Chapter 127: A Romantic Moonlight Stroll—It Would Be a Waste Not to Hold Hands

Song Kai drove the police car straight into the narrow alley, which was crowded with women showing off their long bare legs.

When the women saw the police car, they hurried into the shops along the roadside, clearly still wary of the police.

Song Kai brought the car to a stop, switched off the engine, and leaped out.

“Hey, officer, that’s not how things are done.” Two dark-skinned youths approached, each carrying a steel pipe.

They were obviously in charge of keeping order here.

Song Kai did not bother arguing. He strode forward and kicked one of them flying, then followed with a punch that landed squarely in the other man’s eye.

The man fell to the ground, clutching his face and shouting, “Are you looking to die? This street belongs to Black Wolf!”

“Go to hell!” Song Kai snapped, kicking him in the stomach.

The man was sent flying into the window of a roadside shop. With a loud crash, the glass shattered.

The women on the street screamed and scattered in all directions.

After sending the two thugs flying, Song Kai turned and sprinted into the darkness toward the park.

By then, the police station had received a report that a suspect had killed three people near Harvard University, then hijacked a police car and fled.

The police immediately tracked the vehicle and discovered that it had stopped on Kiss Street.

Five police cars set out at once, racing toward the location to surround the suspect.

On Kiss Street, the two gang members were furious. They immediately reported the incident to their boss.

This street was their territory. At night, they were responsible for all the businesses here, including maintaining order among the women.

Their gang was certainly no pushover.

Their leader, Black Wolf, arrived in a murderous fury with dozens of underlings.

A police car had ruined all their business for the night.

“Damn it!” Black Wolf roared, pointing at the police car. “Smash it! I pay them so much protection money every month, and they’re still not satisfied? They even come here to wreck my business! They’re insatiably greedy! Today I’m going to make one thing clear to them: I’m not some helpless fool they can bully whenever they please!”

More than twenty men swarmed forward. Amid a clanging barrage of steel pipes, the police car was quickly reduced to a crumpled wreck.

Just then, five police cars appeared from both ends of the street and closed in around them.

Black Wolf was terrified. It seemed the police really intended to play hardball this time. What were they trying to do? Why had they suddenly targeted him?

Black Wolf had not risen to his position by chance. Though he was a gang leader, he was not merely brawn without brains. He was the rare sort who possessed plenty of both.

He thought rapidly and soon understood the police’s strategy.

First, they had sent someone over to deliberately provoke trouble.

Now that he had smashed a police car, the charge could be minor—damage to public property, punishable by nothing more than a fine. But it could also be made much more serious: resisting arrest, assaulting officers, and attacking a police vehicle. Any of those could get him shot dead.

With so many officers surrounding them, it was obvious they intended to arrest him.

Damn it!

Black Wolf could not afford to hesitate. He drew his gun and fired at one of the police cars.

“Brothers, open fire! Show these idiot cops what we’re made of, then pull back!”

Gunshots erupted across Kiss Street.

The police had assumed their opponents were only one man and one woman. They had not expected more than twenty people, all of them armed.

The police were defeated almost instantly. The few survivors fled while calling for reinforcements.

Song Kai had no idea that the random place where he had stopped the car would cause such a disaster.

He was still deeply afraid. This was a foreign country, and if the situation truly escalated, he knew he would be unable to escape. Even if he were ten or twenty times stronger, he still would not be able to flee.

Back at the park, Song Kai found Xu Ling.

At that moment, dozens of police cars, along with several heavily armed tactical vehicles, raced past toward Kiss Street.

Seeing this, Song Kai grew even more frightened. He grabbed Xu Ling and hurried deeper into the park.

“What do we do now?” Xu Ling asked, frowning. “Should I try contacting my teacher, Jack Lee?”

Song Kai shook his head. “That probably won’t help much. Let me think. Let me think. Hmm… Danlina might be able to help us. Wu Hongying might be able to help too. And there’s the embassy. Yes, the embassy. I’ll call Danlina first. If that doesn’t work, we’ll flee to the embassy and ask for protection.”

“Okay.”

Now that they had a rough plan, they were no longer quite so panicked.

Song Kai took out his phone and called Danlina directly.

She answered almost at once.

“Song Kai, have you been missing me?”

It seemed that Danlina had already begun to recover from the grief of losing her team.

“Danlina, I’m in trouble and I need your help.”

“Oh, Song Kai, I’m already in the United States. There’s no way I can help you.”

“What?” Song Kai froze for a moment, then immediately said, “You’re in the United States? That’s perfect. Do you have any friends in Cambridge, Massachusetts? I need your help. I’m in Cambridge right now, and both the police and a criminal gang are hunting me.”

There was a two-second pause on the other end before Danlina asked quickly, “Where are you?”

“I don’t know. In a park. I didn’t see the name.”

Song Kai was frustrated.

At once, Xu Ling spoke beside him. “Saint Anna Park.”

Song Kai gave her a thumbs-up, then immediately said to Danlina, “We’re in Saint Anna Park. We’re hiding outside the pavilion by the lake.”

“All right. Listen carefully, Song Kai. My friend will come there. She’s a woman. She’ll reach the pavilion and flash a flashlight three times in succession from inside it. If she doesn’t do that, do not come out under any circumstances. And don’t panic. I’m in another city in Massachusetts. I’m leaving by car now and should arrive in about five hours.”

Song Kai let out a sigh of relief. He felt as though he had just found a relative in a time of need.

“Thank you,” he said at once.

The call ended.

Song Kai relaxed completely. He took Xu Ling’s small hand and said, “Danlina is here in Massachusetts. We’re incredibly lucky. Otherwise, we really would have had no choice but to flee to the embassy.”

Xu Ling had no time to pay attention to his little gesture. She sat down beside him and suddenly smiled.

“We only came to collect a diploma, and somehow we ended up stirring up all this trouble. What an adventure.”

Song Kai had not expected her to still be capable of smiling.

“It was my fault for sticking my nose into other people’s business.”

Xu Ling thought for a moment. “Not necessarily. Perhaps their objective wasn’t limited to the key in your possession.”

Song Kai scratched his head. “It probably was. Otherwise, why would there be so much trouble?”

Xu Ling pulled her hand away and sat there with her arms around her knees.

“Actually, Song Kai, I think they want more than just the key. They want us alive. If they were only looking for the key, they would have had many more opportunities to kill us. You may be very powerful, but you can’t protect me against machine guns and sniper rifles. At Professor Winton’s house, for example, they could have used weapons with far greater firepower to kill us. And on the way out, those three men were hiding in the darkness. We couldn’t see them at all. Yet they didn’t shoot at first. They only opened fire after realizing they couldn’t defeat you. I think they wanted to capture me alive. It may still have something to do with the facial-recognition algorithm.”

After hearing this, Song Kai considered her words seriously.

“Whatever their objective is, it doesn’t matter now. We’ll be able to get away soon. Just wait.”

“Mm.”

Song Kai and Xu Ling sat shoulder to shoulder, leaning against each other.

A bright moon hung in the sky.

Frogs called from the lake.

A gentle breeze passed over the water, leaving its surface almost undisturbed.

Within the tranquil atmosphere lingered a sweetness that neither of them spoke aloud.

Song Kai reached out and slowly slipped an arm around Xu Ling’s waist.

Xu Ling gave him a helpless look. “Don’t try anything. I’m warning you.”

“Then… can I at least hold your hand? It would be such a waste not to hold hands at a romantic moment like this. Don’t you think?”

As he spoke, Song Kai took her small hand.

Xu Ling curled her lip. “What a ridiculous theory.”

But although she said that, she did not pull her hand away.

Her slender, soft hand was warm and delicate.

Song Kai held it tightly, unable to contain his happiness as a broad grin spread across his face…