“Boss! Are we really not keeping those two women?”
“The heat’s on. We can’t keep them. One for each of us. We’ll have our fun, then bury them. Just don’t screw anything up!”
“Heh heh! Got it!”
…
When Song Ning woke up, she happened to hear the unfamiliar conversation outside, followed by the sound of a lock being opened.
Directly before her was an unfamiliar face, enlarged in her vision.
A girl of seventeen or eighteen, her face covered in blood, was shaking her shoulders frantically.
“Sis! You’re awake! We—we’re going to die! They’re going to kill us!”
Song Ning glanced at the girl, then quickly surveyed her surroundings.
Peeling mud walls.
An old oil lamp emitted a tiny bean-sized glow, illuminating a small, damp, and shabby room.
For a moment, she was bewildered.
Where was this?
She had been in a car accident. She had been on her way to a blind date—
Her phone!
Where was her phone?!
She immediately sat up and searched around herself. Aside from straw, she found nothing.
A sharp pain exploded in her head. Clutching it with both hands, she nearly fainted.
“Sis! Don’t—don’t pass out! The other two girls were sold off already! Only the two of us are left! I’m scared…” The girl’s voice trembled with tears.
Before she could finish speaking, the wooden door in the corner creaked open.
The girl jumped in fright, shrinking into the corner together with Song Ning.
Two sleazy-looking men appeared in the doorway.
One had long bangs. The other had a thin mustache.
The moment they saw Song Ning, both seemed startled.
“Well, look at that! This one actually pulled through! She was practically breathing her last this afternoon!” the mustached man said.
“Boss, then should we…” Long Bangs rubbed his hands eagerly.
The mustached man grinned wickedly.
“What are you standing around for? Let’s get down to business!”
“Right away!”
Long Bangs grabbed the girl beside Song Ning and dragged her out.
“Let go—let go of me! Please spare me!”
Her screams and cries faded into the distance.
The mustached man crouched before Song Ning, his lecherous eyes roaming over her face.
“Tsk. Such a pretty face wasted on a sickly little thing. Well, that’s fine. Let me have some fun first. At least it won’t go to waste.”
The pain in Song Ning’s head had only just eased when the man grabbed her with a filthy grin and yanked her to her feet.
She did not resist.
Using the upward momentum, she drew up her knee and slammed it viciously into his groin.
The man had been completely unprepared.
He never imagined that this sickly girl, who had been running a fever from fear the entire journey, would still dare to fight back when she was practically at death’s door.
With a hoarse scream so distorted it barely sounded human, he released her and collapsed, clutching his groin as he rolled on the ground.
Song Ning did not hesitate.
Her feet moved like the wind as she kicked repeatedly at his most vulnerable spot.
Every strike landed.
At first, his screams filled the room.
Gradually, they faded.
Still not reassured, Song Ning delivered one final brutal kick.
The mustached man could no longer make a sound. His body only convulsed once before curling into a ball like a hairless hedgehog.
Certain that he had lost the ability to fight back, Song Ning hurriedly pulled open the wooden door.
Outside was pitch-black.
Only a few scattered lights could be seen in the distance.
Following the faint sound of crying, she quickly headed toward it.
In a nearby mud house, the door stood wide open.
Beside an oil lamp, Long Bangs had already stripped off the girl’s outer clothing while continuously slapping her face.
“Cry! Go ahead and cry! The more you cry, the more excited I get!”
Song Ning grabbed the thickest piece of firewood from a pile outside the door.
Without hesitation, she rushed in and smashed it down on the back of his head.
One strike was enough.
Long Bangs collapsed to the floor without a sound.
Still not satisfied, Song Ning stepped forward and hit him twice more before throwing away the stick and dragging the girl out from beneath him.
The girl’s eyes were vacant.
Her already injured face had been battered into a bloody mess.
It was horrifying to look at.
Gently patting her shoulder while remaining alert to the surroundings, Song Ning whispered,
“We have to find a way to escape as quickly as possible.”
The girl looked up, sobbing.
“Sis! I—I’ll listen to you!”
Song Ning nudged Long Bangs with her foot.
No response.
She searched his waist and found a flashlight. Then she took the box of matches beside the oil lamp and pulled the girl out the door.
This was a village hidden deep within the mountains.
According to the memories Song Ning had just sorted through, the traffickers had led them through the mountains for at least six days.
Yes.
Song Ning had already figured out what had happened.
She had originally been running her own private hospital and was recognized as an outstanding young professional.
Then a car accident on the way to a blind date had brought her here.
She had awakened in the body of a girl from the 1970s who happened to share her name.
As for the girl’s life—
In short, her parents had died young.
Her older brother was slow-witted.
Her uncle and aunt abused her.
Her cousins bullied her.
She endured everything in silence, working like a beast of burden.
The only person who truly loved her was her grandfather.
Before his death, he arranged a marriage for her, promising that once she turned eighteen, the groom would come to the village to marry her.
But her grandfather passed away.
Now she was already twenty years old.
The man never appeared.
Her aunt mocked her for dreaming foolishly and instead wanted to marry her off as a replacement wife to the town chief’s forty-something-year-old idiot brother.
The bride price would then be used to fund her cousin’s marriage.
The fool had been born mentally disabled.
Whenever he saw a woman, he immediately tried to take off his pants.
The town chief’s family had once arranged a marriage for him.
Within a year, his wife had gone insane.
Rumor had it she had been driven mad by torment.
The girl refused to suffer the same fate.
Gathering every ounce of courage she possessed, she fled the day before the wedding.
Carrying the address her grandfather had left behind, she set out to find her fiancé.
It was her only way out.
Her only hope for survival over the years.
Unfortunately, from the moment she boarded the train, she had been targeted by human traffickers.
With no experience traveling alone, she and six other kidnapped girls were taken deep into the mountains.
The constant fear and shock made her ill.
Her fever never broke.
Eventually, she died in confusion and despair.
And Song Ning had arrived in her place.
The other girls had all been sold along the way.
Only she, the sickly one, and this girl named Lanying, whose face had been injured, remained unsold.
As unwanted leftovers, they were simply going to be disposed of.
Song Ning had no time to think further.
Their situation was still extremely dangerous.
First, she needed to stay alive.
Everything else could wait.
Pulling Lanying along, she carefully circled around the building and ran deeper into the village.
Time was running out.
Following the winding village paths, Song Ning selected a courtyard and climbed over the wall.
Inside stood the largest mud house she had seen in the area.
Quietly, she made her way to the pigsty.
Lighting a match, she took a look.
Inside were three pigs—two large and one small—sleeping huddled together.
Looking to the side, she saw a chicken coop packed with more than a dozen chickens.
Perfect.
Song Ning casually grabbed a firewood stick nearby and whispered to the sleeping pigs,
“Brother Pigs, no offense.”
Then she swung the stick down several times.
The three pigs jolted awake with terrified squeals and began crashing wildly in every direction.
After slamming into the walls a few times, they burst out of the pigsty without any guidance.
They even smashed through the neighboring chicken coop.
The hens and roosters exploded into chaos.
Wings flapped.
Roosters crowed.
The pigs raced around the courtyard before charging out through the gate in panic, setting off a frenzy of barking dogs in the yard across the road.
The once-silent mountain village instantly came alive.
Lanying had been crouching against the wall.
Song Ning grabbed her hand and ran.
As they ran, Song Ning struck another match and tossed it onto a stack of dry hay she had spotted earlier.
The hay caught fire immediately.
Flames surged upward.
But they had not gone far when a tall dark figure suddenly lunged out in front of them.
“You filthy women! Trying to run? Not a chance!”