Like me? Pei Huan wondered if Li Cenbei had gone crazy.
Pei Huan pursed her lips and struggled to get away from the man. However, Li Cenbei’s grip on her was simply too tight – she couldn’t free herself no matter how hard she tried.
Li Cenbei brought Pei Huan up the hill and stopped when he reached a gravestone. Grabbing hold of her elbows, he said, “Huan, this is my mother’s grave. Shouldn’t you greet her?”
Pei Huan grimaced as Li Cenbei forced her to kneel next to him. When she saw the face of the young woman on the gravestone and compared it to Li Cenbei’s, she realized that Li Cenbei truly looked a lot like He Xinyuan. He was her son, after all. It was well within reason for them to resemble each other.
The picture had probably been taken when He Xinyuan was very young. She still had a bit of baby fat on her face, which gave her a look of unparalleled innocence.
Pei Huan gazed at the photograph and pursed her lips. “Li Cenbei, what is this all about?”
Li Cenbei’s eyes narrowed. He knelt next to Pei Huan and said, “I much preferred it when you used to call me Beiting. He Beiting.” Li Cenbei gazed affectionately at his mother’s photograph and continued, “Mum, this is Pei Huan, my wife!”
“I’m not your wife,” Pei Huan snapped immediately. “Li Cenbei, do you think I’ll still come running back to you after what you did?”
Hearing this, Li Cenbei’s face clouded over dangerously. He gazed murderously at Pei Huan and said, “Pei Huan, my mother wishes for me to find a gentle and loving woman as my wife!”
“Go and find one, then!” Pei Huan said irritably. “We have nothing to do with each other.”
“Nothing to do with each other? We got married in C Country. Don’t you remember that?”
“You tricked me into it,” Pei Huan retorted, gnashing her teeth in frustration. “Li Cenbei, stop fooling yourself, will you? You know that’s impossible for us to get back together again. You…”
At that moment, Li Cenbei narrowed his eyes and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Be quiet!”
He could hear some voices in the distance. They were coming from the foot of the hill, and they were approaching them fast.
Li Cenbei grabbed hold of Pei Huan and dragged her in the opposite direction immediately. Pei Huan started to scream, but one look from Li Cenbei silenced her instantly. “If you want to live, I advise you to shut up right now. Have you forgotten that I have the antidote with me? You might not want to live, but what about Bao? Do you want him to die with you?”
Bao!
Pei Huan’s eyes widened. She glared at Li Cenbei with hatred. Her words were muffled a little by his palm as she said, “Don’t hurt Bao. I won’t scream.”
Seeing that Pei Huan had quietened down, Li Cenbei smiled and dragged her down the hill.
When Jiang Hu and the rest got there, Li Cenbei and Pei Huan were already gone. He gave Li Heng a call immediately. “Mr. Li, they’ve already left! I don’t think they’ve gone very far yet, though. We found your wife’s handkerchief at the scene.”
Li Heng’s expression turned rather grim. Turning to his GPS again, he instructed them to continue the search. “Head down to City River Park. They’re heading in that direction as we speak.”
As soon as Li Heng hung up, he received a call from Fu Chengyan. Frowning, he asked, “What’s up?”
“Aunt Ning’s surgery went very well. What’s happening on your side?” Fu Chengyan glanced at Ning Xin, who was being pushed into the Intensive Care Unit, before turning to look at Fu Heng and Shi Nuan. “Do you need my help?”
“Yes. Head to City River Park. Li Cenbei is heading there with Huan right now.” Li Heng paused before continuing, “What about Pei Jingxiu?”
“He’s with Ning Xi… I’ll head over right away!” Fu Chengyan hung up quickly and walked into Ning Xi’s ward. “Hey, Pei Jingxiu!”
Pei Jingxiu’s eyes rove over Ning Xi’s sleeping face. “What?”
“Li Heng needs our help with something.”
“Let’s go!”
Pei Jingxiu gave a call to his subordinates and told them to come to the hospital and take care of Ning Xi. After that, he left the hospital with Fu Chengyan immediately.
The two of them got into Fu Chengyan’s car. Pei Jingxiu sat in the passenger’s seat and quickly turned on his laptop. He frowned when the GPS located Pei Huan’s location. “Why is Li Cenbei bringing her there? Is he trying to flee the country through the river?” Pei Jingxiu narrowed his eyes. “Your men have already secured the airport and the sea channels. He can’t leave the county without being spotted.”
“The He Residence used to be located right by City River Park!” Fu Chengyan spoke up and suddenly frowned. “Bad news. He isn’t trying to escape the country at all.”
Li Heng, who was on a conference call with them, frowned too. “He’s trying to get back at the Li family. Back then, Li Xinzhi caused the downfall of the He family. He imprisoned He Xinyuan in one of the He family’s old villas.” Li Heng clenched his fists. He had only found out about this after some thorough investigation on his part.
Ever since Li Xinzhi accepted him as part of the Li family, Li Cenbei had been plotting his revenge. However, because his mother’s life was in Li Xinzhi’s hands, he hadn’t been able to do anything. When He Xinyuan finally passed away, Li Cenbei no longer had anything to live for. That was when he decided to strike.
Li Heng knitted his eyebrows into a frown. “He’s trying to take the Li family down. What does Huan have to do with all of this?” Li Heng hadn’t seen this coming at all.
He always thought Li Cenbei’s final target would be him. Just after Li Heng learned how to talk, Li Xinzhi had appointed him as the next Li clan head. Hence, Li Cenbei had always been resentful of him.
“He’s using Huan to control you! Li Heng, calm down,” Fu Chengyan said as their car sped through the streets. He glanced sideways at Pei Jingxiu. “Have you found their exact location yet?”
“Yes. I was just informed that Li Cenbei’s car may be loaded with explosives and other dangerous weapons. We have to be careful.” Pei Jingxiu’s slender fingers flew over the keyboard. With a rather cold expression, he pressed a hand to his earpiece and asked, “If the situation gets dangerous, do we kill him on sight?”
“Yes,” Li Heng replied. “Kill him right away.”
Pei Jingxiu smiled wickedly and let his hands fall onto the keyboard again. “Do you want to do the honors, or shall I do it instead?”
“Whatever you want!”
Pei Jingxiu hung up and kept his laptop away. “At this rate, we’ll probably catch up with them in about forty minutes.”
Fu Chengyan smiled. “Pei Jingxiu, you truly underestimate me!” As he spoke, he stepped on the accelerator. The car shot forward, easily exceeding the speed limit. “I’ll make sure to disable the CCTV cameras nearby later.”
“Alright!” Pei Jingxiu shot him an admiring glance. “Your skills aren’t rusty yet.”
Fu Chengyan wriggled his eyebrows at him teasingly. “Back to you.”
Li Heng was racing towards Li Cenbei and Pei Huan, too. As he sped there, he gave a call to Jiang Hu and Zhou Zheng, informing them to get into position and prepare themselves.
Fu Chengyan and Li Heng’s cars caught up with Li Cenbei almost simultaneously. Pei Huan was seated at the passenger’s seat. When she spotted Li Heng in the other car, her eyes widened. However, Li Heng shot a look at her through the window, telling her not to act rashly.
Li Cenbei had spotted Li Heng, too. He stepped on the accelerator and sped forward immediately. Feeling a little panicked, Pei Huan stuck out her hand and tried to stop him. “Li Cenbei, you can’t escape now. Stop the car!”
“Stop the car? Pei Huan, I can’t do that. Since I found out the truth of my birth thirty-five years ago and realized that my mother had been locked up in that windowless room by Li Xinzhi all this while, I can never stop again. Aren’t you curious about my relationship with the Li family? I’ll bring you somewhere soon. That way, you can understand why I have to kill everyone in the Li clan.”
“I don’t understand, and I don’t want to! Your grudge with the Li clan doesn’t concern me at all!” Pei Huan screamed. She wondered if Li Cenbei had lost his mind.
“Are you sure it doesn’t concern you? From the day you started dating Li Xufan, I’ve started paying attention to you. Pei Huan, you’re a very special girl. At first, I thought your relationship with Li Xufan was nothing more than puppy love. I thought that he would get sick of you soon. As I expected, he did get sick of you. However, you got into another relationship with Li Heng immediately after that!”
Pei Huan’s heart skipped a beat. “The person who wronged you was Li Xinzhi, not Li Cennan or Li Heng!”
“So what? As long as he’s a member of the Li clan and the future head of the family, I’ll make sure he suffers my wrath!” Li Cenbei’s expression looked awful. He glared daggers at Li Heng’s car. He glanced at the rearview mirror and saw that Fu Chengyan’s car had caught up with them.
“Pei Huan, I’m sorry for putting you in such a difficult position. I might have offended the Fu clan for your sake, but I never meant any of that.” As he spoke, Li Cenbei reached out a hand to caress Pei Huan’s face. However, Pei Huan grabbed hold of his arm and bit down hard on it. “Li Cenbei, you’re insane!”
“Don’t you want to know who else you’ve made an enemy of? Other than myself, of course.”
“What do you mean?”
Li Cenbei barked with laughter. “I was lying to you. I don’t have the antidote to the virus in your body. In fact, I wasn’t even the one who injected it into you. I never did it to Bao either.” He pinched Pei Huan’s cheeks affectionately. “Since I’ve returned to this country, I have no plans to leave ever again.”
Hearing this, Pei Huan felt her hairs stand on end. “What are you trying to do?”
She couldn’t tell what was going on in Li Cenbei’s mind. He was no longer the ‘He Beiting’ she had once known—the man before her was the devil incarnate. “Li Cenbei, there’s still a way out for you if you stop the car right now.”
“A way out for me? I was born wicked, and I’m going to die wicked, too. How is anyone going to save me?” Li Cenbei’s eyes narrowed as he laughed again. “You were never in my revenge plans, to begin with. But since you’ve appeared, I’ll take it as a gift from God. I promised my mother that I would go and look for her after tying up all my loose ends on this earth. I suppose I’ll be seeing her with you as my companion—my mother shall be very pleased!” He sped up the car. “Pei Huan, we’ll be seeing my mother very soon.”
“You’re crazy! You’re crazy! Li Cenbei, let me out of the car! You can kill yourself if you want to, but I want to get out of the car!” Pei Huan could hear the desperation in her voice, but she couldn’t care anymore.
Back when she had been kidnapped and starved to the brink of death, she hadn’t felt such a strong desire to live. But now, she had Li Heng, Bao, her parents, and all her relatives in the Fu family. She couldn’t die now!
Pei Huan pounced at Li Cenbei, trying to pry his fingers off the steering wheel. “Li Cenbei, stop the car right now! Stop the car!”
Upon seeing such a scene, Li Heng’s eyes narrowed. Tightening his grip on the steering wheel, he accelerated, making the car jerk forward.
When he saw Li Cenbei’s car speed forward and start zigzagging all over the road, Fu Chengyan frowned. “Pei Jingxiu, sit tight!”
Fu Chengyan stepped down on the accelerator fully. Beside him, Pei Jingxiu picked up a call from Li Heng. “Fu Chengyan will swoop in from the front and block him off. Start decelerating now. Are you confident that you can get the two tires at the back?”
“Yes!” Li Heng slowed down the car a little. “What about the two at the front?”
“Leave that to me!” Pei Jingxiu reached below his seat and pulled out two small revolvers. He threw one to Fu Chengyan. “Fu Chengyan, let’s score a headshot with these!”
