Chapter 15 Dark Night
——She began to lose the ability to distinguish between reality and nightmares, and the nightmare had just begun.
In the next few days, Ruan Xingchen witnessed hell on earth.
She saw—
- A blonde girl was dragged out to "test the goods" and came back with empty eyes, like a broken rag doll;
- An Asian girl tried to escape, was electrocuted to the point of incontinence, and then thrown into a detention room like garbage;
- A girl who looked no older than fifteen was injected with some kind of drug because she cried so hard that she never made a sound again.
Every day, girls were dragged out for "exhibition" and sent back either covered in wounds or mentally broken.
Whenever a girl was dragged away, Ruan Xingchen would hold the silver ring tightly, as if the ring was connected to someone who could save her.
"Don't dream." The Cambodian girl sneered, "The boss here is the most cold-blooded devil in Southeast Asia. Even the government is afraid of him."
The ring hurt Ruan Xingchen's palm, but strangely it kept her awake.
Will anyone come?
Will anyone...remember me?
On this day, Ruan Xingchen witnessed a "taming"——
A girl who tried to escape was dragged to a public area and her limbs were fixed to a metal frame. An officer in a black suit took a special long needle and slowly inserted it into the cracks between her nails.
"This is to teach you to obey." The Executioner smiled and twisted the needle. "Obedience."
The screams were like a blunt knife cutting Ruan Xingchen's eardrums.
"This is what happens when you don't obey."
The executioner grinned, and the blood-stained needle tip flashed with a cold light.
The cell lights were perpetually lit with a pale glow. Ruan Xingchen had no idea how long he had been locked up. Time had lost its meaning in this darkened prison, leaving only endless fear and a biting chill.
At night, the Cambodian girl was taken away. She was only sixteen years old and was still in high school before she was arrested.
Before leaving, she clutched the railing tightly and said to Ruan Xingchen: "If I can't come back... please remember my name is Tana... don't let me die like an unknown person..."
The girl never came back.
The next day, the guard threw in a bloodstained school uniform skirt.
Ruan Xingchen stared at the bloodstain and suddenly began to retch. Her vision blurred and a sharp ringing in her ears rang out, as if she were back at the scene of the car accident.
The broken car windows, the pungent smell of gasoline, and the blood that just wouldn't be wiped away...
"Hey! Stop pretending to be dead!" The guard kicked the cage.
Ruan Xingchen curled up into a ball, holding the ring tightly with his left hand, as if grabbing the last straw, his consciousness floating in the chaos.
Suddenly, there was a violent convulsion sound in the cell, which made her come back to her senses. A girl who was sent back suddenly had an epileptic seizure and was convulsing with foam at the mouth.
Ruan Xingchen immediately rushed to the edge of the cage, clutching the rusty bars with both hands. Her medical student instinct made her shout out to the door, "She needs medicine! Get the anti-epileptic drugs! She'll bite her tongue off!"
The guards watched coldly.
"Please!" Ruan Xingchen pressed his forehead against the cold iron bars, his voice trembling. "Even if you can give me a towel for her to bite... please!"
She was responded with a burst of laughter.
The girl's convulsions gradually weakened, and she finally stopped moving. Her pupils dilated, but her expression remained terrified. Warm blood flowed from the corners of her mouth, dripping through the cracks in the cage onto the ground.
Ruan Xingchen watched all this from behind the railing, feeling powerless even to breathe. He had studied medicine for four years, a doctor's heart was filled with compassion, but now he couldn't save this girl, nor himself.
Time here is like a pool of smelly stagnant water, sticky and still, occasionally stirred up by the girls' screams to create a few ripples.
The Laotian girl was dragged away. Before she was arrested, she was a rural teacher who always sang lullabies in the soft Wu dialect late at night.
When she was sent back, the girl's eyes had turned into two bloody holes.
"A disobedient creature." The guard kicked the limp body. "The client complained that she cried too loudly."
Ruan Xingchen stared at the still twitching body and suddenly found himself laughing.
No...why should I laugh?
She covered her mouth in horror, but felt warm liquid on her hands. She didn't know when, she had bitten her lower lip, but the taste of blood made her feel at ease.
That night, Ruan Xingchen had a nightmare.
In her dream, she was standing in a pool of blood, surrounded by the bodies of other girls.
On a high platform in the distance, a vague figure looked down at everything indifferently.
She tried desperately to see the man's face, but she could only hear her own trembling voice: "Brother Xiaohan...save me..."
When she woke up, she found herself scratching her arms with her nails, leaving blood marks.
This was her first time harming herself, but it certainly wouldn't be her last.
In the second half of the night, a chill suddenly crept up my spine, followed by a burning sensation, the two extreme temperatures tearing at my blood.
Ruan Xingchen curled up on the moldy straw mat, and vaguely saw countless candy wrapper boats floating down from the ceiling.
"This is the Happy Magic Ship!" The little girl stuffed the colorful candy wrapper into the boy's hand, "Each ship can fulfill a wish!"
The light in her memory was too dazzling. She reached out to block it, but her hands were covered in smelly sewage.
Reality and illusion begin to intertwine:
Sometimes she is a five-year-old standing in a tent at a medical camp;
Sometimes she was a 22-year-old prisoner and heard the screams of the girl in the next cell as she was being "raced".
The most terrifying thing was that she began to look forward to the man with the ring appearing again.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
