Chapter 9 The Teasing Yandere Boy 9

Chapter 9: The Teasing, Obsessive Boy 9

Jiang Ran clutched Qiao Ling's hand and dragged him forward as they ran. He had called the police before getting out of the car, and by his estimate, they should be pulling up any minute now. All he needed to do was buy two more minutes.

But Qiao Ling had never been in great shape to begin with, and he was already winded after just a few steps.

The guys behind them weren't letting up. The tall, skinny man grabbed Jiang Ran by the shoulder and muttered a warning: "Come with us now and we'll let him live."

It was obvious these guys were gunning for Jiang Ran.

Qiao Ling landed a hard kick on the guy, but before they could bolt, the lanky guy scrambled up and came at them with a knife this time.

Right as the blade was about to bury itself in Jiang Ran, Qiao Ling threw his arm up to block it.

Bright red beads of blood immediately welled up from the boy's pale forearm.

The searing pain snapped Qiao Ling wide awake. He gritted his teeth and swore, "Shit, you actually did it!"

Ow, ow, ow, that hurts like hell!

Jiang Ran seized Qiao Ling's hand, his eyes welling up as he stared at him. In his entire life, nobody had ever shielded him like this.

He swept his leg out and sent the lanky guy crashing to the ground. Jiang Ran then jammed his knee into the guy's back and slammed his fist into his gut. Each punch made the guy scream louder and shriller.

Just then, sirens blared in the distance. The bald, stocky guy who'd come running tried to bolt, but by the time he figured it out, they were already surrounded.

--

An hour later...

Jiang Ran and Qiao Ling had just finished giving their statements at the station.

The cute female cop had already patched up Qiao Ling's arm for now. It had bled a lot and looked gnarly.

Jiang Ran pulled out his phone and played the recording he'd set up earlier: "From the conversation, it's obvious they were following someone's orders.

I think someone's out to get me, so the priority right now is finding out who's pulling the strings."

Jiang Ran's voice was totally flat, eerily calm, like he'd planned all of this out way ahead of time.

The officer made a copy of the recording and said, "We'll hold onto this as evidence. We can only dig deeper once we've questioned those two. Don't worry."

The officer glanced at Jiang Ran, who was way too calm, and couldn't believe it.

When they'd shown up, Jiang Ran had the knife guy pinned down and was wailing on him.

The guy had a knife, but he couldn't even fight back—two cracked ribs, face all busted up.

Honestly, you couldn't tell who the real criminal was in that scene.

"Then I'll leave it in your hands."

Jiang Ran was already starting to regret what he'd done.

He could tell those two had planned to stage a car accident, but he'd caught on halfway and pulled over to the curb.

He'd gotten out just to fish for info on their "employer," but before he could even get halfway through, they'd already made their move.

"Those two are clearly hardened criminals—who knows how many cases they've got stacked against them. This whole thing..."

The officer was cut off mid-sentence as Qiao Huai and Chen Ming burst in from outside. Seeing Qiao Ling sprawled lazily in his chair with a busted arm, Qiao Huai couldn't help but frown.

"How the hell did you get hurt like this?"

Chen Ming added, "Yeah, weren't you supposed to head home? What are you doing here?"

Qiao Ling whimpered a bit. "Two psychos tried to kill me."

He gave a quick rundown of what happened, and Qiao Huai's frown deepened.

Qiao Huai tried to keep a level head. Even if Qiao Ling had pissed someone off, kidnapping or extortion would make sense—but going straight to violence was over the line.

Besides... from what he was hearing, they were gunning for Jiang Ran.

"Let's worry about that later. Should you hit the hospital first?" Jiang Ran asked, looking at the wound on Qiao Ling's arm.

Qiao Ling was about to say no, but then he suddenly remembered the head of a nearby private hospital.

Qiao Ling agreed right away. "Yeah, let's go."

When Qin Qing showed up with people to check on Qiao Ling, he'd just peeled back the gauze that was stopping the bleeding.

--

"Xiao Ling, how'd you end up this banged up?"

Qiao Ling waved at Qin Qing: "Aunt Qin, it's no big deal. Just a scratch. Ran into two nutjobs earlier and got into a scrap with them."

Qiao Ling had been a regular at the hospital since he was a kid—he'd basically grown up in this place.

Worth noting, Qin Qing was the hospital director and also the wife of the Jian family head.

"You're way too careless, kid. Your body's already fragile. If something serious happened, what would your mother do?"

Qin Qing frowned hard at the wound on the boy's arm.

Qiao Ling gave a faint smile and turned to Jiang Ran: "Auntie, check my boyfriend too. He's banged up as well. Give him a full once-over."

Qin Qing could tell from his vibe that he was probably okay.

But when she looked at Jiang Ran, she froze for a second.

Jiang Ran hadn't come out of it too bad, but he'd put a lot of power into those punches, and when he'd grabbed the guy's knife, he'd gotten cut up too.

"Alright, come with me, young man."

After Jiang Ran and Qin Qing left, Qiao Huai flicked Qiao Ling in the head.

"I told you this morning to look after yourself, and now you've gone and thrown yourself into the line of fire."

Qiao Huai felt like Qiao Ling had changed lately. He still had that same laid-back attitude, but he was clearly taking his feelings for people way more seriously.

This was Qiao Ling—the guy who whined about bitter meds and was terrified of needles.

And he went and took a knife for someone?!

Qiao Huai's jaw practically hit the floor when he heard that.

Qiao Ling gave a helpless smile. "I didn't go looking for trouble, but trouble came knocking anyway. Instead of chewing me out, bro, why don't you help me figure out who the hell is behind this? Who's so cold-blooded they'd come at me like this?"

"Can't you think of anyone you've pissed off lately?" Otherwise, why would two guys just show up out of nowhere to jump them, looking like they were out for blood?

Qiao Ling pretended to speak recklessly: "I never offend anyone; it's only when people do things that upset me that they offend me. But recently, I did offend Jian Qingming.

He insisted I drink when I didn't want to, so I told him off."

Upon hearing this, Qiao Huai warned in a low voice, "Don't talk nonsense. Auntie Qin is right next door."

The Jian and Qiao families had always been on good terms. Why would Jian Qingming want to harm him?

"I'm just stating the facts."

Two hours later, after Jiang Ran finished his complete physical exam, he returned home with Qiao Ling.

During the exam, Jiang Ran kept feeling that the way that woman looked at him was a bit strange.

But he couldn't quite put his finger on what was odd about it.

By the time they got home, Qiao Ling had already dozed off from exhaustion.

The wound on his arm was quite deep and would likely need a good while to heal properly.

Jiang Ran didn't wake him. He opened the car door and lifted Qiao Ling into his arms, carrying him inside.