Chapter 16 Nightmare and Throne
——She chanted his name, but she didn’t know that he was the king of this hell.
The high fever was like a murky fog, enveloping Ruan Xingchen as she sank into a chaotic dream. She curled up in the innermost part of the iron cage, the cold bars pressed against her scorching back, her lips cracked and bleeding, and every breath was a burning pain.
For three days, the guards only threw in a few fever-reducing pills, regardless of whether she could swallow them.
She dreamed that she was five years old again, squatting outside the medical station tent, teaching a young boy to write his name stroke by stroke with a branch.
"Mo, Xiao, Han."
The boy's hands were rough, with scars all over his knuckles, but he held the pen very seriously.
"Brother Xiaohan..."
She murmured in her dream, but let out faint moans in reality, her fingers tightly clenching the silver ring on her ring finger, as if it was the only piece of driftwood.
"Hey, the name you keep calling..."
The girl in the cage next door slowly approached. Her name was Aya, a deceived international student who had been locked up there for a month. Her face was bruised, but her eyes were surprisingly bright.
Ruan Xingchen opened his eyes slightly, his vision blurred.
"Xiaohan...Brother?" she repeated weakly.
"Do you know...Mo Xiaohan?" Aya lowered her voice and asked in broken Chinese.
Ruan Xingchen's throat was dry and sore. She subconsciously touched the ring on her ring finger and shook her head.
"Then don't shout that name here!" She almost whispered, glancing at the cell door warily. After confirming that the guard hadn't heard, she whispered in her ear, "Mo Xiaohan is the underground emperor of Southeast Asia, controlling all black market transactions, including this one."
Ruan Xingchen's pupils suddenly contracted. The high fever made her thinking slow, but this name was like a sharp knife, piercing into her chaotic memory.
"who is he?"
"He is the king here," Aya's eyes were filled with fear, "and he is also a demon."
"King?" Ruan Xingchen repeated the word in a trance, with sporadic images flashing through his mind -
The mud of the slums, sunflowers, boats made of candy wrappers, eyes as dark as the night... and the vague outline of a young boy.
But every time she tried to grasp the fragments, a severe headache would come over her, stirring her nerves like a dull knife.
"I don't remember..." She closed her eyes in pain, tears rolling down her cheeks, "I only know... this name is very important..."
Aya sighed and glanced towards the cell door again. After confirming that the guard was not there, she whispered, "If you really knew him, you might be able to survive."
Ruan Xingchen didn't answer. She just fell into a deep dream again. In the dream, someone said to her, "Wait for me."
She held her head in pain, the ring digging deep into her palm.
At the same time, in the top-floor office of the tallest building in Bangkok, Mo Xiaohan was reviewing documents.
A Tai knocked on the door tremblingly: "Boss, there will be new goods at the auction tomorrow night. The person in charge said... there is a top-notch item. Do you want to go and take a look?"
The tip of the pen drew a long ink mark on the paper.
Mo Xiaohan raised his eyes, a blizzard surging in his pupils: "Do you think I'm idle?"
"This subordinate deserves death!" A-Tai immediately knelt down. "It's just that the girl is said to be a top student in the medical school, very clean, and very beautiful, so..."
"roll."
Amidst the loud bang of the ashtray exploding on the wall, Artest crawled out.
He could never understand why a powerful man like Boss, who possessed all kinds of women, was so obsessed with a girl who had disappeared for seventeen years!
Mo Xiaohan opened a drawer and found a yellowed old photo inside. In the photo, a little girl in a sunflower-patterned skirt and her mother stood in front of a medical tent, her mother's hand gently caressing her head.
Seventeen years have passed, and the edges of the photo paper have long been curled and the colors have faded and become a little blurry, but he treats it like a treasure and is even careful when touching it.
The fingertips gently stroked the girl's cheek in the photo, as if by doing so, he could touch the girl who had long disappeared from his memory.
Suddenly, he felt a palpitation.
Mo Xiaohan frowned and pressed his left chest, where he felt sharp pains, as if someone was crying out his name.
He untied his tie and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. The glass reflected the hideous scar on his left eyelid.
"Stars," he whispered, "where are you..."
The person he was looking for was now trapped in his cage, running a high fever and muttering his name.
Their distance has never been so close.
It has never been so far.
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