Chapter 29: Order it here if you've read it~ "You said...get a...

Those are the works exhibited by emerging young artists.

The highly tense upward perspective shows the twisted and collapsed corridor structure climbing upward. The oppressive framework makes people feel as if they are in the belly of a collapsed giant. When the line of sight penetrates the layers of barriers and climbs upward, what they suddenly encounter is not the sky, but an inverted lake.

The lake surface is as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the forest in the water. A fallen leaf, overconfident in its ability, has scratched the mirror. Although it has no branches to cling to, the rippled lake surface seems more fragile in comparison.

Zheng Keli found it very interesting, but unfortunately the painting was not for sale. Both the artist and the museum owner respectfully declined the purchase offer. He did not argue, but said gentlemanly, "I understand your feelings, and I am very sorry for my abrupt behavior today," and then left the preview gracefully.

A week later, all the young artist's cooperation projects and sponsorship opportunities were blocked. At three o'clock in the morning one day, the artist, with a dejected look on his face, opened his mailbox again without hope, and found an anonymous email lying quietly inside.

The sender quoted an absurdly high price for the "Inverted Corridor" and left his contact information.

"You like this painting very much, Zheng."

The room was decorated in standard Nordic style, with familiar paintings placed in the center. Zheng Keli stood on its right. Hearing this, he chuckled and made no comment.

As soon as his hand loosened, the black satin veil swung down slowly, covering up all the beautiful, ugly, fragrant and bad things without a trace, as if they had never appeared in this world.

He said, "Ah—I just wanted to verify it."

"Verify? That's an interesting statement. What do you want to verify?"

…

One o'clock in the morning in China.

In the huge study, Sophia put down a cup of chamomile tea at a suitable temperature.

She looked up and saw the skinny alpha lying quietly in the soft chair, with a stack of black folders spread out on the table.

Because she was an honest person, she had been serving in this house for many years, but the stack of information was so open that it seemed unafraid of anyone's inspection. Although he had tried his best to restrain his gaze after realizing that something was wrong, he still caught some information.

He was an omega boy, his last name was... Wen?

It is a taboo to pry into the privacy of the owner of the house, so he didn't dare to have any thoughts. He saw from the corner of his eye that the alpha was still dozing with his eyes closed, and he felt relieved. He stood up and planned to leave silently.

"Sophia."

He paused, fear creeping up his hair.

Sophia bowed deeply, her voice trembling slightly: "Master, do you have any other instructions?"

But Alpha stopped talking.

Maybe five minutes? Every second seemed like an eternity to Sophia.

He lowered his head and began to think that he might be fired soon - and all this was just because he accidentally saw the little Asian boy lying on the table.

"Isn't he pretty?"

Sophia paused, her chaotic thoughts fading. What had the young master said? Beautiful?

Her sharp ears caught the alpha's sudden rapid breathing, almost like muscle memory, and she immediately took out the asthma spray from her side pocket and handed it to him.

Zheng Keli didn't answer.

He coughed and chuckled, and his eyes, which had been gloomy for many years, flashed with a nervous and distorted light.

"Sophia."

"You said... well, how much patience does it take to get a good thing?"

The maid lowered her head in fear, and there was no other sound in the study except the sound of breathing.

He should have known that this honest and dutiful maid would not... no, she probably wouldn't dare to give him any answer.

Boring, unlike his John—

"Two weeks?" John smiled brightly.

"You bought this artist's soul, Zheng."

#

Dizziness.

pain.

With his hands tied behind his back, the violent shaking made Xie Zhizhi want to vomit. His chest heaved rapidly for a while. After the vehicle forcedly changed lanes again, Xie Zhizhi twitched physiologically, fell to his side and began to retch.

He couldn't vomit anything, and there were only a few pieces of pineapple and sparkling water in his stomach. He had lied to Shen Che. This person was the exact opposite of a pretty face. He would definitely lose his appetite when looking at that face. If he was criticized in a sarcastic tone, he would probably say something so reckless that the other person would have a rabies attack.

Xie Zhizhi knelt in the crevice, trembling slightly, and transparent saliva fell from the corner of his lips, drawing a long watery line.

His eyes were covered with cloth and he couldn't see anything. His memory was still on the tube of aqua blue injection. Xie Zhizhi pushed his head forward weakly, and intuitively felt that he and Shen Che were in the gray SUV.

It seemed like they were driving on a gravel road, and the violent vibrations of the car affected his forehead, making him feel even more like vomiting.

Beta was leaning against the car door, breathing heavily. Li Xing, who was sitting in the passenger seat, heard the noise, glanced back and frowned.

"Damn, why is he awake?"

"How should I know?"

"How much did you give him?"

"Uh, it seems like... 20 milliliters."

"20 milliliters?! I'm going to... something's going to happen?! Are you crazy?"

"It's okay. You didn't see him wake up so quickly. He's definitely not dead."

"You idiot, you woke up so quickly because you didn't give me enough anesthesia!"

"I gave the same amount to both of them. Damn, should I give him some more?"

"Come on, stop torturing yourself. You're so delicate, how much trouble can you possibly cause? Are you tying it up tight enough?"

A huge force hit him, and someone roughly groped and confirmed where his arms were bound.

"It's very tight, don't worry."

The man grabbed his collar and threw him backwards, making Xie Zhizhi dizzy.

His body felt unusually heavy, and he even had muscle tremors and shortness of breath. 20 ml should be an overdose. He tried to breathe calmly and leaned back in his seat without moving.

Under the influence of drugs, his concentration was like an unstable boat floating on the sea. He tried to concentrate and use other senses to obtain information, but after a certain bump, he closed his eyes powerlessly again.

…

The gray SUV did not rush blindly after leaving the city. It always maintained a speed slightly below the speed limit and tried to merge into the normal traffic flow. It turned right at a traffic light to avoid the main road camera. After changing lanes several times, it chose a very remote county road to continue driving.

The scenery outside the window gradually transitioned from the urban-rural fringe to wilderness and scattered factories. After driving for about half an hour, the SUV finally stopped outside an abandoned factory.

There was no one around. Two men with vicious and wretched faces got out of the car in the back seat, cursing in the cold wind. One of them was holding a black square instrument in his hand.

As soon as Wang Keqiang stepped onto the concrete floor, he habitually took out his mobile phone from his trouser pocket and swiped it a few times according to muscle memory, but all software pushes stopped at 12:37 in the morning - he then remembered that under the deliberate instructions of the superiors, they did not choose to remove the cards and destroy them, but instead used a signal jammer.

"If you ask me, this job is going to be tough." Wang Keqiang took out a cigarette with trembling hands and bit into it. "Is this thing really going to be useful?"

The signal jammer was in Li Sheng's hand. Hearing this, Li Sheng looked down and couldn't figure it out: "Damn it, how should I know?"

Lin Guofu, who was driving, turned off the engine and got out. The long drive made him look a little tired. He walked up to the three people and glanced at the shielding device quickly. A faint feeling of annoyance surged up, like a lump in his throat, but he couldn't explain the reason.

"Stop talking nonsense and move the people first."

The group tutted in dissatisfaction and carried the man into the factory roughly.

There was only one low-wattage incandescent lamp on in the factory.

A scarred man was squatting in the corner. Upon hearing the noise, he cautiously grabbed a crowbar and crawled over. After seeing who was coming, he breathed a sigh of relief. The five of them hurriedly gathered together and whispered something.

Three minutes later, they looked at each other in bewilderment. Lin Guofu couldn't help but curse, "Fuck you, you're pretending to be romantic."

Things are unexpectedly difficult.

Finally, Li Xing raised his chin towards the two people lying unconscious beside him:

"Come on, let's find a place to lock him up first."

…

Bang——

The iron door slammed shut.

After the sound of a lock being locked, the black-haired beta who had originally collapsed on the ground twitched unbearably, and then cautiously put his ear to the ground.

The cold gravel scraped against his skin. He listened intently for nearly a minute, and after confirming that the kidnapper's footsteps were gradually fading, he let out a long breath as if to relieve the force.

"Chen Che?" He lowered his voice.

There was no reaction from the heat source beside me.

Xie Zhizhi pursed his lower lips, and the overly thin face subconsciously flashed through his mind. Combined with the current situation, the words "see you soon" seemed meaningful.

But he had indeed never met Zheng Keli.

Xie Zhizhi pursed his lips tightly. Shen Che's reaction was too abnormal. He had to recall everything that happened in the Platinum Club word for word.

Fragments flashed through his mind—Xiaoyan? Xie Zhizhi paused, Wen Xuyan?

But if it was just a love-hate relationship between the three of them, why did Zheng Keli call him in the first place?

Something was rapidly connecting threads. Xie Zhizhi struggled to recall the scene outside Songrong Street in his mind, and what the black-clad alpha said at that time.

"Where are you from? How dare you compete with Master Zheng for someone?"

Xie Zhizhi's eyebrows jumped, the answer was about to come out, and he couldn't help but rubbed his lower lip angrily.

Get moving.

His hands and feet were tied quite tightly. In the terrifying darkness, Xie Zhizhi moved a few times with difficulty on the cold and rough concrete floor.

The dirty cement floor raised a little dust during the movement. His nose twitched slightly, and he judged that this might be an abandoned factory, otherwise the air would not be filled with the faint smell of rust, oil and mildew.

Factory. Xie Zhizhi chewed over the two words silently.

The direction depended on the last memory of his senses. He briefly judged the direction his body was facing after being thrown into the room, and relying on the remaining strength in his waist and abdomen and the friction of his shoulders, he moved extremely slowly on the concrete floor, trying to find a wall.

A strong feeling of weakness and fatigue rolled over him. He suspected that the aqua-blue injection was some kind of neuromuscular blocking drug. Otherwise, he would not have had muscle tremors when exerting force just with the anesthesia.

After taking a few quick breaths and a few minutes, Xie Zhizhi's shoulder finally touched a cold surface.

It's a wall.

The solid touch cheered him up. Xie Zhizhi adjusted his posture, pressed his head against the wall, and used his waist strength to slowly push himself up.

The simple action caused a thin layer of cold sweat to seep out of his forehead, and even his stomach began to twitch again.

Feel like vomiting.

His slender body subconsciously curled up, and his arms, which were twisted behind his back, were in severe pain due to muscle pulling. Xie Zhizhi groaned very lightly and bit the rest of the sound in his mouth - he didn't dare to bet whether there would be someone outside the door who heard the noise and opened it to check.

Turning around and kneeling, he pressed his bound wrists against the wall. After calming his breathing, he began to explore the area along the base of the wall very carefully, trying to find something that could free him from the ropes.

The information transmitted from his fingertips was very little, but Xie Zhizhi checked it over and over again, and the rough concrete wall rubbed his fingertips so hard that they hurt.

Time stretched out in an infinitely long time in the absolute darkness. His arms ached from struggling to maintain the same awkward posture for so long. He had to stop frequently to suppress the nausea in his throat caused by the drug reaction and fatigue.

Finally, after slowly moving to a protruding right-angled wall, Xie Zhizhi's wrist suddenly rubbed against a cold and smooth sheet-like protrusion.

After taking a quick breath, Xie Zhizhi immediately retracted his wrist and rubbed it hard with his fingertips, trying to identify it.

Wall corner guards - Many factories install L-shaped metal corner guards at the base of the wall to prevent equipment from damaging the corners.

He was right in his guess that after a factory is abandoned, the internal facilities might be moved away, but the embedded parts or remaining components would hardly be cleaned.

With his knees touching the ground, Xie Zhizhi laboriously felt up and down along the plate-mounted structure with his fingertips. Finally, when he leaned down to the limit, he touched a small sharp protrusion near the bottom caused by external impact.

That's it!

Xie Zhizhi cautiously held his breath and listened for a few seconds. After confirming that there was no movement outside the door, he adjusted his posture and placed the most strenuous part of the rope on his wrist precisely against the sharp edge. Then he began to move his forearm and rubbed it again and again.

This was a very contorted movement, and he had to lean his body back, using his waist as support to rise and fall repeatedly.

Sweat trickled down his forehead, dripping into the blindfold, bringing a sharp pain. The muscles in his arms and waist protested violently from the continued exertion and fixed posture, trembling more and more violently, but Xie Zhizhi didn't dare to pause for even a moment.

“Cough…cough.”

Xie Zhizhi suddenly stopped moving and subconsciously turned his head to face the source of the voice.

"Shen Che?"

He was answered by a burst of unusually rapid breathing.

Xie Zhizhi didn't dare to move anymore, trying to distinguish the movement outside the door, but in the huge space, there seemed to be no other sound except the collision sound caused by Shen Che's inexplicable sudden change of state.

Xie Zhizhi gritted his teeth: "Chen Che?!"

Still no response.

His already rapid breathing began to become disordered, and seemed to be accompanied by intermittent sobs as if something was strangled in the throat. Then Xie Zhizhi heard the sound of something scraping across the concrete floor.

"Don't turn it off...don't..." Shen Che's voice was extremely low and broken, almost indistinct, like a dream mumbling squeezed out from between teeth.

What the hell happened to this dog?!

The woody pheromones in the air seemed to be condensing and intensifying. Xie Zhizhi's expression darkened. His hands and feet were tied, so he couldn't check on Shen Che's condition immediately. He glanced through the blindfold in the direction of the iron gate, then stretched his right hand to the limit and rubbed his fingertips heavily across the broken fiber.

It works.

Wait or wait, the decision was made almost instantly.

He spread his knees as far as they could go, pressed his waist down hard, and sped up his hands. He ignored the sobs in his ears and focused all his attention on the friction of his wrists.

The accuracy of the blind operation from behind was far from enough. When the rope on his hand broke, multiple wounds appeared around his knuckles and wrists as expected, and sticky and slippery liquid flowed down. Xie Zhizhi ignored it, rubbed the inside of the hem of his clothes roughly with his backhand, and then reached into the collar to confirm that the suppression ring was still working properly, and suddenly pulled down the blindfold.

The space is almost dark, with only a small amount of light coming in through the circular pipe hole at the top, but it is far from enough to illuminate the room.

Shen Che's condition was not right, he quickly picked up the broken rope on his wrist and moved towards the direction of the sound.

"What are you doing?" Xie Zhizhi lowered his voice and almost wanted to punch this stupid dog who was only causing trouble. However, when his palm touched the heat source in the dark, he suddenly found that Shen Che had curled up into a ball without knowing when, and his body was shaking violently.

"Chen Che?" Xie Zhi was stunned, and his right hand instinctively changed direction and touched the skin on the alpha's neck.

Hot.

Not hypothermia.

There was a nervous spasm in the palm of his hand, and Xie Zhizhi could even feel that the other party was collapsing and losing control through the slight vibration of the ground.

What's wrong?! A normally arrogant and domineering dog becomes a rag doll after being given some anesthesia? How hilarious!

An extremely suppressed groan escaped from his throat. Xie Zhizhi noticed that his men were trembling more and more violently. If he let it go any longer, the noise would definitely attract people.

His heart was beating violently. Xie Zhizhi turned around and looked solemnly in the direction of the iron gate. He thought to himself that he was extremely unlucky. It turned out that nothing good would happen to him being with Shen Che.

"Chen, Che."

Xie Zhizhi grabbed the man's jaw with great force, and with a strong personal grudge, he bent the man towards his side with his fingertips, his tone was full of gnashing teeth.

"Can you hear me?"

“…”

Snap——

A slap landed on Shen Che's face without hesitation. Xie Zhizhi stared at the pair of golden eyes through the sticky darkness and admitted that he had lost his little patience.

He spoke fiercely, word by word:

"Now, calm down or I'll knock you out. Shen Che! Wake up the fuck."

##

The damp smell of rusty oil rushed into his nasal cavity. The smell, which had no lethality, seemed to sting his nerves fiercely, and Shen Che's body began to spasm involuntarily.

A strong feeling of suffocation came over me, and every breath I inhaled seemed to bring the rust deeper into the trachea, first covering the respiratory tract, then continuously expanding inward, and finally falling heavily into the lungs. My heartbeat hit the eardrums heavily and chaotically.

Chen Che curled up his body uncontrollably. In order to resist the physiological fear, his fingers tied behind his back scratched the cement floor tightly as if asking for help, making a long series of teeth-grinding crunching sounds.

The woody pheromone leaked out uncontrollably, and the intense pain in his fingertips brought him back to his senses for a short time. He heard rustling sounds in his ears, as if Xie Zhizhi was saying something.

Xie Zhizhi? He reacted slowly.

There was a mixture of rust and wood smell in his nose. Shen Che tried to contain the pheromones, but soon failed. His consciousness was forced to sink into an old sea.

…

That was the fourth day of the lockdown.

The blond boy slept very uneasily. When the person next to him just turned over, he opened his eyes in panic. His fragile nerves had been immersed in the dark fear for too long, and there was a dark spot under his eyes.

"Feng Wen?" Noticing that the other party was about to sit up, Shen Che subconsciously grasped the other party's clothes and asked in a hoarse voice, "What's wrong with you?"

The little boy who was being held did not respond. He raised his hand and placed it on his forehead for a while. After a while, he stated in a flat tone: "Chen Che, I have a fever."

fever?

He looked around. In the room of about 20 square meters, there was no fever-reducing medicine, not even water. What else could he do about the fever?

The long period of fear and silence left Shen Che with no energy to comfort her, but his father's constant teachings still echoed in his ears. So after a long while, he pulled the other's hand dryly, smiling uglier than crying: "Fever? There's no medicine here, Feng Wen. Maybe sweating will help. Do you want me to hold you and sleep for a while?"

Feng Wen shook his head: "This is useless. Stay away from me. It might be contagious."

Shen Che felt that he had done the best he could, and after saying "Oh", he obediently moved diagonally and found a clean place to curl up.

His central nervous system began to get used to it, and the damp rusty smell in his nasal cavity seemed to become insignificant, but his body was still shaking unconsciously. He had not even been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and had never suffered such hardship. At this moment, he had no intention of meddling in other people's affairs.

After an unknown number of hours, Shen Che woke up in a daze with a startled scream.

The four-day experience was like an unforgettable nightmare. Chen Che knelt beside Feng Wen with a panicked look on his face and carefully placed his palm against his.

So hot.

Feeling the unusually high temperature in his palm, Shen Che weighed the pros and cons for a moment before finally choosing to pull up his collar, cover his mouth and nose, and move back to the corner.

I can’t do anything about it, just burn it to death.

He looked out from the small semi-enclosed window high up, and watched until the sun set in the west. Suddenly, the tightly closed iron door was pushed open from the outside. Shen Che tilted his head alertly, and not far away, there were two people standing outside the door as usual.

Two instant meal packages and bottled water were thrown in like garbage. One of the red-haired people cursed:

"Eat, don't let me starve to death."

"These two bastards are really valuable. They thought they were so powerful, but this is all they are."

Unpleasant laughter and scolding filled his ears, but Shen Che no longer cared. His golden pupils rolled slowly across the instant lunch bag and stared straight out the door.

--strangeness.

The more disappointed he was, the less he seemed to care. Shen Che slowly withdrew his gaze, but his expression paused when it passed over the two people. This time he saw something different.

The red-haired man was a familiar face, but the black-haired man with slicked back hair on the side was not seen before.

He had his hair slicked back and was dressed very sloppily, his deep gaze fixed on a decorative keychain dangling from the other man's waist.

——Simple patterns were engraved on the oval metal sheet, and two feathers overlapped in the shape of an X.

A familiar symbol, he blinked, a coat of arms?

Just before the iron door was about to close, Shen Che heard something breathing rapidly.

Oh, it’s Feng Wen.

“Squeak—”

Sensing resistance, Red Hair looked down unfriendly, and a small hand stained with dirt timidly grabbed the iron gate.

He stopped closing the door and cursed, "What the hell are you doing? Behave yourself." Then he kicked it out.

The force of this kick was not very strong. After all, he was a cash cow, so Red Hair didn't dare to do anything wrong. However, Shen Che fell to the ground and twitched a few times as if in pain.

Red Hair started to panic, and after a brief hesitation, he pushed open the door and walked in.

Facing the unfriendly gaze, Chen Che slowly crawled up and sat up.

He first tore this man into pieces countless times in his mind, then hugged Feng Wen's arm and held him against his body, looking very intimate, his voice still trembling slightly.

"He's seriously ill. If he dies, you won't get any money."

"Give me the medicine."

Five days is still too long for a child of this age.

Shen Che's nightmare finally ended in the evening of the fifth day. People from the Feng family and the Shen family rushed in and captured everyone in an instant.

In the chaos, he hugged the hot Feng Wen and fell into the corner, convulsing unconsciously. The bloody wound on his forehead was shocking.

Feng Wen's breath was hot. He looked at the wound for a long time and asked, "Does it hurt, Chen Che?"

Shen Che subconsciously held his breath, thinking that if the man surnamed Feng fainted after making it this far, it would be a huge loss according to Shen Siduo's words.

"pain."

Feng Wen was exhausted, but he still managed to muster up enough energy to ask, "Why didn't you hide?"

Why hide?

Now it's time for a victorious reckoning, and these people will be cut into pieces.

Shen Che calmed his breathing and said in a trembling voice: "I will protect you. Don't get hurt, brother."

…

The fragmented nightmares are repeatedly circulated and constantly distorted by subjective emotions.

Snap——

Shen Che felt a slight pain on the side of his face, and was a little dazed. The remaining rationality made him feel that this ruthless force was familiar.

The other party's extremely low voice seemed to be separated by a layer of membrane. He tried to distinguish it:

"Now, calm down or I'll knock you out. Shen Che! Wake up the fuck."

The brain's information processing ability is on the verge of breakdown, and the content is shrouded in fog.

"...Listen, I'll only give you five seconds."

“5.”

“4.”

“3.”

His eyes began to adjust to the darkness. Xie Zhizhi held Chen Che's chin, looking down at the man who was still convulsing from time to time, and took a deep breath in frustration.

Useless thing.

“2——”

There's no need to report any further. This guy won't listen at all.

He raised his empty hand backwards. He didn't know how to knock the man out in one go, but if the first time didn't work, he could always knock him a second time. In short, he would keep knocking until Shen Che was silent.

There was a sharp sound of breaking wind, followed by a dull sound of flesh hitting flesh.

A few seconds later, Xie Zhizhi let out a sarcastic snort from his nose and looked at the person who was struggling to break free.

Shen Che took a breath with great difficulty, his voice still trembling slightly, and even became broken and hoarse:

"Where's 1?"

1?

I didn't even plan to report 1.

Xie Zhizhi said sincerely: "What a pity."

Bending over to untie the ropes around his ankles, he calmly considered the matter for a moment and asked, "Shen Che, how are you doing now?"

"I'm...not...well."

"Then do you think you are worthy of untying this rope?"

Shen Che was silent for a while, then changed his words: “I… am OK.”

After putting away the ropes, Xie Zhizhi pondered for a moment and whispered, "There are at least five people."

Under normal circumstances, there might be a chance of winning, but now...

“Shen Che, I can’t beat so many of them.”