The crew-cut man sneered. He was naturally unwilling to let Seth go just like that; his ears still throbbed with agonizing pain whenever he rolled over in his sleep at night!
“You didn’t know? He crawled his way out to the perimeter, and you didn’t know? I think it was you, you damn cripple, who instigated it, wasn’t it?”
The other mercenaries stood at the door with their arms crossed, grinning as they watched the farce inside. It was clear they were all there to help the crew-cut man vent his frustration.
Despite having a bum leg, the high-browed, deep-eyed “cripple” possessed decent combat skills. In the cramped cell, he managed to narrowly dodge several lethal strikes from the crew-cut mercenary.
However, Seth’s expertise didn’t lie in physical combat. He was no match for those trained by a mercenary organization. Before long, he was kicked squarely in the ribs, spitting out a large mouthful of blood.
The crew-cut man grinned, his teeth bared. The electric baton in his hand crackled with sparks, making the tattoos on his arms look bone-chilling. “The wiring in this hellhole had a bad connection for a long time, but it was just fixed a month ago. Want to give it a try?”
“Stop!”
A death-defying rabbit charged out, lunging forward to grab the crew-cut man’s thigh, its fine, sharp teeth gnashing against his leg and leaving a shallow bloody trail.
For the second time, this group of ridiculous deviants had injured him. The crew-cut man’s rage peaked instantly. He raised a thick arm, and the electric baton descended upon Yellow Bunny.
Bang—
Followed by a scream, Yellow Bunny was slammed against the wall by the massive force, falling unconscious instantly.
Li Zhong rushed forward in terror: “Hey! Are you okay? Don’t scare me!”
Yellow Bunny’s body convulsed under the heavy blow of the high-voltage pulse. Li Zhong was so frightened that tears sprayed from his eyes.
Seth, however, seemed oblivious.
He lay paralyzed on the ground, spitting out a mouthful of bloody water. His gaze remained intensely focused on the crew-cut man before him, deaf to everything else.
In the pool of blood on the cell floor, his eyes looked battered yet ruthless. Having been a mercenary for over a decade, the crew-cut man had seen eyes like those many times on international most-wanted posters—but right now, the man was just a goddamn, disgusting deviant.
The mercenary’s facial muscles twisted into a smirk.
His gaze fell upon several octopus tentacles that hung limp and lifeless from Seth’s back. His rough hand reached out and gripped the base of a tentacle.
Sensing what he intended to do, Seth cursed furiously: “You son of a bitch! Get away!”
With a sudden burst of power from his biceps, Seth’s eyes widened. Warm blood drenched his back, but he seemed to feel nothing. His whole body began to tremble, as if his very soul was being pulled out along with that uprooted tentacle.
None of the others could bear to watch, covering their eyes with trembling hands.
Ultimately, when the mercenary left, his expression wasn’t much better. He was covered in numerous nicks and cuts inflicted by Seth. Before leaving, he spat out a string of curses.
If the boss hadn’t given strict orders not to kill this batch of “merchandise,” he would have wrung the neck of that “dead dog” Seth right then and there!
As soon as the mercenaries left, the people hiding behind the iron beds swarmed forward, some surrounding Yellow Bunny and others crowding around Seth.
“Brother Seth, are you okay?” “Brother, can you still move?” “Brother…”
The timid deviants spoke up, filled with panic and unease.
The man lying half-dead on the floor didn’t move for a long time. Had he not, the group would have thought he’d bled to death.
Seth pushed off the floor twice before finally propping himself up. Dragging his numb, agonizing right leg, he limped to his feet and growled: “Get lost!”
Goddamn after-the-fact cowards.
But in this situation, it was only natural. Seth had seen it too many times; he gave a cold sneer.
Even if they all attacked together, they wouldn’t stand a chance against a professional mercenary’s single hand—they would only end up like that stupid rabbit.
Every move Seth made caused the wounds on his back to tear with excruciating pain. He didn’t dare lean against the wall, so he propped himself against the iron bed, gasping for air.
The taste of blood climbed from his throat to the back of his mouth. A normal person couldn’t have endured such pain, but he only felt that the exploding fire of rage and humiliation in his heart was about to burn him alive.
His vicious eyes glared from the corner; from a distance, he looked even more terrifying than the blood-stained mercenary who had just left.
No one dared to approach—except for the fellow who had been sitting on the iron bed from the very beginning, never having moved.
However, Wen Zhu’s presence was pathetically small. His combat value was even lower than that of the red-eyed rabbit with the fine teeth. Seth treated him as if he weren’t there.
Wen Zhu indeed had no interest in their dispute. He leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, resting.
In the quiet cell, a sudden itch on his fingertips caught his attention. His golden serpentine pupils drifted down to the tentacle on his wrist.
The fragile, short, juvenile tentacle tentatively coiled around that slender, pale wrist. Finding that Wen Zhu didn’t push it away, it grew bolder and wrapped itself around completely.
By the time Seth came to his senses, his surviving tentacles had already wrapped tightly around the man-snake’s wrist.
“…”
At a critical moment like this, why the hell is this thing acting so thirsty?
As Seth stood dazed, Wen Zhu suddenly raised his hand. A sharp fingernail lightly brushed against the surface of the wriggling tentacle.
Seth was instantly numbed by a jolt of electricity rising from his tailbone, causing him to shiver. He couldn’t quite identify this strange emotion—a baseless sense of faint fear and submission.
“You… don’t touch it!” Seth glared at Wen Zhu.
What a clumsy attempt at seduction!
“Still so young,” Wen Zhu sighed softly.
Running away at such a small size and following a desperate outlaw, no less.
It seemed the newly enthroned “King” of these past years was doing a rather mediocre job.
The tentacles sensed a strong summons from their host but sent back a refusal, affectionately rubbing against the snake tail. A familiar, protective aura emanated from Wen Zhu, providing a very strange sense of security.
The next moment, however, Wen Zhu reached out and mercilessly tore away the group of fawning tentacles. This inevitably yanked at Seth’s unhealed wounds—even though his healing ability had improved significantly, it couldn’t withstand such a crippling strike.
He was so pained his body went numb, and the nerves in his scalp twitched.
Shortly after, Wen Zhu brought over an iron tray containing some crude medical supplies.
Watching the beautiful man-snake considerately find bandages, Seth looked at him warily and asked raspy-voiced: “Where did these come from?”
“The guard gave them to me.”
The guard, who had disappeared for the entire night, finally wandered back slowly after the mercenaries had finished wreaking havoc in the cell.
After a series of rustling sounds, Seth didn’t hesitate and began bandaging himself with practiced skill.
“I saw it,” Wen Zhu said thoughtfully. “You were the one who leaked that information to him, weren’t you?”
“What?”
“What you told that bear. The way to escape ‘Paradise Lost’.”
Seth lowered his head, tightening the bandages on his own before saying: “I only provided a bit of information he wanted to know. As for whether he could actually get out, I didn’t force him.”
Wen Zhu remembered that brown bear with the short, stiff fur. Yesterday, he had even shared more than half of his food with Seth. “Is that so? You’re quite a ‘nice’ person.”
“Of course.”
“So, it seems that path failed?” Wen Zhu took a liking to the small tentacles parasitic on Seth, teasing them with his fingertips, earning a side-eye from Seth. Wen Zhu thoughtfully felt the emotions at his fingertips and said slowly, “But you don’t seem surprised at all.”
Since Seth couldn’t reach the wounds on his back to apply medicine, he naturally tossed the bottle to Wen Zhu, signaling him to do it.
After all, a year ago, there were plenty of people clamoring for the chance to apply medicine for him.
Wen Zhu paused for a moment, then unscrewed the bottle and poured the medicine straight down—the pain was no less than having a tentacle uprooted. Seth’s face turned completely white.
When he finally recovered, veins bulging on his forehead, his hand clamped tightly around Wen Zhu’s neck. He panted violently: “You bitch, are you trying to die?”
The snake pupils looked at him impassively. “You used him to scout the way. What did you get out of it?”
It couldn’t have just been a severe beating, right?
“None of your business.”
Wen Zhu casually pushed aside the knife pressed against his cheek—heaven knows how this man managed to bring such a conspicuous weapon into this cell. “The key?”
Seth’s furious expression shifted instantly. Because the realization was so sudden, his facial muscles failed to coordinate, twitching oddly.
“So smart.”
Wen Zhu’s “professional habit” kicked in.
It was a tone of gentle encouragement.
Seth instantly felt his scalp tingle, because he instinctively felt those snake pupils were looking right through him, as if communicating with something inside him.
“Are you sick in the head?”
Usually, Seth was the one saying that to others. He never thought the day would come when he’d say it to himself.
“When do you plan to move?” Wen Zhu pressed his hand against Seth’s arm. The touch of those cold, temperature-less fingertips made Seth shiver. Sharp, hard snake scales covered the fingertips, lightly sinking into his forearm. “Tonight?”
“…”
Seth let go, and with a flick of his wrist, the dagger vanished from sight. He leaned back against the iron frame, looking down at the man-snake on the bed.
He didn’t speak, but the answer was obvious.
Everything happening now was essentially within his plan.
The crew-cut mercenary had beaten him so badly that everyone in the cell—everyone in the block—had seen it. Those who were scared into submission by the “warning” wouldn’t have the courage to act. Therefore, tonight would certainly be the night when security was at its most lax.
If they wanted to run, this was the best time.
Seth’s thinking always leaned toward the unconventional. He hadn’t met someone with such… such a matching mindset as Wen Zhu in a long time.
His predatory gaze swept over the snake scales on Wen Zhu’s brow, paused for a moment on the crimson lips, glanced over the upper body wearing his jacket, and finally landed on the porcelain-white scales of the snake tail.
“Follow me from now on.”
This time, he wasn’t just referring to this dark, sunless cell.
“Can you afford to keep me?” Wen Zhu laughed.
Seth gave a cold snort. “I could afford to keep ten of you.”