Darkness. This was an extremely small cage, its walls composed of cold, deeply scratched and darkly stained metal. The single emergency light overhead emitted a crackling electrical noise like a dying firefly, its light flickering on and off, filling the entire space with a suffocating sense of uncertainty, a sense of imminent descent into complete darkness. The air was stagnant and stagnant, carrying a heavy smell of rust, a faint hint of blood, and the sickly, sweet chemical aroma of the empty nutritional supplement packages piled in the corner.

She found herself lying on an equally icy metal platform, her body tightly bound by several thick, rough-padded alloy restraints. Her wrists, ankles, and waist were locked tightly, digging into her flesh, limiting her range of motion to extremely slight twists.

Memories flooded into her mind like an icy tide, bringing a deeper chill: the deafening explosion at the edge of the fortress, the cold lock of light from the Executioner's single crimson eye, Zero's iron-hard, warmthless embrace as he fell, and... Zero's eyes, which suddenly lit up at the last moment, as cold as two silver moons, devoid of human emotion...

"Zero..." Qingyi's cracked, blistered lips moved silently, emitting only a faint breath. With great effort, she twisted her neck like a rusty gear and looked to her left.

Zero was right beside her. Also fastened to another cold metal platform, the restraints were even thicker and more menacing. Additional energy-suppressing rings, flickering with an unstable, dark blue light, were attached to her wrists, ankles, and neck, like cold, venomous snakes coiling around a sleeping prey. Her eyes were tightly closed, her long, silver-white lashes casting fragile shadows in the pale light. Her face was expressionless, like the most exquisite yet lifeless porcelain figurine in a museum. Only her cascading silver-white hair, cascading across the cold metal platform, shone with an unnatural, faint, and cold sheen in the dim light, the only hint of color in this hopeless cage. Her breathing was extremely shallow, her chest barely rising or falling, like a perfect, abandoned sculpture.

"Zero! Wake up!" Qingyi's voice was hoarse and broken, filled with uncontrollable anxiety and fear. She struggled to reach out and touch him, but the restraints around her waist dug into her flesh, sending a sharp pain that prevented her from moving.

"Save your energy, little beauty. She won't wake up." A hoarse, greasy voice with a strong downtown accent and undisguised malice suddenly sounded in the corner of the narrow space, like a rusty blade scraping across a metal plate.

Qingyi's heart suddenly tightened and she looked in the direction of the sound.

In the deepest shadows of the cage, leaning against the cold metal wall, sat a man. He wore overalls so grimy they could barely discern their original color, stained with dark brown oil, and a frayed synthetic vest that revealed his muscular build. His exposed arms, like gnarled roots on an old tree, bulged with muscle, covered in old scars and fresh, twisted tattoos—a venomous snake entwined around a broken gear, exuding a violent, sinister aura. His face was most striking: a deep, centipede-like scar, deep enough to reveal the bone, stretched from the left corner of his mouth to the base of his ear, giving him an inhuman ferocity even when he wasn't smiling. In his hand, he casually toyed with a serrated dagger that gleamed with a cold, gleaming light. Under the pale, flickering emergency light, the blade occasionally slashed in a cold, predatory arc.

"Who are you? Where is this?" Qingyi forced herself to calm down, suppressing the sweet, fishy taste in her throat. Her voice was a mixture of forced composure and cold alertness. Her eyes quickly scanned the surroundings: piled in a corner were more empty nutritional cream packages and several murky, oily water bottles; decks of dirty, greasy playing cards were pinned crookedly to the wall; cigarette butts and empty bottles littered the floor. The environment here was filthy and chaotic, filled with a makeshift atmosphere and the decadent atmosphere of the lower class. It was definitely not the cold, efficient prison of the regular chaebol army.

"Me?" The scarred man - Viper - grinned, revealing a mouthful of uneven yellow and black rotten teeth. The scar became more terrifying as his smile twisted. "Brothers on the road, please do me the honor of calling me 'Viper'. As for here..." He casually and insultingly knocked the edge of the cold metal platform where Qingyi was lying with the tip of his dagger, making a dull "clang clang" sound. "Welcome to the 'Iron Coffin', on the edge of the B-7 area of ​​the fortress, an abandoned air filtration unit that had long been thrown away by the chaebol masters. It was recycled by us, the 'Gear Gang', and transformed into... a 'paradise' specially for lost little lambs like you." He deliberately emphasized the three words "paradise", and the vulgarity and malice in his tone were not concealed at all.

"The Gear Gang?" Qingyi's heart sank. Downtown's notorious hyenas, a bunch of scum who would sell out their own fathers for a few cheap stimulants. To catch them, the chaebol had stirred up even this lowest level of filth.

"A lackey of the chaebol?" Qingyi's voice was as cold as ice, trying to provoke the other party to get more information.

"Running dog?" Viper seemed to have heard a huge joke, and let out a shrill cackle like a night owl, spitting out, "My little beauty, you can eat whatever you want, but you can't say whatever you want! Don't confuse me with those black dogs who dress like humans but walk with a smell of rust! We in the Gear Gang do things for money, it's only natural! Do you understand? Someone, tsk tsk, a real big shot, made an offer we can't refuse..." His cloudy, bloodshot eyes were like the tongue of a venomous snake, licking Qingyi's pale but beautiful face greedily, and finally He fell stickily on the unconscious Zero, his eyes filled with naked blasphemy and a sickening possessiveness, "... let's 'take good care' of the two young ladies in this damn place where even radioactive cockroaches find it annoying. Especially..." He stuck out his tongue and licked his cracked lips obscenely, "... this Sleeping Beauty. The employer has repeatedly warned her to be 'intact'. Tsk tsk, this face, this figure... those high-ranking figures in the chaebol, their tastes are really... picky." The hints in his words were like cold maggots, crawling across Qingyi's skin.

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