The Reluctant Bride Book I

Rock bottom.

At the bar of a nightclub, Tan Pan Ting drank her sorrows away.

‘Men are f’ing bastards… they’re all rotten… all men deserve to go to hell…’ Tan Pan Ting mumbled.

The techno music gave Tan Pan Ting a splitting headache. She cursed the liars who told her drinking would help her forget. What drown your sorrows? Her head hurt, and her heart clearly remembered the f’ing bastard.

‘You f’ing bastard… you took credit for my work… you liar… you f’ing cheater… you and the vixen deserve to go to hell together…’ Tan Pan Ting mumbled.

Tan Pan Ting slammed a hundred dollar note on the bar, and she stumbled outside the nightclub. Another f’ing bastard knocked her over, and her arm scraped against the pavement.

‘You f’ing bastard… why are you running away?’ Tan Pan Ting yelled. ‘You can’t injure someone and run away without saying sorry!’

Tan Pan Ting was drunk, but she remembered how gullible she was. She wasn’t going to be a naive pushover again so she chased after the f’king bastard to get an apology from him.

Tan Pan Ting ran blindly like she was chasing the f’king bastard she dated blindly for two years. She met him at her first workplace. She made a rookie mistake by believing the f’king bastard, ‘Pan Ting, tell the managers it was my idea. I’ll take responsibility if your plan fails… Pan Ting, I need this opportunity… Pan Ting, if I’m successful, you’ll benefit too… Pan Ting, trust me, I’m doing this for you…’

Tan Pan Ting wasn’t angry the f’king bastard dumped her. She was angry the f’king bastard took credit for her work, and slept with the boss’ daughter. Why did she trust such a f’king bastard?

Tan Pan Ting was too furious to hear sirens. The man who knocked her over, dropped a bag in an alley way and disappeared.

‘Miss you’re under arrest,’ a junior cop said.

Tan Pan Ting turned around, she saw a bunch of actors pointing a gun at her. She stepped in front of the junior cop and wanted to touch the realistic toy gun.

‘Are you and your cast members shooting an action scene?’ Tan Pan Ting asked. ‘Wow, the gun prop looks so real.’

‘Don’t move or I’ll shoot,’ the junior cop warned.

Tan Pan Ting was too drunk to read the police sign on the cars behind the actors pointing guns at her. She touched the actor’s toy gun who threatened her, and he immediately twisted her arm.

‘Ah!’ Tan Pan Ting cried out. ‘Save me! Someone wants to kill me!’ Save me!’

Tan Pan Ting didn’t want to die without seeing the f’king bastard and the vixen receive their retributions.

‘Don’t move!’ the junior cop said. ‘You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Whatever you say will be reported.’

Tan Pan Ting felt like she was the victim who was in the wrong place at the wrong time in a gangster movie.

‘Is this place secured?’ Gu Jiao Wen asked.

Tan Pan Ting couldn’t see the tall man’s face in the dark alley way at a far distance. But the tall man was her hope of surviving by the way the gangsters looked intimidated by the tall man.

‘Save me!’ Tan Pan Ting said. ‘These gangsters want to kill me.’

Gu Jiao Wen and the junior cops dismissed Tan Pan Ting’s cry of innocence.

‘Yes sir,’ the junior cop said.

‘Um, put down your gun,’ Gu Jiao Wen said.

‘The drug dealers are caught but they got rid of the evidence,’ the junior cop reported to Gu Jiao Wen.

Gu Jiao Wen ordered a female cop to search Tan Pan Ting.

The female cop took Tan Pan Ting to an unfamiliar place.

‘What are you doing?’ Tan Pan Ting asked. ‘Let me go.’

The female cop ignored Tan Pan Ting, and she performed a strip search.

***

End of Chapters One to Three