The girl was at a complete loss for words, but she knew she was no match for him. There was no point in resisting, so she could only lower her eyes submissively and accept it.
The e-scooter swayed and wobbled, finally reaching the vicinity of her house just before the battery died completely. Twisting the throttle did nothing anymore. The girl glanced back at Zeke Walton.
Before, they were either rushing or the light was too dim for her to get a clear look at him.
She only knew that he was tall and thin, with a young-sounding voice and a youthful silhouette.
Her preconceived notion of him had already made her unconsciously label him a bad guy.
But now, turning to look at him under a bright streetlight near her home, she was suddenly struck by how stunning Zeke Walton was.
Sitting one behind the other on the scooter, their faces were only twenty or thirty centimeters apart. She could clearly see his thick, long eyelashes, his large, deep-set eyes, his high-bridged, sharp nose, and his full, ruby-red lips.
Paired with skin as fair and smooth as tofu... ’Is this really a man? He’s more beautiful than most women.’
The girl stared, dumbfounded. Two phrases surfaced in her mind: "pale-faced scholar" and "Gentleman."
If she hadn’t met him under such circumstances—in any other situation, really—she would have found him completely unapproachable because of that face. But now... ’My feelings are a tangled mess.’
While the girl was looking at him, Zeke Walton was also looking at her.
He realized that not only was this girl not from around here, but she also appeared to be from an ethnic minority.
Her features were deep-set and pronounced, with the distinct characteristics of an ethnic minority group.
With features like hers, she would surely be lively and vibrant when happy. But tonight, she had been terrified the entire time. Her eyes now held a mix of panic and sorrow, making her look like a tragic beauty lost in thought.
Zeke Walton never expected that the first time in his life he played the villain, his victim would be such a beautiful young woman. His conscience pricked him.
"Why’d we stop? What are you looking at me for?"
His words snapped the girl back to reality. She pointed at the dashboard.
"The battery’s dead. It won’t go anymore."
’So she’s telling me to get lost.’
Zeke Walton took the hint and swung his leg off the e-scooter. "Got it. What time is it? Can you check how far it is to the bar?"
The girl pressed her phone screen in front of him. It was already past one in the morning, and the bar was still 9.8 kilometers away.
"Fuck," Zeke Walton cursed under his breath.
’It’s still that far!’
He didn’t want to bully the girl, but reality was harsh, so he brazenly made his request.
"Call a car for me. It’s too far, I can’t walk that."
The terror in the girl’s eyes was suddenly replaced by confusion. "What do you mean, ’call a car’ for you?"
"Call a taxi to come pick me up. Give me your phone number. Don’t worry, I’ll pay you back for what it costs."
It wasn’t that the girl was afraid he wouldn’t pay her back; she truly didn’t understand what Zeke Walton meant.
This was her first time in a big city, and she’d only been here for three days.
"Don’t you hail a taxi by waving your hand on the side of the road? Are you asking me to go flag one down for you?"
To save money, the girl was renting a place in an urban village. The area was filled with old, low-rise buildings inhabited by low-income people. Taking a taxi was the height of luxury for them, something almost no one did, so taxis rarely came this way.
Besides, it was already past one in the morning. The girl felt it would be a difficult task.
Zeke Walton was stunned by her line of thinking. "You don’t know what it means to call a car? Can I ask where you’re from? I mean, where’s your hometown?"
When he wasn’t threatening her and spoke nicely, he actually seemed like a decent person.
Perhaps if she was honest about her difficult situation, he might let her off the hook. So the girl answered truthfully.
She was from a village in a remote, mountainous region.
How remote was this region? Just from hearing the name, Zeke Walton knew he would never go there in his lifetime. Back in school, a teacher had even shown them a documentary about the poverty in that very region as a cautionary tale to teach them how difficult life could be.
She had traveled over 2,000 kilometers from some remote mountain valley to work as a delivery driver. And on just her third day, she gets bullied by me. ’She’s probably going to be traumatized by this.’ Zeke Walton’s heart ached with even more guilt.
He composed himself and softened his expression. "Don’t worry, I’m not a bad person. Tonight was just a coincidence. I had to do that to escape some bad guys. I won’t hurt you. How about this, since you don’t understand, just forget it. Lend me 200 yuan, and I’ll get a taxi myself. Leave me your number, and I’ll pay you back 2,000 tomorrow."
Lend 200 and get 2,000 back? It was such a good deal that the girl really wanted to lend him the money. Unfortunately, even if she emptied all her pockets, she only had a little over 70 yuan.
"This is all I have. Is it enough for your taxi?"
A fifty-yuan bill was stacked with two tens, which were topped with a few one-yuan bills. She handed the neatly smoothed-out stack to Zeke Walton.
Zeke Walton was stunned once again. "You don’t even have 200 yuan?"
The girl’s face flushed a visible red, and feeling as if Zeke Walton was looking down on her, she lowered the hand holding the money.
"I told you I just got here. I had to rent the scooter, rent the battery, pay a deposit, and rent a place. This 76 yuan is my food money. It has to last me until payday."
’Seventy-six yuan to last until payday?’
"When’s payday?"
"My cousin said it’s on the 15th of every month. That’s still over twenty days away."
Seventy-six yuan for over twenty days... that was barely enough to buy a few steamed buns a day.
For a moment, Zeke Walton didn’t know what kind of expression to make at her.
"Forget it. You keep it."
As he said this, he turned to leave. But the girl saw his arm hanging by his side, covered in dried blood, and couldn’t help but call out to him again.
"You’re not borrowing it?"
"No."
"Do you know the way, then?"
"I’ll walk slowly. I should be able to find it."
"But..." The girl hesitated. "Why don’t you come to my place first and wash your face and hands..."
’That way, you won’t scare your friends when you see them.’
Her reminder made Zeke Walton recall his own horrifying appearance.
’Washing up is a good idea.’
The girl pushed the scooter, and the two of them went around a large banyan tree and into a narrow alley.
They walked through the winding alley for several minutes until they reached the end, where a low, single-story house with red bricks and black tiles came into view.
The girl took out her key and opened the door. "Sorry, my place is a little small."
She flicked on the light switch on the wall, letting Zeke Walton go in first, while she struggled to push the e-scooter inside.
"You’re injured, and it’s so late. Who knows how long it would take to walk. Why don’t you rest here for a bit? I can give you a ride after the scooter charges for a while."
Zeke Walton stepped into her room. His first impression was that it was cramped. He couldn’t make out the layout at first, but after pulling aside a curtain and looking around, he finally understood.
It turned out that the place she lived in was not just small; it could barely even be called a room.
There seemed to be a larger courtyard further in, and the girl’s living space was just a small section partitioned off from the passageway leading into it.
The crucial part was that it wasn’t partitioned with bricks or wooden boards, but just a floral curtain hung in a circle.
’She’s a young woman, living in a place like this with people constantly coming and going right outside. Isn’t she terrified?’
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