After Clearing the Infinite Flow, I Tamed the Mad Dog Boss - Chapter 14

Chapter 14

The light overhead fell across Aunt Zou’s face, casting long shadows from her bulging eyes and cheekbones. She looked like a character out of a horror manga. That expression made the people entering the room lower their heads.

But neither Qin Xian nor Huang Quxie was intimidated. Both of them looked perfectly calm. If anything, when they saw how normal the other seemed, a probing look appeared in both their eyes.

The guide led them out of the room and away from the villa.

It was already past eight, but outside was far from pitch-black. Every house in the village, every room, glowed with lights of different colors. There were even green and red ones, making it impossible to guess what was going on inside.

But surrounded by the ink-black mountains, those lights looked especially eerie. If Qin Xian had to compare it to something, the village encircled by the mountains was like a pot, with multicolored pinpricks of light flickering in the black soup. Just looking at it made a person feel sick.

Behind Aunt Zou’s villa stood two long rows of temporary buildings made from corrugated metal, the kind used on construction sites. The first row seemed to be hosting livestreams. Qin Xian could hear muffled sobbing coming from inside.

The second row was much quieter, but several heavy locks hung from the iron gate at the entrance.

The guide opened the locks. The gate gave a teeth-grating screech as it slowly swung open.

What appeared before them was a long corridor. A dim lamp hung only after a great distance, and small rooms were evenly spaced along both sides. It looked exactly like a prison block.

But the conditions here were worse than prison. A sour stench mixed with the smell of excrement drifted out, forcing Qin Xian and Huang Quxie two steps back.

The guide barked, “Hurry up. Get in and rest.”

Huang Quxie asked, “Is there nowhere else to stay? How about we sleep at a hotel outside?”

The guide sneered. “Impossible. You can’t get out. Go in quietly, and don’t make me use force.”

He lifted his coat and pulled a stun baton nearly a meter long from his waist, tapping it against his palm.

Qin Xian and Huang Quxie exchanged a glance, then stepped through the door.

With a bang, the iron gate slammed shut behind them. The guide locked every lock before turning to leave.

Before he went, he added, “Find an empty spot to sleep in yourselves! The toilet’s at the very end. There’s tap water. Nothing else.”

Qin Xian checked the nearest room. Inside were old bunk beds like the ones schools used more than a decade ago. Eight of them were crammed into a single room, leaving only enough space for one person to pass through.

Someone lay on every bed. When they saw newcomers come in, a few people lifted their heads from the beds, then immediately flopped back down listlessly.

Qin Xian looked through several more rooms. They were all about the same.

Men and women were housed together here, exhausted people packed into cramped rooms to rest. Aside from the beds, there were only a few small cabinets. There wasn’t even a place to put personal belongings.

That was probably why so many people here were filthy and disheveled, the sour stink shooting straight to the top of the skull.

Huang Quxie frowned tightly and took out his phone, wanting to contact the outside, only to find there wasn’t a single bar of signal.

Qin Xian’s expression didn’t change in the face of the smell. He pointed deeper down the corridor and said, “Let’s go. We’ll find an empty room to settle in first.”

Huang Quxie nodded, his face dark.

The two of them walked farther down the corridor. There were so many stains on the floor that their shoes stuck with every step, making their skin crawl.

After going in a little farther, they realized there were actually plenty of empty rooms in this building. So why had the people up front rather squeezed together?

Huang Quxie lit up his phone screen and shone it into one of the rooms. Once he saw what was inside, his pupils contracted sharply.

“Fuck…”

Qin Xian turned his head as well. The beds, walls, and floor of the room were covered in bloodstains. When the light hit them, the mosquitoes and insects resting there immediately took flight, buzzing as they scattered in every direction.

“Ugh!”

Huang Quxie dry-heaved. Forcing down the nausea, he took a closer look and saw that there was actually still a person lying on one of the beds.

The person’s limbs were rotting, the decaying flesh half-fused with the sheets. But he was still alive, his hollow eyes looking toward Qin Xian and Huang Quxie.

Huang Quxie ignored the horrifying sight and walked to the bedside, carefully examining the man.

More than ten seconds later, he returned to Qin Xian and said, “It looks like someone’s been bringing him food and water. But in this state, who knows how much longer he can last. Damn it, what the hell is this place? By the way, who are you?”

His dark brown eyes locked on Qin Xian.

“You seem way too familiar with this kind of situation. And your mind was never really on the livestreaming in the first place. You’re not some ordinary guy who came here to learn livestreaming techniques.”

Qin Xian asked in return, “What about you? You knew from the start that this place might be dangerous, and you tried hard to talk me out of coming. You’re highly capable in every respect, and you seem to have a strong sense of morality. Police?”

Huang Quxie smiled. “You’re smart. I am. So what are you? A player?”

“A player?” Qin Xian let just the right trace of confusion slip through and continued, “What player? Are you saying this is some kind of deadly game? I’m someone who takes money to do jobs. Someone hired me to come here and find his missing older brother.”

Huang Quxie completely shed the warm, easygoing good-guy act he’d kept up the whole way here. He looked coldly at Qin Xian and said, “Oh? Is that so? I don’t really believe you, but right now, I think we need to cooperate. We don’t have time to get hung up on identities. We have to escape from here, then notify others to come deal with this village.”

Qin Xian replied, “I have to find my client’s brother before I can leave.”

“Find my ass. If we stay any longer, we might not even make it out alive. Come on! We need to get out of here first. Do you have any tools?”
Probably because they were confident no one could escape, neither of them had had their belongings taken.

Qin Xian pulled a small handsaw from behind his waist. Who knew how he had managed to hide it there.

Holding the saw, he asked, “Don’t you police get issued guns or something?”

“I have one, but not many bullets. It won’t help right now, either.” Huang Quxie took a military folding knife from his pocket.

But a folding knife would not do much against the iron bars on the window. Huang Quxie tucked it back into his pocket, pointed at Qin Xian’s saw, then pointed at the window.

Qin Xian turned and walked out instead. “No rush. I’ll look around some more. There might be an easier way out.”

Huang Quxie could only follow behind him, carefully continuing down the passage.

Just then, the two finally ran into someone who had stepped out of a room, seemingly heading to the bathroom.

Huang Quxie stopped him and asked straight out, “Brother, we’re new here. What exactly is going on?”

The man lifted his eyes and swept a weary glance over them. “We were tricked. And now we can’t escape.”

Huang Quxie pressed on, “Isn’t this supposed to be a livestreaming place? With living conditions this awful, how are people supposed to stream later?”

“Heh. We’re not those polished livestream rooms where people look good on camera. The people lying around here don’t stream the same kind of content as those internet celebrities.”

“Then why don’t you ask for help through the livestream?”

“It’s useless. All of it is useless. I advise you not to try anything like that, or you’ll go from healthy people to livestream props. Stop asking me. There are cameras in this passage.”

With that, he hurried away, looking flustered.

Qin Xian and Huang Quxie exchanged a look. Neither spoke as they continued silently down the passage.

The arrival of two newcomers held no appeal for the people here. Most of those in the rooms were still lying in bed, not even speaking to their companions.

It made the temporary dormitory feel eerily, unnaturally quiet.

Before long, however, the two heard some strange noises. It sounded as if someone were trying hard to pry open a room’s window.

They quickened their pace and, in the third-to-last room, saw a thin, small figure clinging to the window, using a metal spoon to pry at the window bars.

Qin Xian had only taken two steps into the room when the other person finally noticed and turned around in alarm.

“It’s a little girl?!” Huang Quxie cried out.

The one trying to escape was a young girl who had not yet grown into herself. When she saw two men enter the room, her first reaction was to cover her body with both hands in panic.

That instinctive response likely meant something had happened to her before.

Seeing this, Qin Xian softened his voice considerably. “We won’t hurt you. Are you new here? We are too.”

There was still makeup on the girl’s face that had not fully come off. Hearing him, she nodded warily.

Qin Xian raised the saw in his hand. The girl’s eyes instantly lit up, making her look especially lively. It was obvious she had only just arrived here, and she probably had not suffered anything too terrible yet.

“Want it? This will be easier to saw with.”

“Yes!” the girl whispered, immediately reaching out to Qin Xian.

A hint of amusement entered Qin Xian’s eyes at the sight. “I’ll do it. Move aside a little.”

With that, he walked to the window and measured it with the saw, but did not start cutting.

Huang Quxie said, “If you saw it directly, we’ll be discovered, right? Let me bend it…”

Before he could finish, Qin Xian shoved the saw into his hand, then grabbed one iron bar in each hand and pulled hard to both sides.

The bars, which had looked very sturdy, actually began to slowly deform. A dozen seconds later, Qin Xian simply removed the bent iron bars, leaving a hole in the window large enough to pass through.

Qin Xian climbed out first, then took the girl Huang Quxie passed to him, gently supporting her under the arms and setting her on the ground.

After that, Huang Quxie also squeezed out through the window with some difficulty.

The moment he got out, he said to them, “Let’s go. We’ll see which path can get us out of this damned place.”

But neither Qin Xian nor the girl responded.

The girl said, “I have to find my brother before I leave. If I don’t find him soon, he might die…”

Qin Xian turned his head in some surprise and asked, “Is your forum name BrotherComeHome?”

“Yes. How did you know? Are you the person who accepted my commission?”

Qin Xian nodded.

The girl was happy for a second, and her eyes clearly showed more trust in Qin Xian. But she soon became dejected again.

Lowering her head, she said, “I’m sorry… I didn’t know this place would be so terrifying. Now I’ve dragged you into it too.”

Qin Xian’s voice was unusually gentle. “It’s all right. I’ll help bring your brother out. But right now, you leave this place with Uncle Huang first.”

Huang Quxie immediately said, “You’re going alone? No way. I’m going with you!”

“Then what about her? You should take the girl out first. I can definitely make it out alive.”

Huang Quxie gritted his teeth and looked at Qin Xian, then at the little girl. In the end, he chose to scoop the girl into his arms and said solemnly to Qin Xian, “Fine. I’ll get her out first, then come back for you. If you survive, you have to come to our bureau and explain your identity clearly.”

Qin Xian’s expression went blank for a moment. “Did I break the law?”

Huang Quxie shook his head. “No. Can’t I just beg you to come?”

Qin Xian refused without hesitation. “I won’t. I’m afraid it might affect my civil service exam.”