Chapter 34 Kidnapping... He's watching you.
The moment Jiang Xiliu woke up, she realized something was wrong.
The thing shaking so violently beneath her couldn't possibly be a bed. Just as she was about to open her eyes, she heard the artificial intelligence in her head shout.
[System 0777: Miss, continue pretending to be unconscious. Don't open your eyes; they're watching you.]
Jiang Xiliu's acting skills were actually better than the system had imagined. She remained motionless, and even her breathing rhythm was no different from before, which directly fooled the several burly men who were watching her very closely.
While feeling gratified, System 0777 also realized just how perfunctory her performance was when she was doing tasks.
Jiang Xiliu remained relatively calm at this point: "System 0777, what's going on?"
[System 0777 is moved: Miss, this is the first time you've called me by my full name correctly.]
Jiang Xiliu really wanted to scold it for not being a good time to be sentimental, but in order to get the truth out of it, she held back her impatience and repeated the question.
[System 0777: You had just fallen asleep last night when there was a knock on the door. I don't know why you slept so soundly last night. After knocking, the person outside waited a while before opening the door. It was Assistant Liao and Jin Zhao.]
[System 0777: Oh, right, Jin Zhao was lying on the ground at the time, and he's currently wearing a hood and tied up next to you.]
Jiang Xiliu asked softly, "What about Assistant Liao? Was he also tied to this car?"
System 0777 shouldn't have any emotions, but at this moment it felt difficult to say some things to the young lady.
[System 0777: ...He's watching you.]
Jiang Xiliu's mind went blank for a second.
[System 0777 continued: Miss, listen to me, this is the next plot point. Although I don't know why it's happening earlier than expected, we need to stay calm and trust me. As long as we follow the plot, we'll be fine.]
Jiang Xiliu pondered System 0777's words several times.
She said, "So, you knew all along that Assistant Liao would betray me, didn't you?"
What I jokingly said a few days ago has unexpectedly come true.
Jiang Xiliu regretted it a little: she should have said she would live to be a hundred and have a happy life.
System 0777 only detected a momentary emotional fluctuation in the young lady, who quickly returned to normal.
[System 0777 quickly distanced itself: I cannot see the details of the next plot point until you have completed the previous one. I did not know that the person who betrayed the young lady was Assistant Liao.]
"Big brother, why haven't they woken up yet? Wasn't the medicine supposed to only last for twelve hours?"
A voice suddenly rang out to Jiang Xiliu's left, with a slight accent, and it was very close to her.
Jiang Xiliu stopped communicating with the system, quietly cleared her mind, and kept her breathing rhythm steady.
“She rarely takes medication, so she’s more sensitive to drug reactions,” Liao Zhu replied to the man, his gaze sweeping over another person lying on the floor of the carriage. “But he’s probably already awake and is just pretending.”
Jiang Xiliu heard flesh collide and a muffled groan.
With her eyes covered, her hearing was exceptionally sharp.
[System 0777 muttered involuntarily: But something's not right here. In the storyline I received, Jin Zhao hasn't appeared at all. He shouldn't be here.]
"So what's going on now?" Jiang Xiliu heard dragging sounds and a few curses. She wasn't sure if Jin Zhao was still pretending to be unconscious or if he was really unconscious, but he didn't make a sound. "Did the last plot point automatically settle?"
[System 0777 shook its head: The two plot points have merged and are now proceeding simultaneously.]
[System 0777 is analyzing the generated plot content: This has never happened before. If there is no clear reason for these people to act prematurely...]
That means there's a problem with this small world, and it needs to be reported to the main system for review.
As the vehicle swayed and bumped, Jiang Xiliu bumped into a hard window or the interior of the car. The next second, she was helped by the shoulder and moved in another direction.
"Achoo!" A man sneezed, saw the young lady lying on Liao Zhu's shoulder, and chuckled, "Big brother, have you been a dog there for too long and developed a servile mentality?"
Liao Zhu didn't respond to him. Seeing him take out a lighter, he frowned and said, "If you want to smoke, go to the other car."
The man complained a few times, but in the end he didn't smoke.
Is there another car?
The number of people was more than Jiang Xiliu had imagined.
She leaned her head on Liao's shoulder and said, "Now tell me about this part in the original plot."
More than wanting to know why Liao Zhu did what he did, she was more interested in understanding why the plot points were brought forward.
System 0777 obediently filtered out the content about Jiang Xiliu's kidnapping from the original plot.
However, the original plot describes Jiang Xiliu's kidnapping experience in less than a thousand words, and half of that is conveyed through conversations between Jin Zhao and Yi Sile, which recounts her "miserable situation".
Jiang Xiliu:......
She finally has a deeper understanding of the fact that she is a supporting character.
This section contains too much irrelevant plot and doesn't even mention Liao Zhu's name.
"So how do I complete this storyline?" Jiang Xiliu asked.
[System 0777: Your primary task is to protect yourself. Throughout the process, you will need to provoke the kidnappers, set fire to the warehouse, and successfully escape from it.]
Jiang Xiliu took a deep breath.
This was not the first time she had been kidnapped.
She knew very well that the most basic thing to do to find a way to survive while ensuring her own safety was to suppress her temper, respond in accordance with the kidnappers' words, and never blindly provoke them.
So, is this artificial intelligence designed to make her die faster?
[System 0777: I absolutely didn't mean that, boohoo.]
[System 0777: You can skip the first mission and just do the arson and escape; the story completion rate should still reach 66.6, right?]
Just as Jiang Xiliu was about to curse it, her bound hands behind her were suddenly grabbed and kneaded as if they were toys.
A warm breath touched her ear, and a soft voice asked, "Young Miss, are you awake?"
Jiang Xiliu froze instantly, not daring to move.
Liao Zhu seemed to have let her go: "Go to sleep, don't wake up."
The words "Don't wake up" were automatically translated into "Go to hell" in the young lady's ears.
The car bounced even more violently.
Just as Jiang Xiliu was about to lose her composure, the car stopped.
The hood on his head was pulled off.
Jiang Xiliu felt there was no point in pretending anymore, so she opened her eyes. The long darkness made her feel uncomfortable with the excessively bright light.
She instinctively looked around.
They were on the top of a barren mountain, and not far ahead was an abandoned, dilapidated factory.
Her kidnappers were Liao Zhu, two blond men, one tall and one thin, and a man with tattooed arms and back.
Liao Zhu seemed to be completely different from them.
"Brother, why did you take off her hood?" the lean man in front exclaimed in surprise.
Liao Zhu gently nudged Jiang Xiliu and looked at the lean man in front of her: "Give her some fresh air."
The other four: ...
The tattooed man couldn't help but say, "Brother, she saw our faces."
"Hmm, what's wrong?"
"..."
Jiang Xiliu was terrified and even wanted to snatch the hood back and put it back on.
Seeing the kidnapper's face is not a good thing.
—It's very possible that Assistant Liao didn't intend for her to return alive.
Assistant Liao raised his hand and gestured to the tall, blond-haired man, "Take that person inside."
Then he looked down at Jiang Xiliu, whose eyes were unusually calm: "Are you going to follow me yourself, or—"
Jiang Xiliu didn't dare to listen to the second option and directly followed the two people in front of her.
She has always been very pragmatic when it comes to matters of life and death.
Liao Zhu stayed where he was and did not follow them.
Jiang Xiliu walked into the dilapidated factory and glanced back.
Assistant Liao stood still and waved to her.
Just like when she used to go to school, he stood at the door, waving and waiting for her to come home.
[System 0777: Young Miss...]
Jiang Xiliu shrugged indifferently: "I'm fine, it's not the first time."
But Liao Zhu is different.
He stayed by her side for nearly ten years, from the time she went abroad.
While Jiang Xiliu was studying, Liao Zhu also went to take other courses arranged by Jiang Fuhuai.
He has no parents and no weaknesses that can be exploited by others.
He was the most loyal, useful, and reliable helper that Jiang Fuhuai had chosen for her.
If he can stay with Jiang Xiliu for a long time, neither Jiang Fuhuai nor Jiang Xiliu will treat him unfairly.
Jiang Xiliu sat silently on the cold cement floor, staring intently at the blond-haired man outside. Her mind was in turmoil, and she came up with many excuses for Liao Zhu.
She moved her body carefully as she thought, afraid of disturbing the person at the door.
When she touched Jin Zhaowei's cool hand, she quickly slipped a sharp stone into it.
She picked it up when the blond guy wasn't looking.
Jin Zhao's head, covered by a hood, paused for a moment, seemingly stunned, before slowly tilting towards her.
"Turn around, don't look at me." Jiang Xiliu's eyes remained fixed ahead, but she didn't dare to look away from the blond-haired man smoking by the door. Her voice was very low. "Use it to smooth the rope quietly. I'll keep an eye on it for you."
Jin Zhao gave a soft "hmm".
He dared not waste any time. He groped with his fingers to find the sharp end of the stone, and then stuck it directly into the rough hemp rope on his wrist. He then began to rub it back and forth incessantly.
The blond-haired guy by the door finally finished his cigarette, tossed the butt on the ground, and crushed it with his foot. He lazily glanced into the house, but his eyes met Jiang Xiliu's.
Jiang Xiliu blinked and stared back innocently.
The blond-haired man curled his lip and impatiently shouted, "Behave yourself."
He probably thought that an unarmed woman couldn't cause any trouble, so he took out his phone and started playing games.
Indeed, looking at her hands and feet, which were red and swollen from being strangled, Jiang Xiliu had no strength to struggle and just wanted to lie on the ground and wait for her parents to come and rescue her.
She huddled against the corner of the wall, staring blankly at the rope in Jin Zhao's hand.
Jin Zhao clearly knew that time was of the essence, so he rubbed the rope quickly and forcefully. His wrists were already chafed raw by the stones and hemp rope, and a sticky patch of blood covered them.
It's about to break.
Only a little bit left.
Just then, Huang Mao's phone suddenly rang. He cursed impatiently, took his phone out of his pocket, and walked into the house while swiping the screen, his eyes scanning the two men warily.
Jiang Xiliu instinctively moved forward, getting half a body length past Jin Zhao, and then slammed his shoulder into the wall, pinning his back and the hand that was grinding the rope firmly against it.
"What are you doing!" Huang Mao glared at Jiang Xiliu as she moved forward and snapped, "Stay put and don't move!" Without thinking much, he answered the phone and mumbled a few "uh-huhs."
He reached out and grabbed Jiang Xiliu's arm, lifting her up from the ground.
"Okay, I'll take her there right away."
Huang Mao hung up the phone, raised his hand and patted Jiang Xiliu's face: "Let's go."
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Author's Note: I didn't guess any of the answers correctly in the last chapter, but since I didn't guess any, I'll just post them all! [glasses]
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