“The angle shows nothing of that side of the room. Although it’s pretty obvious you wanted space and he kept invading it.” Linlin frowned in irritation and scrolled forward a little. Bing impatient and antsy and feeling like this was mounting to something momentous with the amount of building pressure in the air between them.
“Wait.” TangShi sped her hand over Linlin’s hand on the mouse and pointed at the screen “We changed cups. Are those Saki sses? I remember something….. Saki… I don’t know. It rings a bell somehow.”From N?velDrama.Org.
“Let me try another file. Each one is a different camera.” Linlin located one that had an ID number simr to the dining hall and thankfully was one pointing from right above the mini bar of the same room. She clicked y and forwarded to the same time stamp as the other recording where they had moved to the couches and were sat with Saki cups.
“Rewind it a little. To me getting the cup.” TangShi was uneasy about the Saki cups for some reason and a strange wing at the back of her head kept bringing her back to them. A gut sensation that it was important and something in her subconscious was screaming at her.
Linlin backed up catching the moment Rong Cai got up and went to the bar, unaware there was a camera over his head and pointing at an angle towards the sunken couches which caught his full front and what his hands were doing. It was in shadow, but they made out him setting up the cups and stopping to pull something small from his inside pocket and tapping it into the far-left cup. It was a few seconds of precise and swift motions, no hesitation, and bold as hell, without even ncing back to see if they caught it. Something tiny like a little vial, or a dropper, and all it took was a moment in time topletely ruin TangShi’s life.
He then proceeded to pour the alcohol into all of them, doing that one first and swirling the cup before he put them on a tray. He kept that one cup untilst and carried it in his hand instead. They watched in silent disbelief as he slid the tray on the table and that one cup in front of TangShi brazenly with a smile on his face they could even see form this angle that screamed of smug aplishment. He hovered over her, egging her on to drink before sitting down beside her and forcefully lifting her elbow so the cup was drained into her mouth.
“Son of a…” Linlin’s temper riled, and she watched in fury at what the evil bastard did to her best friend. “If that’s when he did it, then maybe fifteen minutes before it really kicked and affected you. He’s aplete scumbag, Tang. He didn’t even hesitate or take a moment to doubt what he was doing.” She hit the triple speed on her screen to fast forward what they were watching and returned it to normal when TangShi got out of her seat on the couch. Sensing TangShi beside her squirming around and staying quiet as this sunk in.
“He was all over you like a letch, and you can see how ufortable you are sitting there. Not exactly painting the flirting image of you being into him. Lying prick.” Linlin clenched her fist as the camera angle showed TangShi leaving with Rong Cai before she headed to go find the corridor file to see what happened next. Losing them once they left the room. TangShi couldn’t stand it anymore. Her anxiety building to the point she felt like she may scream or faint and she was having trouble breathing as her lungs closed up on her.
“I don’t want to see it… not right now. I can’t.” TangShi lost her courage, her nerves kicking in and nausea consuming her at seeing for herself that the tests results were not a lie. That Rong Cai really did something to her with intent. Somehow in the back of her mind she had held a glimmer of hope that it wasn’t him, that it was maybe another student as a prank and somehow this was part of a misunderstanding, or a mistake meant for someone else. She had prayed it wasn’t how it seemed so it would be less devastating. She had so badly wanted to see something innocent that had taken a bad turn and not this…this cruel and horrible reality.
“I need the bathroom.” TangShi got up, leaving Linlin to watch the footage herself, her eyes misting over and her stomach churning as she hightailed it into the toilet and barely made it before she threw up. Retching her guts out and emptying her stomach as tears poured down her face. Her cool and aloof numbness deteriorating, and she crumbled into a small ball on the floor hugging her knees to her chest and burying her face as she sobbed. She fell apart and everything she had bene holding in since she saw that report all came tumbling out in a watery and painful mess.
She was drugged and god knows what, and it made her feel vited and broken. Despairing over memories she didn’t have yet feeling dirty and ruined as though she did. How that man could have done such a thing. How any human could do something so sordid and awful to another person and she was caught in devastation that it had been done to her. A cloying gripping pit of despair in her belly that she had been raped and she couldn’t mentally ept it.
TangShi stayed where she was letting it out, crying into her own arms as she self hugged and sniffing back the carnage for a long while. Afraid to go out and face those screens once more but knowing she needed to. Knowing she couldn’t leave this all to Linlin and she needed to be stronger to face this.
“Tang?” Linlin gently knocked on the door, quiet and gentle as she spoke, knowing her friend was crying. Checking the handle and finding it locked so slid down on the outside and sat against it instead, guessing TangShi needed some thinking space. Linlin had wanted to follow her at first but had given her time alone while she scooted through the remaining footage, saving her the agony of doing it. “I watched it all for you.” Linlin wiped her own face, the trickle of angry and sad tears which had soaked her face through watching the CCTV.
“It shows you passing outpletely and he carried you. Down a hall right to the hotel room and in without any response from you. You were apletely useless sack of no movement whatsoever. It’s pretty clear you had no concept of anything going on and the actual room itself has no cameras. What we have though is enough for the police. We have him drugging your drink, taking your cell phone form you, and then physically carrying your lifeless body to his own booked room that he set up in advance. We have the report and the booking form and all the CCTV. Please think about going to them. We can’t let him get away with this.” Linlin whimpered, her own heart aching and yet she couldn’t imagine what TangShi was feeling.
“I should have listened when you said to get my body checked. Maybe they would have found more…. I just didn’t ry believe he was capable of …” She couldn’t bear to say it, her head throbbing, her insides contracting and without warning she gagged and had to thrust herself back to the toilet to get her face in before she threw up again. Bringing up nothing but bile and clear fluid as he had already emptied what little she had eaten today.
“Are you okay? Open the door.” Linlin could hear her being sick and knew it was probably a direct reaction to having itid out all in front of her so clearly. That she couldn’t outrun what he did. He basically drugged, kidnapped, and abused her…. this man in a position of authority whom she trusted. Linlin was sick on her behalf, riled up with anger and despair and an urge to hunt him down and cut his genitals off. A bubblingve of hatred and venom coursing up and swearing to serve this asshole with some real cold revenge.
“I’m okay. I just… it’s raw. I can’t process sit.” TangShi choked, her throat burning form bringing up stomach acid and wiping her face to pull herself back together. Being sick again somehow stopped her tears and brought her emotional state back to calm and she slid across the floor to unlock the door before moving back again because she wasn’t sure if she was done. Linlin leaped up to her fete and quickly came inside to start brushing her hair back into a ponytail to look after her and found a washcloth for her face.
“Let’s go to the police. I wanted to confront him so badly. I thought I had it in me and that my anger would be enough to find the courage, but after seeing that…..” How confident and unfazed he was about slipping something in her drink and tantly handing it to her. “I’m scared of him. Of what he did. I feel like I never knew him at all. I don’t know what he’s capable of if he can do something like that. I don’t think confronting him would make him sorry…. he’s crazy.”
Linlin exhaled with relief, a huge weight lifting from her chest and she scooted TangShi into a hug. Hauling her close and snuggling against her to bring her security. TangShi was trembling all over and felt unusually warm.
“Good girl. Let’s do that. Let’s go right now instead of calling them here. The sooner he’s picked up the better”
“I can’t go there…. or be seen going there. What if someone takes a picture? It might start all kinds of rumors.” TangShi’s eyes widened in horror at the thought of something like this getting out. AT people knowing she was unclean, and someone had invaded her body without consent.
“You’re right, I’m sorry for not thinking that through. I’ll call them. We can have officerse here.” Linlin had never had to report anything to the police in her life and wasn’t even sure how this process worked. Unsure if wealthy people called the regr number.
“Wait……. Is it safe to just randomly ask the police toe? Aren’t there particr contacts for people like us, in the media, famous …. so it doesn’t get out? What if they’re seening here and it affects your family too?” TangShi had heard Rhea mention this before and YuZhi over something trivial, about having to be careful about who exactly was involved in anything rted to the Leng Group family as most would kill to get a newsworthy scoop to sell. That they had a certain contact or calls were made through a department for anything legal. She was confused and didn’t want to make this worse. Her head foggy and fatigue kicking her butt the more she tried to think.
Reputation was everything in China and no well-known family would want uniformed police showing up at their residential address. It could always be misunderstood.
“Normally I would ask ZhengLi what to do, but you….” Linlin stopped talking knowing this was probably not the best time to bring him up or point out she didn’t want his help. Hating herself for realizing how reliant she was on that waste of space and how every time she said his name it still hurt like a bitch.
TangShi sat for a long moment, her face nk, her manner calm, and her focus zoned out as she thought this through and knew one way or another it would get back to them anyway. She thought she could do this alone, but the rug had been ripped out from under her feet and the next step terrified her. She had never dealt with police or anything as scandalous as this before. Even if they spoke to a discreet detective, she was under the care of the Leng family, and they would want to speak to her Fiancée at least. It would alle out and then what?
“Call him. Ask him to see you, but don’t tell him why. Just make something up until he’s face to face, and you can show him. I don’t want to be there.” TangShi wasn’t ready to have any kind of connection to YuZhi and didn’t really want to see ZhengLi either. She was steeped in shame and unable to really figure out how to feel all while still reeling from the heartbreak and humiliation of the way both of them treated her. A million thoughts making her emotionally fragile, and it all kepting to one detail…. Rong Cai might have sexually assaulted her. It’s all she could focus on. That he vited her, and she wasn’t the same as before.
“I don’t want to leave you alone, Tang. How about I put you to bed with some sleeping pills for now. You haven’t slept and you look beat, and he cane here while you nap? You won’t have to see anyone, and he can help me report this. I’m sure they won’t need to talk to you at first. ZhengLi will know what to do.” Linlin wasn’t going anywhere while she was this way.
“Okay. I don’t feel so well….. I don’t think I’ll need meds to sleep. I’m dizzy and exhausted and I want to lie down anyway. I think maybe sleep will help me with feeling sick.” TangShi legs trembled and turned to jelly as she got up, so she had to cling to Linlin. Her mind swimming and her face flushing with heat that had been lingering for a few days now. Uptight and sick to her stomach with a thumping sore head and a sense of surreal dreaminess moving in. She knew it was probably shock at seeing him pour something into her drink or just the p in the face of reality. “Wake me up when he’s gone, so you can tell me what he said we should do.”
Linlin kept her mouth shut, wanting so badly to say something about ZhengLi being expected to apologize and grovel after this but didn’t. She knew TangShi had a whole lot of mess toe when YuZhi found out she was innocent all along and that she had left her suffering for over a week and dealing with this by herself.
Linlin was raging at both men, and then more so for ZhengLi’sck of presence in her life since this happened. The odd text to ry something to do with TangShi but other than that he hadpletely avoided her and not once called. Hating on them both for all this hurt and confusion and letting them down when hey thought they were the men who might be there to support them through life’s trials. Oh how wrong they were and Linlin stuck her chin up and men tally scolded herself for ever believing one man might be worth the effort.