Bringing Wangwang with her, Xin Qing rushed to Candy Town. Once she arrived, she met her three kids at a restaurant inside the hotel that the academy had booked for the trip.
"Mommy!" Ah Sha, too, was aware that two children had been kidnapped, which was why she was in a rather bad emotional state when Xin Qing arrived. It saddened Wangwang greatly to see his sister in such distress, so he threw himself into her arms the moment he saw her. Although the little boy had no clue what was going on, he was surprised that his beautiful sister did not greet him with a kiss. Deep down, the little boy felt a little bothered by that.
Xunxun patted Ah Sha's head. "Take your brother back to our room, okay?" Xunxun told her.
"Mommy, I didn't do it on purpose." Ah Sha's eyes held unshed tears. "I didn't know that someone was trying to kidnap me."
"Ah Sha, none of this is your fault, okay? Listen to Xunxun and take your brother back to the room," Xin Qing said, giving Ah Sha a hug. Xiao Rui stood up immediately and said, "I'll go with her!"
As she watched Xiao Rui and Ah Sha enter the elevator, Xin Qing asked Xunxun: "What happened?"
Before Xunxun had a chance to answer, a woman rushed forward and seized Xin Qing's arm. "So you are that little bitch's mother? Let me tell you something, I'll fucking destroy you if my son and daughter lose a single hair."
Xin Qing shoved the woman aside. "Ma'am, you're hurting my arm. Also, please watch your tone. If I hear you speak ill of my daughter again, I'll call my lawyer and have you sued," Xin Qing said icily.
"Shuwen, stop this. You need to calm down." A man rushed over quickly and seized the woman before she could pounce on Xin Qing again. "This isn't their fault. Stop acting like this."
The woman called Shuwen gave a hard kick to the man's shin. A scary look took over her face as she started pounding the man's chest with her fists and said, "Liu Fuming, are you even a father? They are your children, for fuck's sake! Or do you wish that my children were harmed so that you can bring home those wild bitches you've been seeing?"
It was lunch hour, so the restaurant was packed with customers. Caesar Academy students in the restaurant recognized Xin Qing, and had all begun to form a circle around them.
"President Xin, shall we call the police?" asked a few prefects from senior grade.
Xin Qing waved them off. "Don't stand around here. Go back to your rooms and rest."
Only then did the students disperse. Xunxun had been standing beside Xin Qing with a scowl on his face throughout the entire exchange. Xunxun released a cold sneer when he noticed the calculating look on the woman's face as she appraised Xin Qing. "If you and your greedy self hadn't insisted on having your daughter put on Ah Sha's dress, those kidnappers would never have kidnapped the wrong children. And yet here you are, acting all insolent, disrespectful and way out of line." Xunxun pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. A split second later, a high-pitched female voice sounded from the speaker:
"You're that little bitch's mother!"
Xunxun wagged the phone in his hand and glared at the woman fiercely. "Be prepared to hear from our lawyers. I'll sue you for public verbal assault."
That woman had already begun rethinking her options the moment she heard the crowd addressing Xin Qing as President Xin. She knew all the kids there attended Caesar Academy. She did enroll her children to the academy a while back, though her children never got accepted into the academy, which was too bad. She knew that Caesar Academy was owned by the Xin Financial Group. Now there was this woman whose surname was also Xin. "Could she be the President Xin?"
"Are you the president of Xin Enterprises?"
Xin Qing nodded. "You have my sympathy for what happened to your kids. But now that everything's cleared up, please excuse me." Based on what Xunxun had said just now, Xin Qing understood that the cause of this incident had nothing to do with Ah Sha at all. That said, she would not be looking to poke her nose into other people's affairs unless she had too much energy and time to spare. Besides, this woman was obviously a quarrelsome vixen and a termagant.
"President Xin, haha! Okay, look, this is all just a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding!" The woman's attitude changed completely. Now she was smiling amicably at Xin Qing. "We've already agreed to pay the ransom. I'm sure both of our kids will be returned to us unharmed!"
Xin Qing had no idea what this woman's problem was. "Thank goodness, then," Xin Qing said blandly.
Then, the woman threw out another statement. "So, when the school re-opens, please let our kids enter Caesar!"
Xunxun released a snort. "Sure, if they can pass the entrance exams."
"Oh, right. We did take the exams last year, but you see, the thing is..."
Subtext: They did not pass.
"In Caesar, there're no restrictions on the number of times you can take the entrance exams. If you didn't pass last year, you're welcome to retake it this year," Xin Qing said patiently.
Having heard Xin Qing's comment, the other woman panicked. "Look, President Xin. Our kids have been kidnapped because of your daughter. Shouldn't you at least compensate us?"
"Haha!" Xin Qing huffed out in anger and then threw a business card at the woman. "This is my lawyer's card. Call her if you have anything you wish to say." After that, she took Xunxun's hand and walked away. Before the woman could move to block Xin Qing's path, the woman's husband yanked her back.
"Are you out of your d*mn mind? You think you can afford to mess with them?"
What ensued then was another bout of swearing and verbal abuse. Xin Qing stepped into the elevator and saw that Xunxun was still wearing a long face. "This kid is looking more and more like his father," Xin Qing thought. The boy did not have his mother's crescent-shaped eyes at all.
Wangwang was already asleep when they got back to the room. Ah Sha was sitting there, sulking. Xiao Rui nodded at Xin Qing upon her entrance.
"Ah Sha!" Xunxun called. "Come on, let's go to the bedroom and take a nap together."
"Can I kick this kid out?" Xin Qing thought with a glare. Still, Ah Sha had already risen to her feet and was now walking towards Xunxun's side. "Mommy, will you stay?"
"You'll be hanging around that brat even if I stay." That was what Xin Qing was dying to say. Still, she held her tongue. Instead, she pursed her lips and gave Ah Sha a kiss. "Yes, mommy will stay. We'll head back together tomorrow."
"Yours is a suite. So Xiao Rui can sleep here with you tonight," Xunxun said. Great, now the brat had left the third wheel with her as well.
After Xunxun and Ah Sha left, Xiao Rui said, "That lady just now isn't a simple-minded person. There's something fishy about her husband, too."
"Just ignore them. We'll leave tomorrow morning," Xin Qing said, pinching Xiao Rui's face. "Well, this is probably another poker-face in the making..."
Inside the laundry room on the hotel's top floor, a bespectacled, middle-aged man was arguing with someone over the phone.
"What did you just say? You want to trade my kids with President Xin's daughter?" Liu Fuming shouted in disbelief. "Are you guys nuts? You already agreed to release my kids once my wife pays the ransom. I can't believe you guys threatening me right now. What, you don't want the money anymore? Is that it?"
The other person on the line said something that made Liu Fuming shaking in anger. "Don't harm my kids," he said. "This isn't my call. Why don't you guys just call my wife!" He hung up the phone angrily.
"Son of a bitch!" he cursed inwardly. At first, he had planned to use this vacation to arrange a fake kidnapping and then extort money from that bitch, Shuwen. He had misappropriated an amount of the company's funds in order to buy a house for his mistress. He never expected that slut sold the house and then run off with the money. Right now, he did not have the wherewithal to replace the missing funds, and the house was gone, too. His wife would find out what he had been up to if she discovered the discrepancy in the company's accounts.
It was pure happenstance that they ran into the students of Caesar Academy during this trip. So he notified the kidnappers last minute about the change of plans. He asked the kidnappers to call him to tell him that they had abducted the wrong kids. That way, he was able to draw away suspicion away from himself. He did not expect the kidnappers to change their minds now. They were not interested in his money anymore. They wanted to get their hands on President Xin's kid, otherwise they would murder his kids.
Liu Fuming hurried back into his room. Yan Shuwen pounced on him the moment he entered, hitting him and yelling at him: "Do you know that the kidnappers no longer want our money? They want us to trade our kids with President Xin's."
"What?" Liu Fuming played the fool. "Then hurry up and call the police!"
"No, you fool. What if they kill our kids if I go to the police?" Yan Shuwen glared at him. "That President Xin is so unappreciative of other people's kindness. Why should I help her call the cops?"
Liu Fuming sneered inwardly, though he kept a straight face. "Then what do you want to do?" he asked carefully.
"Take her kids and go through with the hostage exchange, of course!" Yan Shuwen laughed gleefully. "She has it coming for humiliating me just now. Plus, it was that little b*tch's fault that our kids were kidnapped in the first place. It's only right to trade her kids for ours."
The two of them spent the whole night scheming and planning. Little did they know that the police had already arrested the kidnappers some time during the night. Apparently, someone had tipped off the police regarding the kidnapper's hideout. The police raided the place and caught the kidnappers red-handed. Other than minor shock, the two children were otherwise unharmed.
As Yan Shuwen watched the police bring her children back, she felt it's a pity. "Damn it. If the cops had been just a bit later, we would've been able to go through with the hostage exchange," she thought. Liu Fuming, on the other hand, was feeling a bit terrified. He hid himself behind Yan Shuwen and whispered to her, "Have you caught the kidnappers?"
"We did," said one of the policeman, giving Liu Fuming a strange look. During the raid, he and his colleagues had seen a car driving away from the area. They did not pay much attention to it since they were in a hurry to rescue the hostages. But when they arrived at the location, they found that the three kidnappers passed out while the children were tied to the bed post. They then brought the kidnappers away. Right now, all three of them were still asleep in the police station. The only thing they could do right now was waiting for the kidnappers to wake up and then interrogate them.
Relief only came to Liu Fuming when the cops left. Deep down, he was wondering why those guys had never ratted out on him; however, the more he thought about it, the more paranoid he became. He tugged at Yan Shuwen's arm and said, "The whole mood is ruined after an incident like this. Let's go home this afternoon!"
Yan Shuwen agreed with him. Their two children were crying non-stop. It would be best if they head back home first.
Meanwhile, Xin Qing and the others had already arrived at the airport and were boarding a private jet owned by Xin Enterprises. Thirteen hours later, the jet landed in S City. To their surprise, they were swarmed by reporters the moment they stepped out of the arrival hall; the foreign reporters had somehow found out about Ah Sha's near-kidnapping incident.
Ah Che, the one in charge of picking them up at the airport, shielded them as they slowly made their way to the airport's exit. When the reporters realized that they were unable to get any of their questions answered, they took out their cameras and began snapping photos. There were even TV crews who were doing live coverage.
Capital, Jiang's Residence.
Song Chunli stared at the TV screen that showed Xin Qing being swarmed by a bunch of reporters. She narrowed her eyes and was just about to change the channel when she suddenly found herself unable to tear her eyes away from the screen. Her lips trembled as her grip went slack; her favorite purple teacup smashed to the floor.
"Clack!" The crisp sound of the shattering glass shocked Song Chunli into alertness. She rose to her feet, and then sat back down after a while. She picked up the phone and dialed.
When Jiang Qianren came home that night, he immediately saw his mother pacing around anxiously. His mother came up to him the moment she saw his return. "Qianren, let me ask you something. How many kids does Xin Qing have?"
"Why are you asking this?" Jiang Qianren stared at his mother in mild surprise. "Didn't you say you'll never consider making her the Jiang family's daughter-in-law?"
Song Chunli's pressed her lips into a tight line. "I did say that. And I will still say it now."
"Fine, then. I happen to have something to discuss with you as well. My unit has been granted leave. I'm going to S City."
"Very well!"
Jiang Qianren had been prepared to further convince his mother to let him go when he heard her agreement.
"Mom, what did you just say?" He thought his ears might be playing tricks on him.
Song Chunli just stared at him. "You said you wanted to go to S City and I said very well."
Meanwhile, in France, Ying Qingcang pushed open the door and saw Rong Siman staring at him with a look of hatred.
"Ah Cang! I can't believe you had sex with her!"