Chapter 146
Chapter 146
Nan Mu pushed the door open and stepped inside. He saw two people handcuffed in the bathroom.
When Old Cai noticed Nan Mu frown slightly, he hurried to explain, “These two are stubborn as mules. We were afraid they wouldn’t behave, so we planned to starve them for a couple of days to keep them from causing trouble.”
Old Cai was fairly good at reading people. Nan Mu was afraid he might grow suspicious, so he deliberately reached up and pinched his nose, putting on a look of disgust. “Get them out of there.”
In order to escape, Wen Tangtang and Wen Xin had struggled the entire night. Exhausted, they had fallen asleep leaning against the toilet. Now, when they suddenly heard someone come in, they both jolted awake in fright.
Seeing Old Cai walk into the bathroom, Wen Tangtang furiously strained her throat and shouted in a hoarse voice, “This is illegal imprisonment, do you understand? Let us go!”
Old Cai was worried their shouting would alert Nan Mu outside the door. He glared at them, kicked the bathroom door hard, and barked, “Shut up, both of you. Make another sound and I’ll break your legs.”
Wen Xin was just about to speak when, through the open bathroom door, he caught sight of the person outside.
Although the other party was wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, Wen Xin recognized him at once. It was Nan Mu.
He froze for a moment. In that brief pause, Old Cai dragged the two of them into the living room.
Nan Mu kicked the chair beside him and sat down with a face full of disgust. Then he unhurriedly took a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and took a drag before saying mildly to Old Cai, “I need to ask them a few things. You can leave for now.”
Old Cai was taken aback, but he still quickly withdrew, even thoughtfully closing the door behind him.
Only after he had left did Wen Xin straighten up and ask in confusion, “How did you…”
Before he could finish, Nan Mu swiftly raised the index finger of his left hand, pressed it solemnly against his lips, and signaled with his eyes for him to be quiet.
Then Nan Mu abruptly raised his voice and shouted coldly toward the outside, “Don’t refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit! Whatever I ask, you answer!”
After saying that, Nan Mu stood up and walked quietly over to the two of them, tugging at the handcuffs locked around their wrists.
“How did you get in here?” Wen Xin still couldn’t hold back his curiosity and asked in a low voice.
“I walked in.” Calm and unhurried, Nan Mu took his phone from his pocket, skillfully turned on the flashlight, and shone it into the keyhole of the handcuffs.
When Wen Tangtang heard Nan Mu answer so casually, her eyes nearly popped out. “You’re here to save us?”
Nan Mu gave Wen Tangtang a look as if she were an idiot and mocked, “What else? Did I come all this way just to laugh at you?”
Wen Xin felt a little depressed. “We’re already this miserable. How can you still have the heart to mock us?”
Nan Mu sneered. “The two of you are perfectly grown adults, yet you were taken out of the school without a sound. Doesn’t that deserve to be mocked?”
Wen Xin’s eyes widened at once, and he retorted, unconvinced, “You have no idea how powerful those two big guys were…”
But before he could finish, Wen Tangtang anxiously cut him off.
“Can you open them?” Wen Tangtang asked urgently as she watched Nan Mu study the handcuffs.
Without lifting his head, Nan Mu replied in an unhurried tone, “Still working on it.”
Wen Tangtang fell silent for a few seconds, then asked, “Can you maybe hurry up a little?”
“I would if I could!” In a rare show of generosity, Nan Mu spared her a glance, his eyes carrying a trace of confusion. “What are you trying to do?”
Wen Tangtang fell silent again for a while, her expression turning extremely awkward. “Since yesterday until now, I haven’t gone to the bathroom once… I really can’t hold it much longer.”
Nan Mu looked baffled. “Weren’t you two locked in the bathroom just now?”
If they said the handcuffs had cut off circulation to their hands and made them go numb, he could understand that. But they had been in the bathroom, so how could they still…
Following Wen Tangtang’s gaze, he spotted Wen Xin beside her and suddenly understood what she had left unsaid.
Nan Mu laughed without the slightest mercy. “Suffer in silence just to save face, huh?”
Wen Tangtang was just about to snap back when the more rational Wen Xin covered her mouth. “The cuffs they’re using seem to be a new type of springless pin tumbler lock. I tried last night when they first cuffed us… Damn it, I couldn’t get them open at all. Ideally, we could get a pack of thermite and melt through the chain in the middle…”
Thermite was a mixture of aluminum powder and refractory metal oxides. Once ignited with a starter, it could trigger a violent chemical reaction, raising the temperature to 2,500 degrees and melting the iron produced.
It was a good method.
But to Nan Mu, Wen Xin might as well have been talking about a fantasy. “Do I look like the kind of person who carries thermite around with me?”
Forget him, a biology student-even chemistry students wouldn’t carry that stuff on them, right?
Wen Xin lowered his head in dejection. “Then what do we do? Is there a fruit knife or a pair of scissors in this room?”
“You planning to slowly file through it?” Wen Tangtang shifted positions and mocked him. “File until tomorrow night?”
She really couldn’t hold it in anymore…
Their back-and-forth was giving Nan Mu a headache. “Can you two take a break? I need to listen. Ideally, don’t even breathe.”
Wen Xin was just about to ask what he was listening for when he saw Nan Mu suddenly roll up his sleeve, revealing a loop of steel wire around his wrist.
He slipped the wire off his wrist, straightened it bit by bit, then inserted one end into the handcuff’s keyhole, exactly like something out of a movie.
The movement looked convincing enough, but Wen Xin seriously doubted his actual ability. “Are you for real? You can actually-”
Before he could finish, there was a faint click from the handcuffs.
Wen Tangtang’s cuffs had opened.
It happened so suddenly and unexpectedly that Wen Xin choked on his own words, staring with his mouth agape, unable to speak.
The instant Wen Tangtang’s handcuffs came loose, she sprang up from the floor like a wild horse freed from its reins and charged straight into the bathroom.
Nan Mu didn’t even have time to remind her to keep quiet before he watched her vanish from his sight. Fortunately, the room’s soundproofing seemed decent enough, and Old Cai outside made no movement in response.
Nan Mu moved on to unlocking Wen Xin’s cuffs. Just then, his phone suddenly started vibrating.
“Your phone’s ringing.”
“Mm.” Nan Mu knew. But picking a handcuff lock depended on feel, and he was at the most critical point, so he didn’t answer right away. “It should be Wen Miao.”
“Wen Miao knows you came here?”
“She knows.” As Nan Mu spoke, he heard footsteps behind him. Wen Tangtang had come out of the bathroom. “Wen Tangtang, answer Wen Miao’s call for me.”
“Wen Miao?” Wen Tangtang hurriedly pulled the phone out of Nan Mu’s pocket. “She must have been worried sick yesterday, right?”
Wen Tangtang had barely picked up and hadn’t even had time to tell her they were safe when Wen Miao’s urgent voice came through the receiver first. “Nan Mu, where are you? I just heard Director Wu on the phone with someone. I think they’ve discovered you!”
“What?” Wen Tangtang was startled.
Wen Miao, on the other end, was just as shocked to hear Wen Tangtang’s voice. But there was no time to be happy. She immediately urged, “Tang Tang? Nan Mu found you, didn’t he? Then hurry up and get out of there! They’re coming to catch you!”