Chapter 874 — A Message from Qiu Lingshan
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
The shrill wail of sirens rose as the police cars and the ambulance arrived almost at the same moment. Their response time, it had to be said, was quick enough—Ma Zhu's movements had simply been quicker. The alarm had been raised by the owner of the stationery store, who was still frozen in shock by what he had just witnessed.
He had not caught the exchange between Ma Zhu and Uncle Qing, but he had seen Ma Zhu send Uncle Qing flying with a single palm—to an ordinary man, that was like something out of a movie, outrageous and utterly beyond belief.
The internal organs and the sternum were shattered; there was basically no hope left. Such was the conclusion the paramedics reached. There was no longer time to get him to a hospital—the only thing to be done was emergency treatment in the back of the ambulance.
Qiu Lingshan arrived a step behind. The first responders had been patrol officers, but once they saw that this was a vicious kidnapping and assault case, they had immediately notified the criminal investigation unit.
"What's the situation?" Qiu Lingshan got out of the car and came running over quickly.
"Captain Song, the alarm was raised by the owner of the stationery store—he's an eyewitness to the whole thing. His statement indicates that this entire case is an ambush kidnapping..." One of the patrol officers immediately reported to Qiu Lingshan, laying out the full sequence of events for her.
"Have the identities of the hostage and the injured man been established?" Qiu Lingshan asked once she had heard the account.
"The license plate left at the scene shows that the Bentley belongs to the Gu Group, and the driver—that is, the injured man—is Li Fu, driver for Gu Pengzhan, chairman of the Gu Group. Judging by his identity, the hostages are most likely Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu," the patrol officer said.
"What! Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu?" Qiu Lingshan's eyes went wide. What startled her, of course, was not only the identity of the hostages but the injured man, Li Fu. She knew about Li Fu—Gu Pengzhan's driver and close guard—and Uncle Qing's strength was on file at the station: an external martial artist at the peak of the late Yellow Rank. How could anyone have beaten him into critical condition, to the point that he was already gone?
What kind of strength did this kidnapper have? And according to the eyewitness, the stationery store owner, the man had sent Uncle Qing flying with a single palm—that put him at least at the Mystic Rank. When had such a formidable fighter come to Songshan City? And why would he want to kidnap Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu?
Still, Wei Zhao was the close guard of Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu, so the first person Qiu Lingshan thought of was Wei Zhao. She had to inform him of this at once. Even though she did not think highly of Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu—those two girls were always working against her—business was business and personal was personal, and Qiu Lingshan drew that line very clearly.
So Qiu Lingshan sent her subordinate Liu Wangli to notify Gu Pengzhan, while she herself dialed Wei Zhao's number.
After Wei Zhao tried to reach Uncle Qing and found that no one answered, his unease only deepened. Both the young miss's phone and Xiaoshu's were switched off, and Uncle Qing was not picking up either. What did that mean? It meant something must have happened to all three of them.
"Uncle Qing isn't answering either..." Wei Zhao frowned and said to Tang Zhi.
"You... you should go and take a look... make sure nothing has happened..." Tang Zhi hesitated a moment before speaking.
"Then take the breakfast and eat it in the car." Wei Zhao was frantic with worry over Gu Mengyao's safety. In theory, with Uncle Qing there, nothing could happen to Gu Mengyao—but there were exceptions to everything. What if another fighter like Yu Kun turned up?