Flash back (1)

Yan Shu dragged Kai to the backyard and gave him a sound beating. By the time she was done, he could barely move. "And don't you forget, I'll do much worse if you leave the room messy again," she said before throwing a water bottle at him. "Now let's get back inside."

He didn't dare to object and dutifully followed her.

Back at the house, she ordered Raven to merge all the files she had compiled. "Good Job Raven," she said after it was done, leaving the AI delighted. While it always made sure to display its authority to Kai, it became completely subservient when it came to Yan Shu.

Meanwhile, Kai kept sulking. Not only Yan Shu didn't thank him for digging out the info on Xia Heru, she even beat him up.

Yan Shu noticed this and promptly ignored it. She had more important things to take care of, such as her current project: a firewall.

Every week she would come here and spend hours writing code, which she finally completed on the previous week. So now she was giving it the finishing touches to the software.

Yan Shu wished to start her own business but first, she needed the capital. That's where her current project would come in. If everything went according to plan, she would sell it and use the money to start her own company.

Of course, there was an easier way to achieve that. Kai's family had the resources, power, and connections to help her, but that's not what she wanted. She wanted to achieve her dream through her own hard work.

When the work was done, she saved the software on two hard drives, one as a backup to the other. She then climbed up the stairs to the house and chatted with Renji and his wife Sara. Not for long though, as her growling stomach interrupted their conversation.

 Sara and her husband chuckled at that. The older woman then set up the table for them to have dinner. They chatted, laughed, and ate while Renji and Sara couldn't hide their happiness at having Yan Shu at their house.

As time passed though, Yan Shu decided it was time to leave. She said her goodbyes to the family and headed to the bus station. There, she got on the bus and took a seat. As she did so, she couldn't help remembering how she met the Kai family.

***

Yan Shu didn't know where to go after arriving at Country A. After leaving the airport, she hailed for a taxi and asked him to take her to the nearest hotel.After half an hour though, they still hadn't arrived."How much longer to get there?" she asked.

"Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes," answered the driver. "Sorry about that, but there aren't many hotels near the airport."

Still naive and innocent, Yan Shu didn't suspect a thing.

The man later claimed they had to make a detour. He stopped near a building downtown and left the car, saying that he wouldn't take long.

Yan Shu simply nodded.

In actual fact, the driver never planned on taking her to a hotel. Instead, he sold Yan Shu out for a hundred thousand dollars. "She's waiting at the taxi outside," he said after sealing the deal.

The other party nodded and sent four men to pick her up.

Still unsuspecting, Yan Shu's heart jumped when the car's door was forcefully opened. A bulky man came into the backseat and grabbed her. She tried to free herself but the man's grip refused to budge.

He dragged her out of the car where three more men waited.

"Help!" she screamed and wailed, seemingly to no avail until a man's voice sounded out.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Rather than berate the speaker, the four men recoiled at the sound of his voice. They dropped Yan Shu and ran back to where they came from.

Yan Shu was stunned at the sight of that. She turned to the speaker's direction and found a middle-aged man accompanied by another man around her age and a middle-aged woman. She had no idea who they were, but one thing was certain: if they were capable of sending those people running at the sound of their voice, then they must be even more dangerous.