Lost in thought, the car had already passed several stops. The road conditions were good at night with very little traffic jams, and what used to be a half-hour journey only took twenty minutes.
Jiang Jianhuan got out of the car alone, and when he saw the car door close quickly out of the corner of his eye, he breathed a sigh of relief.
She shook her head, a bitter smile on her face.
See? After all these years, I still can't shake this habit of overthinking.
The surroundings were eerily quiet. At night, there was almost no one around outside the villa area, except for a few orange streetlights illuminating the straight road.
There's still some distance between the platform and the gate of the residential area. The landscaping here is excellent, with tall trees planted on both sides, lush and verdant. It's an extremely beautiful and comfortable experience during the summer and daytime, but at night, with the flickering lights, it becomes somewhat eerie and chilly.
Jiang Jianhuan had only gone halfway when she suddenly heard footsteps behind her. She looked down and saw a long shadow cast on the ground beside her.
The two were not far apart.
There was no road behind her, and the security booth for the residential area was still nowhere to be seen. In other words, if something happened to her now, even if she screamed, no one would hear her.
Jiang Jianhuan's panic, which had just subsided, returned, and she quickened her pace. However, the person behind her also increased their speed, maintaining a distance that was neither too close nor too far from her.
Her panic intensified; it had happened the same time before. Late at night, right after she got off work, two tall white men brazenly followed her from the brightly lit main street to the alleyway she had to take to get home.
At first, she felt something was wrong, but she quickly reassured herself that it was probably just on the way. It wasn't until she turned into the alley with a sense of luck and the footsteps continued that Jiang Jianhuan felt scared.
The light ahead grew dimmer and dimmer. There were no residents in this area. The further they went, the clearer the footsteps became. Jiang Jianhuan could even hear the heavy breathing of the man behind them.
Her legs felt weak and uncontrollably, and her hands in her pockets began to dial. The people behind her seemed to notice and were discussing in English whether or not to come up directly.
Jiang Jianhuan's eyes widened, her heart pounding. Just as she was about to make a desperate attempt to run forward, voices came from the alley again.
It was a girl walking and talking on the phone. As she passed by them, she glanced at them suspiciously, her gaze sweeping over Jiang Jianhuan, before speaking to the person on the other end of the phone.
"I'm in the alley near my house. I saw two men and a woman, and the atmosphere was a bit strange... Do you want to come out and meet me?"
In the quiet night, her voice was exceptionally clear, and one could even faintly hear the man's voice on the other end.
Their conversation was in English, which everyone present understood. Jiang Jianhuan could clearly sense that the footsteps behind him had slowed down, as if they were hiding some concerns.
Jiang Jianhuan's heart tightened, and he immediately caught up with the girl, walking closely beside her as they left.
Chapter 71
After about five or six minutes, or perhaps only three or four minutes, the brightly lit alleyway finally came into view. The two walked quickly until they saw the end.
There stood a young man, a big boy. The girl next to Jiang Jianhuan immediately rushed over and chattered in his arms.
On the bustling street, a sense of security suddenly arose. The two white men also quickly came out. As they passed each other, their eyes fell on Jiang Jianhuan, giving her a deep look before swaggering away.
A gust of wind blew by, bringing a chill. Jiang Jianhuan touched his back; the fabric of his T-shirt was already soaked with sweat.
"Are you alright? Who were those people just now?" After the girl finished being intimate with her boyfriend, she remembered her and turned her head to ask curiously. Jiang Jianhuan pursed her dry lips, her voice still trembling slightly with the aftermath of her ordeal.
"I don't know them, they were following me... Thank you." She bowed deeply to her, and the girl patted her chest, feeling a little scared.
The two lived not far from each other, on the same road, so they could walk together.
During the conversation, she learned that the other party was a college student living nearby. At the same time, the female student's boyfriend warned her that it would be best to move to another place, because the other party might already be targeting her.
That's why Jiang Jianhuan hurriedly looked for a house and happened to run into Zhao Zhao looking for a roommate. The two quickly signed a contract the first time they met.
Jiang Jianhuan moved house quickly and even asked several male classmates from school to help her.
After changing to a new environment, her panic subsided somewhat, but for a long time afterward, she was afraid to walk alone at night, and she switched to working on weekends.
And at this moment, a terrifying scene from the depths of my memory seems to be repeating itself.
The footsteps behind me, neither too light nor too heavy, followed me like a nightmare, suffocating me in the silent night.
Her heart was pounding, and fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. She quickened her pace, and in the end, Jiang Jianhuan was almost jogging.
Desperate, the footsteps behind her quickened and intensified; the person behind her started running as well. The distance between them grew closer, their shadows drawing nearer, heavy breathing filling the air, and a hand reached out towards her—
"ah!--"
Jiang Jianhuan couldn't help but scream, covering her ears with both hands, and was about to shout for help.
A hand came from behind and tightly covered her mouth, drowning out her sobs. She struggled with all her might, but she was no match for the man's steel-like wrist.
Her body was uncontrollably dragged backward, the light grew dimmer, and she was pulled into the nearby woods, her back pressed against the rough tree trunks.
"Miss Jiang..."
An unfamiliar voice, breathing softly, whispered in my ear, its tone vaguely familiar.
Jiang Jianhuan's eyes widened as she saw, through the few rays of light filtering through the branches and leaves from the streetlamp, the man's eyes hidden by his overly long bangs. He was wearing a mask and his baseball cap was pulled very low.
"Ugh..." It's that man on the bus!
"Miss Jiang, I mean no harm. I just... want to get to know you..." he said nervously, his heavy breathing hitting her face. His extremely frightened appearance overlapped with a scene from a memory.
Jiang Jianhuan thought of something and found it hard to believe.
He kept talking.
"I've liked you for a long time. You are exactly the kind of person I've always wanted. From the show 'Her New Clothes' to your own solo fashion show, I even became a reporter just for you..."
Jiang Jianhuan finally realized that he was the reporter wearing a baseball cap and glasses whom she had accidentally bumped into after the press conference that day. Because she hadn't seen his face clearly, she hadn't connected him with the people she had seen on the bus over the past two days.
However, his nervous and timid demeanor was exactly the same as that day.
Just as Jiang Jianhuan was about to say something, his phone, which was in his bag, suddenly rang loudly. The person in front of him, who had relaxed a little, immediately became wary again, and his whole body showed obvious panic.