Chapter 27: Darkness
The dream shattered without warning. Su Yu awoke from the deep, thick darkness. He couldn’t remember how many times this had happened. His consciousness hovered on the edge of dream and reality, in a foamy illusion, yet he could only grasp the cold reality.
His blood seemed to have lost its warmth, gradually freezing and stagnating in his veins. His stiff and cold body struggled to make his thick and long eyelashes tremble like butterfly wings. He slowly opened his heavy eyelids in the darkness. Not a single ray of light could penetrate his dark pupils, and he looked at the ground with a somewhat unfocused gaze.
Specks of blood were scattered on the rough and gritty concrete floor. They had oxidized after being exposed to the air for a long time, and they cast dark red spots in his dark eyes.
He was lying on the cold concrete floor. His weak breathing brought a small cluster of dust into his lungs. He coughed violently a few times, as if he were about to spit out a large mouthful of blood to cover the dirty bloodstains. His limbs suddenly lost their strength, and he curled up in submission to his instinct to be cold.
His consciousness was about to fall into darkness again. He lay on the ground, cherishing this moment of clarity.
Strength slowly accumulated in his relaxed muscles. He moved his paralyzed body, his handsome nose rubbing against the hard ground, creating a few bloody scratches. A few hoarse and low roars were squeezed out of his dry throat. His elbows suddenly exerted force, and he finally propped up his weak body and turned over.
He lay on his back and looked at the ceiling, his limbs spread out on the ground. His chest was free from the pressure of the ground. After he had breathed out a breath that smelled of blood, his chest rose and fell with a very small amplitude.
The surroundings were a desolate black. Only a poor-quality incandescent light in the distance was shining with a faint light. It seemed to be a bad connection, and the light was always flickering, which was a bit dazzling.
He was lying in a corner, a little far from the light. He could barely see his hand in front of his face. He couldn’t tell if it was day or night, nor could he estimate the space he was in. He just used the cold white light to see a broken window that was high off the ground, covered with a broken iron sheet. This layout looked like an abandoned old warehouse.
His hands and feet were tied with a hemp rope that was used to tie goods. The rope was not tied tightly, and he might be able to untie it with a little effort. But the rough knot was still hurting his wrist, and it had rubbed out several bloody marks.
He really had no strength left. He had been locked up here for at least two days. Besides a bottle of mineral water that had been thrown in a corner, he had not eaten anything. The joints of his body were so sore that they were swollen. His thick black hair, which he had planned to cut after spring, was messy and tangled. His dark hair was soft and stuck to his neck, and it was covered with a layer of dull grease.
“Su Xi…”
His pale and chapped lips were covered with a lot of skin, and they were stuck together and a little prickly. Su Yu endured the pain and tore off the layer of skin on his lips. His consciousness was blurry, and he whimpered the name he had been thinking of before he fell into a coma.
The noisy and chaotic sound of the commercial street seemed to still linger in his ears. He had run through the crowd with his body, which was still under the effect of the drug, and had fled in another direction. Gu Chuan didn’t seem to have chased after him, but he wasn’t sure if he was alone. He could only run with his head down.
He wished he could crush the phone in his hand. For a moment, he actually couldn’t figure out who he should believe.
The last call he had made was before he realized that his body was about to give out. The gentle and soothing female voice on the other end had asked him what had happened. But he had only given an address and had asked the other party to help him. It was a matter of life and death.
“Qian Ge… please.”
The darkness of these past few days, which had been without a single ray of light, was like a persistent curse, enveloping him. Fear had almost become a constant, and he was gradually becoming numb to his own fate. He could only pray silently and helplessly.
His memory was already very blurry. The people, who spoke with an accent he had never heard before, were dressed in plain clothes and pretended to be passersby, had been following him all along. The moment he was hiding in the crowd and making a phone call, they had suddenly made a move. The street was immediately disguised as a scene of two groups of people fighting. The surroundings were suddenly in a mess. He had just deleted the call log when he was knocked out by someone in the chaotic crowd. When he woke up again… he had been thrown in here.
He had guessed a lot.
On that rainy night, the almost-fiery… and crazed confession had triggered the fear that had been sealed in his heart. He had only been thinking of escaping. But the gap of these past few days had made him a little naive, and he had thought that the other party would give up because of her rejection.
He had followed the inertia of his thoughts and had thought that this was Gu Zhi’s order. But he couldn’t figure out why Gu Zhi hadn’t come to see him. He had even thought that this was a family feud, and that Gu Chuan’s unilateral kidnapping was just to use his position in Gu Zhi’s heart to threaten her.
His chaotic thoughts were a tangled mess in his mind, and his head was aching with a dull pain. He couldn’t figure out what role these people were playing in front of him.
From the very beginning, what had been spread out in front of him was just an absurd play woven from lies. The lies were intertwined. He had lifted a small corner and had seen the truth behind the curtain. What was waiting for him… was just an endless darkness.
But whether it was Gu Zhi or Gu Chuan…
He was about to give up. A fire seemed to be burning in his stomach. Without food, his stomach walls could only rub against each other. The burning pain made him unable to stop groaning.
…
“Where is he?”
A hoarse and low voice suddenly came from outside the door. It was a little harsh. It passed through the closed door, and the volume dropped a little, but it still reached his ear.
He didn’t know how long this warehouse had been abandoned. It was like the warehouses that had been left behind after the demolition of the abandoned factories in the suburbs. Everything was very old, including the door, which couldn’t block out the sound. He would often hear the rough voices of the people outside, who spoke with a dialect, cursing. He couldn’t understand them very well, but he could vaguely guess that they were probably playing cards and having fun.
The people who had caught him should be a group of uneducated people who were messing around on the streets. There was no discipline at all. They were all desperadoes who would do anything for money.
He arched his body forward, wanting to hear the man with the standard accent speak clearly.
“Brother, he’s inside. He’s being watched. Don’t worry.” Another voice with a strange accent immediately followed, its tone humble and polite.
“Is he okay? What I saw on the surveillance is not what you said.”
Su Yu struggled to turn his head and look around. He saw a red light in an inconspicuous corner. So there was surveillance. He closed his eyes in despair.
“He’s not dead yet. We’ll feed him something later. He’ll be alive in no time.”
“I’ll come and pick him up in a few days. Watch him carefully during this time. If anything happens, you should know the consequences.”
“Don’t worry, brother. We’ll definitely do a good job since we’ve taken the money. We’ll send some food in later, and we’ll also wash him clean. We’ll make sure he’s delivered to you, white and fat. Just leave this small matter to us.”
Someone would come to pick him up…
Freedom.
He digested the complicated information in his mind, trying to catch a chance to escape. Hunger hit him hard, and his head began to feel dizzy again. In the end, he moved his body pathetically and curled up in a blind spot of the camera, covering his thin figure with darkness, carefully lying in wait.
