IMAO Chapter 129

“Baby, don’t bump into people!” A gentle female voice called out from afar, growing closer.

A colorful beach ball rolled across the sand, then bumped against Qiu Jingming’s fair-skinned calf.

When his leg was hit from behind, Qiu Jingming instinctively turned around to see a chubby toddler, about two or three years old, running up to his feet. The child looked up at him with big, blinking eyes and said, “Ball…”

Qiu Jingming brushed the sand off his calf, crouched down to pick up the ball, and handed it to the little one. “Here you go.”

“Thank you, Gege.”

The child cheered after getting the ball back, then turned and threw himself into the woman’s arms behind him, speaking in a sweet, spoiled voice: “Mommy, I got the ball back.”

The woman who hurried over gave him a slight nod, then took the child’s hand and led them away to play elsewhere.

Qiu Jingming placed his hand over his belly. Regarding Fang Shi’s question, he seemed to have found his answer.

He left the beach and walked toward the hotel. The coastline was long, and as he walked, there were fewer and fewer people around.

After taking several steps, he kept feeling like someone was following him, so he turned to look.

He saw a man with golden hair walking behind him. When he turned around, the man used his hat to partially cover his face, turned his head to avoid Qiu Jingming’s gaze, and stopped walking.

He had seen this person by the beach earlier.

His heart was pounding so hard it felt like it would burst out of his chest.

This person was stalking him!

Not knowing why this person was following him, Qiu Jingming tensed up and took out his communicator from his bag, gripping it silently in his hand. Looking around, he felt slightly relieved.

While this area usually wasn’t crowded, his luck wasn’t too bad today. There were several passersby around, which helped ease his mind.

Qiu Jingming gritted his teeth and stopped directly at the roadside, pretending to reply to messages while observing the stalker from the corner of his eye. After dawdling for about ten minutes, the man seemed to realize he’d been noticed and quickly walked past him. As he passed, the man turned back to give him a deep look and a slight smile.

But seeing that smile didn’t relax Qiu Jingming at all. Instead, it made the man seem even more terrifying!

Only after the man was two hundred meters away did his wildly beating heart finally settle back in his chest.

Thankfully he’d noticed early. If he’d waited until no one was around, who knows what that man would have done!

He patted his chest to calm down. The communicator in his hand was still on the contacts page. Just as he was about to turn it off and head back, a hand suddenly shot out from behind and grabbed his neck. He tried to call for help from the passersby, but they just stared at him, as if they couldn’t see the person choking him from behind.

He couldn’t die here. He couldn’t die now. The child in his belly… couldn’t be harmed. He could be punished for his mistakes, but this child was innocent.

With his neck in a tight grip, Qiu Jingming’s face turned deathly pale. Using his last bit of strength, he randomly pressed something on his communicator before his hand lost all strength, and the device clattered to the ground.

In his hazy consciousness, he heard people talking.

…

While Jiang Yuan was chatting with Ji Rong, his communicator vibrated once. It was an unknown number, with the area code from Longluo Star.

Jiang Yuan’s brows furrowed slightly.

After Qiu Jingming left, he had occasionally updated Fang Shi and Jiang Tianze about his situation, but then the communication stopped. Although Jiang Yuan wasn’t interested in Qiu Jingming’s affairs, he knew Qiu Jingming was currently on Longluo Star, so only he would contact Jiang Yuan using a Longluo Star number.

Qiu Jingming had contacted both Jiang Tianze and Fang Shi, but had never called him.

Jiang Yuan pressed the answer button.

Instead of Qiu Jingming’s voice, he heard a man cursing on the other end.

“Damn it, that blond guy took forever to leave. I thought we’d have to wait until tomorrow to grab this pretty Omega-”

After connecting, he only heard this one sentence before the speaker seemed to walk away, and everything fell silent.

…

The man with the slicked-back hair gagged the unconscious Qiu Jingming and put him in the car trunk. After getting in the car, the other men, who turned out to be the earlier passersby, started chatting.

“This Omega is so pretty, he should fetch a good price, right?”

“A pregnant Omega probably won’t be worth much.” The man with slicked-back hair said with a smile.

The man wearing orange swim trunks leaned back in his seat and said, “That’s no fun. Don’t think I don’t know what you guys do.

“You’ll take him back, get rid of the little one inside, wash away his bond mark, then give him that thing with the device, and he’ll become obedient and well-behaved.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The slick-haired man said awkwardly.

“We’ve worked together for so long, there’s no point in hiding things. A while back, I saw one of the Omegas I helped you kidnap on the Star News. That Omega went into heat in public and caused chaos.” The man in orange swim trunks stopped there, giving the slick-haired man a meaningful look while stroking his chin.

The slick-haired man stayed quiet, because it was true. They had kidnapped that person. However, injecting drugs and abandoning the Omega in public wasn’t their doing but the buyer’s. This guy probably figured something out from that Omega’s mental state.

…

After that initial curse, there were no more voices from the communicator, only the sound of waves rolling one after another.

“Jiang Yuan, whose call was that?” Seeing Jiang Yuan’s deeply furrowed brows, Ji Rong quickly stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder and asking softly, “Did something happen?”

“It’s Qiu Jingming. Something happened to him.” Jiang Yuan raised one eyebrow as he spoke, then immediately contacted the Longluo Star police to report the incident.

Jiang Yuan quickly handled Qiu Jingming’s situation, providing all the information he knew to Longluo Star and leaving his contact details before ending the call.

After Jiang Yuan told Jiang Tianze about the situation, Jiang Tianze immediately took leave to return, and they booked tickets to Longluo Star that same day.

Stars swirled around them, vast as a misty sea.

Jiang Tianze sat upright, his expression serious and focused, but his eyes occasionally flicked to the flight progress displayed on the ship’s console. Across from him sat two young men.

“Xiao Yuan, you didn’t have to come.” Jiang Tianze felt a bitter taste in his mouth. The misunderstanding between his son and adopted son, followed by the adopted son taking his son’s fiancé, it all left him with a terrible headache, filled with regret and frustration.

When his son reported to the police and told him about his adopted son’s trouble, he wasn’t surprised, because he knew his son well.

His son had aspired to be an excellent soldier since childhood. He would never let past grievances stop him from helping someone in need.

But his son accompanying him to Longluo Star was unexpected. He thought his son wouldn’t want to see Jingming again.

Without answering Jiang Tianze, Jiang Yuan gazed absently into space.

Qiu Jingming and Song Yirui’s betrayal didn’t hurt him because he wasn’t the original Jiang Yuan at all.

He didn’t know how the original owner would have felt experiencing all this betrayal, but he believed the original would definitely have gone to Longluo Star with Jiang Tianze.

Because in his memories, that young boy had once said-

“From now on, I’m your big brother. As long as I’m here, no one can bully you. I’ll protect you!”

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