Chapter 3 Don't be afraid of being imprisoned, I'm just like you.
At this moment, Chu Yanxi is experiencing an unprecedented predicament.
After getting off the train and standing on the platform, a blast of cold air, mixed with the smells of coal ash, soil, and animal dung, rushed into Chu Yanxi's lungs, clearing her drowsy mind somewhat.
Chu Yanxi felt the force restraining her arms suddenly increase. The fat woman and the short man, one on each side, dragged and pulled her roughly.
The platform was sparsely populated. Chu Yanxi, who was in a semi-conscious state due to the sedative, was half-dragged and half-carried as they quickly passed through the rudimentary station building. As soon as they left the station, they were forcefully shoved into the trailer of a tractor that was already waiting by the roadside.
The trailer was filled with musty-smelling hay, and in the corner were a few hard, lumpy things that looked like fertilizer. Chu Yanxi was slammed heavily onto the hay, and the bumpy impact made her already dizzy head spin even more.
Once the dizziness subsided slightly, she tried to sit up and see the route and her surroundings.
With a resounding "slap!", she was met with a merciless slap!
The crisp sound was particularly jarring in the quiet night. Chu Yanxi's cheek instantly burned with pain, and her ears rang.
The one who hit her was that tall, burly man. He leaned down, his rough, fierce face almost touching Chu Yanxi's, his breath reeking of cigarette smoke in her face: "You better behave yourself! If you dare to cause any more trouble, believe me, I'll take care of you on the way here! Anyway, you'll just be a baby when we get there, so it doesn't matter if it's sooner or later!"
The blatant, bestial threat made Chu Yanxi's heart clench. She had no doubt that if she resisted now, she would suffer the humiliation of the human traffickers.
The fat woman pretended to advise, "Black Bull, forget it, forget it, why bother arguing with a piece of cargo? Let's go, they're waiting over there."
The burly man nicknamed Black Ox glared at Chu Yanxi again before jumping off the trailer and sitting in the driver's seat. The tractor quickly started up with a "putt-putt-putt" sound, spewing out thick black diesel exhaust fumes, and bumped away from the station area.
Chu Yanxi huddled in the cold trailer, the pain in her cheeks far less intense than the chill rising in her heart.
She is a negotiation expert.
Becoming a police negotiation expert is not easy.
In addition to being between 30 and 46 years old, applicants must also have five years of police experience, a bachelor's degree in criminal psychology or a related field, an IQ of 120 or higher, be from the Brooka region (meaning they have a well-developed language center), have extensive experience with local customs and traditions, and possess a broad knowledge base…
Except for not meeting the age requirement, Chu Yanxi scored excellent in every other aspect.
Despite opposition from many, Master Qin Feng brought Chu Yanxi into the crisis intervention and negotiation team. She did not disappoint her master, handling multiple hostage and suicide cases perfectly. Due to her sharp negotiation style, keen judgment, and absolutely rational command, she quickly became an excellent negotiation expert.
Before transmigrating into the book, Chu Yanxi, while also facing ruthless criminals in handling violent hostage situations, at least maintained a framework of rules, bottom lines, and objectives in her interactions. She could utilize language, psychology, and strategy to secure a chance for the hostages to survive.
But here, there are no rules, no bottom line.
In the eyes of these human traffickers, she was merely a commodity, a product for breeding and labor. They treated her like a disobedient domestic animal, brutally and coldly.
The tractor bounced along the bumpy dirt road, each violent jolt feeling as if it were shaking her internal organs to pieces.
She opened her eyes and looked into the distance through the simple guardrail of the trailer.
The faint light at Yushutai Station was rapidly shrinking and blurring in the field of vision, eventually being completely swallowed up by the dark mountains.
An unprecedented sense of isolation and helplessness surged in from all directions like a tide. In a daze, a memory buried deep in her heart, one she did not want to touch, flashed through her mind.
On another cold night, she was suddenly woken from her sleep by her mother's crying. She hurriedly dressed, got into a police car, and sped to the hospital. In the hospital ward, she saw her father lying on the bed, covered in blood and pale.
The father who was all smiles as he spun her around in his arms, the criminal police officer who firmly believed in the law and justice, was stabbed in the waist with a dagger by a woman who seemed to be insane during an arrest operation, and never woke up again.
Chu Yanxi cried her heart out, repeatedly calling out to her father, "Dad! Dad—"
But her father left her without even leaving a last word.
According to Master Qin Feng, when his father fell, his face wasn't filled with anger, but with disbelief, shock, and sorrow. The woman who stabbed him was the mistress of a fugitive whom he had painstakingly tried to reform.
Her father used to tell her, "Xiaoxi, everyone has a heart. Even the worst person has a weakness. We should try to understand and communicate with them..."
However, after experiencing that life-or-death separation, little Chu Yanxi vowed in her heart that she would never understand criminals like her father did. She would deal with them in the calmest and most professional way, protect herself, and protect those who should be protected.
Because of this vow, she was admitted to police academy, pursued postgraduate studies, refused her supervisor's invitation to stay at the school, and volunteered to return to Jiangcheng, the city where she grew up, to inherit her father's police badge, become a negotiation expert, build an indestructible armor with reason, and firmly believe that all problems can be solved within the bounds of law and rules.
But now, where is the law? Where are the rules? Where is justice?
She seemed to hear the original owner of Qiao Zhaoran's heart-wrenching cries on that desperate train, as she was dragged towards an unknown abyss. It was a despair where no one could hear her cries for help, a bone-chilling coldness of being abandoned by the entire civilized world.
When Chu Yanxi read about this despair in the book, he only rationally analyzed its causes and lamented its tragedy, but he never truly "experienced" it.
And right now, she is experiencing it firsthand.
After an unknown amount of time, the tractor suddenly slowed down and stopped beside an even more secluded side road. There seemed to be a few scattered lights in the distance, but the surroundings appeared even darker.
A figure emerged from the shadows by the roadside and blocked the tractor. By the tractor's dim light, Chu Yanxi could see that it was a fierce-looking man with sinister eyes. There seemed to be something tucked into his waistband, which reflected a cold, hard gleam in the light.
"Why are you only arriving now?" the sinister-looking man asked impatiently.
Black Bull jumped out of the driver's seat and whispered a few words. Chu Yanxi vaguely heard words like "trouble" and "tailing".
The gruff-looking man cursed, walked to the back of the tractor, and glanced at Chu Yanxi, who was huddled in the trailer, as if checking that the cargo was intact. Then, he turned and shouted into the darkness, "Take it over here!"
Another small, thin figure struggled to drag someone out of the darkness to the tractor. The person being dragged was wearing an orange jacket and was completely unconscious, limp as a puddle of mud.
"This kid, sneaking around town, even trying to call the police!" The sinister man's tone was icy, with a hint of cruel pleasure. "Damn it, he's actually a government official with a formal job, carrying a business trip permit. Make the best of a bad situation and clean things up."
When Chu Yanxi saw that familiar jacket, her heart skipped a beat.
The tractor's headlights illuminated the face turned to the side, covered in dust and a few drops of blood.
Despite the abrasions on his forehead and the dirt on his face, that familiar face, those slightly furrowed brows even in his unconscious state…
It's Lu Zhe!
It seems he did receive my message, sensed something was wrong, and tracked me here in an attempt to rescue me. He called the police, but... he ended up with the same fate as me, or perhaps even worse.
Before he could think, Chu Yanxi was roughly pulled out of the trailer. Staggering a few steps, before he could even see his surroundings, he was shoved into a low, mud-brick courtyard.
The strong smell of animal manure and damp mold filled the air. The yard was pitch black except for a dim, yellowish light coming from the main house window, which illuminated a few bundles of firewood piled haphazardly and the outline of a dark well.
"Go in!" The force from behind almost knocked her to the ground. She was pushed into a mud-brick house on the west side that had no windows and only a narrow ventilation opening above the door.
Lu Zhe was then thrown in as well.
The wooden door slammed shut behind us.
The world was instantly compressed into an almost absolute darkness and deathly silence. Only the faint light leaking in from the cracks in the door and the vents could barely outline the shape of the room—small, empty, with a hardened earthen floor and some indistinct clutter piled up in the corners.
Chu Yanxi didn't move immediately. She leaned against the cold earthen wall, held her breath, and let her eyes adjust to the darkness, her ears catching every sound. Low voices came from outside the courtyard; it was the man called Black Ox and another unfamiliar, hoarse voice.
"Brother Dao, this batch of goods is of good quality, especially that college student. The higher-ups specifically instructed that he be sent to Heishanyu intact, where virgins can fetch a high price..."
"Don't worry, he's been given the medicine and is behaving himself. There was one tail on the way, but I caught him..."
"Clean things up and don't leave any trouble. Tomorrow morning, send them away along with the three people Daqiang brought back."
Dao Ge, Hei Niu, and Da Qiang—these are the three names Chu Yanxi gleaned from their conversation.
She and the three people she and Daqiang abducted would be sold to Heishanyu.
Tomorrow morning they need to deal with Lu Zhe, who's being held down by Brother Dao.
Chu Yanxi slowly shuffled to Lu Zhe's side. Her hands were tied behind her back, and she could only nudge his head with her knee. Lu Zhe moved slightly but did not react.
By the dim moonlight, Chu Yanxi saw a blood clot covering Lu Zhe's hair at the back of his head. It seemed Lu Zhe had suffered a head injury and was unconscious. She wondered how serious his injury was and when he would wake up.
In the darkness, a very faint, suppressed sob suddenly came. Chu Yanxi looked in the direction of the sound and saw several blurry figures huddled in the deepest corner of the room.
"Who?" she asked in a low voice, trying to make her tone sound calm and non-threatening.
The sobbing stopped abruptly.
Chu Yanxi slowly moved closer, and by the dim light from the crack in the door, she could see clearly—it was three young girls. They were huddled together, their clothes tattered, their faces and bare arms bearing bruises and scars of varying degrees. The youngest of them, with tear stains still clinging to her face, was staring at her with wide, terrified eyes.
These must be the three girls that the traffickers mentioned earlier, the ones who were abducted by Daqiang.
"Don't be afraid, I'm just like you." Chu Yanxi's voice was gentle as she slowly approached, avoiding any sudden movements that might startle her. "I was also captured by them."
She carefully observed the three girls' condition.
The crying girl had deep marks on her wrists from ligatures; the older girl had a split lip, and her eyes held fear, along with a barely perceptible stubbornness and hatred. The third girl was completely curled up, burying her face in her knees, unresponsive to the outside world, as if she had completely shut herself off.
"Where will they take us?" the girl with the cracked lip suddenly asked in a hoarse, very soft voice.
Another girl with braids said in a trembling voice, "They will...they will sell us off to be wives to those old bachelors!"
These words elicited a response from another short-haired girl who had been burying her face in her knees. Her shoulders trembled, and she sobbed, "I'm only sixteen. I'm scared..."
Human traffickers deserve to die!
The thought of these young girls being sold to remote mountains, left to cry out in vain, forced to work and give birth like livestock, filled Chu Yanxi with surging anger.
But at this moment, she felt weak in her limbs and nauseous, probably due to being hungry for too long and the aftereffects of the drug. Chu Yanxi said softly in Mandarin with a accent from Hongxi, Hunan Province, "Don't be afraid, we're all the same. My name is Qiao Zhaoran, from Hunan Province. I was tricked on the train and they kept drugging me. What about you?"
As soon as the three of them opened their mouths, Chu Yanxi could tell from their heavy local accents that they came from their hometowns.
The girl with braided hair and short hair is from Hongxi area in Hunan Province, while the stubborn girl with a wound on her lip who spoke first is from Yang'an area in Hubei Province. Judging from their clothes, they should both be rural children.
Being far from home and hearing a familiar accent for the first time, the girl who spoke first became excited: "I, my name is Yang Juan, I'm also from Hunan Province. They said they could help me find a job, so Xiaoju and I..."
Before he could finish speaking, the wooden door was pounded on, and an impatient voice yelled, "Behave yourself!"
Upon hearing the voice, Yang Juan shivered and immediately shut her mouth. The girl named Xiaoju huddled next to her, trembling all over.
The girl with the wound on her lip snorted and continued speaking, but in a low voice: "My name is Wei Yanli. I'm from Group 3, Wuliu Village, Yang'an County, Hubei Province. I was tricked into coming here and sold by my stepmother. If I ever manage to escape back, I'll peel off her face and gouge out her eyes!"
Chu Yanxi gave them a deep look and comforted them, "They kidnapped us to sell us for money. As long as we obey, we won't be in any danger."
Xiaoju's voice was still choked with sobs: "I'm scared. I'm only sixteen. I don't want to get married. I heard the village teacher say that girls shouldn't get married too early, or they'll die!"
In this predicament, false promises seemed utterly meaningless. Chu Yanxi couldn't bring herself to say anything about finding a way to rescue them, but her mind was clearer than ever before. Just like in the most dangerous moments when negotiations reached a stalemate and the thugs were out of control, she would enter a state of extreme calm and rationality.
Observe, analyze, and wait.
This was the core principle she followed during her training.
She began to carefully recall every detail: the traffickers' conversation, the location of the transit station, the girls' condition, Lu Zhe's appearance... fragmented information kept flashing through her mind.
In the darkness, Chu Yanxi slowly opened her eyes. Those eyes, which had once seen through people's hearts during negotiations, now shone with a calm and resolute light.
My master once said: Negotiators must be guided by the principle of “using rules as they are, applying them flexibly, and improvising on the spot” to creatively respond to, control, and resolve complex situations on the spot.
In this place where the law is disregarded, she had to break the rules.
A note from the author:
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