Chapter 13

The dinner was on the awkward side. Xiulan was doing her best to hold a decent conversation but his one word answer to her questions were definitely not helping. She didn't encounter this kind of situation often as she was content with her 2 best friends, but she had an unexplainable urge to better her Impression in his eyes.

Lan Zhuo more or less guessed what she was up to but didn't expose her. He just went along with her antics. He was keeping his perfect poker face but his mind was in overdrive. He was very concerned about the unknown emotion which overwhelmed him sometimes, seemed to have increased in frequency.

They concluded the dinner, each with their own thoughts. They bode farewells for the day and retired to their own places.

Lan Zhuo went upstairs to the pent house. He saw Zhao Yufeng sitting on the sofa with a grin expression. He turned towards Lan Zhuo and said "He started looking for her just as you guessed. He has locked on to her as his ' prey '. We all know what happened to the other women he was obsessed with before. What will you do?"

Lan Zhuo had a calm face but his eyes betrayed the storming emotions he was feeling. He let out a subtle smirk and said "Looks like we will have to alter our plans. We can use her as bait after all."

He discussed a few other things regarding his schedule for the next day and allowed Zhao Yufeng to crash at the guest room as usual and went to the bedroom. He took a shower, put on a set of pajamas and laid down after setting the temperature of the air con.

He laid down on the bed and let his thoughts drift. He heard the notification alert of his phone. There was a message from Xiulan's contact which read 'Hello Mr. Lan, I hope you liked dinner. Thank you for helping me like this. I hope I can help you back in anyway. Please tell me if there is nothing I can do. Good night and take care.' He reread the message, set an alarm for 6 am and drifted off to sleep.

Xiulan was very nervous. She had a huge debate with herself whether to send him the message or not. She finally mustered courage to send it and when she did, she regretted it so bad. To make it worse, the party which received the message didn't reply to it when the message was clearly read! ( an: in a few apps there is a provision which indicates whether the message is read or not) She assumed that he just left the screen on and went to sleep so she decided not to overthink. She then went to her bedroom to get some sleep. After all she still hadn't completely recovered from the surface wounds on her body.

The next day, Xiulan woke up late. She just stretched like a lazy cat and stayed in bed for a long time before she finally decided to get up. She was surprised when she saw the clock which indicated that it was half past noon. She went to the bathroom and took a shower. She came out and went to the kitchen after dressing up. She became lazy to cook so she just made herself some instant noodles. She took the bowl and a pair of chopsticks and went to the living room. She switched on the TV and ran though a few channels. While she was changing the channels at random, she stumbled upon a local news channel. They were reporting a break in at an apartment complex. Xiulan just rolled her eyes, scowled and thought 'This isn't a rare occurrence anymore. I wonder where they get all this courage from.' She was about to change the channel when she suddenly noticed that the area looked familiar. She then read the content displayed only to find out that the flat which was broken into was her previous residence!

Xiulan was shocked speechless. She took a long time to come out of daze. She really thanked her lucky stars that she had already moved away fro that place. After seeing the pictures displayed, she concluded that this wasn't an ordinary break in. Looking at the pictures carefully another time, she was convinced of the fact that this was targeted at her, but she couldn't figure out who did it and what the reason was. Suddenly a face flashed through her mind. When she realised that this could probably be his work, she shivered.

Xiulan was frozen stiff. She was scared thinking of the possible outcomes if she was still in her previous apartment. She genuinely felt scared for the first time in the 25 years of her life.

She immediately grabbed her phone and called Lan Zhuo. Lan Zhuo was in a lunch meeting with one of a potential investor in a project his company would undertake in a few weeks, when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen which displayed Zhang Xiulan. He excused himself and went to pick the call leaving the investor, his assistant and Zhao Yufeng speechless. It was the first time Lan Zhuo had gone to receive a call in the middle of an important meeting!