7 Do You Have a Guardian Angel?

There was a light. An extremely bright light, being shined straight into her eyes. She grimaced, blinking in an attempt to clear her groggy vision. Her eyes were wet, and from what little she could recall, she'd been dreaming just now about a sad scene from her past. Had she been asleep? That didn't make sense. She didn't remember going home, let alone getting into her bed.

Where was she? What was going on?

"Miss? Miss. Can you hear me, Miss?"

Someone was shaking her. As the cloudiness in her mind slowly began to recede, she noticed that the person shaking her was the same person who was shining the light in her eyes.

It was a woman, and she turned to speak to someone Ai Jing couldn't make out.

"I detect some traces of alcohol, but it looks like most of it has worn off by now. Since we only got the call half an hour ago, I'm going to guess that this girl wasn't drunk when she was brought here."

She spoke with an edge, like she was angry about something.

"That jackass probably drugged her."

A man's voice replied to her, and he sounded as upset as she did.

"Yeah, that would be my guess. Scum like this can't pick up girls any other way, so they resort to shit like this."

Shaking her head, the woman returned her attention to Ai Jing. She must have noticed that Ai Jing was conscious by now, as she stopped shaking her and lowered her flashlight.

"Miss?" she repeated.

"Can you hear me?"

"I… yes. Yes, I can hear you."

Ai Jing groaned.

"Where am I? What's going on?"

As she looked around to try and take in her surroundings, she realized that she wasn't sitting on her own bed. This was the inside of a hotel room… And the woman in front of her, with a black uniform and a badge on her cap, was clearly a police officer.

"How did I get here..."

As she asked her question, her memories came rushing back and her eyes grew wide. She'd been sitting with Isabella in the La Chaleur. The man named Gao Ming had arrived. Isabella had left. She'd decided to stay there on her own, and then…

Liu Yong?!

She squinted as she looked at the body lying at the side of the room, slumped against a wall. There was no mistake. It was Liu Yong, and he had been beaten to a pulp. His face had begun to bruise, and his hair, so neatly combed and gelled when they were still in the club, was now a tousled mess. At least two of his teeth had been knocked out, as a pair of blood trails flowed from between his swollen lips. There was even a large dent in the wall, as if someone had smashed Liu Yong's head against it with an insane amount of force.

And on a different note, Liu Yong was wearing nothing except his underwear…

As Ai Jing worried about whether or not he was even still alive, the male officer who had spoken earlier bent down and slapped his face.

"Oy! You still there?"

Liu Yong shifted slightly, groaning as he did so.

"Ah, you shouldn't be worrying about him, Miss. From everything we've seen and heard so far, he's clearly the bad guy in this situation. Anyways… what's your name?"

"Jing. Ai Jing."

"Huh. Ai for love and Jing for... quiet?"

"Yes."

"What a pretty name…"

The officer held up her flashlight again.

"Now then, Miss Ai. Would you mind opening your mouth for me?"

Ai Jing obliged. For a moment, she felt like she was at the dentist's office.

"You probably don't remember much, but that guy there brought you here while you were unconscious. Someone must not have taken too kindly to that, though, and they gave him a good…"

The officer paused for a moment, unsure of what word or phrase to use. In the end, she settled for "dose of justice."

"Miss Ai. Don't panic, okay? But we're treating this as an attempted assault. From the looks of it, that man was stopped before he was able to do anything to you."

Ai Jing's heart sped up, and her breathing quickened. As soon as she had realized that this was a hotel, it had been pretty obvious to her what exactly had happened. Still, hearing the officer confirm her hunch made her stomach drop. At least the word "attempted" was there...

"Even so, it's clear he was trying to take advantage of you, so we're going to be bringing you to the hospital to get some tests done. Is that alright?"

Ai Jing nodded, even as she began to shiver uncontrollably. She'd come so close to having something so terrible done to her. Thankfully, she had somehow made it out untouched, and she hadn't been conscious to experience the brunt of the fear and anguish.

She found herself crying again. Was it out of anger? Relief? Sorrow? She sniffed. It was probably a mix of all three.

"Who… who saved me?"

"We actually don't know yet. We have an officer reviewing the hotel's surveillance footage as we speak though, so we should have a pretty good idea very soon. And from what the hotel's receptionists told us, a rather 'tall' and 'scary' figure entered the hotel only a few moments after Liu Yong arrived with you. I'm willing to bet that he had something to do with it. Do you have a guardian angel? Haha..."

She trailed off.

"I wonder why they receptionists didn't say anything when they saw that bastard coming in here with you. They should have notified someone, at least..."

She turned around.

"Hey! Officer Ma! Do we have a positive ID on the suspect yet?"

The male officer shook his head.

"Nope, not yet. His phone can't be cracked, and his wallet is gone. I just sent Xiao Zhou to the front desk with the room number and everything."

He put his hands on his waist.

"You wanna check in with Xiao Zhou when you go back downstairs? I gotta stay here and keep an eye on this guy. Feel like he might get violent when he finally comes to."

"Yeah, I can do that. Is it fine if I drive Miss Ai straight to the hospital after?"

"Yeah, that's fine."

"Alright."

The officer stood and gently took Ai Jing's hand.

"Come on, Miss Ai. Let's go downstairs."

As she pulled Ai Jing from her seat on the bed, two paramedics arrived at the scene. Within moments, they were working to place Liu Yong's unmoving form onto a stretcher so they could wheel him out of the room.

The officer clicked her tongue.

"I usually don't envy these paramedics for what they do, since it can get pretty gruesome. But this time… This time, I would've liked to take their job."

She sighed longingly.

"Maybe while wheeling him past the staircase, I might've 'accidentally' knocked the stretcher over…"

The officer turned her head back, flashing Ai Jing a grin. And despite herself... Ai Jing laughed.