Chapter 75: Dream of Night Bloom

"What happened?" Royston Tan was the first to realize something was amiss when Lily Ling began swaying on her feet. Before she could fall, I darted over and caught her. The other two men glanced at me in surprise, evidently wondering where I came from, but I ignored them to focus my attention on the lady in my arms.

"Are you all right?" I asked Lily. She grimaced and shook her head.

"I feel dizzy."

"Oh no!" Arnold Ang was beginning to panic. "This isn't good, my dear! We'll bring you to a place to rest. Mr. Boyfriend, help her."

At least he wasn't calling me her husband now. Nonetheless, Arnold was right. We had to help Lily. I supported her and gently guided her away from the reception hall. While I was at it, I attached a hi-tech bead to her dress. The device latched on and blended in with the material, effectively invisible.

"I saw that bitch Yvonne Yang drug your drink and bribed a waitress to give it to you. That's probably why you don't feel so good."

"That bitch!" Arnold snarled. "She won't get away with this!"

"She won't," I agreed. "I have evidence now that she's behind this. But for now we need to bring Lily to safety."

"If you need a hotel room," Royston Tan began, but I shook my head.

"I'll just take her home."

"That's a good idea," Arnold agreed. He stood protectively in front of Lily when she began to draw stares from the others. "What are you looking at?" He demanded before waving them away. "Nothing to see here. Go bother someone else."

"Don't you think you'll be drawing more attention that way?" I asked dryly. Arnold cringed, realizing that I was right, and stopped glowering.

"Yeah, sorry. Good thinking."

I headed to the carpark with Lily, helping her along the way. Arnold stayed behind to ward off the gazes from the other guests. Apparently this could cause a scandal, so he needed to conduct damage control. I wasn't sure if it was necessary, but whatever. He was the agent. I didn't know anything with regards to celebrities and the entertainment industry.

I was an engineer, for heaven's sake. My job was to invent stuff.

Unfortunately, I didn't get very far into the carpark when someone got the drop on me. I spun around, but being cumbered by Lily's weight, I wasn't fast enough. Something metallic and heavy smacked into my head and I fell onto the ground, my glasses askew. Somebody – I wasn't sure if it was the same person who smacked me in the head – kicked me. Pain exploded across my face and my vision turned red. Within moments, my consciousness faded away.

*

"Trevor! Are you all right?!"

I found myself shaken awake not long after, trying to blink the blood and tears out of my eyes. At first, I was looking around, dazed.

Fortunately, Arnold pushed my glasses into my hands. I put them on and my vision sharpened. Now that I thought about it, I could finally afford lasik. Why was I still bothering with glasses? Whatever, that wasn't important right now. Besides, if I took a lasik surgery, I would have to spend a week or two recovering. And I couldn't afford to take a couple of weeks off work. I had so much stuff to experiment on, particularly my antimatter drive…

Which wasn't important now because I wanted revenge. I was going to find the fucker who hit me in the head and burn off his limbs. My hand immediately went to the plasma pistol holstered in my jacket. The son of a bitch was going down.

"Ugh, my head hurts…someone knocked me out. And kicked me while I was down." I grimaced from the wounds.

"Yeah, you look like a mess." Arnold watched me sympathetically. "You should go to a hospital and get those wounds checked out."

"Maybe later. But the bastard…" I glanced around. "I don't suppose you know where Lily is, do you?"

"No. I was just about to ask you about that."

"Fucker. The son of a bitch who hit me was after Lily. That's why he attacked me. He wanted to grab her."

"But why would they…?" Arnold then shook his head. "Damn it. You said Yvonne Yang drugged her, right? That figures. This is part of her scheme."

"Those bastards are going to regret ever deciding to mess with me." I clenched my fists. "Let's go find out where they are!"

Fortunately, Arnold was already on top of things. He had contacted security, who viewed the surveillance footage. Unfortunately, the data was corrupted and there were complications – or so the security guards insisted.

"Sorry, but we can't show you the footage."

"This is a matter of life and death!" Arnold argued. "You want to be held responsible if something happens to Lily Ling? If she dies, are you going to take responsibility for her death?"

"Sorry, sir, but the footage is corrupted."

That was what the security personnel claimed, but somehow I had my doubts. The guy was behaving suspiciously, looking away guiltily and perspiring a lot despite the air conditioning. He had been bought off, no doubt about it.

"Let's not trouble him," I told Arnold and led him away. The agent fumed, his face red with both anger and anxiety.

"What do we do now?"

"Good thing I'm an inventor." I held up my smartphone and punched a few buttons. "I managed to place a tracker on Lily when helping her earlier."

Thankfully, the tracker was still working. It transmitted the location of Lily into my smartphone. Arnold called the police, who promised to send the people here. The both of us returned to the hotel – for some reason, whoever abducted Lily hadn't left Howard Hotel. No, it shouldn't be surprising. This being a hotel, they intended to do something insidious to Lily.

I couldn't allow that to happen.

We went up the stairs, relying on the tracker. The signal brought us to one of the rooms. I didn't wait for security – they couldn't be trusted. Arnold wondered if we should wait for the police, but I shook my head.

"No. It'll be too late by now. I think I know what they plan to do to Lily."

Arnold turned pale. "Those bastards! Just what do they want?!"

"I don't know, and I don't care. All I care about is saving Lily."

Without any hesitation, I kicked the door down. The occupants inside the room jolted up, and there was a familiar cry. Scanning the room, I caught sight of Lily being handcuffed to the bed, gagged and blindfolded.

On the opposite end, there was a sinister yet good looking guy, holding a whip in one hand and a few tools. Evidently he was the type who engaged in sadomasochistic play…except that he wanted unwilling partners.

"You…aren't you Zachery Zhao?!" Arnold's jaw dropped.

"What?!" Zachery Zhao snarled, glaring at us. He lashed out with his whip, trying to keep us at bay. "What do you think you two are doing here?! How dare you barge into my room and spoil my fun?! I'll have you arrested!"

I couldn't help but burst out laughing at that. "You want us arrested? Someone who kidnapped and assault my girlfriend? Oh, and don't forget, your henchmen hit me. Before you complain about your fun being ruined, you should worry about not getting arrested yourself."

"You have no idea who I am, do you?" Zachery Zhao sneered. I shrugged.

"No."

"He's the CEO of Zhao Corporation," Arnold whispered to me. "One of the richest and most influential men in Hua Xia. He can probably afford the best lawyer and buy his way out of this. Even if you have all the evidence…"

"That's right! Not that it'll matter because you'll all die here! Men!"

Zachery Zhao pressed a button in his smartphone. A few moments later, all the hotel doors in the same level blew open and a bunch of henchmen spilled out. They were armed with crowbars, pipes, machetes, knives and all sort of weapons.

"Uh oh." Arnold turned paler. "We're screwed. I told you we should have waited for the police!"

"If I kill them, it'll count as self-defense, right?" I asked, drawing my plasma pistol from my holster. Zachery Zhao's jaw dropped before he was obliterated in a ball of superheated fire. I then turned around, pointing my plasma pistol and the other members. They paused, but I fired and killed a couple of them.

"Wait!" They immediately dropped to their knees, letting go of their weapons and raising their hands in surrender. "Sorry, young master! We have eyes but didn't see Mount Tai! We are so sorry! Please have mercy on us!"

"What the…?" Arnold gaped at their change in attitudes, unable to wrap his mind around what had just happened. "That was a huge reversal…"

"Never bring a knife to a gunfight," I explained, keeping my plasma pistol trained on them. "Now we wait for the police."

"Oh, and I'll make sure they arrest Yvonne Yang too." Arnold's tone was filled with vengeance. "We won't let anyone get away with this."

"Agreed." I nodded toward Lily's prone body. "Arnold, can you help me with Lily? Get her out of those cuffs and check on her."

"Okay."

I would have done so myself, but I was too busily keeping the thugs at bay with my plasma pistol. I didn't dare to lower my guard (and my gun). I had a feeling that the moment I did so, the thugs would rush us. Well, that was slightly exaggerated. I would simply raise my plasma pistol and kill a few of them before they could reach me.

Jerking my hand, I gestured for them to keep their distance, which they did. A few of them tried to run, but I discouraged them with a few well-placed shots.

"Nobody is going anywhere," I told them evenly. "Not until the police gets here."

It didn't take long for the police to arrive, and they apprehended the thugs who were hired by Zachery Zhao. Lily was taken to a hospital, and she was still semiconscious even as they put her in an ambulance. Arnold accompanied her. I wanted to go along, but the police stopped me. Even though I claimed self-defense, they still needed me to go along with them. I didn't argue. I had nothing to hide.

Better still, I had all the evidence. Tapping my glasses, I transmitted everything recorded on my lenses to the police database, so they saw how Yvonne Yang bribed the waitress and spiked Lily's drink, how I was assaulted by one of Zachery Zhao's thug, and how he ordered them to kill us. Cooperating with the police, I waited patiently in one of their interrogation rooms, answering whatever questions they threw at me.

However…

"We have some bad news," a police officer said when he stepped into the interrogation room, looking all grim. I glanced up from my chair, raising an eyebrow. He sighed and took a seat opposite me. "After receiving all the evidence from you, we sought to arrest Yvonne Yang, to find out the mastermind behind all this and get to the bottom of everything, but…somebody silenced her. She was murdered before we could reach her."