For dinner, the gang settled upon karaoke and KBBQ.
But because they were all underaged, they settled on soft drinks. Mu Jian Nu sat at the table with Sheng Rong and watched the BBQ cook. Gebao and Jiexu were singing away while the others laughed at their duet of My Heart will go on by Celene Dion.
Jian Nu stuck a piece of perfectly seasoned and cooked beef in front of her face. "Try one," he bobbed the stick in front of her eyes, "It's good, I promise,"
Sheng Rong opened her mouth and took the piece of juicy beef into her mouth, "Hmmm," She hummed and nodded her head in response, this man could never make anything that tasted bad.
"Good?"
"Hmm,"
"Good, cause this was my first time barbequing," Her eyes widened.
Her hand covered her mouth as she said, "Really!?" He used the same chopsticks to grab a piece of his own and savoured the flavour as he bit into it.
"Yup, now let's try the vegetables," He said with a serious face.
"Guys! The meat is ready!" She yelled out.
Immediately, four people crowed the table as the last of the song played in the background.
The rest of the night was filled with laughter, food, and singing.
_______________
Jian Nu carried a half-asleep Sheng Rong to her bedroom. She was very clingy when tired, the whole car ride, she was hugging his arm, and now she was hugging his neck as he princess carried her.
Now he understood why she had so many pillows and stuffies on her bed. But he wasn't complaining, he liked the clingy Sheng Rong, very much.
Somehow, he managed to get the sleepy Sheng Rong to change herself into her nightclothes while he left to do the same. He returned to make sure that she had indeed changed, only to find her slumped over the dresser in her pyjamas.
He sighed and picked her up once again.
Sheng Rong held on tightly to his neck and refused to budge, and so, they spent the rest of the night cuddling away on Sheng Rong's bed.
All while in the next room, his phone rang repeatedly.
________________________
Samuel POV
After showing Li Anshi around the house, he left the mansion and boarded a private plane. He had some overseas business to deal with and wanted to visit Rui'er.
While underneath the Hu's radar, his father had managed to spread their influence to Europe and already established several bases there. He was supposed to check in on one of them, as well as retrieve something valuable from the city of London, England.
Everything was all set for the mission, all he needed to do was show up and give them the go.
This mission was a simple basic one, it was mostly meant to test the capabilities of the new recruits.
He arrived in London at exactly 8 o'clock and entered the base at 8:30pm.
"Welcome, Young Master Ando!" Soldiers lined up to greeted him with ninety-degree bows. It seems like they were taught the curtesy of East Asia.
"The first gunshot will happen at Midnight, location?"
"Big Ben sir,"
"Very good," he nodded in approval, "Send the team up to my office," And with that, the elevator doors concealed his face from everyone else.
The employees let out the breaths they unknowingly held in and some left to inform the team of the new order.
Not ten minutes later, a team of 35 people were gathered into the spacious office belonging to Ando Samuel, their new head of department.
"All clear?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Head out,"
A smile slowly made its way onto Samuel's face as he thought about spending the rest of his life alone with his beloved. She will be his alone forever and him her.
Xiao Rui, don't you miss your MingMing?
_____________
Two days later
Li Fu Ning's POV
Fortunately, his men had been able to cover up their early return to China and suppressed the news of his oldest daughter going missing.
His wife had been a mess over the past few days. His youngest had been working her butt off looking for any other clues regarding her sister's whereabouts.
He, himself has been stressed over both the company and his missing daughter, not to mention the fact the boy he had entrusted his second daughter to was the culprit of his missing daughter.
So far, they had no clues to his daughter's whereabouts, and his company was preparing to release a brand new product soon that needed lots of attention. Not only that, but because of his wife's unstable mental state, he had volunteered to take full control of Li corps and run his wife's part of the company as well.
While he had to run off to the company to handle its matters. His wife was heading to the An mansion, along with his parents and in-law parents.
His brother and sister-in-law were going to be returning to the military to see what they could do.
While his youngest was going to be attending a meeting with his niece and nephew.
_____________
"Hello? Angli? Aren't you supposed to be in London? How come your number wasn't a foreign one? Now? Where? Okay, see you soon, bye," Mu Jian Nu looked at his phone perplexed, what could have been soo important that he had to return from London?
"Jian Nu! Where is the leftover ice cream!?"
"If you are hungry, you could've told me!" He said, stomping into the kitchen. He saw Sheng Rong bent over the freezer, digging into its compartments. "Get dressed, Hu Angli wants to meet up, he says it's an emergency but won't tell me what happened, he also said not to tell Samuel so..."
"What's he doing back in China? I thought he left a few days ago for London,"
"Well, he's back now, come on, we have to get ready, I'll make a quick snack while you change,"
"Alright, I'll be right back,"
___________________________
By the time both Aishi and Angli arrived, Zhang Maorong was already there sitting at a table for 10.
He wasn't sure exactly how many people were going to come, so he went with the biggest table in the place. He perked up multiple times when the little bell over the door rang only to look like a depressed teenager with no guests showing up for his birthday.
The look on his face when the two finally walked in.
"Finally! Do you know what I had been through while waiting for you?"
"No one asked you to came two hours early," Aishi rolled her eyes and plopped down into her seat.
"No one asked you to wake me up three hours before the meet time and say emergency, meet up right now,"
"Don't worry, your sister is fine," Angli wiped away his worries with six words.
"So then what's the emergency?"
Aishi's eyes flickered to Angli, signalling him to do the talking.
He took a deep breath, "Yaorui...she went missing,"
"Sheng Rong!" Jian Nu's urgent voice alerted everybody else.
He was supporting Sheng Rong, shaking her lightly as she leaned on him with the majority of her body mass.
"What's wrong with Rong Rong?" Gebao's sweet voice chimed in as she rushed to seat herself next to her friend.
"She was just shocked, overwhelmed." Jian Nu answered her, his arms still wrapped securely around her.
"Why?"
Here we go again, Hu Angli sighed, "Yaorui is missing, kidnapped,"
"She...what?"
"We can't find her, went missing in London after a midnight attack," Aishi relaxed into her chair, finally tearing her eyes away from her laptop.
"We suspect the Ando family, or in other words..."
"The An family, Samuel's Family,"
"No, no, he wouldn't do that," Gebao looked at them in disbelief, "They were doing so good, they're in love! There is no reason for him to kidnap him,"
"Actually, there might be, did you ever hear Yaorui referring to Samuel as LiLi?"
"...yes,"
"Samuel's Chinese name is An Shunming, the character 'Li' has nothing to do with his name,"
"And even if it was just a pronunciation problem, her memory is impeccable she would've fixed it as soon as she could," Aishi added in.
"So then, who is LiLi?" Sheng Rong was stable now, wide awake and hooked on every word.
"I am,"
"Why didn't you tell her?"
"Because I am supposed to be dead, and Samuel knows I'm not,"
"Dead?"
"Me and my whole family, a rival family, not the Ando's, they had the Li's in their midsts, we had to convince them that we were gone. Came back a year later to take back our territory, managed to hide our real identities, so everyone thought the Bloody Rose mafia was planning something big. And we were, claimed the whole underworld of China."
"Our families never met apparently, they thought I was an imaginary friend,"
"The Ando's recently moved to China, assuming that it's to claim the Hu's territory,"
Maorong let out an estranged laugh. "Sorry, sorry, but it's so obvious where she is," The others looked at him expectantly, "Japan rests right next to northern China. Even though they moved to China, it's gotta take a solid ten years or so to permanently switch bases, so they'll want to stay close to where they hold the most power. I'd say Yaorui is somewhere in Northern China, where was their base located in Japan?"
"The mountains,"
"BAM! She's in the mountains, probably one with tons of cover, snow, maybe an underground base, you wanna find her, your gonna have to go by land,"
"It's too early,"
"What did you just say,"
All eyes shifted to Jiexu, he was pale, hands were shaky.
"Jiexu?" Gebao called back to him, "What do you know?" Her hand reached out to grasp his.
"They aren't in Heilongjiang province, that's what they want you to think,"
"Then, where?"
"Hunan Province, Zhangjiajie mountains, don't ask how I know, I just do,"
"Welp, we have our location, let's get to work," Maorong rubbed his hands together and squared up to the table.
"Do you have the exact coordinates?" Aishi asked him.
"No, but it's not somewhere where tourists are allowed,"
"That helps a bit,"
Jiexu moved to intertwine Gebao into his arms, he cradled her whispering, "...never again, never again..." And Gebao just stayed there, on his lap as she leaned onto him and let him do as he pleased.