Hong could hear the raw pain and ache in her voice. He physically felt for her.

As she had spoken, his fists had tightened until they were almost white, cutting off his circulation. He didn't know what would happen if he went to go find this stupid ex of hers now. He couldn't guarantee he wouldn't try and kill him. Inhaling and exhaling, he forced himself to think about this rationally. Her ex was a lying, sick, weasel of a man. He stole all of her money. And she was currently in a half-dead, zoned-out mess on the couch of his salon, broken into a million pieces.

He knew he didn't have the means to go after the man. He had the drive. But he had no connections. Of course, he was rich, and well-connected, but at the end of the day, this type of stuff wasn't under his domain. Suddenly, he knew just the person to call.

"Jingjing, I want you to know something. You are beautiful. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. That man is simply scum. Gum off the bottom of your shoe. Sure, he may have taken the shoe with him when he left, but you still have the rest of yourself. You can always earn more money.

And..." before proposing his alleged plan, he realized that she wouldn't agree with the method. She was more the type of person who just wanted to sweep it all under the rug.

"What? What aren't you telling me? Why does everyone hide things from me?!" Jinghe couldn't help it. She knew she was in a bad place emotionally at the moment, but she couldn't help it. She felt so alone. So ignorant.

"Well, I wasn't sure if I should tell you, but one of my old friends who I went to high school with is a lawyer. He also happens to be great at tracking people down; he's also a computer expert, and can practically hack into anything. I was going to call him up to see if he could help find this trash ex of yours and then from there, we could decide what to do. And don't worry," he said, seeing her about to object, "he knows how to do it so that its untraceable. He's really good."

"I wasn't going to object, actually. Call your friend up. The sick bastard even left me a note threatening me about going after him. He won't get away with that. I'm going to find him and drag him down. I don't care what it takes," Jinghe said vehemently.

"Easy now, Jingjing, let's take this one step at a time. We'll take more when all three of us can get together and have a meeting. You'll also have had time to cool off a bit.

Speaking of which, I remember you said you came in here for a haircut? Well there's something I want to try that I think will look great on you. May I?"

"Of course, I trust you. Please, though, can you cut it short? Like a lot shorter?" Jingjing's voice was slightly anxious, but there was a hidden steel behind it.

Hong didn't answer. Grinning at her, he pulled a pair of scissors and a comb out of his pocket. Wrapping a cape around her to catch the hair, he expertly led her over to a chair in front of the brightly lit mirror.

"I promise you'll love it," Hong said, beaming widely. Then, he raised the comb to her hair and ran it down her back, before taking the scissors in hand and lining them up against the comb.

Snip.