Chapter 746: Chapter 746 Help
Claude looked at the interaction between Xu Ke and Alice, slightly frowning, saying nothing, but somewhere in his heart, he felt inexplicably uncomfortable.
Claude wasn’t sure what was wrong with him, so he could only attribute it to the recent assassination attempt he had faced, which put him in a bad mood.
"What’s going on now? The text message wasn’t clear." Claude asked Xu Ke, looking at the women in front of him with some confusion.
"A few scammers trying to hassle me. I’m unfamiliar here in Holland, afraid that if I call the police, they won’t take the case. So I had to trouble you. Originally, I thought you’d just call a few officers over, but I didn’t expect you to come yourself." Xu Ke was a bit surprised that Claude had come in person.
"After all, you are my savior. If something happens to you, I can’t stand by and do nothing. I’ll handle things here." As Claude spoke, his gaze lightly swept over the group, the coldness and indifference in his eyes made the women who had a keen sense of danger shiver involuntarily.
"Who are you? What do you want to do to me? I’m telling you, I’m not someone easy to mess with. You’ll have nothing good if you touch me." The woman said, stiffening her neck and looking at Claude, bluffing.
"In this place, there’s no one that I, Claude, can’t deal with, and you’ve offended my benefactor. You have one minute to choose a solution, or I’ll have my people handle it." Claude didn’t care the least for the woman’s threats, just as he said, there was no one here he couldn’t deal with.
Almost right after Claude finished speaking, the several men behind him in black stepped forward, blocking all exits for the women. Even the woman pretending to faint on the ground was not ignored.
The pretended-to-be-unconscious woman on the ground fluttered her eyelashes; she wanted to wake up but, daunted by the people standing around her, decided to continue pretending.
Although this made her seem a bit spineless, what did such so-called courage mean in the face of survival? She was still young; she still wanted to live.
Among the girl’s two sidekicks, one was feigning unconsciousness, and the other, whether due to excessive blood loss or anemia, or simply fainting at the sight of blood, showed no sign of waking up; but hers was a real faint.
The only girl among the three who was still persevering stepped back unconsciously after hearing Claude’s words.
When the girl took a step back, Claude’s bodyguard took a step forward, following step by step, giving her no chance to escape.
At this moment, the girl couldn’t help but envy her teammates for fainting because they could avoid such a terrifying situation. Had she known something so terrible would happen, she would have fainted too.
She wouldn’t have ended up in such a quandary, unsure of what to do.
"Do things have to be so harsh?" The girl said, trembling slightly in her heart as she looked at the unwavering bodyguards.
Claude paid no mind to the question. To him, it was meaningless.
"There are only ten seconds left. Are you sure you don’t want to think about a dignified way to die, instead of wasting time with me here?" Claude lifted one eye, looking at the girl, his voice without any ripple.
Sweat began to bead on the girl’s forehead as the numbers drew closer. Although she had never encountered Claude before today, something about him filled her with an unfounded dread.
"One." Claude announced, expressionless, giving the girl no chance to react, directly declaring that time was up.
The girl’s already blank mind completely crashed at this moment. The bodyguards, like alerted wolf-dogs or sharks that had smelled blood in the water, were all suddenly lunging to shore, sending out a hunting signal toward their prey.
"Wait a moment." Just as a security guard was reaching out to grab the girl, Xu Ke spoke.
Because Claude had shown regard for Xu Ke earlier, several bodyguards indeed paused at Xu Ke’s words, their eyes wandering between Claude and Xu Ke, questioning.
Seeing Xu Ke speak, Claude gave the bodyguards a signal to be patient.
"What’s the matter? Do you not like my solution? Or do you have another idea?" Claude sincerely inquired.
"Although their behavior is infuriating, it doesn’t warrant death. Considering her young age, give her a chance to mend her ways." Xu Ke spoke out on her behalf, looking at Xu Ke with a complicated expression.
Since Xu Ke was Claude’s savior, he naturally wouldn’t oppose Xu Ke over such a small issue, especially since he had come today to back up Xu Ke. If Xu Ke thought a mild punishment was sufficient, he wouldn’t argue.
"But one can’t escape punishment." The girl turned tense again due to Xu Ke’s words, her gaze at Xu Ke carrying a sense of apprehension, but Xu Ke didn’t mind how she viewed him. He continued with his decision, "The things in the store today were smashed by these three. Let everything proceed legally, compensating where needed. As for the three store employees who allowed others to smash up the store and then tried to find a scapegoat, just inform the store owner and let them decide."
Claude was somewhat surprised when he heard Xu Ke’s decision, casting a glance at Xu Ke. He hadn’t expected Xu Ke to make such a lawful decision, especially since at the outset his thoughts aligned with the girl’s; Xu Ke’s method was unexpected.
"Is there something wrong with this solution?" Xu Ke asked, looking at Claude, who remained silent.
"Not at all; I just didn’t expect you to think of solving it this way. I thought you might choose a private execution; I don’t know why, but I always felt that was the true you." Claude looked into Xu Ke’s eyes as he spoke, as if trying to find some ruse there.
But he was bound for disappointment. Xu Ke’s gaze remained as open as before, and upon hearing Claude’s words, a slight surprise even appeared in his eyes, "Did I do something to give you such a misunderstanding? Why would you think that of me? In our country, China, anyone with a bit of legal knowledge knows to call the police in a crisis. Private executions are illegal; one must avoid them." Xu Ke waved his hand, dismissing the notion.
"Is that so? I’m not very familiar with China, and I was just hypothesizing, so please don’t take offense at my incorrect assumptions." Claude conveyed an apologetic gesture. Xu Ke had no intention to dwell on this point either. It seemed like a common matter of daily life, easily passed over, but Xu Ke knew this affair was far from over.