The Marriage Trap

Scattered playing cards lay on the floor, a few having tumbled down without a sound.

"There's a saying that remote and poor areas breed crafty people. The settlement sum has reached such a level for that worthless land! A minor earthquake could knock it down! Yet they still refuse to leave!"

Zhong Shuoxi hung up the phone and urged, "Enough complaints, let's head over there. Jianghan, you better not come along, Aunt Bai will just start trouble if she knows you're involved!"

"It's fine, let's go together!" Shang Jianghan snuffed out the half-finished cigarette in the crystal ashtray.

At that moment, his cellphone in his pocket began to ring.

Shang Jianghan took it out and saw it was a call from Bai Jinyuan.

Pale fingers swiped across the screen.

"Hello!"

"Jianghan! One of my students had an accident at the police station in the Eastern Suburb. I'm on my way there now, you should come too!"

By this time, the three of them had left the private room. Shang Jianghan stopped in his tracks as he took the call.

"What's wrong, Jianghan?" Zhong Shuoxi asked.

Bai Jinyuan had already hung up, and from her voice, it was evident there was urgency.

Shang Jianghan didn't divert his gaze from his phone as he replied, "There's a bit of trouble at school."

The elevator had arrived by that time, and its doors slid open.

Song Yang stepped in swiftly, pressed the open button, and called out.

"What are you doing? Don't dawdle, hurry up!"

Youthful as they were, shielded by their families, they often lacked patience in the face of trouble.

"You go ahead with your matters, I'll call you if anything comes up on this end!"

Zhong Shuoxi and Shang Jianghan entered the elevator, one after the other.

At Bai Ye on the ground floor, Yu Dong had been waiting in the lobby the whole time.

Shang Jianghan had drunk a glass of red wine tonight, so he definitely couldn't drive home himself.

Outside the club, the downpour had eased, losing its fiercest force and slowly diminishing.

Watching Song Yang and Zhong Shuoxi depart in the business car specially dispatched by the hotel, Shang Jianghan then got into his Maybach.

Once in the car, he didn't rush to give a destination but instead sat back in the rear seat, wearily pinching the bridge of his nose.

At that moment, Shang Jianghan's mind was overwhelmed with colliding information.

"The police station in the Eastern Suburb!"

After about two minutes, Shang Jianghan stated the destination.

He was starting to regret agreeing to Bai Jinyuan's request.

In other words, she had hung up before he had the chance to refuse.

The Maybach slowly drove out of Bai Ye's arcade, turning left and soon merging into the curtain of rain.

The downpour was sudden and heavy; the roads were badly flooded, with underpasses being especially hard hit. The car wasn't moving fast.

When Shang Jianghan arrived at the police station in the Eastern Suburb, he saw Bai Jinyuan's white Audi parked nearby as soon as he got out of the car.

As a people's teacher, Bai Jinyuan had always been competent.

Yu Dong handed him an umbrella.

Shang Jianghan lit a cigarette in the rain, watching the brightly lit floor-to-ceiling glass not far away.

At this hour, uniformed officers were still walking back and forth in the station's service hall.

This night, with such heavy rainfall, was doomed to be unsettled.

The swirling smoke drifted into the air, cut off by the rain beneath the black umbrella.

Yu Dong felt that Shang Jianghan was somewhat different tonight; usually quite reserved, but now he seemed unusually constrained.

"Yu Dong, where does the girl live, the one you dropped off last time?"

Yu Dong collected his surprise without a trace and immediately thought of whom Shang Jianghan was referring to.

Because there was only one girl to whom Shang Jianghan had given such an instruction.

"She lives in the civilian alley in the Eastern Suburb."

"Are you certain?"

Yu Dong lowered his head, pondering for a few seconds.

"Yes, the car was stopped before it entered the alley; I saw the girl turn into the alley. That road only leads to the residential alleys of the Eastern Suburb, the old building area that young master Song wants to develop."

Yu Dong's words were precise and to the point.

Having worked alongside Shang Jianghan for so many years, he certainly knew what kind of information the man beside him wanted to obtain.

"Mm."

Shang Jianghan extended his cigarette-holding right hand out of the umbrella, tapping his index finger on the cigarette to knock the ashen grey ashes into a puddle.

After pondering for a moment, his cell phone rang from his pocket.

Shang Jianghan answered it.

Zhong Shuoxi's voice came through from the other side.

"Jianghan, there's nothing major here, we're heading to the hospital. You don't need to come over; we'll talk when we see each other later."

As Zhong Shuoxi spoke, Song Yang's excited voice could be heard in the background.

"To be able to knock down six grown men single-handedly, those are some impressive skills! Once I find out who it is, I'll hire them as my bodyguard with a high salary!..."

Before he could hear the rest, Shang Jianghan was about to hang up when he suddenly remembered something.

"Shuoxi, what is Shen Family's daughter's name?"

A moment of silence.

"Why are you asking that? Oh, I almost forgot you have matters at the school! I think her name is Shen Yueyue, I forgot which character it is exactly. You should ask Xia Tian; he organized it himself!"

After hanging up the phone, Shang Jianghan dropped the remaining half of his cigarette at his feet, snuffing it out with his white leather shoe.

"Wait in the car."

Having said that, Shang Jianghan walked briskly towards the office building.

Soaked through by the rain and exhausted, Shen Chaoxi was shivering all over, huddled on a bench in a corner of the corridor, clutching her knees.

"Where are you hurt, let me see!"

Bai Jinyuan recognized Shen Chaoxi at a glance, still in that black and white striped shirt and light denim jeans, completely drenched.

The girl trembled slightly, her face deathly pale, with injuries on her face, corners of her mouth, and the backs of her hands. Yet her eyes held no trace of fear.

"I'm fine!"

Seeing that it was Bai Jinyuan, Shen Chaoxi visibly relaxed and forced a smile, managing to squeeze out two words.

"Are you Shen Chaoxi's homeroom teacher?" A policewoman came over, handing her a statement.

Although Bai Jinyuan was the Bai Family's second young lady, she was low-key and rarely appeared in public places, and not many people knew her.

"Yes."

Bai Jinyuan quickly skimmed the statement and then looked up with a sharp gaze.

"Are you telling me that my student fought with six grown men alone?"

The policewoman nodded, "Yes, that's what we saw when we responded to the call."

"What did those six men look like?"

The policewoman found herself unintentionally led on by the sternly dressed teacher in front of her.

She reflected on the several men who were down in pools of blood, each one weighing over a hundred and eighty pounds, with solid muscles and their bodies covered in tattoos, looking very intimidating!

"They all looked very fierce!"

"Hmph!" Bai Jinyuan suddenly let out a cold laugh.

"My student must have had some help, or perhaps she was holding some kind of weapon?"

The policewoman felt ridiculed by Bai Jinyuan's cold "Hmph" and then she came to her senses.

"Yes, your student was holding a two-meter-long wooden stick used for latching gates in the community. When we arrived at the scene, the stick had been broken into two pieces, and it was stained with the victim's blood!"

The evidence was irrefutable!

Although shocked at how such a seemingly delicate girl could fight like that, the reality was she had broken the law.

Footsteps approached from behind, and Bai Jinyuan and the policewoman turned to look.

At the end of the brightly lit white corridor, several officers dressed in uniform hurried towards them.

The light was so dazzling that it wasn't until the group came closer that Bai Jinyuan and the policewoman could make out the tall, upright figure surrounded by several people in the center.