Across from the residential area was an ATM. She inserted her bank card into the machine, and as the screen displayed the balance, Jian Tong clenched her teeth, fiercely withdrawing two thousand yuan.
Holding the money, she hailed a taxi. "To..." She only realized after getting in the car that in her rush to escape, she hadn't thought of a destination.
"Where to?" The taxi driver urged impatiently.
Where to go... Jian Tong was stunned, suddenly realizing that despite the vastness of the world, she had nowhere to go.
"Are we going or not? If not, get out. I need to pick up more fares," the driver frowned, giving Jian Tong a disdainful glance... Bad luck, not checking the almanac before leaving, and the first fare of the day was jinxed.
"...Sorry, I haven't decided where to go yet," Jian Tong said slowly, without any resistance to the irritable and harsh-speaking taxi driver, even apologizing somewhat meekly, making her appear extremely weak.
The saying goes, "A good horse is ridden, a good man is duped," and the wisdom of the ancestors always seems to hold true. Seeing Jian Tong so meek, the taxi driver's arrogance intensified, venting all the frustration from his losses at mahjong on her.
Thus, Jian Tong was subject to the driver's wrath as he angrily berated her, "You flag down my cab without knowing where you're going. Are you playing games with me? How did your parents raise you, with no sense of decency at all? Get out, get out now, don't hold up my business. Bad luck, why did I have to encounter someone like you today?"
Jian Tong was berated until she was metaphorically soaked in blood. It wasn't that she was unaffected, but... three years of prison had frayed her temper away.
Her eyelashes dropped; yet again, she raised her head, apologizing in a gentle voice, "I'm sorry, I'll get out right now." She had only wanted to ask the taxi driver for a minute or two to think about where she should go.
But the other party clearly did not seem willing to give her any attention.
The driver, however, was momentarily taken aback. In over a decade of driving, he had never come across someone so tamely accepting fault. When he noticed Jian Tong opening the door a bit slowly, he suddenly lifted his hand towards her...
"Ah! Don't hit me!"
The driver froze, looking at the woman in the passenger's seat who had her arms wrapped protectively around her head, crying out in panic, "Ah! Don't hit me!" He sputtered in frustration, "Are you crazy? I was just opening the door! Bad luck, why did I run into a madwoman today?"
With that, he reached out to open the door more fully, "Get lost already!" Perhaps it was the annoyance from losing money, or maybe it was because Jian Tong was too easy to bully with no fear of retaliation. The driver was particularly rude to her, bluntly telling her to "get lost."
Jian Tong didn't move quickly. As she got out of the car at a slow pace, she was met with more shouting from the driver, "Dawdling along, hurry up! What, are you a cripple?"
Jian Tong was taken aback for a moment, then she looked up seriously at the driver and corrected him, "I am not a cripple; I just move slowly."
The driver was momentarily surprised. "You're crazy!" he exclaimed, before ushering her away, "Go on, get out of here. Running into you today just cursed me. No wonder everything's gone wrong today, even losing so much playing with small stakes."
It was as if he was searching for a reason to blame her for his misfortunes.
"Hey, hand it over," the driver said as he grabbed Jian Tong's wrist, extending his other hand towards her. Jian Tong was puzzled, "Hand over what?"
"Money."
"But master, I didn't actually take your taxi in the end," Jian Tong said, even more confused.
The driver rolled his eyes in clear annoyance, "You've been in this car, haven't you? With your bad luck, I have to drive back and wash the car, don't I? Doesn't washing the car cost money?"
"..."
Seeing that Jian Tong didn't move, the driver furrowed his brow and urged her, "Hurry up, will you stop dawdling? Are you trying to annoy me?"
"But I..."
"Your 'but I' what? One hundred yuan, hand it over."
Upon hearing this, Jian Tong's face turned green... A hundred yuan, are you robbing me? She really wanted to argue back at the driver, really she did!
However, three years in prison had worn away her temperament, leaving none of the edges. The pride of once being Miss Jian of the Jian family, the dignity that belonged to Jian Tong, had long since dissipated like smoke.
Suddenly, a flicker of car lights caught her attention from the left, not far away. Jian Tong instinctively looked up to see four black Audi A6s driving side by side, heading this way.
The license plates were quite interesting; the four cars had sequential numbers at the end from "1" to "4". The street light glinted off the windshield of the leading car for just a moment, and Jian Tong, squinting her eyes, could make out the face of the person in the driver's seat of one of the cars… It was Shen Yi, the ever-present subordinate of Shen Xiujin!
Panic surged across her face in an instant.
"Hey, pay up... Eh? Why did you get inside? I'm asking for the money."
"Master! Hurry! Drive, I, I'll give you the money!" In a flurry, Jian Tong fumbled several red bills out of her coat pocket, hastily handing them to the taxi driver, pleadingly urging him, "Please, master, drive! Hurry!"
"What's this all about..." The driver didn't finish speaking when he saw yet another stack of money appear in front of him.
Jian Tong's hands trembled as she pulled out all her money from her pocket: "Master, it's all yours, please, just drive, hurry!" While she spoke, she turned her head back in fear... They were getting closer, closer...
"Hurry! Hurry up! Do you think it's not enough money? I have more! I have more in my bank card! Master, drive, when we get to a safe place, I'll withdraw the money for you." She was rambling in her panic, her eyes wide with terror, and her face as pale as if she had seen a ghost.
The taxi driver looked at Jian Tong as if she were... Ah no, as if she were a lunatic, but when his gaze fell on the wad of cash in her hand, he pursed his lips... For the sake of the money.
Snatching the bills from Jian Tong's hand, the driver said, "Sit tight."
The ignition key turned, the engine roared to life, and the taxi began to move forward. Just as Jian Tong was about to breathe a sigh of relief...
With a screech, the sound of taxi tires rubbing against the ground came from outside, followed by an expletive from the driver, "Damn, nothing's gone right today. Hey, are these guys here for you? What did you steal or snatch to have people chasing you like this?"
The driver glanced over to the passenger seat with annoyance, but then suddenly fell silent. The harsh words that had reached the tip of his tongue were all swallowed back down. The woman sitting next to him was shivering, her teeth chattering as she curled up into a ball, her eyes filled with terror and despair as she stared ahead.
Her gaze was even more petrifying than the prospect of death itself.
Then, the woman moved abruptly, frantically rolling up all the windows, and immediately curled back into a ball, as if by doing so she could evade those people.
"Jeez, how foolish..."
Before the driver could finish his taunt, someone outside tapped on the taxi door, "Miss Jian, please get out of the car." Jian Tong turned deathly pale, she buried her head deeper, pretending not to hear or see anything.