Chapter 495 – Kidnapping
After Lu Xia informed her roommates of the outcome, they all breathed a sigh of relief.
Initially, upon learning that Tang Yuan had been kidnapped, they were extremely worried. Fortunately, she had now been rescued.
However, they all knew that given Tang Yuan’s personality, this incident would likely leave a lasting impact on her.
“Those despicable kidnappers have some nerve. They even dare to kidnap university students,” exclaimed Tan Yunfang.
Lu Xia sighed in agreement, “I’ve heard about this. They say the price for selling a university student as a wife is even higher…”
Hearing this, the others clenched their teeth in anger.
Ye Nan also sighed and said, “One should be more careful. How can you casually walk with strangers outside?”
Lu Xia nodded, understanding Tang Yuan’s situation. Tang Yuan was inexperienced, and the kidnappers were cunning.
“Who would have thought an old lady could be a kidnapper? I heard these kidnappers have a well-established process—how to set up the situation, transport the people, and find buyers—everything is well-planned. Generally, the first people to take actions are usually the elderly and children, mainly to lower vigilance…”
Afterwards, she shared some classic kidnapping processes she had heard about in her past life.
The others were horrified upon hearing this; it was indeed difficult to defend against such schemes. They despised the kidnappers, especially Yu Wan, who exclaimed, “For the elderly, that’s bad enough, but involving children—these individuals are corrupted from an early age!”
Lu Xia sighed again, “Most of these children were likely kidnapped as well. Those who weren’t sold were kept to work under them…”
The others fell silent upon hearing this; one could say that unfortunate individuals sometimes have their share of blame.
The capture operation lasted for more than a month. Due to its widespread nature and involvement of numerous suspects spanning various provinces and counties, the investigation was extremely challenging and required dealing with a long timeline.
According to the interrogations, the oldest kidnapper had been in the business for over twenty years, having sold countless children.
Rescuing these victims wouldn’t be a quick process.
So, they had to take it step by step, and for now, they had reached a temporary conclusion.
This case had garnered significant attention and even made it to the newspapers. However, due to privacy concerns, the names of the rescued individuals were not disclosed.
After that, Tang Yuan never returned.
Her belongings in the dormitory were taken away by her family, and it was stated that she would be taking a break from her studies; when she would return was uncertain.
The roommates felt a sense of lamentation but collectively prepared a gift for her and asked her family to deliver it.
After expressing their gratitude, her family left.
Later, Lu Xia saw Tang Yuan’s boyfriend outside their dormitory building.
She hadn’t met him before; it was Tan Yunfang and the others who recognized him.
Lu Xia took a glance and noticed he was tall, fair-skinned, and wore glasses. He seemed scholarly and appeared to be a decent person. However, at the moment, he looked exhausted and frail.
Upon seeing them, he probably recognized them and approached directly.
“Hello, you are Tang Yuan’s roommates, right? I want to ask how she is doing now. Has she come back to school?”
Initially, they didn’t want to engage with him because they felt if he hadn’t made plans with Tang Yuan, she wouldn’t have gone out, and if they hadn’t argued, the subsequent events wouldn’t have occurred.
However, they didn’t have much ground to blame him. They simply didn’t feel like talking to him.
*
Chapter 496 – Taking Responsibility for This Matter
.
They didn’t originally want to answer, but after a few times of seeing his haggard yet persistent appearance, Tan Yunfang still told him.
“We don’t know the specifics, we only know she took a leave of absence, and her family has taken her belongings.”
“Is that so?”
The boy swayed upon hearing this, stunned in his place.
After Lu Xia and her friends went upstairs, when they looked down from the window, they saw him standing there foolishly.
“Well, this can’t all be blamed on him. Back when they were at the police station, he was very upset, looked very self-blaming, kept saying he shouldn’t have argued with her, shouldn’t have let her walk alone.”
Lu Xia sighed upon hearing this, “Then didn’t he think he should have brought her back even if they argued?”
“He said the main reason they argued at that time was that his mother was coming to Beijing for a business trip and wanted to meet his girlfriend upon hearing he had one. He thought he and Tang Yuan were a good match and would marry in the future, so he wanted to introduce her to his mother…
The boy happily told Tang Yuan about this, but Tang Yuan disagreed. Because she hadn’t told her family and was afraid they wouldn’t agree, she didn’t want to meet the parents so early.
The boy felt that she didn’t value him, and Tang Yuan felt he didn’t respect her, so they argued.
Tang Yuan was angry and threw away the things she bought, ran away herself. By the time the boy picked up the things, she was gone.
The boy was quite angry too, thinking she was being unreasonable, so he wanted both of them to calm down and then come to the school to find her later.”
After hearing this account, everyone sighed.
In the end, Ye Nan summarized, “In an argument between partners, there’s no right or wrong. But looking at the outcome, if he hadn’t gone out to meet her, Tang Yuan wouldn’t have had trouble.
So no matter what, he has to take responsibility for this. Whether it’s self-blame or regret, the incident has happened, and it’s probably difficult for Tang Yuan and him to have a future…”
“Yeah, sigh…”
Hope Tang Yuan can come back to school soon and put this behind her.
…
Perhaps Tang Yuan’s situation made everyone very sad, and for a long time, their mood in the dormitory wasn’t very good.
Lu Xia felt the same way. Through Tang Yuan’s incident, she also realized that they never really know what tomorrow will bring, so it’s better to cherish the present life.
…
As the end of the semester approached, the renovation of the beauty salon was finally completed.
After Lu Xia inspected it and was very satisfied, she happily paid the money and asked the two partners to come and see it.
Everyone was pleased after seeing it.
However, the shop still needed some time to air out before it could open for business. After that, they would focus on other preparations.
After all the hard work and effort, Ye Lin finally completed the procedures for the shop. They had also trained many apprentices for the makeup section, and they were now ready to take on jobs. Currently, there were jobs available, and she almost always recommended the apprentices for them, and they were doing well.
As for Master Zhong, he had also trained quite a few apprentices.
Lu Xia personally tested them a few times, and their skills were quite good now.
It could be said that everything was ready, just waiting to open.
Of course, there were some small things to prepare, like employee uniforms, communication scripts between employees and clients, and Lu Xia planned to introduce membership cards, so they needed to think about how to make them.
In short, various small tasks were prepared all the way until the end of Lu Xia’s final exams.
Once the exam results were out, Lu Xia couldn’t wait to leave.
Because the next day was the opening day of the beauty salon.
I can’t say I blame the young lady for not returning to school. That city would be a scary place after that. I bet her parents didn’t want her to stay either, viewing it as unsafe.
Creo que es injusto culpar al joven, cuando claramente fue un incidente en el cuál los verdaderos culpables son los secuestradores.
It’s ridiculous to blame Tang Yuan’s boyfriend. It’s normal for couples to meet for dates. She’s the one who hid the relationship from her family, she didn’t give her partner security by hiding from his family too and invalidating his commitment, & most importantly, she is the one who run away from the date, he didn’t just abandon her there.
No it’s not the boyfriend fault and they shouldn’t put the blame on him and expect him to take responsibility. They’re couple it’s normal for couple to go on dates and get in arguments. It’s also normal for him to let her have her space and calm down before reaching out. Now I’m not blaming her or victim shaming…..but she’s smart enough to get into a good college she’s also old enough to know to not trust people do easily and I feel like her naivety is also on her parents too. Seems like they are way too protective of her and controlling to the point she probably doesn’t know the real world and probably think everyone and everything is safe and good.
It’s not her bf’s fault and it’s also not TY’s fault. At most, TY’s “fault” was her naivety and her being too weak to escape her kidnappers (just like those kidnapped children) and her bf’s “fault” was too late to try escorting her back to the dorm (because he searched her thrown out gift for her). To be fair, the ones at fault here are the kidnappers.