Chapter 662: Why Must You Kill Me
The moment the man’s bloodied shout ended, the entire mob seemed to switch into slaughter mode. Weapons rose like a wave, and they charged forward, clashing directly with Zhan Lian.
Liu Shasha stumbled backward in fear, while An Ran frowned sharply and turned to shield Doll and Little Mint.
Luo Feifan rushed out beside Zhan Lian to join the fight.
Then, from the other side of the tearoom, a small, unremarkable door suddenly swung open. A man burst out, crossing the distance to An Ran in a few quick strides.
An Ran instinctively pushed Little Mint and Doll behind her as the man lunged with a knife aimed straight for Little Mint.
But An Ran had been trained by Yun Tao. Reflexes drilled into her kicked in. She pivoted, kicked the blade from the man’s hand, and before Zhao Ru and Liu Shasha could even react, she yanked Little Mint aside, pulling both her and the child to safety.
The man snatched up the knife again and charged once more, his face twisted with rage, eyes burning with killing intent. He looked at An Ran, Doll, and Little Mint as if they were lifelong enemies, hatred pouring from him like poison.
“An Ran—yes, you’re An Ran, aren’t you?” he snarled. “Let’s see who can save you now!”
As he spoke, several more men emerged from the small door. Two of them were wearing military uniforms—clearly Chen Chaofa’s men.
But among them, not one looked like Chen Chaofa himself. Instead, one of them— the one speaking—looked very much like Yang Ziyi.
An Ran took a deep breath and kept backing away, putting herself between the attackers and the two behind her. She quickly gauged her position relative to Zhan Lian—he was too far. They’d been driven apart.
These men had planned this. They’d timed their move for when Zhan Lian was tied up outside, using the mob as a distraction while they cornered her in the tearoom’s dead end.
Liu Shasha and Zhao Ru screamed, panic breaking through their fear, but before either could cry for help, several men charged in and punched them both hard.
Liu Shasha was knocked out on the spot.
Zhao Ru managed to dodge—she was a third-degree black belt, after all—and slipped away, vanishing into the chaos.
Outside, Zhan Lian was still fighting. Between strikes, he glanced toward the tearoom through the carved wooden lattice and saw An Ran’s silhouette cornered inside. His expression didn’t change; he only turned back silently and cut down another man in front of him.
The man blocking An Ran’s way—Yang Ziyi—watched her with a faint, twisted smile, idly twirling the knife in his hand.
“See that?” he said mockingly. “Your man doesn’t love you as much as you think. Now you can die in peace.”
An Ran lowered her gaze, her face unreadable. As the men closed in, she suddenly spoke, her tone calm.
“Before I die, I just want to know—aside from you, which one of you is Chen Chaofa?”
“It doesn’t matter if you know,” Yang Ziyi said coldly, stepping closer. The determination to kill her was plain in his eyes.
“Then let me ask something else,” An Ran said, voice steady. “If you won’t tell me who he is, at least tell me—why must you kill me?”
Liu Shasha, Zhao Ru, and the children were all closer to these men, yet they hadn’t been targeted. From the start, every one of them had come straight for An Ran.
So she wanted to understand—why was her death the one they were so intent on ensuring?