Chapter 4 The argument was to save you!
Chu Yanxi leaned against the cold, rough earthen wall, motionless, listening intently to the sounds outside the door.
The guards outside the courtyard made regular footsteps, coming and going about every half hour. Their steps were heavy and dragged with an impatient urge. Occasionally, the faint sound of a match being struck could be heard, followed by the faint red glow of tobacco being lit flashing past the crack in the door, and then a long, phlegmy exhale.
It seemed the guard was a heavy smoker who found his job tedious and boring. Based on Chu Yanxi's experience, this type of person was easily distracted; feigning weakness was the best way to approach him.
After an unknown amount of time, a series of slightly chaotic footsteps approached from afar, accompanied by several different voices.
"Boss Liu, look at this batch of goods, it's absolutely fresh, especially that college student inside, he's educated and has a decent appearance..." This was the slightly obsequious voice of the man called Black Bull.
A slightly high-pitched male voice, tinged with shrewd calculation, rang out, his tone critical: "Hmph, fresh? It must have been through too much travel and lost its energy. Same old rule, inspection is required." This must be the Liu family boss, responsible for receiving and selling the goods.
"Oh dear, what are you saying? No way! I just gave her some sedatives, she'll be obedient. Go in and take a look, she's not even hurt, she's definitely top-quality stuff!" That was the fat woman's voice.
The iron lock on the door rattled, and the wooden door creaked open. A dim beam of flashlight shone in, the glaring light causing Chu Yanxi, accustomed to darkness, to instinctively squint.
Several figures stood at the door. Besides Black Bull and the fat woman, there was also a thin middle-aged man wearing a dark Zhongshan suit and a baseball cap. He held a flashlight and his gaze swept over the girls like a searchlight, finally settling precisely on Chu Yanxi.
The gaze, filled with undisguised scrutiny and evaluation, made Chu Yanxi feel a surge of physical disgust.
"Tsk, this is not bad, but the complexion is a bit poor." The man called Boss Liu clicked his tongue, his flashlight beam lingering on Chu Yanxi's face and body for a long time.
"How much for a virgin?" He used slang, but Chu Yanxi knew what he meant.
Black Bull quickly stepped forward and whispered a number.
Boss Liu pondered for a moment, then swept the flashlight beam over the other three girls huddled in the corner: "What about these girls? They look so listless."
"Those are regular items, cheap, a package deal. If you want them all, this college student will give you this price..." the fat woman hurriedly tried to sell.
The bargaining took place right at the doorway. The voices weren't loud, but in the quiet night, every word was clearly heard by every girl inside the mud-brick house.
The youngest child, Xiaoju, could no longer contain her fear and let out a suppressed sob, her cries filled with despair and terror.
Mr. Liu immediately shone his flashlight over them, frowning in displeasure: "What's going on here? Crying and wailing, it's bad luck!"
Black Bull's expression changed, and he cursed viciously, "What are you crying for! If you cry again, I'll kill you right now!" He then stepped forward to hit the man.
"No!" Yang Juan suddenly spoke, her voice hoarse but urgent. "Xiao Ju, she's crying because her leg is broken and she can't bear the pain. Please don't hit her, I beg you!"
A broken leg? Chu Yanxi's heart clenched, and only then did she notice the girl's strange sitting posture.
Boss Liu frowned even more: "A broken leg? You dare to sell a defective product? No way!"
Black Bull and the fat woman quickly explained, "Boss Liu, please listen to me. This girl was trying to run away and fell, breaking her leg. It won't affect her fertility. Cheap, half price, half price is fine!"
"Run?" Boss Liu sneered. "You think you can run away once you're in our Yushutai territory? A broken leg is the least of your worries!" He seemed to take such injuries for granted, even showing a kind of cruel appreciation.
His gaze returned to Chu Yanxi. "We have to keep a close eye on this one; scholars are often cunning."
Finally, after some haggling, the voices outside faded away, and the door was locked again. The world returned to darkness.
"Waaah... I'm so scared!" The girl named Xiaoju finally couldn't hold back and started sobbing again.
Yang Juan reached out and hugged her shoulders, clumsily trying to comfort her, her voice choked with sobs, "Xiao Ju, let's accept our fate, we can't escape it! Look at me, I just wanted to beg them for some food and I got beaten up..." She rolled up her sleeves, and the crisscrossing old and new scars on her arms were faintly visible in the dim light filtering through the crack in the door.
"Pah!" Wei Lijuan said angrily, "These people are all beasts! We can't beat them, and we can't escape. I've heard that it's very difficult for girls who have been sold by human traffickers to escape. We can only behave ourselves for now, and maybe we'll have a chance to run away after we have children."
Chu Yanxi couldn't help but recall the ending of Qiao Zhaoran in "Breaking the Cocoon"—that silent girl, after enduring years of inhuman torture, finally chose to use poison to send the eight members of the Zhao family who imprisoned and abused her to hell.
Previously, Chu Yanxi, a master of criminal psychology and a negotiation expert, analyzed this case primarily from a rational perspective, considering factors such as criminal motives, behavioral patterns, and social causes. She viewed Qiao Zhaoran's behavior as an "extreme" and "irrational" tragedy.
But at this moment, standing in this mud-brick house that exudes an aura of despair, listening to the helpless cries of the girls around her, Chu Yanxi finally realized that Qiao Zhaoran's choice to poison a family of eight was no longer just cold words in a book, but the only option for a woman filled with blood and tears, in a desperate situation, to express her anger and reclaim a shred of dignity.
"Uh..." A low groan came from beside me.
Chu Yanxi immediately regained her composure and moved closer to Lu Zhe.
Lu Zhe moved with difficulty, the sharp pain in the back of his head making him gasp, and his consciousness gradually returned. He opened his eyes to complete darkness, only able to vaguely sense that someone was beside him.
"Chu...?" His voice was hoarse and dry, filled with uncertainty.
Chu Yanxi interrupted him, not letting him call out her name: "How are you feeling? Besides the back of your head, where else are you injured?"
Lu Zhe tried to move his limbs. Apart from the soreness and numbness in his bound hands, he didn't seem to have any other serious injuries: "It's okay, but my head hurts a lot. Where are we?"
“A transit point, a human traffickers’ hideout,” Chu Yanxi said succinctly. “There are guards outside, at least two of them. They’re going to move us first thing tomorrow morning.”
Lu Zhe's heart sank as he tried to recall the events before he lost consciousness: "I... I got off the bus with you. I asked a few locals, but they all said they hadn't seen you before. Later, I went to the police station to report it, but the person who answered the call seemed to be in cahoots with them! I hadn't been out of the police station long when someone attacked me from behind..."
Lu Zhe, as expected of a lawyer, was very talkative and spoke very quickly, but his information summaries were very accurate.
Chu Yanxi frowned: "You should go to a city you are familiar with and report to the police, ensuring your own safety. Didn't you notice that the train conductor and they are in cahoots? Yushutai Station is also their transfer station. You, a stranger, suddenly appear here, asking all sorts of questions, completely exposing yourself to the light."
She now regards Lu Zhe as an ally from another time, and subconsciously brings with her the rationality and straightforwardness she displayed when reviewing cases in the police station.
Lu Zhe never expected that after risking his life to save her by tracking her and calling the police, he would receive such cold words instead of gratitude.
A surge of anger mixed with pain, grievance, and fury rushed to Lu Zhe's head, and his voice trembled with emotion: "I did it to save you! When I found out you had been abducted, my first thought was how to rescue you."
A coughing sound came from outside the door, and Chu Yanxi whispered, "Keep your voice down!"
Lu Zhe lowered his voice, but still felt wronged: "I had no idea who you were, and I had no evidence that you were abducted by human traffickers. How could I call the police? By the time I got to a big city and called the police, you would have been long gone. I was worried about you, worried that you would get hurt, so I got out of the car to follow you immediately, and that's why I was knocked unconscious!"
Chu Yanxi remained calm: "Let's not talk about the process, only the result. You want to save me, that's true, but what about the result? In a predicament, acting on emotions often leads to disaster."
"I'm acting on emotion? And what about you? Your so-called calmness and professionalism are actually just indifference and arrogant condescension! In your eyes, everyone is only distinguished as a 'good citizen' or a 'criminal,' and you can't see what they've been through, right? All actions are only distinguished as 'useful' or 'useless,' and you don't care about the motivation behind them, right?"
The thought of Chu Yanxi's excessive calmness at the scene of Zhang Ya's explosion, her indifference to his repeated reminders of "empathy," and her continued high-handed rational criticism even after she had changed her identity after time travel, caused Lu Zhe's pent-up dissatisfaction to erupt instantly.
Chu Yanxi fell silent, but her breathing became noticeably more rapid.
Although they couldn't hear what they were saying, the girls in the corner were startled by the sudden, heated argument and stared in fear in the direction from which the sound came.
After a brief silence, Chu Yanxi's voice rang out again: "Lu Zhe, put away your self-righteous ideas. Now, surviving and getting out of here are the only goals. If you want to die, or want to drag everyone down with you, then continue your anger. If you want to live, then shut up and listen to me."
"Listen to you? Listen to how you lead me into an even deeper pit?" Lu Zhe was both in pain and angry, feeling a throbbing pain in the wound on the back of his head.
In the darkness, both of them could sense each other's dissatisfaction.
Chu Yanxi felt that Lu Zhe was reckless and impulsive, and an unstable factor in the team; Lu Zhe, on the other hand, thought that Chu Yanxi was cold and rigid, and had no human touch at all.
Silence fell over the mud-brick house. Only the occasional movement of the guards outside the door and the faint barking of dogs in the distance reminded them of the danger they were in.
Chu Yanxi leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.
Anger solves nothing, and blame doesn't change the status quo. Lu Zhe's words, though harsh, perhaps touched on a question that had been troubling her for a long time.
Why did my mission fail? Why did Zhang Ya choose to sacrifice her life to express her anger? Was it really because I was cold, arrogant, and unable to empathize with her?
A note from the author:
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