bondage

The pitch-black night hung heavily over the rainforest, and the lights in the tents swayed in the humid, sultry air, casting dim, yellowish halos.

Milo was held captive inside a tent, surrounded by newly confiscated spoils, including firearms and ammunition.

Sigon was going to take them all back, but Blaze stopped him and forced him into the rainforest.

Nobody asked for his opinion; his opinion was the least important thing.

Not far away, on the other side of the rainforest, lies a place where high-society tourists from all over the world indulge in revelry. Neon lights flash, and music and laughter drift down the river, standing in stark contrast to the edge of the battlefield filled with bloodshed and smoke.

Milo looked down at the scar on his wrist and suddenly regretted his foolishness. His impulsive act had left him defenseless. If anything happened, he'd only be able to rely on Old Ruan for help, but Old Ruan was dying too, and he was almost all alone.

The tent was opened, and rainwater mixed with the earthy smell rushed in.

A young man with a buzz cut and mixed-race features whistled at him and said in English, "Hey, the boss is looking for you."

Milo was pushed out. His previous shoes were all filled with mud, and now he didn't even have a pair of shoes to wear. He walked barefoot on the wet, soft mud.

From a distance, Milo saw Blaise standing by the river, surrounded by a group of armed men still in camouflage.

Blaze held a heavy machine gun in his hand, and after firing a burst of shots, he patted the head of a chestnut-haired boy next to him and tossed the gun to him. The boy was overjoyed and hugged the gun tightly, refusing to let go.

It was so noisy over there that no one noticed him.

Blaze, who was standing by the muddy puddle, stepped closer, and Milo then noticed that not far away, corpses dressed in military uniforms were being dragged and hung upside down in mid-air, looking a lot like roasted lamb.

Blaise put his fingertip to his lips and whistled.

"What is he doing?" Milo asked the person who led him out anxiously.

The man didn't answer him, but soon, a brown python hissed as it slithered out of the jungle. The triangular head gradually coiled around the corpse's head, the gaping wound wide open, and with a crunching sound, it swallowed the corpse alive from top to bottom.

More and more pythons swam out, devouring the upside-down corpse. The remaining broken arms, bound to a rope and dripping with blood, were finally swallowed by the white snake.

Milo was completely stunned.

On the cruise ship's entertainment stage, those glamorous diners ate live python meat; now, dead bodies are being fed to the pythons. Humans eat snakes, snakes eat humans… Milo suddenly remembered that Steven had forced him to eat a piece of python; he wondered how many human flesh that python had consumed to grow to its current size.

"Let's stop here," Milo thought, his stomach churning, and he couldn't help but vomit.

Seeing Milo's reaction, the crew-cut man next to him burst into laughter.

The sound attracted the attention of people in the distance, and Blaze turned around, his eyes instantly turning cold when he saw Milo vomiting uncontrollably. He glanced at the person who had brought Milo out, a very young man with a buzz cut, who gave an awkward smile.

Milo vomited so badly he almost threw up bile, his legs were weak, and tears and snot streamed down his face. He vaguely saw Blaise walk up to him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a pair of military boots, covered in mud and dried bloodstains.

Milo suddenly realized the identity of the person before him, and the nature of that terror was vastly different from what he had felt in Wudong Port. This time, Milo was truly gripped by an overwhelming sense of dread.

An iron hand gripped Milo's chin and lifted his face.

Milo was forced to meet Blaise's gaze and saw the undisguised scrutiny in those dark eyes.

They probably felt he was completely useless.

Milo felt a surge of courage. Instead of breaking free from Blaise's hold, he raised his head and looked at Blaise and the group of people behind him, his back stiff and he didn't back down.

Blaze noticed the expression on Milo's face and couldn't immediately figure out what he was thinking. But it seemed he was good at assessing the situation and was probably planning to comply. That was fine; it would save him trouble.

The campfire was lit, and the branches skewered with raw meat crackled and popped in the flames. The men sat excitedly around the fire, exchanging rapid conversations in a foreign language. Only Milo and Blaise remained silent.

The little boy with the chestnut hair who had previously received the gun suddenly glanced at Milo, mumbled something to the person next to him, and drew laughter and teasing from the entire audience.

Milo couldn't understand, but Blaze suddenly raised a branch and flung a shower of sparks at him, which immediately burned the corner of his clothes. The boy jumped up in fright to put out the fire, making a ruckus.

Milo remained silent. Suddenly, Blaise handed him a camouflage cup. Milo glanced inside; it was amber in color, most likely containing alcohol.

Milo took the drink with both hands, and seeing all the stares directed at him, he forced himself to take a sip, frowning deeply.

"This is monkey wine," the man with the buzz cut said.

Milo had already figured out his name from the chatter: Hessé, who was not yet twenty years old.

The other man next to him, a bit older, with a long scar on his face, was named Chatchai, around thirty years old. He corrected him, saying, "It's monkey brain wine."

Upon hearing the words "monkey brain," Milo's hands began to tremble, and he felt nauseous, as if there really was monkey brain in his drink.

Seeing that Milo's face had turned pale, Blaze tapped Milo on the forehead by the campfire and gestured: It's wine made from fruit picked by monkeys.

Milo's pale face then looked slightly better.

Seeing this, Blaise raised his eyebrows silently.

He could lie too. He didn't want to scare the guy into fainting.

This expression drew another round of laughter from the crowd.

Forced to finish eating and drinking with these people, Milo found a chance to slip away to the side. He used a twig to pick up the wet, soft mud stuck between his toes, feeling uncomfortable all over. After cleaning it, he stood on the grass and kept rubbing the mud off his feet, not even noticing the people coming up behind him.

"Bang, bang!" Blaze, dressed in combat gear, slapped Milo twice with a dull, loud sound, startling him.

The words "What's wrong with you?" almost burst out of his throat, but Milo swallowed them back down. He leaned against the tree, looking at Blaise with a hint of wariness.

The two were already of vastly different physiques, and with his outfit, Milo had a physical aversion to looking him directly in the eye.

Blaze lowered his gaze, which fell on Milo's bare feet. He knelt down, took off a pair of clean combat boots from his waist, and squeezed Milo's feet into them.

Milo awkwardly looked up at the sky until Blaise finished dressing him before he looked away.

I took a couple of steps, and the shoes were too big; they were a bit too tight.

Blaze grabbed Milo by the collar, reminding him to look behind him as he paced back.

Milo was a little afraid that Blaise was playing a trick on him; a giant python from deep in the mountains would be enough to send him to his death. He reluctantly turned around, and was stunned when he saw what was going on.

In the dark rainforest, faint blue fluorescence faintly appears, and upon closer inspection, groups of them sway gently with their petals.

Milo asked in surprise, "Is this the tears of a celestial maiden?"

Blaise nodded.

Milo was stunned.

As a raw material for the production of bioactive compounds, its scientific name should be "Tengbanglingzhi," but locals prefer to call it "Tiannvlei" (Heavenly Maiden's Tears). This vine is extremely precious and mysterious; the only photos that can be found are of it in its normal state, growing as an epiphyte on trees. In fact, before the rainy season, Tiannvlei blooms once a year, for only a few minutes each time, somewhat like the night-blooming cereus.

The buds that break off from the vines unfold three layers of petals, elongating from a dark blue, butterfly-wing-like shape. As time passes, they gradually turn scarlet, and finally, when they wither, the petals fall off quickly.

The boundless Heavenly Maiden's Tears bloomed before his eyes, stretching deep into the rainforest like an endless sea, bewitching and unpredictable.

The raw, vibrant energy emanating from life left Milo somewhat dazed.

Hersey quickly ran up to Blaise and rattled off a string of English words that meant the things had finally arrived.

Blaise got up and headed straight for the river bend.

The boat was moored in a secluded river bend. It looked ordinary from the outside, but when the cabin door was opened, a stench of decay and blood wafted out.

The room was filled with boxes, and people had already started unloading them.

Milo slowly followed.

The first thing unloaded was an enormous container. We pried open the wooden frame to inspect the goods, and inside was a ventilator, estimated to be worth $40,000 on the black market. It was stamped with the Lianhua Machinery logo. There were about 100 such containers.

Milo suddenly realized that what he was witnessing was a robbery. The white-haired man on the cruise ship had been shouting and claiming that the Steven family had ruined his family and caused his financial collapse. Now, thinking back, there might have been outside help involved.

How many times has Blaise intercepted a shipment halfway through the journey like today?

Such high-precision medical equipment would be completely useless in the rainforest, though it could certainly be sold. This place itself is a huge market. Across the river in the industrial park, there are plenty of elites from all over the world who need it.

What about the money they got? Where could it be used? Milo suddenly remembered that he had seen a news report about the Tengbang government's armed forces attacking an autonomous army, only to find that the enemy had a lot of advanced equipment that seemed unusual. Later, that autonomous army even managed to acquire the mining rights to a rare earth mine within its territory.

Almost as if to confirm his suspicions, another batch of containers was unloaded, this time refrigerated boxes labeled "Shengyuansu" by Longjin Financial Health. Blaze pulled one out. Milo also saw what the drug looked like; it wasn't Shengyuansu at all. Instead, it seemed to be an ADF-11 neurostimulant, with countless serum injections underneath.

This stuff originally came from foreign special forces and has always been used for battlefield operations. An insurance estimate for a single shipment is as high as 27 million US dollars.

Milo's mind raced, and suddenly everything became clear.

The Natawa family, along with the Dale and Thornton families, operates on two paths. One is to operate legitimately, making a fortune through healthcare and becoming capital itself. The other, while ostensibly a business, is actually more interested in using this route to acquire the equipment they need.

Given the current situation, Blaise, who moves between Wudong Port, is the key to controlling these two paths. Where Blaise is determines which way the Natawa family's business will lean.

"Boss, another corpse." Hersey reported as he inspected the cargo container.

Milo leaned over and took a look.

Inside the densely packed shipping containers, a dozen or so half-decomposed human corpses lay stacked on top of each other. Without exception, their chest cavities had been cut open and then sewn back together with large mortise and tenon joints. Clearly, the internal organs had been removed.

The photos the police had shown him were now vividly before his eyes, and Milo felt a wave of nausea rise in his heart, but he held back because he quickly realized something else.

That night in Wudong Port, Blaze received a phone call and didn't return home. The next day, a cruise ship full of hollow corpses appeared in Wudong Port, causing chaos in the police station and forcing the Skynet Operations Department to recruit him as an informant. All of this led to one obvious consequence.

Steven, who was secretly developing an organ trade, was watched by countless eyes, went bankrupt, and fled south.

His deduction from Miles was correct.

“You really are trying to drive Steven Thornton to his death,” Milo murmured.

Blaise did not deny it.

A sudden rumbling sound came from the rainforest, and everyone looked up in response.

Milo's eyes gradually lost focus... How could there be a helicopter in this place?

Those around him reacted first, and it wasn't until Milo saw the giant equipment covered by camouflage tarpaulin that he realized the approaching helicopter was an enemy, not a friend.

Two modified helicopters carrying Igla missiles approached.

Blaise, who was handling the scene, responded swiftly. He whistled, and the men unloading the cargo immediately jumped down. Meanwhile, someone activated a vehicle-mounted infrared jammer. A hissing sound filled the air, and soon the helicopter's thermal imager malfunctioned, emitting a buzzing sound. Immediately afterward, four portable air defense systems locked onto their targets, and infrared decoy flares exploded in the tree canopy, creating false heat sources.

A burst of artillery fire erupted, blasting a patch of rainforest in the distance and eliciting screams from monkeys in the bushes.

Milo was pulled aside, away from the war zone.

As night approached, the light was particularly dim, and many of the pursuing bullets went astray.

Blaise stepped forward, pushed the man who was shooting away, took off his hearing aid, picked up the anti-materiel rifle himself, and deftly placed it on a boulder at the edge of the rainforest. His fingers flew as he pulled the bolt, loaded the special ammunition, and pressed his eyes close to the scope.

The plane made a low-speed turn, and with another shell about to land, the wind howled. Blaise adjusted the sight knob with his thumb, accurately calculating the lead.

Milo could only see Blaise's taut, iron-like back. Then, with a loud "boom," the gun recoiled violently, a deafening explosion that shook the rainforest leaves. Smoke instantly billowed out, and the armor-piercing incendiary round immediately pierced the right side of the helicopter's fuel tank. The fireball fell into the river.

Even a novice like Milo could see that Blaze's shooting accuracy was astonishing. Such good eyesight and judgment... Milo dared not imagine whether he would be even more terrifying if he weren't partially deaf.

This is a deadly weapon.

Another dozen or so incendiary bombs were fired, and the helicopters' wings burned as one crashed into the depths of the rainforest and the other into the river. The raging flames, as they fell into Milo's eyes, gradually became an iron lock that choked him, making it hard for him to breathe, and his body began to tremble involuntarily.

Having taken down the main force, the remaining remnants would be dealt with by other squads in the rainforest. Blaise put down his gun, squinted at the burning metal blocks on the river, and a faint sense of disdain welled up inside him.

As the hearing aid was put back on, the cheers and excitement around him flooded his eardrums, making his head throb.

It was a mess, a noisy mess.

Blaze turned around, but couldn't spot the weakest guy in the huge crowd.

Someone immediately stepped forward and said that as soon as the gunshot rang out, the delicate-skinned young man was so frightened that he hid back in his tent.

Blaze found it somewhat amusing. Running away at the first sign of trouble, this fear of death was strikingly similar to the time he'd escaped from him. But then he realized he hadn't expected their attack to come so soon. He hadn't intended for Milo to see these things up close anyway; after all, they were raised in Wudong Port, their mental fortitude wasn't strong, and if they got scared, it would be even more troublesome.

If they ran away, so be it.

The night is still long; he has plenty of time to play with him.