Chapter 75: The Outlaw Woman's Line of Thought

Zhang Jing looked at him with an odd expression and said, "Even if you were trying to protect her and comfort her, there was no need to be draped all over her, was there?"

"…"

Xiao Ma had no idea why she kept pressing this point.

But in theory, she was right. If all he wanted was to care for her, to help her out, to find the little girl a babysitter, he could have said so properly. Why had he ended up sprawled over the poor woman instead?

"Now you know you were wrong, don't you?" Zhang Jing asked again.

"I wasn't wrong. I'll just pay more attention in the future," Xiao Ma said, forcing a stiff smile.

Zhang Jing was a little deflated. "You’re all talk. For a weak little shut-in like you, it’s obvious the duck is dead and its beak is still hard. That isn’t protecting her or caring for her; it’s causing her trouble."

Xiao Ma still refused to yield. "And yet, legally speaking, I really did nothing wrong."

Zhang Jing narrowed her eyes. "Legally, huh? If we're talking law, then after intentional assault like that, you should be in detention picking up soap by now. And you still want to climb all over women in a karaoke bar?"

She did seem to have a point, and Xiao Ma was not the sort to argue just for the sake of it, so he let it go.

"Come with me," Zhang Jing said, striding ahead with cool confidence.

Xiao Ma followed behind, wondering where this young master was being taken.

In the end, she actually led him to the neighborhood near where the little girl lived. Naturally, the proprietress lived there too.

She had the details from the last testimony, so Zhang Jing knew where Fan Lulu lived. But Xiao Ma was baffled as to why she had come here, and asked.

"I’m going to talk to Fan Lulu’s husband," Zhang Jing said, leaning against the alley entrance like a street tough.

Xiao Ma thought it over and decided that was a good thing. It meant the police had started paying attention. Whether they could really do anything was hard to say, but at the very least her husband would be more restrained. Otherwise people only grew bolder the more they got away with it; once he discovered beating his wife carried no cost, the proprietress would only have it worse and worse.

So Xiao Ma stood there, lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and hesitated over whether he should go in and testify as well. It would not be ideal to let the little girl testify, but Xiao Ma really could testify; he had truly heard the noise of domestic violence from their place more than once.

After a moment, Zhang Jing naturally reached out and took the cigarette from Xiao Ma’s hand, taking a drag herself.

Xiao Ma happened to turn his head and saw a man walking this way.

He hurriedly said, "That’s him. That’s the proprietress’s husband."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure."

Only then did Zhang Jing hand the cigarette back to Xiao Ma and walk toward the man.

Fan Lulu’s husband was startled. Seeing such a tall, striking woman suddenly appear here and approach him, he immediately put on a smiling face.

But before he could say a word, Zhang Jing kicked him hard in the waist from the side with a knife-like leg strike.

"Fuck…"

The blow was so powerful that it sent the man crashing into the wall, then bouncing back and sprawling on the ground.

"Robbery! Murder!"

Fan Lulu’s husband was terrified. He shouted at the top of his lungs and tried to get up and run.

But Zhang Jing grabbed his belt with one hand and the collar of his shirt with the other, lifting him up as if weightlifting, then slammed him down hard again.

This one was even more brutal. Xiao Ma was horrified. His legs went weak, and he wanted to run. Damn it, was he now an accomplice too?

"Spare me, spare me, ah…"

After being kicked again, he no longer dared speak.

Only then did Zhang Jing squat down, pinning his neck with her knee as she said coldly, "If you dare lay a finger on Fan Lulu again, I’ll kill you."

He could barely breathe. The man nodded frantically in terror.

Only then did Zhang Jing stand and leave. After taking two steps, she broke into a run.

She was not afraid of being caught; she was chasing Xiao Ma, because the so-called loudmouth had actually run away, which was rather clever of him.

Unfortunately, trash was still trash. Xiao Ma seemed to be running fast enough, but before even two hundred meters his lungs felt as if they were being torn apart, and his legs grew weak.

He had no choice but to stop and bend over, panting with his tongue out.

Zhang Jing went from a sprint to a jog, and eventually walked slowly up beside him, folding her arms as she watched.

"Run, why don’t you run faster? I told you to run—were you afraid I couldn’t handle it and you’d get cheated?"

Xiao Ma gave a miserable laugh. "Young master I was afraid he’d be seriously injured, and I’d become your accomplice."

Zhang Jing said, "I told you you were all talk and you still didn’t believe it. That’s the difference between us. When I make a move, he won’t suffer any major injury, understand?"

"Yes, I understand. But you’re just too damn vicious. I’m afraid of being your accomplice. Let me go," Xiao Ma said pitifully. Being with this savage woman was genuinely stressful.

Zhang Jing thought for a moment, then swept his legs out from under him and sent him tumbling to the ground.

"What the hell is wrong with you? What are you trying to do?" Xiao Ma panicked a little.

Zhang Jing had begun searching him. She took out Xiao Ma’s phone, "collected" his fingerprints, and opened it to inspect it.

She was only impulsive, not stupid. Hearing him say he did not want to be an accomplice, she fell prey to paranoid suspicion and assumed he must have filmed some evidence harmful to her again.

But after searching and finding nothing, Zhang Jing’s old face reddened slightly. She felt she might have been a little too on edge and had wrongly accused him.

So she patted his chest. "Stop playing dead. Get up. Come eat something with me."

Xiao Ma followed her with a strangely cold feeling in his heart. This woman seemed to have a problem with her brain and no normal ability to reason. Yet this body seemed to be interested in her, and before he knew it, he had followed her along.

Seated at a night stall, Xiao Ma tried saying, "Do you not realize your brain works a little strangely?"

"You mean what just happened?" Zhang Jing took a sip of beer.

Xiao Ma nodded.

Her tone was still somewhat gentle now. She shook her head. "You don’t understand. Without doing it that way, it would absolutely have been useless. I don’t see other people’s business, and I don’t want to care, but Fan Lulu left a deep impression on me last time. She’s a really good person, and for your sake she was quite fearless, looking here and there, insisting you had acted bravely to help others. To some extent, my impression of you was influenced by her too."

Xiao Ma did not quite understand these things either, so he nodded slightly and asked, "Won’t this bring trouble to Fan Lulu?"

Zhang Jing smiled. "Your actions will definitely bring trouble to her, but mine won’t. Because I understand men like that better than anyone."

Xiao Ma said, "Have you run into men like that before?"

Zhang Jing shook her head. "I haven’t personally, but I’ve seen plenty."

Then she asked, "Do you kind of like me? I notice you’ve relaxed a lot. Are you less afraid of me now?"

The question made Xiao Ma pause slightly.

Zhang Jing also felt she had been a bit too blunt, so she changed the subject. "How’s your job? Going well?"

"It’s fine. I played the role of a reclusive master and got myself promoted. Things are getting steady. Since I was already rich to begin with, my salary has jumped three grades at once, to twenty-one thousand a month. Soon I’ll become a hot commodity," Xiao Ma said, growing a little unhinged.

Zhang Jing thought bitterly, jealous and resentful, that she worked so hard and had countless medals and certificates, yet only earned eleven thousand. How could this idiot, this half-witted fool, be making so much?

"Did you and your female boss have some kind of under-the-table deal, or did she bang her head and fall down?" Zhang Jing asked, half believing it and half not.

As she asked it, though, she found him even more pleasing to the eye than before, and even began to indulge in fanciful thoughts: if she could bring this little white rabbit home, handsome and easy to get along with, someone who could also be enjoyable in bed, and if the conditions were right they could even share a good car, perhaps even a house in Harbor City. Qu Changfeng had better conditions than this, but the thought process of a female thug was that something still felt weird, like something was off.

Fantasy complete. The idea was lovely, but her face felt a little warm. Then she thought of how this idiot had recently been draped over the proprietress, and he seemed a bit sleazy. So Zhang Jing shook her head and stopped the fantasy.

"Why is your salary so high? Did you do something criminal?" Zhang Jing asked again.

Xiao Ma thought it over and said, "Damn it, you’re the number one criminal, and you still want to ask whether other people are committing crimes?"

"You…"

Zhang Jing could not help being at a loss for words.

That was roughly how this encounter ended. Zhang Jing had several times wanted to call this little white rabbit home with her, but every time the words reached her lips, she drew back. She was not the sort to force such things. In the end, the female thug could only watch him get into a taxi and leave with an odd expression. At the last moment they met eyes, and she gave a slight nod.