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Winnie frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah. It’s all too strange…” Josiah mumbled. He subconsciously glanced at the gifts in the trunk,
which were still untouched.
At that sight, he could not help but tease Winnie. “Look, the gifts you prepared are still here. They
wouldn’t even accept them, yet you want me to learn from you. Your method didn’t work as well.”
“Why would you say that it didn’t work?” Winnie eyed him. “At the very least, the Xander family’s
housekeeper didn’t suspect me of anything. She even told me the truth.”
“Fine. You’re the smarter one, after all. If you had said you were looking for Yolanda from the start, then
everything would have fallen apart,” he admitted.
“Is that so?” Winnie was looking at the navigation, so her reply was a perfunctory one.
“Of course! The housekeeper wouldn’t let you in straight away. No matter what, she would have to
inform Yolanda first. Hasn’t she planted a spy in the police station? I bet that policeman has long tipped
her off. I’m almost certain that she knows we came here together. It would be strange if she were to
agree to meet you. In my opinion, the housekeeper who answered the door today is a variable,” Josiah
elaborated.
“Is that so?” After listening to his analysis of the situation, she immediately furrowed her eyebrows.
Then, she instantly started drifting on the rather narrow cement road and turned the car around without
hesitation.
It was all too sudden, and Josiah felt that he was nearly sent flying out of the car.
“Oh my goodness! What are you doing? I didn’t know we were in the Fast and Furious series!” he
screamed.
“We’re going back to the Xander residence. Things are going so well, so much so that I overlooked
something,” Winnie stated. “Yolanda was at home the whole time. Since she knows we’re a group,
there’s no way she would let us bring Xavier over so easily. All you did was pace around in front of her
house for a while before she called the police on you. There’s no way she wouldn’t do anything after
seeing me talk to the housekeeper at the door for so long.”
“F*ck!” Josiah knew exactly what she was talking about. “Go faster, then! She might already be secretly
sending Old Mr. Xander away.”
That was a possibility as well. Winnie hit the gas and sent the engine racing.
The metal gate of the mansion rattled as Josiah rapped on it.
That time around, however, the housekeeper did not come to answer the door.
He even called out Yolanda’s name a few times, but she never showed up.
Even so, he did not give up and continued knocking on the door for around ten minutes.
After that, the Xander family’s neighbors could not take it any longer. A man walked out from his
courtyard and said, “Stop knocking. The family has just left. There’s nobody at home right now.”
“What? They’ve all left?” Josiah immediately approached and asked, “Wasn’t Old Mr. Xander in the
herb fields? Did he leave just like that?”
“There’s nothing odd about that. The fields are close by. He can leave whenever he wants, can’t he?”
the neighbor pointed out.
“Then do you know where they went?” Josiah probed.
The neighbor eyed the both of them cautiously and inquired, “Who are you two, anyway? Why are you
asking so much?”
Josiah pulled out a random excuse. “We’re Yolanda’s friends.”
“Tsk. Drop the act.” The neighbor was not easily fooled. “If you were her friends, why are you asking
me about this then? You could’ve just given her a call.”
“Her phone is switched off!” Josiah protested.
“I can’t help you, then. All I know is that she drove away earlier. I don’t know exactly where she’s gone
to,” the neighbor said.
No sooner had he spoken than his wife came running out of the courtyard.
She recognized Josiah in an instant. “Hey! Isn’t that the guy who made a scene in front of the Xander
residence yesterday and caused Ms. Xander to call the police on him? Why is he back again? Hurry!
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtClose the door!”
“Huh?” The man immediately moved to protect his wife. “He told me that he was Ms. Xander’s friend.
So, it turns out that he’s bad news. No wonder the whole family has left. They must be hiding from
people like him.”
“No! That’s all a misunderstanding.” Josiah wanted to explain, but all that he got in response was the
loud sound of the mansion’s metal gate clanging shut.
He felt completely defeated. With arms akimbo, he looked at Winnie with an aggrieved expression and
asked, “Do I really look like a bad guy?”
“Not really,” Winnie responded.
Josiah cried, “Exactly! Ugh, these people—”
However, before he could finish his grumble, Winnie continued, “You just look a little creepy. You know,
the creeps in movies are just like you—they look like a gentleman on the outside and wear gold-
rimmed glasses. The more harmless they seem on the surface, the more twisted they are deep down.”
Josiah was speechless for a moment. “Thanks, I guess. In any case, at least you complimented my
appearance. Hurry up and get back in the car. Let’s see if we can catch up with them.”
As he spoke, he got into the driver’s seat.
Winnie followed him in. “There’s only one road here. If we drive a little faster, we might just be able to
catch up with them.”
“Sit tight, then,” he cautioned.
He then began driving at top speed. In less than ten minutes, they saw a red sedan in front of them.
“I think the car parked in their courtyard was red. I’m guessing the owner of the vehicle must be
Yolanda,” Josiah remarked.
Winnie nodded. “I vaguely remember that as well.”
“Okay. I’m going to go past them now. You’ll get to witness my driving skills.”
With that, he floored the gas pedal, increasing the speed to one hundred and twenty kilometers per
hour. The car shot forward like an arrow.
When he stopped the car horizontally thirty meters before the red car, Winnie drawled, “There goes
your driving license.”
Josiah had lost his patience at that point. “Who do you think I’m doing all this for?”
“I told you to chase them, not to block the road!” she argued.
“How about we make a bet? I bet that if she knows we’re chasing her, she’ll never stop the car unless
she has a flat tire.”
Winnie did not respond to that statement of his. Their eyes met, and they both unbuckled their
seatbelts at the same time before getting out of the car.
At that moment, the red car was already slowing down.
Through the window, they could both see the woman in the driver’s seat.
“That’s Yolanda, no doubt about it,” Josiah affirmed to Winnie.
She frowned. “The person in the front passenger seat is the housekeeper that I talked to earlier. Do you
see that, though, Josiah? There’s nobody in the backseat. It looks like Old Mr. Xander isn’t in the car.”
“F*ck!” Josiah pushed his glasses up. “You’re right. There’s nobody there. We were deceived by the
guy from before. Could it be that Yolanda planned all of this out beforehand?”
“I’m not sure about that, but she should be a tough nut to crack!” Winnie commented.
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“Aren’t you seeing this? She’s accelerating. She probably plans on smashing right into our car,” Winnie
pointed out.
By the time the words came out of her mouth, it was too late. Yolanda was already heading straight
toward their car.
“F*ck!” Josiah could not help but curse. “Does she have no sense of self-preservation?”
Winnie’s eyebrows were furrowed into a knot. Not only did Yolanda have no regard for her own life, but
it also seemed that she did not care for the housekeeper, who was in the front passenger seat, either.
She hurriedly jumped into a ditch next to the road. There was not a ditch on Josiah’s side of the road,
so he had no choice but to jump into the fields.
In the meantime, Yolanda had not actually crashed into Winnie and Josiah’s car. At the last second,
she screeched the car to a halt.
Half of Josiah’s calf was stuck in the mud. He was seething with rage and could not help but thunder,
“You’re lucky that you aren’t driving a Tesla. Otherwise, you would have suffered if the brakes failed!”
Even after saying that, he still did not feel satisfied. Hence, he got out of the field and went over to
knock on the car window on Yolanda’s side.
Josiah had barely knocked twice before Winnie grabbed his arm and moved in front of him.
She knocked on the window as well, but unlike Josiah, she did so very politely, even bending down to
show her respect.
Perhaps Yolanda found her attitude to be decent, for she rolled the window down halfway. “Speak.”
She was even more aloof than Winnie had expected. Yolanda did not ask any questions, nor did she
censure them for stopping their car in front of her. All she did was utter that one word icily.
After weighing the pros and cons, Winnie decided to apologize.
“Hello, Ms. Xander. I apologize for blocking your way. We heard from your neighbor that you were
leaving with Old Mr. Xander, but I have something very important to talk to him about. That’s why we
abruptly chased after you. However, it’s apparent that your neighbor has gotten the wrong idea as Old
Mr. Xander isn’t in your car after all.”
It was only after she made so many utterances did Yolanda finally spare her a glance.
With an ice-cold look on her face, Yolanda looked extremely serious. “Just looking at you guys gets on
my nerves. You’d better not disturb my grandpa. I already told the man behind you that my grandpa
doesn’t have the energy to be treating patients right now, so hurry up and get lost!”
Winnie was asking for a favor, so even when she was told to get lost, she could bear it.
Josiah, on the other hand, could not take it. “Ms. Xander, I’ve asked around and learned that Old Mr.
Xander’s in great health. He’s nothing like what you’ve described. You’re clearly lying.”
“What does it matter to you whether I’m lying or not? Either way, I don’t want to see you guys. Move the
car away now!” Yolanda demanded.
“Why?” Josiah could not understand. “Did we offend you somehow? We just want to get treatment.
Why are you going to such lengths to stop us?”
“So, you’re not going to move the car?” Yolanda asked.
“I just want an answer,” he insisted.
“Fine. If you’re not going to move the car, then so be it,” she muttered.
They were both on completely different wavelengths. Neither of them was getting what they wanted.
Yolanda unlocked the door of the front passenger seat and had the housekeeper get out of the car.
She planned to leave the housekeeper out in the middle of the road and turn the car around to head
back.
Josiah’s stubbornness once again came into play. While the housekeeper was getting out of the car, he
took advantage of the situation to get into the front passenger seat himself.
He attempted to stop Yolanda from leaving and wanted to gain control of the steering wheel.
Yolanda tried to fight back for a while. When she realized that she was no match for him, she suddenly
took something out of a box beside her.
Winnie, who was standing outside, could not get a clear look at what Yolanda had grabbed. All she saw
was a flash of silver light.
Then, Yolanda’s hand went straight for Josiah’s arm. Immediately after, his hand suddenly became
stiffened and unmovable.
“Josiah!” Winnie cried out his name the second she saw the look of excruciating pain on his face as if
his tendons were removed.
Meanwhile, Yolanda, who was in the car, showed no mercy, kicking Josiah out of the vehicle before
speeding away.
Winnie instantly rushed over to help Josiah up. “Are you okay?”
The muscles on Josiah’s face were still twitching. He could not even make a sound.
The oddness of his condition caused her to be at a loss for a moment.
When she recalled that Yolanda seemed to have reached for his arm earlier, she decided to check that
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmpart of his body.
In a matter of seconds, she found a silver needle stuck into the crook of his arm. It was as thin as a
strand of hair.
“So that’s why!” she exclaimed. It was no wonder that she had seen a silver flash between Yolanda’s
fingertips earlier on. It turned out to be a silver needle.
“This needle should be what caused you to become like this.” Winnie looked at Josiah with a frown.
“I’m pulling it out, then.”
Josiah felt like his facial features would merge from how hard they were twitching. His arm was
completely numb, and he could not feel anything at all.
With great difficulty, he nodded and struggled to blurt out, “Pull it out!”
“Okay!” Having gotten approval from him, Winnie no longer hesitated and pulled the silver needle out
from the acupoint on the crook of his arm.
It was an odd phenomenon.
The moment the needle was removed, Josiah stopped twitching right away. Within a few seconds, he
was able to move his arm again too.
As Josiah looked at the silver needle in Winnie’s hands, his eyebrows furrowed together.
“Amazing. This is simply incredible. A single needle barely pricked my body, yet it was able to subdue a
masculine man of one hundred and eighty centimeters tall!”
Winnie rolled her eyes. “It look’s like you’re completely fine.”
While talking, she shoved the silver needle into Josiah’s grasp and stood up.
He fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and carefully wrapped the silver needle with it.
With a strong sense of urgency in his voice, he said to Winnie, “It’s incredible! We have to take Xavier
to see Old Mr. Xander right away. Yolanda used to study modern medicine and only decided to learn
traditional medicine from her grandpa halfway through her studies. Even then, she’s already so
impressive. Old Mr. Xander’s expertise is clear. There’s definitely hope for Xavier now, but Yolanda
sure is a cruel woman.”
“Cruel?” She shot him a glance. “If I were her, I would have done much worse to you. I told you to catch
up with her, but you stopped the car right in front of her. While she was driving, you decided to try and
take control of the car. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? If I were in her shoes, I would
have already beaten you to death. Did you lose your mind just now? You were acting so irrationally.”
“Whose side are you on? I was angry. Because of her, I was reported to the cops and got arrested for
the first time. She even told us to get lost earlier,” Josiah complained.
Winnie was at a loss for words. “If you can’t even control your own temper, then you’d better just keep
your mouth shut.”
Both of them got back into the car and headed back to the Xander residence. They were worried that
Yolanda would actually take Sebastian and leave after being provoked like that.
Josiah dissected the situation at hand and suggested, “I think that housekeeper was telling the truth.
Otherwise, Yolanda wouldn’t have tried to send her away. Old Mr. Xander must still in be the herb
fields. This time, we should go there directly and look for him.”
“Do you know where Old Mr. Xander’s herb fields are?” Winnie asked.
“Let’s ask a few more people this time. It’s not like every single person is going to lie to us, right?” he
reasoned.
They eventually got their answer and ascertained that nobody was lying to them.
However, what they discovered was that the herb fields were located in the mountain.
Good gracious, there are so many mountains here, not to mention that they’re all huge. How are we
supposed to know where Old Mr. Xander is?
Just as Josiah was stumped, Winnie turned to leave.
He hurriedly stopped her. “What are you doing? Are you giving up?”
“No.” Winnie got into the car. When she returned, there was a silver briefcase in her hands.
Josiah pushed his glasses up. “You said this was a secret tool, right? Can this help us find Old Mr.
Xander?”
“Why don’t you take a guess?” she stated.
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