Blood Neon-Chapter 14

Chapter 14
The Perfect Plan
The girl’s clear voice, which was completely out of place with the surrounding atmosphere, interrupted the group that had been about to continue their assault.
Whether it was the leader, the little bros, or the fiery girl, all of them instinctively halted and looked up.
The girl wore only a thin dress that looked cold just by appearance. At that moment, the dim streetlight only managed to illuminate her up to the neck, making it hard to clearly see her face.
Before anyone could react, she jogged around the few people blocking her path and rushed to the boy who was lying on the ground.
Even the thugs were a bit dumbfounded by this sudden development.
That’s right—this was the non-violent tactical solution Lin Ying had come up with after observing the scene for a while and feeling like she had to step in.
Its name: use the natural appeal of a pitiful and helpless girl to trigger a moment of shock, then take advantage of the chaos to steal the poor boy’s head from the enemy ranks...
“Wait, who the hell are you?”
Uh... it wasn’t going as smoothly as she’d hoped.
Did these guys not understand what it meant to show pity to a delicate flower? The beating was already mostly over—couldn’t they just let her carry him away?
Kneeling on the ground, Lin Ying lightly brushed the boy’s back with her right hand and subtly furrowed her brow.
She tilted her head slightly upward, her gaze soft, and put on a pitiful and aggrieved expression.
“I’m his little sister. Who are you people? Why are you beating up my brother?”
Without batting an eye, Lin Ying seamlessly slipped into character with a fabricated identity.
And there was a reason behind choosing this role. Just as she had been deliberating earlier, Lin Ying was actually an outsider here. She had no idea what kind of grudges existed between these people. If she rushed in to break up the fight without knowing right from wrong, she might’ve accidentally ruined some good guy’s plans.
After all, in her past life, she’d seen plenty of situations where good people called their friends over to surround and teach a villain a lesson before walking away satisfied. She didn’t want to get physically involved.
But if she were to step in as a complete stranger, she would inevitably face the “Who the hell are you?” problem. If Lin Ying were some muscular heiress in a cape with an eyepatch, maybe that’d be fine. But right now, with her delicate, fragile appearance that looked like she could be pushed over with one finger, she had no intimidation factor at all.
So there was only one option: to insert herself into the conflict as a loosely connected party who wouldn’t trigger too much suspicion. That way, she might even be able to fish for information—or maybe just talk them into leaving.
Besides, judging by how dazed the boy looked after the beating, he probably wasn’t in any condition to talk. So she silently hoped he would cooperate with her performance.
Facing the thugs with their brutish faces, the girl pouted slightly, putting on an expression of fear and grievance.
“My brother hadn’t come to find me for a long time, so I came looking for him around here... and then I saw you guys ganging up on him…”
As she spoke, there even seemed to be a shimmer of tears in the corner of her eyes.
Alright, Lin Ying admitted—it was actually more fun than she’d imagined. She was starting to get into the role.
After all, rushing into a crowd with a fake identity to coolly rescue a surrounded beauty (questionable) was the kind of plot she had only ever seen on TV or online. Now that she finally had a chance to try it for herself, she couldn’t help but feel a bit excited.
Thank you, random big brother who got beat up and is now lying motionless on the ground.
"He... he owes us money, yeah! He owes money and hasn’t paid it back, so we had to teach him a lesson today."
Though they called themselves a gang, in truth, they were just a bunch of petty thugs who still hung around with students. They weren’t exactly brimming with killing intent. So when they saw that the newcomer was just a little girl, their guilty conscience kicked in a bit, and their tone naturally softened. After racking their not-so-abundant brainpower, they managed to cobble together a barely passable excuse.
After all, with Lin Ying’s current appearance, a touch of makeup and she could pass as an adult. Put her in a high school and she’d be an in-service schoolgirl; drop her in a middle school and she’d be a standard class rep. No matter how you looked at her, she was just a harmless, youthful girl.
Even the few fierce-looking thugs who had surrounded the boy weren’t shameless enough to keep troubling such a girl. At the very least, they all pulled their fists back.
"That’s nonsense. My brother wouldn’t owe you money."
The girl immediately shut down their excuse.
It wasn’t that she had read their tone or expressions—Lin Ying hadn’t paid much attention to that. She was simply going with her instincts and following the script she’d just drafted in her head. After all, right now, she was just an innocent little sister. Even if her brother really did owe them money, was she supposed to know about it?
Regardless of their response, Lin Ying bent down and helped the boy up, supporting him with her shoulder.
Brother Liu frowned but didn’t say anything.
On one hand, he felt that arguing with a little brat who probably hadn’t even grown all her adult teeth yet was pointless. On the other hand, the kid they wanted to beat had already taken quite a bit of punishment. Although earlier this punk acted like he wouldn't cry until he saw his own coffin and had even dared to curse at him—making Brother Liu feel the beating wasn’t enough and that they should hit him until he submitted—this unexpected appearance of a... Lin-style deus ex machina had somewhat cooled his temper.
He thought about it and figured if they kept going, something might actually go wrong. Better to end things here for the day and let the brat off. Maybe he was just lucky.
As the girl helped the boy to his feet and started to limp away with him, a few of the guys nearby started to get restless.
"Brother Liu, we’re just letting him go like that?"
Little Wang leaned over and asked in a low voice.
"What else do you want? We already beat him enough. What more do you want to do?"
"But Brother Liu, look... the previous stuff, sure, we settled that. But this guy cursing you just now—that’s still unsettled business, isn’t it?"
"Then you guys can settle it for me next time. I'm in a good mood today, can’t be bothered to deal with him."
"Aww, come on, Brother Liu, you didn’t see it, but I noticed that little chick looks pretty good. What if..."
The shifty-eyed guy next to him winked and made suggestive gestures toward the girl’s back.
"What do you mean by that? Don’t tell me you’re thinking something shady?"
"No, no, you misunderstood, Brother Liu. I meant, sure, we can’t force anything, but that guy’s parents are never around, so we could always..."
The school-uniformed boy whispered a few things into Brother Liu’s ear, which suddenly made him realize something.
"Ha! Didn’t expect you to be so crafty. Go for it."
Wearing a smug expression that practically screamed “Yoshi yoshi, you did good, very good,” Brother Liu nodded repeatedly.
"Ahem. Miss, please wait a moment."
Just as Lin Ying was about to leave the alley, someone stepped in to block her path.
The girl wrinkled her cute brows slightly, showing a bit of displeasure.
"What now?"
"You said this is your brother, right? We don’t know you, but we weren’t lying earlier. Your brother really made us lose a lot of money before. If you round it up, that means he owes us money. You get what I mean, right?"
"So?" the girl asked with a slightly trembling, fearful tone.
"Well, seeing as he’s in that state now, we won’t make things harder for him. After all, we’re technically all students at the same school, more or less."
So? Lin Ying was screaming inside—if you two have something to say, just get on with it. Why the hell are you giving me a long-ass prologue?
"As the saying goes, a fight builds friendship. We were planning to take your brother out for dinner afterward, but he’s clearly in no shape to go now. So, how about it—you come instead?"
One of the two men in front of her, a monkey-faced, rat-bodied guy, put on a disgusting sycophantic smile and extended an invitation, not even bothering to hide his dirty thoughts.
…
Oh, so this is the game you want to play?
The girl gave a knowing Plan Complete smile in her heart.