Lili sighed and looked at them both. She was already tired, even though nothing started yet. Lei just raised his brows and continued to chat with administrators.
"Is it that bad?" Lili asked Yitian as he was speechless.
"Even worse," Chao said, and Lili could only close her eyes. She tilted her head backward and exhaled loudly, then rolled on her chair to look at Yitian's screen.
He scrolled almost at the end of the thread. Chao shoved her phone in front of her face and unlocked it that way. Then snatched it away from her for the second time around. He was playing with it for a few long seconds when it finally stopped sending notifications.
"Don't tell me they found my sn sites?" she asked jokingly, but met dead silence coming from them both.
Lili moaned with frustration. How the heck could that happen? Who would do this to her? She had no enemies, none she knew about. Yitian showed her the post and read it out loud.
"Hey, you pussies, I found her insta: ****_****. Let's have a bet. The one who will talk this hoe into fucking will get yellow fever as a price!!!" That message was followed by many perverted-looking emojis.
Lili was disgusted and lost even the tiniest bit of faith in humanity she had left. She rolled her chair back to the computer and reported the topic. That's how she got so many messages before. And now it was the second round.
"This is the reason for the dick pics I got before, huh?" She actually laughed and everyone looked at her, shocked.
"Hysterical laugh?" Chao asked with his brow raised and continued to play with her phone. Probably blocking everyone and deleting requests.
"I think so too. She lost her mind. I don't wonder why. But still so soon? I thought she would take more..." Yitian was deep in thoughts when Yixing shouted out.
"Heck yeah. It's down." He jumped up and everybody made a yes gesture. Lei laid down his phone, releasing a deep sigh.
"I wish I could smash the phone receiver, how it was done before. Pushing a button is not as satisfactory as slamming it down," he said with a hint of a smile on his face.
"I had to threaten them with the law and that we will sue them…" he continued and then looked at Lili, "we can do that, you know? This is cyberbullying. This is against the law. It can cause serious harm!" Leilei was right. If she did not have the entire team behind her, she would definitely not take it as well as she did now. She snuggled against Leilei, calming herself down.
"Thank you all. Thank you very much. You are an amazing team and family." Lili smiled and just left everything behind her. She did not care about these perverts anymore. She knew this was her home. And this was where she belonged. This was her place. She looked at Chao.
"Can I have my phone back? I promise that when I will get some good dick pics, I will show them to Yitian." she joked and smiled. Chao looked shaken. He grabbed the nearest thing he had and threw it after her. She dodged, and it hit Lei, who wasn't that quick.
"Will it be like this? I will take bullets for you?" Lei asked and smiled sarcastically. He picked up the water bottle that was thrown and set it on the table.
"Well, I thought you would dodge it, too. But yeah, you have to protect me. I'm your wifey," Lili said and laughed again when everybody except Leilei made a disgusted sound.
"I have seen nobody who would change moods as quickly as you. Just a moment ago you were deadly serious and now you are all jokes? That's so weird," Dylan shared his thoughts and shook his head.
He was right, but what? She loved the duality. And why be serious about something that was already almost resolved? She would just put her all Instagram accounts on private and decline all the messages from strangers. Or go through them and see who gives the bigger offer.
Chao was playing with her phone again when he started to hysterically laugh. Like a maniac. He just burst out, startling everyone. And Yitian got frightened so much that he poured water all over him because he was drinking.
"Let's start selling her. This guy is offering her around 2000 HK$ for her time and sent the dick pic with the offer. He had the tiniest thing I've ever seen." He laughed aloud and proceeded to show it to everyone.
They were all laughing when Yitian's phone rang. The instant he saw who was calling, his smile faded. Chao went to take a look too, and his face became rock hard.
"Don't pick it up," Chao said, and put his hand on Yitian's shoulder.
"I have to. She is my mother." Yitian got up and took the call outside. It took him a while to come back, and the atmosphere was tenser than before.
"She wants me to go home and talk. I need to do it. She is my mom," he said after he came back, and Chao looked at him worriedly.
"I will drop you off and when you are ready to come back, call me. I will pick you up. Do it so I won't be dead worried about you." Yitian just nodded and both of them took off. Lili was watching them leave with a worried expression.
'But a mother would never hurt her child…' she thought.
***
Lili was woken up by a call. She had both her watch and phone on the charger, so she got up and picked it up.
For the first few seconds, only light breathing could be heard, then Yitian's soft and very quiet voice sounded.
"Lili, I need… your help. Don't tell Chao…. Just take f-... aid…" another heavy breathing, "...kit to address I'll send." Then the call stopped.
Without her being able to say a word. Lili became really anxious. She quickly started to put her clothes on and yelled at Leilei to wake him up.
"Lei, Lei!!! Get up. Yitian has problems. Help me. Wake. UP!" she yelled and started tucking on Lei's blanket.
She explained what happened while he was putting on clothes and she was turning on navigation. They both ran to the car and Lei did break a few speed limits while riding to the address Yitian sent.
They found him. He was lying by the roadside in the middle of nowhere. His clothes were full of red splatters and torn in various places. His eyes were open, and he tried to tell them something, but his breath got stuck in his throat.
Lili was shocked. She was trained to behave under stress, and to give flawless first aid. But when she saw Yitian in this shape, her mind did not work.
How could anyone do that? His face was so bloody she could see his cheekbone. She tore apart the shirt he had and saw various cuts on his torso.
"Call an ambulance. Quickly!" she yelled at Lei, who was running for the first-aid kit, but he had already been talking to the emergency services since they came here.
Yitian was dying. He had a big bleeding and bubbling wound on his chest. That's why he had trouble breathing. They punctured his lung.
She quickly put pressure onto the wound with gauze Lei brought and waited. She looked more and saw a weirdly shaped left hand.
"Who could do this to you?" Lili was almost crying. She had to save him. He was still looking at her, but his eyes were slowly closing.
'Where is the fucking ambulance!' she yelled inside her mind, her eyes not leaving his face.
"Chao… careful… mom…" He managed to say before his eyes closed completely and his chest stopped rising.