Chapter 99 - 99: 099 Forced to Jump off the Cliff
The man, who was halfway through the untying process, suddenly had a change of heart and made a condition.
“Sweetheart, if you take this pill, I’ll untie you,” he proposed, presenting a tablet. Wen Ran’s face changed dramatically, and she mumbled, “What is this?”
“It’s medicine. Once you take it, you’ll know what it does,” he replied, grinning disgustingly.
“No, I’m not taking it.”
“That’s not up for you to decide.”
He grabbed her mouth, tossing the pill in before she could resist. Wen Ran tried to spit it out, but he hastily closed her mouth off, and down her throat the pill went…
“Liu Mazi, what’s taking you so long? Hurry up and bring her in!”
The ropes binding Wen Ran were unfastened, and as she regained her freedom, a voice rang out from the door. The man outside the car turned his head to respond, “Coming right up!”
The man at the door glanced over, then went back inside.
Not daring to spare any time, Wen Ran took her chance and leapt out of the car as soon as the man recoiled in pain, running into the darkness that surrounded her. Unable to discern directions, she could only keep running straight ahead on instinct.
Hearing the commotion, two men emerged from the run-down house and saw Liu Mazi curled up in pain on the ground. Off in the distance, a figure was bolting into the darkness, while Wen Ran had vanished from the car. They shouted loudly into the house, “Boss, the girl escaped!”
“Chase after her!”
One of the onlookers snapped to his senses and immediately set off in pursuit of Wen Ran. Seeing his companion run after her, the other swiftly followed suit.
Liu Mazi was hunched over in pain on the ground, unable to stand. Meanwhile, their boss and another man swiftly ran out of the house, instructing their followers, “You must bring her back!”
“Yes, Boss!”
The nearby henchmen immediately dashed off in the same direction as the other two.
“How did her ropes come undone?”
Liu Mazi took another kick and let out an agonizing wail. Afraid to admit he had untied Wen Ran himself, he whimpered, “Boss, it’s not my fault! She broke the ropes while struggling. She woke up while we were still on the road and I had just given her the pill. There’s no way she can escape.”
If it were any other night, Wen Ran would be terrified of being alone in the pitch-black wilderness. But right now, fear was the least of her worries. She ran like her life depended on it, despite the shouts to “stop” and “don’t run” that echoed from behind.
She stumbled on stones hidden in the knee-high grass and fell, but each time she quickly scrambled back to her feet.
Her pursuers were steadily closing the gap. As panic surged within her, a grim resolution took root in her mind – if she couldn’t escape, she would rather die than let them violate her.
“There’s a cliff up ahead, you won’t escape!”
The men continued to shout threats as they chased after her. Their pursuit of Wen Ran had lasted for over ten minutes and, as baffled as they were that they hadn’t caught up to her, they didn’t know whether it was due to their incompetence or Wen Ran’s desperate burst of survival instinct.
When Wen Ran had first woken up in the car, she noticed that they were driving uphill. She didn’t know how high the climb was, but she suspected that there was a cliff ahead of them.
Moonlight began to filter through the clouds, casting a hazy glow that barely pierced the night’s blackness. Under the dim light, Wen Ran noticed a steep drop a few meters ahead of her.
Despair set in.
She wasn’t afraid of dying, but the thought of leaving her ill brother behind was heartbreaking.
The three men finally caught up to her. Panting heavily, they laughed at her predicament. “I told you not to run, didn’t I? It’s a cliff up ahead. Where were you planning to go, huh? Be a good girl and come over here!”
“Stay away from me or I will jump!”
Wen Ran turned around, clutching two rocks that she picked up, and glared at the men threateningly as she took small steps backward.
“Jump, then? There are only rocks down there. You’ll die if you jump. And even if you do, our boss won’t let you rest in peace,” one man taunted, insinuating that they would retrieve her body even if she jumped.
Wen Ran took a deep breath, turned around, and found herself staring at an abyss. She didn’t know how high this cliff was – although F City was Wen Ran’s hometown, her father had moved their family to G City when she was young and they hadn’t returned since.
She was unfamiliar with F City, let alone this area.
“Sweetheart, come here!”
Witnessing the men closing in on her, Wen Ran had nowhere left to run. The fear and helplessness vanished as the anguish of inevitable death washed over her. “I’m sorry, big brother!” she murmured silently, then turned and jumped off the cliff…
Simultaneously, two beams of headlights sliced through the darkness from a bend halfway up the mountain. The lights surged up the hill, snaking through the trees and flourishing under the hazy moonlight, casting a transient brightness over the dark mountaintop.
“She really jumped, what should we do now? Should we go down and look?” “It seems like a car is coming up. I wonder if it’s someone looking for her.”
There were no residences nor attractions atop the mountain that attracted visitors at night; it was bizarre for a car to appear at this time, and it had to be there for a reason.
“If we’re going to find her, we’ve to go down the same way. It’s not like we can jump after her.”
“Yes, let’s report back to the boss first. It could be someone that’s looking for her. ”
The three men reconsidered, took another glance at the spot where Wen Ran had jumped, and reasoned that even if the fall didn’t kill her, she would end up crippled.
G City, Kangning Hospital.
Lying in the hospital bed, Wen Jin had just finished handling some documents when a disturbing sense of suffocation gripped his heart. He furrowed his eyebrows and clutched his chest.
A few seconds later, the suffocating feeling subsided, only to be replaced by a sense of foreboding as his eyelid began twitching violently. Acting on his instinct, he picked up his phone and dialed Wen Ran.
The sudden suffocation and twitching had given him a chilling premonition. After a few rings, someone finally answered, but the voice on the other end wasn’t his sister’s.
A sense of dread washed over Wen Jin as he blurted out, “MO Xiuchen, why is it you answering the phone? Where’s my sister?”
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