Chapter 113 Unexpected Disaster

When she woke up again, she found herself in an abandoned, poorly lit shipping container, her hands and feet were tied up, her mouth was gagged, and she was surrounded by scrap metal and building materials.

She was kidnapped?

She checked herself over; her clothes were somewhat torn, but still in good condition.

Wen Chu's heart was pounding. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious or what was happening outside.

Two masked men in black T-shirts sat not far away. When they saw that she was awake, they walked over menacingly and warned her, "Don't shout, don't make a sound. We won't do anything to you. We just want money!" They were wearing voice changers in their masks, and their voices came out very deep.

One of them was walking with a limp, and the other had a bandage wrapped around his arm, from which blood was still seeping.

What kind of sick or disabled people are they using to kidnap people?

Wen Chu raised her lips, gesturing for the other man to remove the towel from her mouth. One of the men, with a buzz cut, tried to take it, but was stopped by another dark-skinned man: "Don't go over there! Have you forgotten what we've been through on this journey? This woman is like a plague. Getting her here, the car had three flat tires, stalled twice, and she slipped and fell twice on flat ground when we got out. It's really weird. Stop wasting your breath on her and go tell the boss she's awake! Proceed to the next step of the plan!"

“Okay.” The man with the buzz cut stopped and nodded, heeding the advice. “Keep an eye on her. The boss said she’s very smart. Whether we get paid depends on her.”

After everyone left, Wen Chu calmed down. The remaining dark-skinned man seemed to have suffered too much at her hands and had no desire to talk to her. He walked to the side and stared intently at her every move.

Wen Chu forced herself to calm down. She couldn't possibly have any enemies; they could only be rivals of Lu Ming or Wen Heng, or some desperate and ruthless scoundrel who was short of money.

This was truly an unexpected disaster for her, but in this world, nothing is surprising. The system must have seen her living a mundane life for too long and decided to give her some work to do.

A short while later, the boss they had mentioned walked in. He was also dressed in all black, wearing sunglasses, and his face was completely covered up, so much so that you could only guess his approximate age by looking at the few gray hairs mixed in with his hair.

The man in black walked towards her, removed the towel from her mouth, and then pointed his phone at her, seemingly recording her. Wen Chu frowned, turned her head away in disgust, and asked, "What is your purpose?"

The other party brought a voice changer and said while recording, "I only want fifty million US dollars and all the information on the robotics project. As long as you give me the money and all the project data completely, I will release her immediately. Don't worry, your little girlfriend will be fine."

The man in black was clearly not speaking to her, but to the person who was about to see the video.

As soon as the person finished speaking, Wen Chu heard the system's voice in his mind: "Congratulations, host, for unlocking main mission six - ensure that the core technical data of the project is not leaked!"

Wen Chu thought to herself, "Even if you don't say it, she will do her best to protect it."

The emotional memory algorithm was something she and Lu Ming had worked incredibly hard to develop, and it wasn't even finished yet; it still needed further modifications. There was no way they could just let some random NPC take it for no reason.

She looked up at the man in black, puzzled: "Why do you want all the information about the robotics project? Fifty million US dollars is already a huge sum, isn't that enough for you?"

The man in black chuckled: "Money will eventually run out; skills are the foundation of one's livelihood."

He picked up his phone and spoke into the video again: "You saw her, she's fine now. I'm giving you three days to transfer the money in installments to the account I gave you, and then send all the project documents to the designated location. Don't try anything funny. Your girlfriend's life is in my hands. If I make the slightest move, she'll die. I'll have someone watching you from the shadows. If I find out you've called the police, you won't even be able to find her body."

Wen Chu immediately shouted into the video, "Lu Ming, we can't give it to him!"

The man in black turned off the recording, checked it over, and said leisurely, "Cut out this last sentence."

Meeting Wen Chu's furious gaze, he remained unperturbed, sneering as he approached: "How come you're so lucky? We're all human, so why are you so valuable? You have no worries about food and clothing, and you can get opportunities that others fight tooth and nail for just by talking."

Wen Chu couldn't figure out whose interests she had threatened, so she could only say coldly, "You want so much? Aren't you afraid he'll just abandon me? In his heart, I'm not that important at all. If you give up the project data, your chances of success will be much higher."

The man in black sneered, "Your tragic love story has been widely circulated outside, and everyone has witnessed it. I think what I want is not much for Lu Ming. He's a romantic."

He paused, then laughed even more gleefully: "You should be happy. When he knew you were in my hands, his voice was filled with apprehension. But what could he do?"

"You should also thank me. Isn't it incredibly touching to see the man you love sacrifice his career to save you? I will bless you both, as long as you get what I want."

"Instead of worrying about him, you should worry more about yourself. If he breaks the contract, do you think you can leave alive?" The man in black approached her menacingly, reaching out to touch her face, but unexpectedly, a piece of scrap metal fell from the old shelf next to him and hit him on the back.

He cried out in pain, clutching his back, unable to straighten up for a long time, and muttered "national essence" twice.

The dark-skinned man behind him slapped his thigh and said, "I knew this woman was weird! Getting close to her never ends well! Boss, let's stay away from her, lest we lose all our luck and things don't go smoothly!"

The man in black seemed to glare at her fiercely through his sunglasses. He didn't say anything, but he moved away from her quite a bit: "You stay put and you'll live a few more days!"

"Do you have a grudge against Lu Ming?" Wen Chu couldn't help but ask.

He could have asked Wen Heng for it, and Keming also has a lot of advanced technology, but he chose Lu Ming instead. It doesn't make sense if there wasn't some kind of grudge involved.

"Heh. This is a big grudge." The man in black didn't want to say more. He told the dark-skinned man and the man with the buzz cut to keep a close eye on her before leaving.

Wen Chu calmed down and silently considered a solution in her mind. It was almost impossible for her to escape on her own.

She used a hearing-enhancing prop card to listen carefully to the sounds outside. It was very quiet, but she could faintly hear the sound of waves crashing against the cliffs and birds chirping. There was no sound of cars or people passing by, which meant that she was far away from the city she knew and was probably deep in the mountains. The place was so dilapidated that it had obviously been abandoned for a long time, so she had to rely on herself, her hands and feet. Even if she left, they would catch up with her very soon.

We still need to find an opportunity to observe the outside environment in person before making any plans.

Then she vaguely heard the conversation between the man in black and several other people outside.

"Boss, after we get the documents and the ransom, are we really going to release the woman?"

The man in black just smiled enigmatically, without answering, and only said, "Send the video to him quickly, remember to erase the IP address, we can't expose our location."

Wen Chu's heart tightened. Could it be that this guy never intended to let her leave? She wondered how Lu Ming had come to have such a grudge against these people.

But she remained relatively calm, because even if she failed, she would still have a chance to try again.

The area was littered with discarded steel bars, iron blocks, and stones. The broken piece of iron that had just hit the man in black was lying at her feet. Wen Chu stared at it, then glanced at the two men sitting in the distance. She quietly adjusted her posture and picked up the piece of iron.

Faced with this situation, she could only smile bitterly, never expecting to have such a dramatic experience one day.

She pretended to close her eyes and rest, while secretly cutting the rope behind her back. But reality isn't a TV drama; her hands were practically blistered from the effort before she even looked healthy.

Seeing that she was behaving well and showed no signs of anything amiss, the two men gradually relaxed. As the night deepened, the dark-skinned man yawned and told the man with the buzz cut to watch her for a while, and that he would take over later that night.

When the man lay on the makeshift mattress and began to snore loudly, Wen Chu finally finished her work. The rope, which had been cut in half, finally broke after she struggled to break free, and the sleep aid card she had used on the man with the buzz cut half an hour earlier began to take effect.

The man with the buzz cut was watching a downloaded sports game, but the dark-skinned man's noise kept him wide awake, so he closed his eyes.

The sleep aid card has no expiration date, and she doesn't know how long the effect will last. It's basically a useless A-grade item, so she can't afford to waste any time. But just to be on the safe side, she decides to wait two more minutes.

On the other side, the private club was brightly lit, but the air was filled with a deathly atmosphere.

Lu Ming sat on the sofa, with Wen Heng sitting opposite him. Wen Heng had one hand on his forehead, and both of them looked very serious.

Four hours earlier, Lu Ming had just finished work and called Wen Chu, but he couldn't get through. The phone was out of service. His heart sank. Suppressing his panic, he drove back to Baiyue as fast as he could, only to learn that Wen Chu hadn't returned since she went out in the evening.

Panic gripped him, and he began frantically making phone calls, checking company surveillance footage, and returning to his neighborhood to investigate. In the end, he had no choice but to call Wen Heng to inquire about the person's whereabouts. Wen Heng was also completely baffled, thinking it was just another lovers' quarrel, and gave him a good scolding.

No one could understand the panic in Lu Ming's heart. He recalled the scene at noon yesterday and rushed back to Wen Chu's office. Based on his memory, he found a white letter in Wen Chu's drawer.

Lu Ming felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

If I weren't going to travel far away, why would I need to write letters?

His knuckles turned white as he gripped the white letter, and it took a great deal of effort to open it.

But it only said "Welcome to the letter," his name, and a comma.

Clearly, this letter is not yet finished.

Lu Ming could barely breathe in a little fresh oxygen, but his mood was still extremely complicated.

Does the fact that it's not finished mean the person hasn't left yet?

He suggested watching the sunrise, but the other person hurriedly moved the time to tomorrow. He was already wondering if something might happen after tomorrow.

But even if it is possible, even if Wen Chu wants to "go home," it should be after tomorrow.

Lu Ming tried to calm himself down, thinking that perhaps Wen Chu had just gone to some secluded bookstore or secretly gone to meet someone or a client, which was why she hadn't received the call.

At this moment, he felt he could disregard everything, whether she went to see Qi Siyan or to shop at K-point male models, as long as she would come back.

He carefully folded the letter again and put it back in its place, starting to think about how to explain and apologize to the woman for his offense when she returned. However, two more hours passed, and he still hadn't received any news from the woman. Wen Chu's phone went from being out of service to being switched off.

Wen Heng also made several phone calls, and after Lu Ming said that the person had not returned, he personally went to Baiyue to ask for the person and what was going on.

Lu Ming could no longer contain himself, and his suppressed composure completely collapsed. He immediately ordered Luo Wen to lead people to investigate along the street. He was really afraid that something had controlled Wen Chu, causing her to leave suddenly before she could write the letter to him.

"Where the hell did he go?! He disappeared right under your nose? What's been going on between you two lately? Did you two fight again? What the hell have you done this time?"

"No, we're perfectly normal," Lu Ming said, his voice hoarse.

"What happened?! How could they just disappear like that?!" Wen Heng couldn't calm down after cursing, and hurriedly went out again: "No, I have to send people to check the nearby river, the seaside, and the overpass!"

He was afraid of people and wanted to commit suicide.

His fingernails dug deep into his cleavage, but Lu Ming didn't say anything. His biggest fear was that they wouldn't be able to find her again.

They split up to search, and in the end, Lu Ming received a video from an unknown number while on the road.

Upon learning that Wen Chu had been kidnapped, his heart pounded with anxiety, as if someone were choking him, making it hard to breathe. He watched the video over and over again, his eyes blurry with tears.

Wen Heng reunited with his group and punched Lu Ming without saying a word. Afterward, the two calmed down and began to discuss what to do.

The money issue was easy to resolve. The most important thing was the technical data for the robotics project. This was a collaboration with the government, and if it fell into the hands of foreigners, it would be a major technology leak and a fatal blow to Baiyue's reputation. Lu Ming knew this, but he didn't hesitate for a second and immediately notified Jiang Xing to start preparing all the data.

It's like having your throat choked, on the verge of death. You'd grant the other person any request, as long as they can give you back your oxygen.

"What are you doing? You really want to give him the information? This is all my sister's hard work. If you're going to give it to her, have you asked her first?"

Lu Ming couldn't care less about anything else. He was barely holding onto his rationality with the last thread in his mind: "Every second that's wasted is a second more dangerous. I just want her back. I'll apologize to her for everything else."

He had already brought his man back from the brink of death; there could be no more mishaps. Whatever the cost, he just wanted him to return safely.

Wen Heng fell silent. He didn't dare risk Wen Chu's life. But if the information were leaked, the consequences would be enormous.

Clearly, Lu Ming was no longer thinking about these things, but he had to stay calm and consider his sister's future. He couldn't let her marry this guy and live a poor life, could he?

Wen Heng scratched his head and slammed his fist on the table in frustration.

Just when they were struggling to move forward, Lu Ming's phone suddenly rang; it was an unfamiliar number.

Thinking it was a kidnapper, he immediately answered the phone, only to hear a very soft voice on the other end: "Lu Ming?"

Upon hearing the woman's voice, Lu Ming's eyelids snapped open, and he stood up abruptly. "Wen Chu?"

"What?" Wen Heng also stood up nervously.