“Ah Sheng, that girl you saw that day, do you know who she was?”
“Girl?”
“Yes.”
Zhang Xiangyi rested her hand on a long whip studded with barbs, watching Yuan Sheng’s expression. She didn’t spot anything off about it.
Yuan Sheng’s temples were sweating from the pain, her lips trembling, and even the fear in her eyes couldn’t be faked. So what had that moment just now been about?
Was Yuan Sheng really Yuan Sheng?
Yuan Sheng shook her head slowly, breathing hard, and said with difficulty, “I don’t… I don’t know…”
“That girl was wearing white pants. The pants were soaked in blood, so red, so red…”
White pants?
Zhang Xiangyi thought of the girl in unit 4-2 who’d lost control and killed herself, she’d been wearing white pants too. That matched what Yuan Sheng was saying.
“Knock, knock—”
The faint knocking made Yuan Sheng even more terrified. She trembled all over and shrank back, but she was strung up on the wooden cross, no matter how she shrank, she stayed where she was. She shook her head, her tangled hair falling to cover half her face, her eyes constantly avoiding the direction of the door.
Zhang Xiangyi, of course, wasn’t alarmed. She knew who was outside.
Yuan Sheng was this terrified, so was it really her?
How strange was this?
“Is it them? Have they come?” Zhang Xiangyi gripped the whip, hiding her hand behind her back as she carefully stepped toward Yuan Sheng. “Is it them?”
“Ahhhhhh—”
“No!”
“Don’t hit me!”
“Don’t hit me! I was wrong, I was wrong…”
“Save me, please, save me!”
Bound to the wooden cross, Yuan Sheng went berserk, lunging forward with all her might. Zhang Xiangyi stepped back half a pace, the two of them weren’t far apart, just close enough that Yuan Sheng couldn’t quite reach her, but close enough that she could see the girl’s expression clearly.
Yuan Sheng’s face had twisted into something contorted and savage, sprawling and wild, as if she were being tormented by some agony she couldn’t escape. Her face had flushed a liver-purple, the veins on her forehead bulging, her mouth gaping as though about to roar.
Her hands, with the bones dislocated, were bent every which way, and clenched so tightly on top of that, they could hardly be called hands at all.
“Hahaha…”
“I did nothing wrong!”
“I didn’t do a single thing wrong!”
“I…”
“I just… who am I?”
Yuan Sheng shrank back again, her body no longer trembling. She seemed to have stopped being afraid, staring very seriously at her own foot, which was missing a toe, murmuring under her breath, “Who am I?”
Finally her gaze landed on Zhang Xiangyi. She lurched in close, the corner of her mouth lifting, and asked with a grin, “Do you know who I am?”
She seemed to be asking in dead earnest.
Zhang Xiangyi had been calmly watching her the whole time, her expression unchanged. Who she was, she didn’t know, but she was definitely not Yuan Sheng.
Why did this instance have so many people with identical faces?
Even with plastic surgery, wasn’t there a recovery period?
Zhang Xiangyi frowned, lifting the whip and carefully coiling it up. “You stay put. If we succeed, I hope you’ll recover…”
Succeed, the den gets shut down, the people inside naturally get rescued, and from there the police would make arrangements.
Fail, and they all go cold together.
Zhang Xiangyi went over to the “tool” wall and picked out a few weapons for Xiao Xingzhi and the others, then opened the door right in front of “Yuan Sheng.”
Outside, just as she’d expected, was Xiao Xingzhi.
Glancing around shiftily like a thief, hunched over, groping his way along the wall.
Although, to be fair, they weren’t really any different from thieves.
“How’s it going? Why didn’t you open the door earlier?” Seeing Zhang Xiangyi come out, Xiao Xingzhi rushed straight over, sweeping his eyes up and down to confirm she hadn’t picked up new injuries, then fixed his gaze on the pile of weapons in her hands. “—! What place did you ransack? This spiked club’s not bad.”
He naturally took a few weapons off her, stowing whatever he could on his person, holding the rest in his hands.
That spiked club especially he turned over and over in his grip, looking it up and down, thoroughly delighted with it.
Zhang Xiangyi scanned their surroundings warily. “Did you finish your end of things?”
“Relax, I ran into Zhong Ziqian and handed the job off to him.” Recalling the state Zhong Ziqian had been in when he found him, Xiao Xingzhi let out a not-very-nice laugh. “He knows where the stuff is, and with his identity it’s a lot easier for him to take photos for evidence.”
So Zhong Ziqian hadn’t overthought it. The moment Xiao Xingzhi brought it up, he’d agreed, even offered to help.
Zhang Xiangyi frowned and gave him a quick rundown of everything she’d just learned. Then the two of them began searching all the holding cells around them.
Every cell held someone, men and women, old and young, and every one of them was covered in wounds, but with one thing in common: needle marks. Some had more than one, and some had already started going mad.
At the sound of a door opening, they all shrank into the corners, huddling together and propping each other up, watching the two of them warily, their eyes full of terror.
“So we just give up?”
Xiao Xingzhi stood in a corner with his hands on his hips, glaring at the goings-on outside, plenty angry.
If they couldn’t find a way in, then this operation of theirs might not succeed. They themselves could get out, sure, but whether they could shut this den down was another matter entirely.
And what had they stayed behind for?
To go big!
You couldn’t have the whole grand plan collapse halfway done!
“Do you think Zhou Lan would leave no marks for the police?” Zhang Xiangyi naturally trusted the police. Since Zhou Lan had gone undercover here, she would certainly have left a trail, otherwise what was the point of coming in?
According to what they had said, Zhou Lan had been in here a good while now, so the police deployment was surely no small thing, and on top of that, with her plan…
“But have you thought about one problem?”
“What?”
“If there are marks, can we even read them?”
Zhang Xiangyi: “……”
That really was a big problem. Still, if they couldn’t read them, someone else surely could, so Zhang Xiangyi wasn’t too worried on that score.
There was no signal at all on the second basement, they’d have to go to the first basement for it. But that meant more to deal with, and a longer timeline.
“Thump, thump—”
“Thump, thump—”
Zhang Xiangyi and Xiao Xingzhi both flashed into a corner, bodies taut, gripping their weapons, ears pricked, listening hard. No footsteps.
A good while passed, and the sound was still going, the same two regular “thumps.”
“Someone inside, knocking on a door?” Xiao Xingzhi poked his head out. There was still no one around, but the sound continued.
Zhang Xiangyi gripped the handle of her whip and went out first, following the sound until she found the door it was coming from. She fished out the master keycard, and with a faint “beep,” the door opened.
Zhang Xiangyi blocked Xiao Xingzhi, who was about to charge in, gave him a look, and went in herself. Xiao Xingzhi sighed and stood guard outside the door.
Inside there was only a little girl, two braids resting on her shoulders, her cheeks so gaunt her face had lost its shape. No different from the other test subjects here, not an undamaged spot on her body.
Zhang Xiangyi didn’t drop her guard just because the other was a child. She slowly crouched down, met her at eye level, and asked in the gentlest tone she could manage, “Is something the matter?”
“Are you the police?”
The little girl’s hoarse voice made Zhang Xiangyi pause, but what mattered more was what she’d said. After a moment’s thought, Zhang Xiangyi replied, “What if I am? What if I’m not?”
“Sister Ah Ya told me that if someone I’d never seen before came sneaking around here, most of the time they were good people.”
A good-person cop?
The corner of Zhang Xiangyi’s mouth twitched. Put that way, it wasn’t wrong.
“Where’s Sister Ah Ya?”
“They dragged her away last week.” The little girl recounted it very calmly, seemingly without feeling, her eyes bright and clear. “Sister Ah Ya told me to help you.”
Help them?
Was Ah Ya also one of the police?
And what was her relationship to this little girl?
Zhang Xiangyi studied her closely. The child was very thin, but she hadn’t been hurt in any way, there wasn’t even a needle mark on the bits of exposed skin. Which meant that, at least recently, she hadn’t been injected with any drugs.
Why?
Because of Ah Ya, perhaps…
“Will you go save Sister Ah Ya later?”
Zhang Xiangyi fell quiet. It wasn’t a question of whether they would save her, it was a question of whether Ah Ya was still alive.
For those who got dragged out, the ending was never good.
“We’ll save everyone here who’s still alive.” Zhang Xiangyi’s tone was firm. That was the only thing she could promise, and even of that she wasn’t a hundred percent sure.
But the little girl bowed her head. Just as Zhang Xiangyi was about to say something to comfort the child’s tender heart, the girl lifted her face and reached out to grasp Zhang Xiangyi’s slender wrist.
Zhang Xiangyi’s hand stiffened, but quickly returned to normal. Acting as if nothing had happened, she followed the little girl’s steps to a corner.
There was a small boy there, looking a bit older than the girl. Right now he was crouched in the corner watching Zhang Xiangyi warily, though his words were for the girl: “Is she really the one?”
Zhang Xiangyi: “???” The one what?
“Brother, we have to listen to Sister Ah Ya.” The little girl, however, was completely at ease, even breaking into a smile. Only the two children were locked in this room, so she didn’t hide anything, pointing at the corner of the wall behind the boy. “Sister, Sister Ah Ya said to bring you here to look at this.”
Look at what?
Zhang Xiangyi looked where the girl was pointing. The boy, helpless, came forward and pulled the girl away to keep her far from Zhang Xiangyi, his eyes fixed on her like a wolf cub’s.
Zhang Xiangyi paid it no mind. A wary streak in a child was a good thing.
The corner was filthy, blocked by an iron-frame bed, with a grimy quilt on top of it, bunched up in the corner. Zhang Xiangyi pulled the quilt aside without the slightest distaste, and the design on the wall came into view.
But…
She didn’t understand it!
A string of strange characters, she couldn’t even describe them. Zhang Xiangyi stared hard for a long while, then turned and asked, with utmost seriousness, “Can I bring my friend in?”
The boy hesitated, gripping the girl’s hand even tighter.
Zhang Xiangyi thought for a moment, sliding her hand to her waist where she felt the handle of the whip. Who could have guessed, the instant she touched it, the boy lurched forward to shield the girl, eyes screwed shut, his whole body shaking.
“I…”
Any explanation would be pale and feeble. Zhang Xiangyi tossed the whip over and said calmly, “Take it, to defend yourselves.”
She couldn’t be sure whether these two children were good or bad, but handing over a whip wasn’t going to get her killed. She could always run, and as long as she could run, there was no problem.
The boy stayed frozen for a second, then darted forward to snatch up the whip and grip it tight, as though he’d been handed some life-saving treasure.
Xiao Xingzhi, dragged in for no apparent reason to look at this string of strange characters, studied them left and right, and finally said, “How about… we just pull the alarm directly? The people inside are bound to come out, and we slip in while they do?”
“I’ll say it again.”
“Say what?”
Zhang Xiangyi suddenly smiled. “How many do you want to take on one-on-one?”