Chapter 1236: I Want to Make You Stay (114)
“We met inside the tomb. He said he entered because he was curious. Luckily, he was here to show the way, which was why we were able to come out from it.”
“Oh, I see.”
Wearing a short-sleeved shirt, An Xiaoning took an umbrella and got down from the car as well. She had spotted the Mercedes-Benz parked at the same old spot, so that must mean that Henry was waiting for her in the car, right?
Dragging her tired body, she walked briskly to the car.
When she tried to pull open the car door, however, it was unexpectedly locked.
An Xiaoning knocked on the car window. “Unlock the door.”
There was still no sign of movement.
She shone her torch on the front glass of the car and realized that there was actually no one inside.
Where had he gone?
The car was parked here, so there was no way he could have gone back. After all, the car keys were with him.
He could possibly have left a car for her without leaving the car keys.
An Xiaoning made a call to Wei Ni Estate and found out that he wasn’t at home either, so she immediately got Fan Shixin to check his GPS location.
Unexpectedly, he was unable to track his location.
It was impossible given that Henry knew that he had the tracker on him. He had worn it all along and could not have possibly removed it now, unless…
An Xiaoning’s gaze landed at the entrance of the tomb.
Could it be that he had gone in without waiting for her to come out?
She had come out completely fatigued and with her legs almost dying. What if he wasn’t able to?
An Xiaoning’s heart wrenched tightly.
“Chief Pan, here, your phone.” With an umbrella in hand, she turned around and was about to run through the entrance of the tomb when, upon the sight of this, Bureau Chief Pan called out to her, “Xiaoning, where are you going?”
“Qingyan may have gone into the tomb to find me.”
“What?!”
Upon hearing this, Pan Zhenghui immediately made everyone get off the car. “You rest in here, we’ll go and find him.”
To utter these words, Pan Zhenghui used up all the courage he possessed in his whole life.
No matter how unwilling to enter he was, he could not be so forthright about it like Wang Jinsheng.
“Let’s go in together.” An Xiaoning was aware of her own limitations. Her legs were almost breaking, and she probably would not be able to return if she went in by herself. It would be better if she had company. If they were to meet with danger, she would go to the extent of using her own life to protect them.
“You’re going in again?” the man holding onto the umbrella asked upon hearing her words as he approached her.
“Yes. My man is most probably inside. He surely must have gone in to find me because he didn’t see me coming out.”
“We’ve spent so much effort to get out of there and you’re hastily going back in again. It’s too dangerous.”
“No matter how dangerous it is, I have to go in.” An Xiaoning turned around and was about to enter the tomb straight away.
At this moment, a figure emerged from the tomb.
“He’s out!”
An Xiaoning stared straight at the figure approaching, her happiness indescribable. She just pounced into his arms without saying a word.
Upon seeing her, Henry’s anxious heart was finally able to rest at ease, and his eyebrows, which were originally creased into a frown, instantly relaxed.
His hands, which were by his sides, immediately wrapped around her.
But within a few seconds, he relaxed his arms.
An Xiaoning could not help but grab onto his hand. Henry did not shake her hand off either, perhaps because there were quite a lot of people surrounding them and he did not want to embarrass her.
“Chief Pan, please help me to send him home.” An Xiaoning pointed to the man who remained silent throughout.
“I will, I will. Don’t worry. I’ll definitely send him home.”
“Alright. Let’s all go back now.” Henry took An Xiaoning’s umbrella, and the two were about to leave together.
But a crisp and clear voice stopped her. “Ms. An.”
She turned back. “Yes?”
“We’ll meet again.”
An Xiaoning had originally thought that they would not possibly meet each other anymore. But hearing him say this, she answered, “I hope that the next time I see you, I’ll be able to know what your name is.”
“You don’t have to wait ’til next time. I can tell you what my name is right now. I’m Zong Jingyi.”
What a willful boy! When she asked him, he wouldn’t tell her. Now that she was no longer asking him, he simply revealed his name just like that.
An Xiaoning looked at him and replied, “Alright, I’ll remember it. Thank you for today.”
Henry had remained rather quiet throughout, but when they got into the car, the first thing he said was, “Who was that Zong Jingyi?”
“I met him in the tomb. He went in because he was curious. He had entered from another entrance and helped me quite a lot. If not for him, when I fell from a great height, I would have either died or become paralyzed. It was all thanks to him that I escaped unscathed.” An Xiaoning drew the curtains and started to remove her wet clothes without saying anything further.
“What are you doing…?”
“Removing my clothes.”
“Can’t you do that when we reach home?”
“It’s simply too uncomfortable.” Her movements were so rapid that when Henry took out his car keys, she had already removed all her clothes. Luckily, when she had come out earlier, she had prepared clothes in advance. Otherwise, she would have had to return in her wet clothes.
Henry had simply taken a glance, in an unlit environment furthermore, and already felt himself becoming flushed from head to toe. He then immediately retracted his gaze.
After a minute or two, the car went through the rain and was driven away.
The police car followed behind them and left as well.
Zong Jingyi, who was sitting in the police car, looked out the window and watched as the Mercedes-Benz drove away. Turning his head over, he asked, “Is that man Ms. An’s boyfriend?”
“Don’t you know who Mr. Jin is?” Pan Zhenghui was rather surprised. Never would he have expected that there was actually someone who didn’t know who Jin Qingyan was. “Did you not take a closer look just now?”
“I never use the internet or watch television. Even if I read the papers, I only pay attention to matters related to the military, so…” His face was turned toward the glass of the car window so that no one would be able to notice his eyes.
“I see.” Pan Zhenghui readily educated him, “Whether Mr. Jin is Xiaoning’s boyfriend or not, it’s not easy for us to say. After all, Xiaoning doesn’t tell us about her personal matters. But Xiaoning lives in Mr. Jin’s house, so they should still be together. One thing we can say for sure, though, is that he’s Xiaoning’s ex-husband.”
“Ex-husband?”
“Correct, ex-husband. They’ve been married twice altogether and got divorced twice as well.” Pan Zhenghui only explained this much to him. “Where’s your house?”
“You can just send me to Mingyuan Road.”
“Alright.”
….
On the way back home, An Xiaoning explained the whole process of her entering the tomb and meeting Zong Jingyi to Henry.
He listened to her quietly and made no mention of him entering the tomb to find her.
But while he did not mention it at all, An Xiaoning was curious to find out.
The two sat at the dining table. An Xiaoning picked up a glass of milk and finished it in one go. Even though she had already drunk a bottle of mineral water on the way back, she still felt very thirsty.
Placing the glass down, she asked, “Can you tell me the whole process of you entering and coming out of the tomb? I want to know.”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes, I really do.”
“If you sleep on the sofa tonight and let me have the bed to myself, I’ll tell you.”
“I won’t need to sleep on the sofa, I’ll sleep in the guest room tonight. So, tell me.” She didn’t think it was that big of an issue and was simply too easy a request to fulfill. She then picked up her chopsticks and started to eat.
Seeing her agree to it so readily, Henry started to pick up his chopsticks to eat as well. With food in his mouth, he replied, “You went in for half an hour and still had not come out, so I simply went in. I brought a torch and a phone with me when I went in to find you, but the torch ran out of battery later on. My phone battery ran out as well. Since I couldn’t find you, I just came back out.”