had recognized the man, she still pretended this was their first meeting, which in a way was true.

“…Ye Shuang?” Yao Zhixing inquired hesitatingly. After the girl nodded, he looked at her with some interest. “How did you know I’m Yao Zhixing?”

Naturally, Ye Shuang could not say because she had met him before as Brother Shuang. She thought about it and said, “Because of your little habits?”

Yao Zhixing raised his brow as if signaling for Ye Shuang to explain herself, and she obliged. “Since car racers have the tendency to pursue the upper limit of speed, they don’t use the clutch as often as normal drivers. For the most part, their right leg operates the brake and oil at the same time. Even though ‘heel-and-toe’ is the basic of racing, to be able to train this skill until it becomes part of their habit is rare. I noticed how you unconsciously wiggle your feet. Normally, people move their leg up and down, but yours moves left and right in a fan shape…”

And is so much faster than most.

The overly detailed explanation that incidentally exposed the man’s unsavory habit caused Yao Zhixing to cough awkwardly. “Fine, I understand! You’re right.”

Ye Shuang then realized the social faux-pas and quickly tried to salvage the situation. “But your habit is only limited to your right leg. Since your left leg is only responsible for the clutch, it doesn’t suffer from this habit. Next time, you can wiggle your left leg, and no one would find out.”

Yao Zhixing felt even more awkward. Can we please move away from the topic of my legs‽

…

If Ye Shuang was just a normal girl, Yao Zhixing would have been his normal self, but being in the company of a beautiful member of the opposite sex, even if the man had no special interest in the woman, he would unconsciously try to leave a good impression.

Or if Ye Shuang was just a normal citizen, Yao Zhixing probably would not have given her any thought; after all, if the circles that they ran in was too different, no amount of beauty was going to make up for that distance. Why would he care about someone whom he was sure did not understand his perspective and would not meet again‽

However, the person who sat before Yao Zhixing was a beauty, and on top of that, she understood a thing or two about racing. Additionally, she was in Han Chu’s group of talent and had a racer boyfriend. In conclusion, Yao Zhixing treated Ye Shuang better than how he would normally treat a stranger.

To shift the awkward topic away, Yao Zhixing turned to grab an envelope out from the bag that hung from the back of his chair. “The letter of recommendation you wanted.”

Ye Shuang accepted it. Finally, she had collected all three letters of recommendation and she sighed in relief. “Brother Yao, thank you.”

Yao Zhixing merely shrugged. Ye Shuang was about to leave when she realized that Yao Zhixing had been staring at the same spot outside the shop. Compelled by curiosity, she also turned to look and realized why Yao Zhixing was called a local millionaire. In just two days, all the parts of his car had been replaced. Parked at the secluded corner of the street was Yao Zhixing’s race car that had been hijacked last time.

Ye Shuang hesitated before saying, “Brother Yao, I feel like you’d better move your car elsewhere or have your lunch someplace else… I hear the car thieves in this area are very rabid; a few citizens have fallen victim to them already.”

Ye Shuang did hear from the community grapevine that after Yao Zhixing’s car was stolen, another few local car owners had been victimized. This street was a rather famous night market street. Other than tourists, the types of individuals that populated this street the most were beggars and thieves. Yao Zhixing was not the first nor the last to have suffered such a fate, but he had definitely suffered the most damage to both his face and his wallet.

There were much easier cars to enter that night, but the thieves had purposely chosen Yao Zhixing’s car and had even taken away his steering wheel. It did seem like the group of thieves had some hatred toward the rich…

Yao Zhixing hissed through gritted teeth, “That’s what I’m waiting for!”

Ye Shuang was confused, and it showed on her face. Yao Zhixing thought about it and believed that Brother Shuang would probably have told his partner about his misfortune, so he lowered his voice to explain. “I’m waiting for the earlier car thief to show up. Damn the f*ckers who dared come after me… Whoops, I didn’t mean to swear in front of you.”

Ye Shuang did not mind it one bit. She had a little brother of her own, so she was used to guys swearing. Hell, most girls nowadays had a habit of swearing.

However, what Yao Zhixing said did remind Ye Shuang of some rumors that she had heard earlier. According to legend, when he was fifteen, Yao Zhixing had been mugged on the street. Instead of calling the police, he had given chase to the mugger and beat the person into pulp. However, that was not all; he interrogated the mugger for the location of his den and called his group of buddies to ransack the place. No one had ever seen a victim act in such a manner before. Normal people would let the mugger go; after all, it was just a small amount of money that was lost.

So, the mugger was unfortunate for having targeted a weird fellow like Yao Zhixing. The gang leader had wanted to surrender their treasure as sign of apology, but Yao Zhixing had refused. After getting beaten up, they had all been hauled to the police station, suffering damage to both the physique and the soul. The Yao family was even awarded a medal of honor thanks to this incident.

Ye Shuang silently lamented the fate of Yao Zhixing’s parents for about half a minute. Since she knew that Yao Zhixing planned to re-enact the incident that happened so many years ago, Ye Shuang excused herself immediately. After all, she did not want to get dragged into this mess.

“Then, I shall…” Before she could finish, Yao Zhixing suddenly jumped up from his seat. His action was so sudden and rash that he knocked the table back several feet. The loud noise stopped Ye Shuang’s words.

“The bastard finally shows himself!” Yao Zhixing dropped that sentence before rushing out of the shop. When he blasted past the waiter, he scared the poor young man. “F*ck! Not going to pay after the meal‽”

Before Ye Shuang arrived, Yao Zhixing had been waiting in that shop for hours. He had occupied the table waiting for the thief to arrive, but the waiters of the shop had assumed that he was looking for the perfect opening to run away without paying. The waiters and cashier had thus been paying close attention to this customer secretly. When he saw Yao Zhixing really did run away, he unconsciously turned to swearing… The young waiter whipped his head around to the table that Yao Zhixing had occupied, and it was then that he saw Ye Shuang standing there, and he was even more angered. “What‽ He abandoned his girlfriend to shoulder the bill?”

Ye Shuang just rolled her eyes.

Out on the street, there was a salaryman in a suit talking on his phone with his head lowered while standing beside Yao Zhixing’s race car. He looked unsuspicious on the surface, but if one look closer, one would find that the man was acting rather curiously.

The man first turned toward the race car, and then, as if arguing with the person on the phone, he slapped the top of the car twice before moving to lean against it. With his elbow on the top of the car, his arm and fingers slid down the window and started to do their magic. Plastic covers, rope, iron wires, the technique for car rigging nowadays had improved as well. A well-trained car thief could get their target in less than five seconds.

Yao Zhixing’s race car was too big of a lure. The man’s earlier action of slapping the car was probably to see whether the car owner was around and whether the car came with an alarm. If either of those had happened, he would have wandered off, pretending to be a general passer-by.

Yao Zhixing was a man of patience. After he ran out of the shop, he slowed into a jog while moving toward his car. The man was also quite a good actor. On the surface, it only looked like he was someone rushing somewhere because Yao Zhixing kept his eyes away from his car to not rouse the thief’s suspicious. When the thief was bending into Yao Zhixing’s car, the latter kicked him into the car from behind before jumping in himself. The first greeting was several punches to the face.

“Wait, wait… Wait!” A jab headed right for the man’s face, and two front teeth fell out of his mouth.

Yao Zhixing did not react to the man’s pleas and continued to rain punches on the man. The man was scared out of his wits seeing Yao Zhixing in this state. He quickly raised his arms to shield his face. While suffering the hail of punches, he cried, “Boss, forgive me. I shouldn’t have targeted your car! Please forgive me just this once! I will not do it again! I’ll pay you for the damages, both to the car and your spiritual loss!”

Brother Yao had no interest in compensation. What he had lost was something that could not be purchased with money… Face!

Especially in front of so many of his minions…

The humiliation he had felt that night could not be undone, but beating the culprit up was a good place to start.

Ye Shuang looked at the car thief with pity. However, all she hoped for then was for Brother Yao to come back to pay his bill after beating up the poor guy, or else her wallet would really cry.

Ye Shuang waited patiently for the beating to wrap up when she spotted something wrong. She looked closer and noted further down the street, a few men shared a look before moving toward Yao Zhixing’s race car together.