Back Then, I Adored You

…

After hanging up the phone, Xu Wennuan stuffed it back into her bag and took two steps toward the side of the road. She had just steadied her footsteps when a middle-aged man clad in black came walking down from the bridge. Xu Wennuan paid no attention to him. She buried her face in her collar due to the cold.

The man seemed to be looking for directions. He stared blankly at the road signs for a moment before he approached Xu Wennuan and asked politely, “Miss, I’m heading to Wangfujing. Which way should I go?”

Wangfujing…

Xu Wennuan looked to her right and raised her hand. She was just about to respond when the man suddenly covered her face. In his hand was a cloth doused in chemicals. Xu Wennuan did not even have the time to figure out what was happening before she fell into a state of unconsciousness.

…

She said she’d wait for me beneath the bridge. Why isn’t she here?

Lu Bancheng frowned and quickly dug out his phone from his pocket. He found Xu Wennuan’s number and called her. It rang for a few seconds before an automated voice greeted him. “The number you have dialed is currently unavailable,” it said.

Unavailable? Why did she turn off her phone?

Lu Bancheng’s heart jerked. An indescribably bad feeling instantly filled his entire body.

Could something have happened to her?

At that thought, Lu Bancheng’s gaze instantly darted around. He looked carefully at what was happening in the vicinity of the bridge, but nothing abnormal stood out after he’d scanned the area.

Well, it’s been less than six minutes since our call ended. What could possibly have happened to her within a few short minutes? Perhaps her battery died after hanging up the call, or perhaps she changed her mind at the last minute and doesn’t want to meet me anymore and left in a taxi. After all, she’s always resisted me so…

Lu Bancheng pursed his lips and suppressed the darkness gathering in his heart. He turned around and was just about to return to the Majestic Clubhouse when he caught sight of a man carrying a woman on the opposite side of the road through his peripheral vision. That man sneakily ran toward a white van parked at the side of the road. He opened its door and quickly placed the woman inside.

That series of actions happened extremely quickly, and the combined factors of the distance and dark night reduced the clarity of Lu Bancheng’s vision. Still, he could distinctly tell that the colors of the woman’s clothes were very similar to what Xu Wennuan had been wearing that night.

Could that be Xu Wennuan?

Lu Bancheng’s heart clenched. Right after that, he saw the door to the van shut, and the vehicle quickly drove onto the main road, and that was when he noticed that there was no license on the van.

A vehicle without a license, and that man’s abnormal behavior…

These thoughts flashed across Lu Bancheng’s mind, and he quickly darted to the parking lot, where he got into his car and then sped toward the direction the white van had gone.

Even though he could not be sure whether or not the woman inside was Xu Wennuan, the scene he had just witnessed was too strange.

If it wasn’t Xu Wennuan, I have to at least make sure to feel at ease, and if it was really her…

Lu Bancheng stepped harder on the pedal and sped toward that direction for close to 10 minutes before he vaguely glimpsed what looked like the white van in the near distance.