Chapter 37 (1/2)

Translated by Karcessel of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

When Lin ShuYi ran into Zhao XueMei in the police station, she was a hagrid, dishevelled mess, but animated as soon as she saw Lin ShuYi. “Xiao Xiao? Is Xiao Xiao back?”

Lin ShuYi couldn’t be bothered to look at her with anything other than distaste, and didn’t know why she was asking him about her own son. “You should ask the police, not me.”

Zhao XueMei’s voice quivered as she spoke, looking at Lin ShuYi with wide, bloodshot eyes, like someone deranged. “Didn’t they already take his grandfather too? Why haven’t they let Xiao Xiao go yet?”

Suddenly narrowing his eyes, Lin ShuYi shot out a hand to grab her wrist. “What did you just say?”

Zhao XueMei abruptly fell apart. Screeching and screaming, she was already in an unstable state, and this one unexpected move from Lin ShuYi was enough to push her over the edge. “Xiao Xiao is gone! He’s gone! We couldn’t save him! That old man is his grandfather, isn’t he? They already took him, so why won’t they let my Xiao Xiao go!”

For the first time in his life, Lin ShuYi was so livid that he didn’t even think slapping her would quell anything. “Yang Xiao was taken because he gambled someone else’s money away and couldn’t pay them back. You can call the police, you can beg others to go save him for you. But grandpa, none of this had anything to do with grandpa. The reason grandpa was taken was all because of Yang Xiao. If you want your son back so bad, why don’t you go looking for him yourself, take grandpa’s place?”

“Xiao Xiao was set up! He was tricked! If his grandfather had just sold the house, we would have gotten the money and this would never have happened! That old man would rather help some parentless orphan like you than help his own flesh and blood grandson, what kind of grandfather is he?!” Zhao XueMei shrieked, still hysterical.

This time, there were zero reservations holding Lin ShuYi back from slapping this woman, but the moment he raised his hand his mind flashed to Old Man Yang. Old Man Yang, who was currently being held God knows where, suffering alone. This was not the time to bother arguing with a crazy person. Zhao XueMei had cowered back, frightened by Lin ShuYi’s raised hand, but in the end he slowly put it back down, saying one last line, “Grandpa never wronged your family in any way. How many ways have you wronged him?”

With that, Lin ShuYi turned around a left, leaving Zhao XueMei behind with her lifeless expression. He had more important matters to deal with.

The two policemen standing guard were shocked, watching this entire scene unfold. This boy couldn’t be much older than his late teens, but the look on his face was much too threatening for such a young age. As they were thinking this, Lin ShuYi walked past them on his way deeper into the police station, towards the conference room.

It took a second for the two policeman to react and quickly follow after him, calling out, “That’s the conference room, you don’t have permission to enter—!”

Lin ShuYi had already pushed the door open, striding in.

This was the first time Lin ShuYi was been inside a police station, but he could have never anticipated the events that brought him here today.

Shen Fu to told Lin ShuYi he would be back soon before he left, and Lin ShuYi didn’t know why he wasn’t back yet, but he wasn’t worried. He trusted Shen Fu, and had a feeling Shen Fu wouldn’t just abandon them like this.

Right now, his main priority was to find out where those people had taken Old Man Yang, and for what reasons.

Quite a few policemen were gathered together in the conference room, engrossed in animated discussion. Gambling, kidnapping, robbery; none of these were common crimes on the quiet ChaoYang street, and for this one case to involve all three was a pretty serious matter. Any clue was valuable, especially when they had zero leads on where the perpetrators may be hiding.

Several pairs of eyes looked up at Lin ShuYi as he walked in, all surprised, then one person took the initiative, standing up and saying, “Are you family? Please remain calm, we are currently working on a solution.”

Lin ShuYi nodded in understanding, but rather than leaving, he grabbed himself a chair and sat down.

Now the policemen all looked at each other a bit awkwardly, unsure of what to say, until a person seated on a central chair said, “It’s fine. Keep talking.”

Truthfully, none of the officers here could deduce the perpetrators’ intentions. If this was just for money, after taking Yang Xiao, they should have gone straight to one of his parents to demand a ransom. However, not only have they yet to send someone to contact Zhao XueMei, they went and kidnapped Old Man Yang instead. These actions left all the policemen confused.

And it wasn’t just the police who were confused. Currently, the kidnappers were pretty confused as well.

After Yang Xiao gave them Old Man Yang’s address, several underlings were sent to ChaoYang street, and found the restaurant as they were instructed to. They spent a bit of time trashing the place and poking around, before slowly coming to the realisation that not only were there no people inside, this restaurant also didn’t look like the wealthy and bustling business Yang Xiao described. The man in charge was immediately incensed, and went storming up to find Old Man Yang instead. The original plan was to use threats to demand money, so they didn’t hurt this old man at all, but it was only after looking around the house that they discovered this, too, didn’t look like the establishment of someone with money to spare. Furious at being played by Yang Xiao, the man pulled out his phone and dialed back.

“You said your grandpa had money? You’re fucking playing me, aren’t you! Does this look like a house that had money?!”

On the other end of the phone, someone must have done something, because Yang Xiao suddenly cried out, half sobbing and half shouting. “He has money! He has money! He hid it from our family, but his restaurant’s business is really good! He must have hidden the money because he doesn’t want to give it to you! Ask him, ask him!”

Old Man Yang sat calmly on his bed, quietly observing the intruders, and finally seemed to have gleaned an understanding of the situation from this conversation.

The man hung up the phone and restlessly toyed with it in one hand, looking at Old Man Yang. “Old man, you heard that? Your grandson owes us money. He doesn’t have the money. So he told us you have money, and here we are.”

Old Man Yang reached out a hand, softly touching the photo album by his bed. He sighed. “How much does he owe you?”

“One million.”

Old Man Yang frowned. “I don’t have that kind of money.”

He really didn’t have that much money. All of his life’s savings added together would only reach one-twentieth of that amount.

The man laughed coldly and spat, “This little bitch is really playing me, huh.”

Then he turned to Old Man Yang. “Now see here, this whole things really doesn’t have anything to do with you directly, except that Yang Xiao is your grandson. All of the money he owes, now you owe too. If you don’t have enough, then we’ll just take all you’ve got. As for the rest, he’ll just have to pay that back with his organs.”

The intruders ransacked the house, taking all the money they could find. None of them expected that as they were leaving, Old Man Yang would say, “Can I go with you to see my grandson?”

The man in charge was blindsided. Although, in the beginning, he planned to mess around with Yang Xiao a bit out of malicious intent, now he was really just disgusted with how worthless a person Yang Xiao was and didn’t want to bother dealing with him too much. All he really wanted was money, and despite the threats, he didn’t really plan on killing the brat.

Unexpectedly, however, even a worthless degenerate like this still had people who cared for him. The grandfather he had scorned, no less.

It took the man significant effort to muster a rare moment of sympathy. “Old man, I’m telling you right now, this grandson of yours isn’t worth much. We’re here because he sold you out. I’m not a good person, but every injustice has a perpetrator and every debt has a keeper, so I won’t push any of this onto your head. You should stay far away. There isn’t anything worth saving in your grandson, he’s rotten to the core. No matter how good you are to him, it’s no different from feeding a stray animal.”

Old Man Yang was surprised at such well-intentioned words coming from this man, and couldn’t help a small smile. “No matter how worthless this grandson, I can’t just watch him die. So take me there, will you? I won’t call the police.”

The man was still reluctant, but persuaded by Old Man Yang’s words, he eventually agreed. He ordered some men to watch Old Man Yang on the way back, but didn’t restrain him in any way, only kept an eye on him respectfully.

Thus, the police really couldn’t be held responsible for their last of headway in this case, because it was Old Man Yang himself who asked to go with the perpetrators.

As soon as Yang Xiao saw Old Man Yang, he started bawling again, face an ugly mess as he pleaded, “Grandpa, did you bring money? Are you here to pay the ransom?”

Old Man Yang couldn’t help but sigh, looking at Yang Xiao sadly. “Grandpa has no money.”

Yang Xiao caught a glance of the man in charge walking in behind Old Man Yang, and exploded. “If you have no money then why are you here—?!”

The man who came in behind Old Man Yang slapped Yang Xiao, cutting off his sentence. “What kind of grandson are you, talking to your grandfather like this…”

Stunned silence. Yang Xiao didn’t understand what was happening. All he could jumble together was that if Old Man Yang was here, then they should be letting him go, right? But then he heard Old Man Yang say to the man, “So are you planning to use his kidney to pay back the rest?”

Yang Xiao began to shake violently as he shrieked. The man shot him a menacing glare, and Yang Xiao immediately shut up again. When things quieted down, the man turned back to Old Man Yang and nodded his head. “The boss said, as long as we get the money we don’t want his life.”

Old Man Yang acknowledged this answer, then turned to look at his grandson. Usually calm, he asked the man again, “Can his kidney really fetch that much money?”

Yang Xiao’s eyes grew wide, curses ready to spill from his tongue. “I’m your grandson! Your actual grandson! What kinds of things are you saying?! You, he…”

“Do you believe that if I hear one more sentence out of you, I’ll cut off your tongue?” The man couldn’t even look at Yang Xiao without his mood dampening and his expression growing ugly. Once again intimidated, Yang Xiao fell silent again, but he still glared daggers at Old Man Yang.

The man responded to Old Man Yang’s previous question. “Yeah, probably worth about enough.”

“Alright,” said Old Man Yang, understanding. Then, “Let me take his place. I may be older in my years now, but I still have a healthy body. My kidney should be worth some money.”