Chapter 54

Before Huo Ran could say anything, Kou Chen tightened his grip and steered them towards a nearby path.

To make it look more believable, he even turned to Huo Ran and pretended to whisper intimately in his ear. 

After a few seconds of pretending, he realized that he was probably a little nervous too. There was no way they could hear what they were saying from this distance.

“Put your arm around my waist,” Kou Chen whispered. “Make it look real, they’re still staring at us.”

“Wha… oh.” Huo Ran reached out and put an arm around his waist.

“Huo Ran, relax, what’s wrong with you?” He said. The arm Huo Ran had around him was still trembling. “Why are you shaking so much?” 

“Zhi, Zhifan.” Huo Ran’s voice was a little shaky too.

“I know.” Kou Chen turned his head slightly and glanced around out of the corner of his eye. There didn’t seem to be any movement from that group of people, and he let out a sigh of relief. “Turn the corner ahead, we’ll text the others when they can’t see us.”

“Right now, hurry.” Huo Ran controlled himself and pinched his waist, “I, saw.”

Kou Chen’s hand shook as he went to get his phone: “What did you see? You saw Xu Zhifan’s mom?”

“Yes.” Huo Ran’s voice almost cracked as he said that, and it was a bit loud even when he tried to keep it down, “I saw her!”

“Fuck,” Kou Chen immediately got her phone out. “Did she see you?”

“Bullshit, of course she did. I could pick her out in a group of over ten people, could she not see me? I just don’t know if she recognized me or not.” Huo Ran frowned, “If she did, then that’s a problem.”

“Mhm, what if she’d been brainwashed? She might run if you recognized her.” Kou Chen’s hands shook in his urgency. 

“Behind the building,” Huo Ran seemed to have calmed down a little now, “We should still be able to see them there, make sure they don’t run.”

“Okay.” Kou Chen sent a voice message in the group chat. “Hurry up! We found them! Ten or so people meeting in the pavilion, they saw us and they might run! Get here right now.”

He sent their location right after, and then another voice message: “Go from the main gates, they’ll probably leave from there, and you guys can block them off.”

Following that was a bunch of exclamation marks from the others, and a voice message from Xu Zhifan: “Chuan-ge, you two go from the back gates, it’s on the east of you, we’ll go to the front gates.” 

Xu Chuan replied with an okay.

The group chat was silent for now.

Huo Ran and Kou Chen quickly went around to the back of the buildings, stopping between building 34s and 35. They could see the pavilion through the trees. 

“Come here,” Kou Chen pulled Huo Ran over to the wall, “Don’t let them see us.”

“Oh.” Huo Ran leaned against the wall next to him.

“If they leave, we’ll be able to hear. “Kou Chen said. “They have a lot of people, it’ll be loud.”

“Oh.” Huo Ran stuck to the wall and stared up ahead. 

The two of them stood there, and Kou Chen sent another message in the group chat telling the others that they were in between buildings 34 and 35.

After that, he pushed away from the wall and turned. He put a hand on the side of Huo Ran’s head and stared at Huo Ran with a frown: “Are you okay?”

“Go away,” Huo Ran looked at him, “In the mood for a kabedon at a time like this?”

“Nah,” Kou Chen looked at his arm, “I just think it looks cool, and I never got the chance to do this. It’s not like I can kabedon Chuan-ge or something.” 

“Why not?” Huo Ran said.

“He’ll start laughing,” Kou Chen tsked. “You won’t.”

“Oh.” Huo Ran sighed. “This is just exasperation.”

Kou Chen laughed and kept his position. He glanced at the small path leading out of the fountain. If they were going to leave, they would use that path. 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

“Fuck,” Huo Ran sighed after a moment of silence. “How did we find her so fast? I wasn’t mentally prepared at all.”

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“Qtja jgf kf ubccj vb?” Leb Ejc jrxfv, “Glv kf ajix jybea la?”

“Jjii atf qbilmf ktfc We Itlojc ufar tfgf,” Bbe Jtfc rjlv. “Po atfs ags ab ifjnf yfobgf atf mbqr ufa tfgf, kf’ii tjnf ab ugjy tfg. Po kf ifa atfw ub cbk, la kbc’a yf fjrs ab olcv atfw jujlc.” 

“Mhm.” Huo Ran grit his teeth, and pressed down on one of his fingers.

The joint cracked with a sound.

“We’ll show these pyramid scheme fuckers what disaster looks like.” Kou Chen pressed down on his own finger with a crack.

Huo Ran did the same. Crack. 

Kou Chen looked at him: “I’m not gonna fall for it. Childish.”

Huo Ran laughed: “Scared to dislocate something again?”

“I’m scared you’ll dislocate something!” Kou Chen glared.

“I’ve never dislocated a finger in all my ten years of doing this.” Huo Ran said, “But I don’t do it often, it’s bad for your joints.” 

“I can’t even get ten cracks a year.” Kou Chen tsked.

“That’s why you dislocated it.” Huo Ran said.

Kou Chen raised an eyebrow in challenge. He took his hand off the wall and raised both hands in front of him, pressing down on a finger.

Crack. 

Huo Ran looked at his hand.

He pressed down again, but this time there was no sound.

Huo Ran looked up, and Kou Chen held eye contact for a second before putting his hands back in his pockets: “Forget it. It’ll be annoying if you have to rub my fingers again right now.”

“It won’t be.” Huo Ran said. “Two seconds at most.” 

Kou Chen pointed at him: “Don’t go too far now.”

Huo Ran laughed. He felt a bit better now.

A few minutes later, Xu Zhifan and Xu Chuan’s groups came around, and he was nervous again. 

“Did you see? Did you see your mom?” Kou Chen immediately went up to them and pointed at the pavilion, “Huo Ran saw your mom, did you?”

“I didn’t go over there, in case I scared them.” Xu Zhifan said. “I called the police on the way over, they’re on their way.”

“Keep an eye on them,” Xu Chuan said. “If they run, forget everything else, just hold back Xu Zhifan’s mom.”

“Did my mom see you?” Xu Zhifan asked Huo Ran. 

“Yeah,” Huo Ran said. “I’m sure of it, we made eye contact.”

“How do you think she is? Is she already brainwashed or…” Xu Zhifan frowned in worry.

“I…” Huo Ran frowned too. He couldn’t remember what sort of feeling Xu Zhifan’s mom gave him at that moment. He felt a bit frustrated, “Fuck, I wasn’t paying attention, I didn’t dare… I was…”

“He was shaking all over, standard symptoms of Parkinson’s.” Kou Chen said. “We were trying to see if the bench by the fountain was the same as the one in your mom’s photo, and then we saw them. Scared me.” 

“It’s fine, we found her now, nothing else matters.” Xu Zhifan clasped a fist in his other hand. “I’ll thank you properly when we get back.”

“Forget that,” Kou Chen said. “Just buy me a drink.”

“When are the police coming?” Hu Yi peeked over at the group, “Some of them stood up, I think they’re gonna leave.”

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They all rushed to look. 

There were three people already standing, Kou Chen remembered. And then the refined looking guy stood up, and that was four. Now there were six or seven standing, and they could hear them speaking too. They just couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying.

It really looked like they were saying their goodbyes right before the meeting was about to end.

“We can’t wait,” Xu Chuan frowned, “I don’t think we should wait. If they leave the pavilion, we won’t be able to catch up easily. They can run anywhere.”

“Did the police say to wait for them?” Huo Ran asked Xu Zhifan. 

“I don’t remember,” Xu Zhifan frowned. “I was shaking so hard I almost bit my tongue off. All I remember is them saying they’re on their way.”

“Let’s go,” Jiang Lei said. “Even if they said to wait, we can’t. We’re kids anyways, we’re not supposed to be reliable.”

“Yeah, we make rash decisions.” Wei Chaoren said. “It’s my mom over there, not some other person. Am I supposed to be calm?”

“It’s my mom.” Xu Zhifan reminded him. 

“…I’m just saying! It’s an example!” Wei Chaoren said.

“Let’s go,” Xu Zhifan grit his teeth. “What was my mom wearing?”

“A blue long sleeved shirt with embroidered flowers.” Huo Ran said. That he saw clearly, because he remembered that shirt. “The one you bought her last year.”

“The one she said was ugly?” Xu Zhifan asked. 

“Yeah.” Huo Ran nodded.

“Let’s go!” Xu Zhifan motioned with his hand, and rushed out between buildings. “The one in the blue shirt.”

As they jumped onto the path from behind the trees, the members were already headed out of the pavilion, almost onto the path. 

“Forget the other people for now!” Kou Chen ran over.

The rest of them were close on his heels.

But this time, Xu Zhifan was at the very front. Apart from having some long distance endurance, this guy would never stand when he could sit, and now he was running faster than the hundred metre and four hundred metre champions. He even overtook them by about a metre.

It was the brainwashing group indeed. Kou Chen watched as they scattered in all directions without a second of hesitation. He knew his intuition was right. 

As Xu Zhifan rushed onto the path, three of the members had already walked out. Xu Zhifan locked his gaze onto the person in the blue shirt still sitting inside the pavilion.

Huo Ran didn’t run directly over. He pushed a middle aged man into a pond behind the fountain on the way.

The group of koi fish thought it was someone feeding them, and they immediately converged on top of the man.

Seeing that, Kou Chen also grabbed the man running past him, and threw him into the pond as he yelled out a “what are you doing?!”. 

From his accent, he was from the same area as them.

Aunt Hu’s classmate?

With Huo Ran and Kou Chen’s examples, the rest of them immediately caught onto the way to stall these people until the police arrived.

They all sprinted over and pushed everyone they could get their hands on into the pond. 

The members of the brainwashing group weren’t as weak as they seemed at the moment, but everything happened so suddenly and they all had a guilty conscience, so they didn’t fight back. Two of them even jumped into the pond themselves to escape.

After dealing with all of the obstacles, Xu Zhifan was already hugging his mom.

“Auntie!” Huo Ran called out, “Are you okay?” 

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” Xu Zhifan’s mom had shock and confusion written all over her face. After a moment, she said, “What’s happening? Why are you guys here?”

“We came to look for you,” Xu Zhifan said. “Come home with me, you hear that?”

They all went quiet and waited for Xu Zhifan’s mom’s reply. They were all afraid that she would refuse.

They came across quite a few cases about brainwashing pyramid schemes. Once they were successful, who knew how long it would take to snap them out of it. 

“I hear you, I hear you.” Xu Zhifan’s mom nodded, voice slightly shaking. “I just never would’ve thought you guys would be the ones to come and save me.”

Hearing her say ‘save’, they all let out the breath they’ve been holding.

“I called the police, they’re almost here.” Xu Zhifan said. “Did they do anything to you? Hit you or anything…”

“No,” Xu Zhifan’s mom shook her head. “They just boasted about how much money I could make and showed me around the place. How ever many windows there are in the building meant something about the country’s support and all that, I’m about to go insane.” 

“Auntie, did you give them any money?” Xu Chuan asked.

“No,” Xu Zhifan’s mom glanced at the people climbing out of the pond. She pointed at a fat woman, “She was the one that brought me here, don’t let her escape.”

Before the woman could stand up straight, Jiang Lei and Wei Chaoren were already there to hold her down.

On the other side, Xu Chuan stopped the refined looking man from getting out of the pond. 

“Keep an eye on this one too!” Xu Chuan said. “He looks like the head.”

“He’s the lecturer.” Xu Zhifan’s mom said.

The head indeed. Kou Chen went over and pushed him back into the water with his foot.

The pond was barely even waist deep, but the only way to get out was by the pavilion. It was surrounded by a hill of trees and shrubs everywhere else. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The refined looking man paced around in a refined way, looking for an escape.

“Tell that to the police later. You can say we beat you up.” Kou Chen pointed at them. “In any case, I will beat you up if you try to escape. I dare you.”

They couldn’t hold back all the members, only the important looking ones. There were eight in total, and the rest all ran away. 

But when the police car arrived, they saw two dripping wet men inside. Probably ran into them on the way.

“Go back with the other lady in this car,” One of the officers talked to them as he made a call after they explained the situation. “My buddy will deal with the rest… Good work kids. I’ll give you an address, you guys get a cab over. I’ll give you the money.”

“It’s fine, I…” Kou Chen started out of habit.

I have money, I have lots of money, my family has lots of money! 

But Huo Ran cut him off.

“Okay, thank you sir. We’ll make our way there.” Huo Ran said. “Thank you, please look into it thoroughly. We came from a long way out, one of of the victims is back home, and she tried to commit suicide because of it.”

“We’ll deal with the situation.” The officer nodded. “Go now, and then get some rest after your statement.”

Xu Zhifan got into the police car with his mom, along with a few of the other brainwashing group members. The rest of them left to get a cab. 

As they stood by the road to wait, Kou Chen bent and dusted the dirt off his pants. “Fuck.”

“Fuck.” Jiang Lei followed.

Wei Chaoren sighed as well: “Fuck. That was great.”

“Fuck.” Hu Yi squatted down beside a tree, “It’s so hot.” 

“We were great back there.” Xu Chuan rubbed his arm and said with a smile.

“Yeah.” Huo Ran looked at Kou Chen.

Kou Chen turned to him: “What?”

“Nothing.” Huo Ran smiled. 

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