Suddenly, the dilapidated bread truck parked outside their warehouse lost its brakes without warning. It began rolling slowly down the slope, picking up speed until—BANG!—it slammed straight into a fire hydrant by the road with pinpoint accuracy.
A jet of water shot into the sky like a fountain. The tremendous pressure burst through the warehouse’s flimsy wooden door. Freezing tap water flooded inside in an instant, turning the thugs who’d been about to record a video into drowned rats. Their phones were soaked through, too, and instantly ruined.
“What the hell is this!” Blondie cursed furiously.
“Boss, the door…the water knocked the door down, and now it’s jammed tight by all the junk outside!” one of his underlings yelled in panic.
They tried to move somewhere else, only to find that a gust of wind had slammed the warehouse’s iron door shut with a BANG, and somehow the old, rusty lock had jammed.
They were trapped inside the leaky warehouse instead.
One of the thugs, frantic to get out, tried to climb through a window. The moment he stepped onto the sill, a basketball-sized hornet’s nest suddenly dropped from a blind spot just above it and landed squarely on his head.
“Bzzzz—”
In an instant, the warehouse turned into a living hell.
The hornets swarmed out and attacked everyone inside the warehouse indiscriminately.
“Ah! My face!”
“Help! There are bees!”
The thugs clutched their heads and ran around screaming. They scrambled all over the cramped warehouse, but no matter what they did, they couldn’t escape those enraged “assassins.”
Tô Noãn Noãn was tied tightly to a chair and couldn’t move. Terrified out of her wits, with freezing water from the hydrant already covering her ankles, she watched helplessly as the hornets flew toward her and could only let out a desperate scream.
Just then, the sound of police sirens drew nearer from outside the warehouse.
A patrol unit was driving by when, just as its cruiser approached, the front right tire suddenly blew out, forcing them to pull over.
“What a lousy place to break down,” a young officer complained.
“Wait. Listen—doesn’t that warehouse sound like something’s going on inside?” The sharp-eared older sergeant pointed toward the abandoned warehouse nearby.
They immediately went on alert, drew their guns, and cautiously approached.
The sounds coming from the warehouse were no longer just people shouting. They were a chaotic mix of shrieks and buzzing.
The officers decisively kicked in the jammed wooden door and charged inside.
The sight before them left them gaping.
Several men had swollen bumps all over their heads from hornet stings and were running around clutching them. Another, chased by hornets, had slipped into a pool of leaking water and was struggling in it. Tô Noãn Noãn was tied to a chair. She hadn’t been stung much, but she was soaked through, shivering with cold, and looked utterly terrified.
The officers quickly subdued the thugs, who were nearly too exhausted to resist.
In the chaos, Blondie’s phone fell out of his pocket and hit the ground. Its waterlogged screen had gone completely black, but now it miraculously lit up, and a recording began playing automatically.
Tô Noãn Noãn’s voice and Blondie’s could be heard clearly.
“…Once this is done, my parents are sure to kick her out. Then you can have all the rest of the money.”
“Don’t worry, Miss Tô. We’ll make sure everything’s handled cleanly and efficiently.”
The recording was short, but it made the whole story clear.
The thugs completely broke down. Blondie dropped to his knees, clung to an officer’s leg, and sobbed, “Officer, arrest us! Please, arrest us! This place is haunted! We confess! We’ll confess to everything! It was her! Tô Noãn Noãn told us to do it! We only wanted money—we don’t want to get struck dead by lightning!”
They’d thought the hornet’s nest and the fire hydrant were coincidences, but the phone playing the recording by itself went beyond anything they could comprehend and completely shattered their nerve.
Half an hour later, the police brought the thugs back to the Tô family villa, their noses bruised and faces swollen, along with Tô Noãn Noãn, who was dazed and ashen-faced.
In the living room, Tô Kiến Thành, Lâm Huệ, and Tô Minh Hiên were anxiously waiting for news of the police arresting me.
When they saw Tô Noãn Noãn being escorted in by the police, they all froze.
“What…what is going on?” Tô Kiến Thành asked in shock.
The officer in charge had a grave expression. In front of everyone, he played the miraculously recovered recording and explained the entire case.
The three members of the Tô family wore expressions like a painter’s palette, shifting from anger to shock, then disbelief, and finally to shame and utter embarrassment.
They’d wanted to ruin my reputation, but it turned out that the daughter they loved most had staged her own kidnapping just to frame me.
Just then, the lock on my bedroom door clicked open.
Tô Minh Triết stood outside the door and gave me an “all done” gesture. Lowering his voice, he said, “I’m sorry you had to go through this, little sis. I told them from the start it wasn’t you, but they wouldn’t believe me.”
I gave a faint “Mm,” walked past him, and made my way downstairs one step at a time.
I stopped in front of Tô Noãn Noãn, who was kneeling on the floor and shivering, and looked at her without a trace of warmth in my eyes.
In the end, she’d brought herself to the brink.
After the truth came to light, the Tô family fell into an unprecedented silence.
Tô Noãn Noãn was taken in by the police to give a statement for making a false report and slandering me. Although the Tô family used their connections to keep her from facing criminal charges, she was ordered to stay home and reflect on what she’d done.
She shut herself in her room and didn’t dare come out again.
As for Tô Kiến Thành, Lâm Huệ, and Tô Minh Hiên, the way they looked at me had completely changed. They no longer looked at me with contempt and hatred, but with a complicated mix of fear, shame, and respect. They didn’t dare raise their voices around me, or even meet my eyes.
At the dining table, no one dared pick a fight with me anymore.
My second older brother, Tô Minh Triết, smoothly became both my “housekeeper” and my dedicated “spokesperson.”
Every day, he carried around a little almanac and would mysteriously tell me, “Little sis, today’s a bad day to break ground. Stay away from the back garden—they’re planning to trim the flowers and mow the lawn.”
“Little sis, today’s especially lucky for the north. How about I take you to the mall up north? You can swipe your card all you want.”
I liked the peace and quiet too, so I tacitly accepted his somewhat ridiculous brand of “protection.”
The peaceful days didn’t last long before trouble hit the Tô family’s company.
The Tô family’s archrival in business, the Li family, used underhanded tactics to steal an important project that the Tô Group had spent nearly a year preparing. The company’s stock plunged, and its losses were devastating.
For days, Tô Kiến Thành’s expression was so dark it looked like water might drip from it.
At dinner that evening, he let out a long sigh. Finally unable to hold back, he muttered—loud enough for me to hear, but as if to himself—“President Li of the Li Group is utterly ruthless. He leaves no room for anyone else. Someone like him will get what’s coming to him sooner or later.”
As he spoke, he furtively glanced at me from the corner of his eye.
Lâm Huệ and Tô Minh Hiên also watched me tensely, wanting to speak but holding back.
At last, they’d shown their true colors.
First contempt, then fear—and now they wanted to use me.
I slowly set down my bowl and chopsticks, wiped my mouth with a napkin, then looked up and calmly met Tô Kiến Thành’s gaze. “What do you want me to do?”