Oh no, oh no, I'm dizzy! Zhang Jingzhi felt like she was going to faint. Could it be that Xiao Xiao's clothes had such great magic? It wasn't the first time she had gone out to eat with Yang Lei, but this was the first time they had held hands!
Zhang Jingzhi made a quick decision: she would never return the clothes to Xiao Xiao!
Xiao Xiao had no idea that just Yang Lei's words "very beautiful" would ruin her outfit. Right now, she was at home eating an orange when the sweet and sour juice stung the cut on her lip, making her hiss twice as she covered her mouth in pain. She cursed Jiang Sicheng angrily, thinking, "Oh no, my lip is definitely going to be swollen tomorrow!"
After having dinner, Zhang Jingzhi and Yang Lei went to see a movie. By the time Yang Lei offered to take Zhang Jingzhi home, it was already past ten o'clock.
"Are you tired?" Yang Lei asked. "If you're not tired, let's take a walk."
Zhang Jingzhi wasn't tired, it's just that Xiao Xiao's boots had rather high heels, making them unsuitable for walking. But at this moment, even if she were on stilts, she couldn't say she was tired! Gritting her teeth, she shook her head and said softly, "Not tired."
Yang Lei smiled, and the two walked towards Zhang Jing's house. Zhang Jing secretly calculated the distance in her mind. Fortunately, it wasn't too far. At this speed, it would only take an hour or two to get home. It's just that Xiao Xiao's coat was a bit of a letdown. It was too big and too short, and the wind was blowing right in!
There weren't many pedestrians on the streets that winter night. The two walked and chatted quietly. They were almost home when Yang Lei's phone rang. He looked down at the number and his expression became somewhat unnatural. When he answered, Zhang Jingzhi vaguely heard a woman's voice, which sounded like she was crying.
Yang Lei gently comforted the other end of the line, hung up the phone, and when he looked at Zhang Jingzhi again, he had a troubled look on his face. Zhang Jingzhi quickly smiled generously and said, "If you have something urgent to do, you can go first."
Yang Lei looked at her and shook his head. "I'll take you home first."
Zhang Jingzhi could tell that Yang Lei's mind was already preoccupied with the phone call, and she vaguely guessed whose call it was. Thinking that this was the perfect opportunity for her to show her understanding, she quickly said, "No need, I'm home now. It's just around the corner! You can go ahead if you have something to do."
Yang Lei looked at Zhang Jingzhi apologetically, "I'm so sorry, I—"
Zhang Jingzhi smiled and said, "Go on!"
Watching Yang Lei get into the taxi and drive away, Zhang Jingzhi quickly hugged her shoulders and jumped up and down a couple of times. Ugh! It's so cold! She muttered under her breath, "Damn it, what a jerk!" It was obvious it was his ex-girlfriend calling him! She's married now, and she's crying to her ex-boyfriend—what kind of person is she!
Zhang Jingzhi muttered to herself as she jogged home. Her house was located near her father's workplace, in a rather secluded area. She had to pass through a quiet little street, and at this hour, especially in winter, there were even fewer people on the street. As Zhang Jingzhi walked, she began to feel a little uneasy.
Not far after turning the corner of that alley, a man suddenly darted out from behind a cypress tree by the roadside. Before Zhang Jingzhi could react, the man grabbed her purse and ran ahead.
"Hey! My bag!" Zhang Jingzhi shouted urgently, forgetting her fear in her haste, and chased after it.
The other person was already faster than her, and Zhang Jingzhi was also wearing high-heeled boots, so after a few steps, she was left behind.
"Hey! You bastard! Give me back my bag!" Zhang Jingzhi shouted.
The man ahead was taken aback when he heard Zhang Jingzhi still chasing after him and shouting. He hadn't expected her to be so bold. When Zhang Jingzhi saw the man suddenly stop running, she was first stunned, then suddenly realized what was happening. Good heavens! Was she risking her life for money? Was she an idiot? She actually dared to chase a robber alone!
Seeing the man heading her way, Zhang Jingzhi reacted quickly, making a sharp turn and running back as fast as she could. First she was chasing the robber, now the robber was chasing her—this was fucking ridiculous, Zhang Jingzhi thought.
As it turns out, the speed of escaping for one's life is significantly faster than the speed of chasing after wealth!
Zhang Jingzhi ran to the street corner and saw the vehicles coming and going. Only then did she dare to look back. The robbers had long since disappeared. She didn't know when they had run away. Looking at the dimly lit street, she no longer had the courage to walk alone.
The bag contained her wallet, phone, keys, and a whole bunch of other odds and ends. This time, it was all gone. Zhang Jingzhi tried to comfort herself; her phone was two years old and should have been replaced long ago, and there wasn't much money in her wallet. Losing a little money was better than losing her life! Just as she was starting to feel a little relieved, a serious problem suddenly occurred to her. The things in the bag weren't very valuable, but what about the bag itself? That bag belonged to Xiao Xiao! Xiao Xiao had really gone all out for her outfit this time; it looked like an LV bag!
Oh my god! We should just let her die!
What to do now? Her phone was lost, she couldn't even make a call for help. The thought of calling for help made Zhang Jingzhi's eyes light up. At this moment, if she used this excuse to call Yang Lei, wouldn't he come running? To hell with his ex-girlfriend! He couldn't very well say on the phone, "Zhang Jingzhi, I'm busy, you call 110."
She finally found a small supermarket that was still open on the street. The owner was kind enough that when he heard she had been robbed, he quickly took out his phone for her to use. But once she got the phone, Zhang Jingzhi discovered a problem that made her want to bang her head against the wall: she hadn't memorized Yang Lei's phone number. It was just that she had saved his number in her phone long ago, and every time someone called, it would display Yang Lei's name, but she had never remembered the actual number!
What frustrated Zhang Jingzhi even more was that she didn't remember Yang Lei's number, but she did remember Wang Yuhan's. The reason was exactly the opposite: she was annoyed by him, so she didn't save his name in her phone. Every time she received a call, his number would be displayed directly. After seeing it so many times, she remembered it!
Should I make this call or not?
Zhang Jingzhi (revised)
Zhang Jingzhi held the phone and began to ponder. Should she call and ask him for Yang Lei's phone number? Was that even possible? No matter how she thought about it, Wang Yuhan wasn't the kind of person to sacrifice himself for others. Would he resort to deception? But then she realized that getting anything out of Wang Yuhan would be harder than tricking a monkey out of a date!
But if she didn't take the chance, would she be doing justice to this opportunity bestowed upon her by heaven? Would she be doing justice to Xiao Xiao's bag? Zhang Jingzhi gritted her teeth and dialed Wang Yuhan's number.
Wang Yuhan had been suffering from a cold for the past two days. While it wasn't a serious illness, the symptoms were quite severe, so he hadn't had time to joke around with Zhang Jingzhi. He drank some medicine early in the morning and collapsed. His phone rang; he glanced at it—it was an unfamiliar landline number—and answered with a slight frown, "Hello?"
Zhang Jingzhi's gentle and virtuous voice came through: "Hello? Is this Wang Yuhan? This is Zhang Jingzhi."
In fact, Zhang Jingzhi herself never realized that she had a problem: she would feel guilty whenever she did something wrong, so her tone of voice would be different from usual, sounding incredibly gentle and pleasant.
There's nothing wrong with being gentle, but it depends on the person. As for Wang Yuhan, ever since they had a falling out at the restaurant, Zhang Jingzhi hadn't paid any attention to being a lady in front of him. When she was in a good mood, she would call him Wang Yuhan in a gruff voice, but when she was in a bad mood, she would just call him by his surname Wang. Today, she suddenly started speaking so softly again. She didn't think anything of it, but Wang Yuhan sensed that something was wrong.
His voice was a little hoarse because of a cold. "Why did you suddenly decide to call me today?"
"Hehe, can't I call if there's nothing wrong?" she said casually, secretly figuring out how to naturally steer the conversation toward Yang Lei's phone number.
The small supermarket owner's glances at Zhang Jingzhi were rather strange. He wondered if this girl had really been robbed. Why wasn't she calling the police instead of gossiping with others?
“…I’m pretty good with numbers. I can remember most phone numbers after seeing them once. What about you?” Zhang Jingzhi circled around the numbers.
"It's alright, it's probably related to the nature of my work. If I want to remember something, I can remember it," he said.
"Oh? I don't believe you. You're kidding me. I've never seen anyone who can memorize numbers better than me!" She said this while blushing at herself.
Wang Yuhan seemed to be able to see Zhang Jingzhi's movements and expressions on the other end of the phone, and let out a low laugh.
Hearing him laugh, Zhang Jingzhi felt a little embarrassed and annoyed, but thinking that she still needed his help, she couldn't show it. So she continued in a sweet voice, "How about I test you?"
Wang Yuhan propped the pillow up against his back and sat up against the headboard, a smile unconsciously appearing on his face. "Okay, go ahead and take the test."
"Yes, your ID number!"
He paused for a moment, then smoothly recited his number, and asked with a smile, "You don't mean you want to know my birthday, do you?"
Zhang Jingzhi's mind wasn't on his answer at all, so she didn't listen carefully to what he was saying. She was only thinking about how to get the numbers to Yang Lei's phone number.
"What's my phone number? Tell me now! Don't think about it!"
He chuckled and immediately gave her phone number.
Zhang Jingzhi then pretended to ask for Jiang Xiaoruo's phone number, and then suddenly asked, "What about Yang Lei's?"
After asking the question, my heart was in my throat as I waited for his answer.
This time, there was silence on the other end of the phone. Zhang Jingzhi felt that her palms were a little damp and the phone receiver was slippery and uncomfortable to hold.
"Haha, see? You can't remember them all, can you? I knew you couldn't remember them all." Zhang Jingzhi was still not giving up and wanted to use reverse psychology to deal with him.
There was still silence on the other end of the phone. Just as Zhang Jingzhi was getting nervous, Wang Yuhan laughed.
Hearing his sneer, Zhang Jingzhi unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.
He chuckled hoarsely on the other end, then said in a mocking tone, "Xie Zhang Jingzhi, what tricks are you playing?"
Zhang Jingzhi pretended to be clueless, "Huh? What are you talking about?"
"Have you forgotten what you were doing when I first met you?" He laughed unfriendly. "Zhang Jingzhi, you have a problem: when you do something wrong, you become exceptionally polite and sweet-talking. Simply put, the more hypocritical you are, the more ladylike you become!"
You're the hypocrite!
He scoffed, "It's fine, there's nothing wrong with being hypocritical. I even like your two-faced nature! So, tell me, what exactly do you want?"
Since he had already exposed her, Zhang Jingzhi decided to go for the kill and said, "I want Yang Lei's phone number."
"You don't have his phone number?" he sneered. "Where are you making this call from? This isn't your phone number."
"Okay, I lost my phone, so I lost Yang Lei's number. Could you tell me his phone number?"
“No,” Wang Yuhan answered decisively, then sneered, “Do you think I would tell you? Why would you be looking for him at this time?”
Seeing that this approach was no longer viable, Zhang Jingzhi decided there was no need to flatter him anymore, and her tone became more assertive: "Is it any of your business? If you don't want to tell me, then forget it!"
"Where are you so late? How did you lose your phone?" he asked.
Annoyed, Zhang Jingzhi slammed down the phone with a "bang!" and muttered under her breath, "None of your business!" Turning her head, she saw the small supermarket owner looking at her with a surprised expression. Realizing that her words had been somewhat unladylike, she quickly gave him an awkward smile.
"Were you really robbed?" the supermarket owner asked hesitantly.
Zhang Jingzhi nodded dejectedly, immediately recalling the losses of the day, and felt a pang of regret.
"So you still have the leisure to make phone calls and chat?" the supermarket owner asked again, glancing at his watch. Thirty-three minutes had passed. Then he looked up at Zhang Jingzhi as if she were an alien.
The police arrived quickly. They made the call and waited at the street corner for less than ten minutes before they arrived. A policeman in his thirties asked Zhang Jingzhi a few questions, and Zhang Jingzhi briefly explained the robbery that had just happened and described the physical characteristics of the robber to the policeman.
"What? It's been almost an hour? Why did it take you so long to call the police?" the short policeman asked irritably.
Zhang Jingzhi wanted to roll her eyes, thinking to herself, "Can I tell you that I was originally planning to call the hero to come and rescue me? But instead of finding the hero, I got slapped twice by a bear!" Then she felt indignant. "Not only did you police fail in your duty to maintain order in this area, but you also have the nerve to complain that I called the police too late!"
However, there are some things that cannot be said in certain situations and at certain times. For example, would you dare to complain about a dentist's poor skills when he is pulling your tooth?
Zhang Jingzhi smiled shyly at the 110 police officers.
The police officer wasn't a fierce person, but it was late at night, and everyone was in a bad mood. Seeing Zhang Jingzhi's state, he didn't want to scold her anymore. "Were you so scared that you forgot to call the police?"
Zhang Jingzhi didn't know how to answer, so she just smiled again and asked, "Can the bag be recovered?"
The short policeman glanced at Zhang Jingzhi and said, "If you had come earlier, we might have been able to catch him. It's been over an hour, and he's probably long gone!"
Seeing that Zhang Jingzhi looked a little pale, he kindly asked, "You have a lot of money in your bag?"
"There's not much money inside, but that bag is valuable!"
"You're a young woman, dressed like this late at night, carrying such an expensive bag. Why aren't you going home? What are you doing wandering around? Get in the car, let's look in the direction he went. Some robbers only take the money and phone from the bag, while others throw the bag in a nearby trash can," the police officer said.
Zhang Jingzhi quickly got into the police car with the officers, silently praying that the scumbag who snatched her bag wouldn't be so careless as to throw it away. The officers searched every trash can along the route the robber had taken, finally finding Zhang Jingzhi's shrunken wallet, a large bunch of keys, a tissue box, and other odds and ends in one of the bins. The only thing missing was Xiao Xiao's LV bag. It turns out that even robbers these days are quite fashionable!
When Zhang Jingzhi arrived back at her apartment building in a police car, her mother was peering out from the balcony. It was almost midnight, and her daughter still hadn't come home. Her phone was off, which was making the old lady very anxious. Just as she was getting worried, she saw Zhang Jingzhi get out of the police car. The old lady stammered and called out loudly to Zhang Jingzhi's father in the living room, "Her, her father, you, you come here quickly!"
Zhang Jingzhi's father was watching Brigitte Lin's "Swordsman II" when he heard his wife call him. He responded with a sound of agreement, but didn't move an inch.
"You old geezer, hurry up! I'm going to smash your TV in a minute!"
Zhang Jing got out of the car and thanked the police officer twice. The officer said he would do his best to catch the robber and would notify her as soon as he had any news. She thanked him again and bowed slightly. Then she watched the officer get into the car and drive away. Just as she was about to go upstairs, she saw Wang Yuhan's car drive up from outside in a hurry.
When Zhang Jingzhi's father rushed to his wife's side and peered down, he didn't see the scene that had terrified his wife. However, what he saw wasn't much better. His daughter's arm was being held tightly by a man. His daughter seemed to be trying to break free from the man, but the man's grip was very tight. The two of them were arguing quietly about something.
The old man and woman exchanged a glance, both seeing the same question in each other's eyes.
Zhang Jingzhi (revised)
"Let go!" Zhang Jingzhi shouted, her voice strained, her eyes darting around as if afraid of disturbing the neighbors. "Hey, Wang, are you out of your mind? What's wrong with you in the middle of the night?"
"Is she sick or not? If she wasn't sick, would she be in this state?" Wang Yuhan thought bitterly. He had just called back and learned that she was using a small supermarket's phone. He also heard from the shop owner that she had just been robbed. His heart felt like it had been hit hard, buzzing loudly. Although his rational mind kept telling him that since she had the leisure to get Yang Lei's phone number from him, nothing serious should have happened. At most, she would have been frightened and lost some money. But he couldn't calm down his panic. He didn't care that he had just taken medicine and was sweating, so he put on his clothes and came over.
I can't believe she actually dared to ask him if he was sick or not!
Wang Yuhan's face was gloomy, his eyes seemed to be spitting fire, and he lowered his voice and said angrily, "If you're afraid of attracting attention, then get in the car with me!"
Strange! Why should I get in his car? I've always seen him as gentle and refined, but seeing him like this today made Zhang Jingzhi feel uneasy, and she refused to get in the car with Wang Yuhan no matter what.
"It's so late at night, you can talk about it tomorrow!" Zhang Jingzhi tried to lean back, but she was no match for Wang Yuhan's strength.