Sun Er, surrounded by so many people for the first time, blushed and tried hard to recall, saying, “I think only his top was a little wet.”
Yan Sisi followed up, asking, “That’s right. Who have you ever seen go into the water to save someone and get only a little bit of their clothes wet?”
The neighbors immediately reacted. Seeing Zhou Jiajun’s pale face after being exposed and recalling his usual character, it wasn’t hard to believe he could really have done something like this. One by one, they looked at the family with disgust.
It was clear: this kid had snatched the girl, pretended to be helpful, and then had the audacity to come to propose marriage. The whole act was utterly repulsive.
Su Dani turned to her son, seeing him avoid eye contact and shrink under the crowd’s gaze. There was nothing left to explain; she was furious.
Yan Sisi, seeing the truth revealed, had no intention of letting this person, who deliberately tarnished her reputation, get away. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, Aunt Chen immediately shouted loudly, “A scumbag like this, who knows when he’ll harm someone else again? Better send him to the police station!”
Upon hearing this, several neighbors who had always been at odds with the Zhou family immediately seized the opportunity and shouted along, “Send him to the police! Send him to the police!”
Some people quickly closed in on Zhou Jiajun from all sides. Standing in the middle of it, Zhou Jiajun was no fool; seeing the situation turn against him, he tried to slip into the crowd to escape.
The crowd instantly erupted into chaos. Yan Sisi pulled Aunt Chen to the wall, hiding to avoid getting caught in the fray.
Su Dani, seeing her son surrounded by neighbors, rushed into the crowd herself, shouting, “You can’t catch my son! He didn’t do it on purpose! He’s just a kid, he only wanted to help!”
Yan Sisi watched the chaotic farce from a distance and didn’t step forward to stop it. In her dream, she hadn’t been so lucky, she had never uncovered the truth about her fall into the water before being crushed by rumors.
And there was still one key figure missing from the incident: the person who had pushed her into the water. Who was that?
After a while, the crowd gradually quieted down. Yan Sisi pushed through the dispersed people and immediately saw Zhou Jiajun pressed against the red brick wall by two men.
She stepped closer, and could still hear Zhou Jiajun arguing incessantly, “I really didn’t! I was just trying to help her! Who knew she would turn it around on me? We’ve been neighbors for years, don’t you believe me?”
Seeing the crowd starting to loosen, Yan Sisi stepped forward and loudly addressed everyone: “Thank you to all of you who stepped in to help! No matter how much Zhou Jiajun lies, it won’t matter, the police will investigate and uncover the truth. If this man really did something like this, families with daughters would have to live in constant fear. Even families without daughters have children, right? What if this man, one day, loses his mind and abducts a child? The consequences would be serious.”
If she let Zhou Jiajun continue speaking, people might dismiss the matter as trivial and try to persuade her to let him go.
After Yan Sisi spoke, Zhou Jiajun, still pressed against the wall, angrily shouted, “You’re talking nonsense!”
People with daughters, seeing his fierce, bloodshot eyes, quietly agreed from within the crowd: “Exactly. A scumbag like this should be sent to the police, let them investigate him.”
“Yes, send him to the police!”
Su Dani, held back by the neighbors, glared viciously around her and cursed, “Bah! Your son should be the one sent to the police! My son tried to help, and he ends up unlucky, does this world even have any justice?”
Yan Sisi knew there was no reasoning with someone like that. That was not “helping” at all.
Aunt Chen followed coldly, “Whether he helped or not, the police will find out.”
Then she turned to the two men holding Zhou Jiajun and said, “Could you two please help take him to the police station so the officers can investigate him?”
The crowd slowly made way, forming a path. The two men pressed Zhou Jiajun at the front, Yan Sisi and Aunt Chen followed closely behind, with a few curious neighbors trailing.
At the very end, Su Dani saw her son being taken toward the police station. Furious and dizzy with anger, she hurriedly called her obedient grandson to fetch his grandfather.
The closer they got to the police station, the harder Zhou Jiajun struggled. The two men, who had initially taken it lightly, exchanged glances and understood the situation, especially the one with a daughter, who pressed down even harder to force Zhou Jiajun forward.
Zhou Jiajun’s legs weakened as he saw the police station sign. Panic surged through him at the thought of being arrested, and he suddenly fought back with all his strength, determined not to go to jail.
The two men lost their grip for just a moment, and Zhou Jiajun broke free, fleeing backward.
Yan Sisi, following behind, collided directly with him and fell to the ground. Zhou Jiajun, seeing the woman in front of him sprawled on the ground, her face flushed, thought bitterly that if she hadn’t come with that old woman, he wouldn’t have ended up in this mess.
Red-eyed with rage, he bent down, grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulled her up, and in the next second wrapped his strong arm around her neck, pressing hard in a wild attempt to strangle her.
Yan Sisi didn’t expect him to try to escape even on the way to the police station. Before she could even get up, she felt her hair being yanked painfully and a strong arm tightening around her neck.
A sharp pain shot through her throat along with a suffocating feeling. She pulled at his arm with all her strength, but it didn’t budge. Aunt Chen, realizing what was happening, rushed forward to help, only to be shoved to the ground with one hand.
The suffocating lack of oxygen intensified, and her body grew weaker and weaker. Could it be that she still couldn’t escape the death that had haunted her in the dream?
Yan Sisi felt the voices outside fading farther away. Suddenly, the grip on her neck loosened. Her body went limp, and she was about to fall to the ground, but a strong arm caught her.
Her oxygen-starved brain barely functioned; she simply leaned against the rescuer with all her strength, covering her neck with her hands, weakly gasping while coughing violently.
When Yan Sisi finally opened her eyes and recovered enough to look around, she realized she was leaning against a somewhat familiar man. She was instantly frightened, straightened up, and stepped back a few paces to keep distance, raising her pale, jade-like face and nervously saying, “Thank you!”
The moment Yan Sisi looked up and clearly saw the man’s face, she exclaimed in surprise, “It’s you.”
“You two know each other?” Aunt Chen, now helped to her feet by others, also stood up and looked at the two young people facing each other. The woman was delicate and beautiful, the man extraordinarily handsome, standing together, they looked like a perfect painting.
Hearing Aunt Chen’s voice, Yan Sisi quickly ran over to support her. “Aunt Chen, are you hurt?” It was all because of her incident that Aunt Chen had fallen.
Aunt Chen, seeing the young girl’s neck red from being strangled, waved her hand with a smile to ease her worry. “It’s nothing, nothing at all.”
Gu Pingjing straightened his stiff posture, nodded to them, and asked, “Aunt Chen, what are you doing here?”
“I caught the boy who shoved you into the river. I didn’t expect that even on the way to the police station, he still tried to escape. Fortunately, you arrived in time, otherwise, Xiao Yan would’ve—” Aunt Chen patted her still-thumping heart in relief.
She then glared at Zhou Jiajun, already handcuffed by the police. That morally corrupt scoundrel, luckily, the police got him, or sooner or later, he would’ve harmed someone else.
From Aunt Chen’s words, Yan Sisi seemed to realize something: this handsome, upright man before her was her real rescuer?
Her gaze lingered on his face for only a few seconds before the man’s eyes swept sharply over her. Startled, Yan Sisi quickly turned to look at Aunt Chen, her heart racing wildly in her chest.
Gu Pingjing, seeing the woman apparently frightened by him, didn’t know how to react at first, and then followed briskly after the criminal, who was being taken away by the police.
Yan Sisi and Aunt Chen followed closely behind as they entered the police station. With Aunt Chen, the helpful neighbors, and Gu Pingjing, the one who truly saved her, vouching for what happened, and considering that Zhou Jiajun had attacked people right at the station’s entrance, the police immediately took him into custody. After that, it was just a matter of patiently waiting for the investigation results.
After completing her statement with Aunt Chen’s accompaniment, Yan Sisi looked around but didn’t see the man who had saved her earlier. She could only hear Zhou Jiajun’s mother crying loudly to the officers, while the once aggressive Zhou Jiajun now sat slumped in a chair, looking defeated.
Yan Sisi gave them a cold glance and then turned to support Aunt Chen as they left. People like that weren’t worth wasting emotions on.
This time, she had been lucky to find witnesses and escape someone like him. Had she not whimsically gone to the park that day, this scoundrel would surely have taken merciless advantage of her family.
Outside the police station, Yan Sisi couldn’t help but let out a long breath. Aunt Chen patted her hand and said with a smile, “Girl, now you can finally relax! The person’s caught, and I can finally put my mind at ease.”
Yan Sisi’s pale, delicate face lit up with a joyful smile as she turned to Aunt Chen. “Thank you, Aunt Chen. Without you, our family might have been in a completely different situation. You even hurt yourself because of my matter, come on, I’ll take you to the hospital to get checked.”
“It’s nothing, just a little scrape on my hand,” Aunt Chen said casually, waving her hand. “I’ll just put some medicine on it when I get home. You should hurry back and tell your parents this good news so they stop worrying.”
Yan Sisi couldn’t argue with Aunt Chen, so she made sure to escort her home safely, remembering the address to bring some gifts later as thanks.
On the way home, thinking that the whole matter was finally resolved, Yan Sisi’s mood soared.
Her mother, busy cooking in the kitchen, heard the door open and guessed her daughter had returned. She called out loudly, “You girl! Instead of resting at home, you go running around again! School starts in just a few days, and you’re still wandering everywhere.”
Yan Sisi, hopping with excitement, entered the kitchen with a beaming smile and said, “Mom, I have something to tell you, you’re definitely going to be happy!”