Beauty and the Bodyguard

 Chapter 427 - Stolen Phone

"That's right… I wouldn't be able to tend to it every day…" Yushu stuck her tongue out.

"Maybe calm down with the stupid stuff?" Mengyao was feeling helpless.

"Alright then… Yao Yao, then what tree do you think we should buy?" Yushu shrank back as she softly asked.

"Something prettier and more normal?" Mengyao wasn't very knowledgeable about stuff like this either. "Maybe a fruit tree… Ah! What're you doing!"

Mengyao got pushed down as a young man bumped into her, almost tripping her. The man quickly apologized. "I'm sorry, it wasn't on purpose, I have an errand to run…"

"Oh… It's okay." Mengyao frowned- she didn't want to dwell on this after the guy said it wasn't on purpose.

"Wait!" The man was about to leave when Lin Yi grabbed his arm.

"What… What do you want?" The young man's eyes flashed with alertness, and Mengyao looked at Lin Yi, confused. She was letting it go, so why was Lin Yi dwelling on that?

"Hand over the phone." Lin Yi said faintly.

"Phone? What phone…" The young man was evidently panicking- he started yelling all of a sudden. "Robbery! It's a robbery, someone's trying to take my phone!! Help!!"

The young man attracted many eyes that instant- people started crowding over.

"What's going on?" Some security people walked over to the man.

"He wants to rob my phone from me…" The man said innocently to the security.

"Yes, I can prove it! That guy asked for his phone out of nowhere!" Someone from the crowd spoke up.

"Oh? If that's so then all of you are coming with me to the security room!" The security captain said after one look at Lin Yi. His eyes paused at Mengyao and Yushu behind her, his gaze a little perverted as he looked.

"Lin Yi, what's going on?" Mengyao was a little irritated- they'd come to shop for saplings, so why was Lin Yi causing trouble all of a sudden, stopping some stranger for his phone?

"Your phone was stolen." Lin Yi shrugged as he looked at his Miss.

"Ah? My phone?" Mengyao felt her pockets and her expression changed- her phone was gone! "You're saying that he stole my phone?"

"Yes. What do you think I stopped him for?" Lin Yi nodded.

"Hey, what the fuck are you saying? Who're you calling a thief?" The young man puffed his chest up, confident. "You say I took your phone? Why don't you try calling it?"

"You turned it off, right…" Lin Yi eyed him, speaking faintly. His little smart-assery was obvious to him.

"Alright, quiet down- you're all coming to the security room. We'll sort this out there." The security captain evidently didn't want to let Lin Yi talk so much- he started to push at him to get him to go.

Lin Yi squinted his eyes and realized the problem- was this security captain working with the young man?

"You two go wait for me in the car… Actually, just stay with me." Lin Yi had wanted to ask the girls to go back to the car, but that perverted look in the captain's eyes worried him. It'd be safer if they were with him.

Ruoming came back to school right before it ended- he asked some of his lackeys and only calmed down after hearing that Lin Yi wasn't looking or asking around for him. It seemed like Lin Yi didn't want to bother with him!

He'd always thought that Lin Yi never weeded him out because he had some reservations about completely breaking with him, but today's enlightenment changed that perspective- Lin Yi never gave a shit about him at all! He could've crushed him if he'd wanted to, anytime, anywhere! What happened to Uncle Yan today was testament to that. So what if he was a golden class master? He got his face stepped on by Lin Yi all the same!

Now that Ruoming understood that he actually stopped worrying as much- as long as he didn't piss Lin Yi off anymore there shouldn't be a problem.

"Ming Bro, we have a tree-planting event tomorrow, are we going?" It was Ruoming's lackey number one, Yun Lingxi.

"We are, of course we are!" Ruoming was very proud whenever tree-planting was mentioned- there were at least three to four trees that were planted by him in that forest behind the school! One tree every year… He'd been here in twelfth and thirteenth grade for three to four years now.

Everyone else only got to plant one, while he had several- who could even match that? No one could compete with him! Every time tree-planting was brought up he felt especially proud because of that!

Ruoming's phone rang and interrupted him- it was his father Tiandi, who only got more terrified as he thought about Lin Yi after getting back to the company…

He'd talked to Ruoming about consoling themselves by thinking that Lin Yi wouldn't bother with them, but thinking things through it didn't feel practical at all!

So he decided to call his son Ruoming and ask what the situation was, to see what Lin Yi wanted! It was a lot easier to get into trouble than out of it, and now that they were involved with Lin Yi things were horridly bad for them.

"Where are you?" Tiandi asked.

"I'm at school, dad. Just ended. What's wrong?" Ruoming asked.

"Come to the company for a bit, I have something to ask you. I'll go fetch you right now!" Tiandi said. He'd wanted to nurture Ruoming into a hard-working student by not hiring a driver to get him to school, but things didn't go as expected- Ruoming actually had more freedom because of that, and no one was able to see the bad things he was always up to. It just made him that much more tyrannical.

"I'm going to our Flower Bird and Fish Mall- we're planting trees tomorrow again, I need a sapling!" Ruoming said.

"Then wait for me at school- I'll come get you." Tiandi said.

Around ten minutes later, Tiandi arrived at school with the BMW, its headlight ruined by Lin Yi. The exterior troubled Tiandi, but he was much more concerned that he'd pissed Lin Yi off.

Ruoming got in the car to Tiandi's question- he couldn't wait any longer. "You know Lin Yi?"

"Know him? He slapped me a couple times at school, he's a huge enemy!" Ruoming nodded. "I wanted to go after his girl earlier, but I had no idea he was that strong!"

Tiandi almost rolled his eyes at that- even his son was Lin Yi's enemy! He felt like crying.

"We're screwed. What do we do? How's that kid so strong, even Uncle Yan can't handle him!" Tiandi used to live very solidly, doing things the tyrant's way in Songshan… That was all due to Uncle Yan's support! He only had one more favor to ask of him, but no one could tell if Tiandi would unleash Uncle Yan again- everyone let Tiandi have his way, as a result, afraid of crossing him.

Chapter 428 - Caught A Couple of Thieves

As a result, Tiandi developed a temper- he wouldn't have been so cocky without Uncle Yan, even with a gangster boss son like Ruoguang in the Northern district.

But Lin Yi was different- he was an existence that nullified his absolute trump card, the trump card he relied on!

"It was more than just not being able to handle him, Uncle Yan didn't even do anything and Lin Yi slapped him away! It was an instant kill!" Ruoming shuddered just thinking about it. Lin Yi didn't look like he'd used any strength when slapping him- if he had, perhaps Uncle Yan might not even have a head anymore after landing from the slap!

"Instant kill…" Tiandi's lips twitched. He thought that there'd been a battle between the two before Uncle Yan lost, but from how things stood Lin Yi should be far, far stronger than Uncle Yan…

"Ruoming, you think we should buy some gifts and pay Lin Yi a visit? Apologize to him?" Tiandi asked with a sigh.

"I… I don't know… We can't right now, right?" Ruoming shook his head. "Lin Yi's all pissed right now, we'll just be walking to our graves… Let's wait until things calm down, we'll go apologize then. It should be fine after that, right..?"

"You're right!" Tiandi nodded. "I'll see if I can pull some connections these days and go visit Uncle Yan, see if I can understand just how strong Lin Yi is!"

"Yeah! Knowing thy enemy is key to victory!" Ruoming formed a proverb.

"My ass! Even if you know how strong he is, it doesn't matter- we still can't win! Unless you know someone stronger than him." Tiandi scolded. "Just us? We won't be able to do a thing!!"

"Ahh… Guess there's not much we can do…" Ruoming wasn't too keen on just enduring this bullying- it made him uncomfortable now that the fear had settled.

Tiandi parked the car in front of the mall and let Ruoming off. Flower Bird and Fish Mall had been started by Tiandi, and with Ruoguang's men keeping watch there usually weren't any problems, yielding him a couple dozen million yearly from just the rent. It was a business with no risks and only profit.

"Fucking shit, who the hell parked this shitty car in my personal parking space?" Tiandi cursed with a frown. There wasn't an outlined space in front of the door, but cars would come and occupy it when there weren't any parking spots left.

But there were still other spaces, there weren't that many cars around! It was only natural that finding his personal spot taken would piss Tiandi off.

"Fucking van. I'll go find out what delivery company it belongs too and put them in their place, have Ruoguang fine them a little tomorrow." Tiandi decided to vent his anger on somewhere else.

"Wha?!" Ruoming looked at where his father was yelling at and almost tripped- he knew that van, it was Lin Yi's!!!

"Dad, please, stop… Stop yelling, look at that licence plate…" Ruoming quickly tried to calm his father down, worried that Lin Yi might hear him.

"What about the licence plate? What's so special about that plate?" Tiandi didn't care- he puffed up his belly and started walking into the mall.

"That's Lin Yi's car!" Ruoming said. "Lin Yi's here at Flower Bird and Fish Mall?"

"What?!" Tiandi froze after hearing who the car belonged to- he'd almost went and gotten the van towed away by the security because he was pissed! He couldn't even imagine the consequences if that had taken place… He started getting soaked in cold sweat as he turned around to leave. "Let's go, Ruoming… Let's go somewhere else…"

Ruoming thought about it. He hadn't gotten his sapling yet, and it wasn't likely that he'd bump into Lin Yi so coincidentally… "We'll go right to the office and come out after Lin Yi leaves?"

"That works!" Tiandi nodded and walked into the mall with Ruoming. The security who was him called out loudly. "Mister Zou!"

"Shh! Don't say that!" Tiandi exploded- what the hell was this guy doing, what if Lin Yi had heard him?

The security guard paused, not quite understanding what was going on. He guessed that Tiandi might have come here undercover to see how the mall was doing…

The guard thought that was pretty plausible, so he nodded. "Alright, I'll stop…"

Tiandi and Ruoming sneaked into the manager's office like ghosts. The manager, Xie Fenpian, on the other hand, had just received a report from the security captain, informing him that he'd captured a guy and two pretty girls- they'd investigated their background, and concluded that they weren't very powerful people judging by the van they'd driven here in.

So, Fenpian prepared to go down and cop in a feel or two… It was a case of a stolen phone, so it'd be fine if he did a strip search, something Fenpian was more than willing to do! Naturally, he didn't dare go too far with this, since it'd cause big problems. Just strip searching a thief alone may be going overboard, but it wasn't too serious.

Fenpian was just getting excited when he raised his head to see Tiandi and Ruoming charge in- he jumped with a fright. Did they find out what he was doing?

But, according to Fenpian's understanding, Tiandi himself wasn't a very good person either, always setting the younger girls in the company up for his own benefits… With a superior like that it was only natural that the subordinates would behave the same way.

Tiandi's family Ruoguang and Ruoming, including his lackeys, were all pretty shitty people- Fenpian himself was only a tyrant because Ruoguang was fine with it!

He'd been a gangster in the northern district- Ruoming started relying on him and assigned him the job of manager at the mall.

Remembering that Tiandi was the same sort of person, Fenpian didn't worry as much. "You're here, Mister Zou! I was just about to ask Guang Bro to share some good stuff with you!"

"Good stuff??" Tiandi blinked. He'd been pretty pissed, but this good stuff might be able to comfort him a little.

"The security team caught a couple of thieves- there's pretty girls in that group. Would you wanna search them, Mister Zou?" Fenpiang asked like a pervert.

"Oh? Have you checked their backgrounds?" Tiandi asked after a pause. This was his hobby, after all, so if everything was fine these punching bags were perfect timing.

"Not much background, they all came in a run-down van, the type you'd find in a junkyard. They're definitely nobodies!" Fenpian said.

"Wait! What did you say? Run-down van?" Tiandi froze- he'd just been terrified by Lin Yi's run-down van, so the keyword got his still sensitive heart thumping again. "Who are these thieves you caught? Tell me, who are they!!"