Xue Chen's Memories

"All right, isn't a free meal enough to make you happy?" Xue Chen picked up a piece of meat and chewed it. "Mm, not bad."

The dinner ended amid laughter and chatter. After Wu Liang paid the bill, they headed outside together. When they reached a fork in the road, Kong Hui said with a smile, "Let's not take the main road. We'll go through that alley. Once we pass through it, it'll feel like everything suddenly opens up. It really is a great feeling. Want to try it?"

"Sure." Lin Ran was the first to agree.

"I don't really care either way." Wu Liang shrugged.

"Let's go, let's go!" Their other two companions, Zhou Guosheng and Qian Feng, agreed as well.

"Help..."

So the group headed into the pitch-black alley. They had only gone halfway when Xue Chen frowned. "Did you hear something?"

"What sound? Xue Chen, don't scare me." At Xue Chen's words, Lin Ran's hair stood on end. She immediately turned and hid behind him.

"A cry for help." Xue Chen ignored her and followed the faint sound toward another alley. The others standing there heard it too. It was a woman's voice.

"Why does that voice sound familiar?" Xu Le scratched his forehead, suddenly thinking of someone.

"The short-haired girl who treated us to roast duck," Zhou Guosheng added.

"Save them!" everyone cried out at once, quickening their pace as they rushed toward the source of the sound.

Xue Chen ran at the front and was the first to charge into the alley. What he saw left him in despair.

A long-haired girl lay on the ground, twitching, while the short-haired girl was being dragged around by a man tugging at her clothes. Two other men beside him were leering obscenely. When they saw the group, one of them roared, "Brats, this is none of your business. Get lost!"

"You bastards! Brothers, beat them to death!" Wu Liang rolled up his sleeves and charged forward, kicking the man who had spoken straight to the ground. The others surged in after him, throwing themselves at the scumbags with all their strength.

Xue Chen remained where he was. He took off his jacket and draped it over the short-haired girl, soothing her softly. "Don't be afraid. We're here." Only after seeing that her clothes were still intact did he breathe a sigh of relief. The world was far too harsh on girls; it was best that she had not been harmed.

"Waaah..." The short-haired girl finally came back to herself. She wrapped her arms tightly around Xue Chen's waist and burst into uncontrollable sobs.

"It's all right. Don't be afraid. It's all right, it's all right! Dad... I'm here..." Xue Chen patted the short-haired girl's head to comfort her. Seeing her cry so pitifully suddenly reminded him of Niu Niu—his daughter, Xue Ling, who was not related to him by blood.

He still remembered her first day at kindergarten, when she had thrown herself into his arms in fear and called him Daddy in her childish voice. Xue Hao was in prison now, and there was still no sign of that woman. Perhaps the little girl would never appear again... would she?

"Thank you. I thought... hic... today, I... hic..." Perhaps Xue Chen's voice was too gentle, because the short-haired girl seemed to have finally found someone to lean on. Before she could finish speaking, though, she began hiccuping.

Xue Chen lowered his voice even further. "Take your time. You're safe now..." Looking into those big, watery eyes, which resembled Niu Niu's even more when she cried, his expression softened unconsciously.

"Mm!" The short-haired girl looked at Xue Chen's face, then suddenly blushed and lowered her head.

By then, Lin Ran and the others had finished dealing with the three pieces of trash and hurried over. When they saw the unconscious girl on the ground, they were relieved to find her clothes neat and intact and that no real harm had been done. Still, they worried that she might have been injured elsewhere.

"These animals!" Lin Ran cursed. She crouched down and helped the long-haired girl up. Seeing the red mark on her forehead, she placed a hand on the girl's neck but could not feel a pulse. She lifted the girl's eyelids to check and found that her pupils had not dilated. Only then did she let out a breath. "She still needs to go to the hospital for an examination. Head injuries need to be taken seriously."

Lin Ran's suggestion was approved by everyone, but the short-haired girl's face showed hesitation and fear. "Is that really okay? What if they ask how we were injured? Xiao Lan and I..."

At her words, all the boys fell silent. Although New China had been established and everyone spoke of equality between men and women, gaps still remained under certain circumstances. For example, when girls encountered danger, some would rather endure it than report it to the police. It was not because they wanted to let the perpetrators go, but because even if the police caught the criminals, the victims would often be maliciously slandered and humiliated afterward. Some would even claim that the girls had been targeted because of their clothes, their looks, or because they had gone home late, inflicting a second wound on them. There were countless such cases.

"Then what should we do? We can't just let these three beasts go!" Kong Hui asked. "If we send them to the police station but don't have victims willing to testify, they might even turn around and accuse us."

Wu Liang grabbed at his hair. "Xue Chen, what do you think we should do?"

Xue Chen glanced at the three scumbags lying on the ground and groaning. "Just say the two of them were robbed. I don't think those three want this matter to blow up either. Once this is over, we'll deal with them." The college entrance examination had only been reinstated for a few years, and the criminal laws were particularly harsh, especially regarding crimes of sexual assault, which were basically punishable by execution. If it became attempted robbery instead, their sentences would be lighter. The three men were not fools, and they would not dare talk nonsense.

"Right, right! How didn't I think of that? At the very least, they can be locked up for a few years." Wu Liang's eyes lit up at the idea.

"I suggest we take them to the hospital first," Qian Feng said. They were two delicate girls, after all, and what had just happened was enough to leave them frightened for quite some time.

So Wu Liang carried the long-haired girl to the nearest hospital. To keep her from feeling embarrassed when she woke up, he took off his jacket and wrapped it around her body.