Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Chapter 35: Is anyone there?

“So dirty.”

Deliberately taking a piece of paper, slowly wiping the remaining blood and fingerprints off the knife, Qian Weiqiang stood in front of the remaining four children, as if inspecting little lambs waiting to be slaughtered: “Li Ming is already dead.”

“Who should we pick next?”

Hair soaked with cold sweat, sticking tightly to his skin, Gao Zixuan was terrified to the point of death, yet he did not dare to move recklessly, because the rough-voiced bald strong man was squatting beside him, pressing Xu Hao’s head while applying tape.

“I really want to see what expression Li Guojian has right now. His precious only son is gone—he must be in so much pain,” squatting down on one knee, Qian Weiqiang put away his knife, tilted his head and stared into Xu Hao’s eyes, “You say, when Jian Qing sees your death video, will he secretly cry behind others?”

“I think he still cares about you a bit.”

“Five million, five million! He just gave it like that.”

“Capitalists really deserve to die.”

After getting through the initial fear, he now felt an inexplicable excitement, as if he had suddenly ascended the throne and become an emperor, a ruler holding life and death in his hands.

Xu Hao remained silent.

Partly because the shadow of death was approaching, and partly because he was beginning to understand that in the face of a heart full of prejudice, any amount of explanation was meaningless.

“Gone mute?” Qian Weiqiang tapped Xu Hao’s face with the back of the knife, smacking his lips. “Don’t blame me. If your brother had been willing to hand over the money earlier, you wouldn’t have suffered this today.”

“When King Yama asks you questions in hell, make sure you don’t get the names wrong or blame the wrong person.”

“It’s Jian Qing,” Qian Weiqiang grinned, baring a mouth full of sharp teeth. “Jian—Qing—got it?”

Xu Hao turned his face away in disgust.

When a false accusation is set, there is no way to clear it. He had been insane to think these people were pitiful before. With his fate already looking grim, Xu Hao was now more worried about Jian Qing—if Jian Qing really believed the kidnappers’ lies and he ended up just another manipulated corpse, what would his brother’s life be like afterward?

His mother once said that the murder case twenty-two years ago had made his brother sick for a long time.

“Dying and still so arrogant,” failing to get the reaction he wanted from Xu Hao, Qian Weiqiang flew into rage, “You fucking—”

“Shut up,” Zhao Gang stuck two more layers of tape over Gao Zixuan’s mouth, stopping Qian Weiqiang’s flailing arm, and warned, “Sister Hong said the next one is the little brat with the surname Yang.”

“There’s an order to the investment ratio. We have to follow the order too, to remind those bastards exactly what kind of utterly wicked things they’ve done.”

Grabbing Yang Qian’s chin with a large hand, Zhao Gang tore off a strip of tape: “Oh? Still pretending to sleep?”

Her body trembled uncontrollably. Yang Qian kept her eyes tightly shut as large tears rolled down her cheeks, soaking her dirt-stained pink hair.

“See that? Rich kids are all scheming,” Qian Weiqiang sneered in ridicule. “Friends mean nothing. They’re counting on you to die first.”

Yang Qian felt both panic and shame. In the darkness, she could almost sense the contempt from the others, and desperately wished she could bury her head like an ostrich and hide.

Because she really had thought that way.

The most attention-seeking Li Ming was taken first. If she pretended to be as obedient as Song An’an and kept pretending to sleep, would she be left until the end by the kidnappers?

So even after recognizing Shi Hong, the school janitor, Yang Qian still didn’t speak up.

She was scared.

So scared.

“What does money have to do with it?” as if possessed, the always quiet and obedient Song An’an suddenly looked at Qian Weiqiang and said, “When you carry out executions, would you be willing to take bullets for them two?”

Tone and gaze carried no fear. She was so firm she hardly seemed like a child at all, as if she were a divine immortal who had already seen her own future of being captured.

Qian Weiqiang was startled by this inexplicable, self-generated imagination.

Lifting his arm, he was about to slap the girl hard twice to teach her a lesson when Shi Hong’s sharp voice came from the warehouse entrance: “Keep it down.”

“I have a bad feeling.”

Qian Weiqiang kicked the girl a few times in frustration.

“What’s wrong?” Zhao Gang looked outside over the low surrounding walls, then walked around to the back again. “It’s pretty quiet. I haven’t even seen a fly.”

They had chosen this place for revenge precisely because of the abandoned warehouse’s remoteness and unusual structure. Even if the police came early, the surrounding area was all open ground; the doors were locked and the windows were high. Not to mention criminal police—snipers wouldn’t even be able to set up a shot. It was more than enough time for them to kill all the kids before being caught.

Shi Hong gripped her knife tightly: “I can’t explain it.”

But her heart was pounding so fast it felt like it was striking her eardrums.

It was said that animals can sense earthquakes in advance and scatter in fear. Humans are also animals, and she truly could not ignore this baseless unease.

Maybe it was just too quiet.

This warehouse was indeed far from the main road, but the main road usually had trucks passing by, horns beeping. Yet in these past ten or so minutes, she hadn’t heard a single sound.

“Come back,” Shi Hong said in a lowered voice, the shadow of the iron gate covering her body. She said to Zhao Gang, “The longer this drags on, the more trouble it brings. I’ll get Qiangzi to film the video, you remember to shut—”

Her gaze froze.

The rest of Shi Hong’s words got stuck in her throat.

Rustle—

Corn leaves swayed. A man carrying a briefcase emerged, walking up the path while adjusting his belt, as if he had just finished using the restroom inside.

What made Shi Hong even more tense was that the man was heading straight for the warehouse, casually patting the locked courtyard gate.

“Is anyone there?”

Because of the angle, the man did not notice the warehouse inside the courtyard was slightly ajar, nor did he notice them peering through the crack in the door.

Zhao Gang examined him carefully, then shook his head at Shi Hong.

Doesn’t look like a cop.

The newcomer had a simple, honest-looking face, but a tall and sturdy build—far harder to deal with than a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old kid. Shi Hong raised one finger and turned back, making a “shh” gesture.

Bringing in one extra hostage, Song An’an, was already an accident. They could not afford any more complications.

The courtyard gate was locked. Although the wall beside it was somewhat low—an adult man in good shape could vault over it with a push and a jump—in a law-abiding society, no normal person would randomly break into someone else’s property.

“Hey? Why isn’t anyone answering me?” the outsider called out in a thick northern accent, trying to peek inside. “The cars are all here.”

“Asleep?”

“Is Mr. Zhao here? Is Mr. Zhao here? I’m the parent of Liu Zhe’s classmate. I recently started a small business and urgently need a warehouse. I’m a bit short on cash—could you cut me some slack?”

“I heard this whole area used to be under your control.”

Liu Zhe.

Zhao Gang’s expression relaxed slightly. He silently signaled to Shi Hong:

My nephew.

The police, no matter how powerful they were, would not be able to dig through all their relatives in just a few hours. Moreover, if the police were going to ask questions, they would definitely start with his younger sister—they would never interrogate a middle school kid first.

“Mr. Zhao? Mr. Zhao?”

Seeing the man pacing back and forth repeatedly with no intention of leaving, Zhao Gang worried that he might really get anxious enough to climb the wall himself or call his sister. So he pointed outside, then patted the pocket where a knife handle was visible.

The best outcome was to casually exchange a few words and send him away. If they couldn’t fool him, they could only blame his bad luck.

Shi Hong pulled Qian Weiqiang over, gesturing for him to bend down and follow Zhao Gang, staying close in the weeds so that if a conflict broke out, they could support each other.

“He’s here, he’s here,” Zhao Gang let out an exaggerated yawn. “What a pain in the neck. You scared the hell out of me.”

The man immediately stopped his movements properly and smiled apologetically in a good-natured way: “It’s just that I’m in a hurry. The owner we originally discussed suddenly backed out, and the goods are almost here—they’ll be going into Beijiang tomorrow.”

Qian Weiqiang’s eyes lit up: promising.

Tomorrow.

By tomorrow, they would already be gone from this cursed place. Whether they agreed or refused, Zhao the bald guy could say whatever he wanted.

But when Qian Weiqiang turned his head to seek his companions’ opinion, he could no longer find Shi Hong behind him. The half-closed door had also been silently locked.

Something was wrong.

Even though he hadn’t detected any flaw in Zhao Gang’s conversation with the man, Shi Hong’s heart was still contracting more violently with every beat.

Holding a boning knife in her right hand, she stepped step by step toward the four children huddled in the corner. Her instincts urged her to finish off the prey in front of her as quickly as possible.

Although her original plan was to make Li Guojian and the others experience the agony of watching their children on the brink of death while being powerless to do anything, the core of revenge was still the word “death.”

Only when their children died would they truly feel the same suffering as her.

Roll.

A skirt fluttered as the school-uniformed girl awkwardly rolled out, sideways and clumsy, blocking her path.

Those eyes filled with pity looked up at Shi Hong from below, carrying a plea, as if saying in a daze: if you want to kill, step over me first.

“It has nothing to do with you,” Shi Hong said hoarsely. “Move aside.”

Song An’an stubbornly lay on the ground, muffled cries of “mom” leaking through the tape.

Mom.

That long-lost word made Shi Hong freeze for a second.

But only for a second.

Stepping around her, Shi Hong seemed to be mocking Song An’an, or perhaps warning herself:

“Mom?”

“My daughter is already dead.”

Yang Qian, who clearly knew she was next in line, was crying so hard she could barely breathe, watching in terror as the gleaming knife tip drew closer and closer to her…

Then it missed.

Thud.

Like a zombie, Xu Hao jerked into her shoulder, knocking her off balance, and he crashed heavily to the ground.

It hurts.

I’m going to die.

As expected, Xu Hao discovered that Shi Hong had shifted the “first knife target” onto him. With his lower back pinned under a foot, he forced himself to joke bitterly, hoping that if his mother found out, she wouldn’t scold him for playing the hero.

The negotiation outside the warehouse was still ongoing. No one guessed that the kidnappers inside had suddenly changed their minds. The chilling killing intent felt like needles on their backs. Xu Hao used all his strength, struggling desperately, when he suddenly heard a loud crash above his head.

“Crash—”

Shi Hong, whose nerves were already stretched tight, instinctively looked up, but the multiple reflections of sunlight momentarily blinded her eyes.

Glass shattered.

Wood splinters flew.

A young man, veins bulging as he smashed through the obstruction with both fists, grabbed the edge with his fingertips for leverage, and using his lean frame, squeezed through the window and leapt down from more than two meters above.

Like a startled hare and diving falcon, he landed steadily without even staggering, straightened instantly, and with extremely precise anticipation, lifted his left leg and kicked the boning knife out of Shi Hong’s hand.

Xu Hao, who had narrowly escaped death, burst into tears: “Guo!”

“Don’t move!” Just as the words fell, another figure dropped from the broken window like dumplings falling one after another—a fox-faced man, his dark gun barrel aimed directly at Shi Hong, naturally shielding the young man behind him:

“Police.”