Little Girl

"Captain! You can count on me to get things done. I've mixed all the different kinds of drugs on our ship into the water, one at a time, and I give him a fresh bottle every day. I guarantee he won't wake up before we reach the Underground City!"

"Good. Also, make sure the chains restraining him are Seastone. Assign two people to watch him around the clock. If he shows even the slightest sign of stirring, give him another dose! Don't let him wake up!"

But even after hearing Barque's answer, Captain Gill still wasn't reassured. He turned to the others and repeated his instructions.

"No problem. I'll arrange it right away!" Hearing the captain's orders, Barque nodded quickly and promised to take care of it.

"Good!" Satisfied with Barque's assurance, Gill nodded. He tugged at his soaked clothes again, then stood and headed for his room. He needed to take a hot bath too. Just sitting with Chen Qiang for a little while had made him sweat all over from nerves. Thankfully, Chen Qiang hadn't noticed. Now that the other man had taken the drugs they'd prepared, Gill could finally relax, take a bath, and get some rest.

--

"Where am I?"

By the time Chen Qiang groggily woke up, he had no idea how long had passed. Even with his eyes open, he still couldn't make out where he was.

"Didn't I go back to my room? How did I end up here?"

After a long while, Chen Qiang adjusted to the dim light and managed to see his surroundings. The room was full of all kinds of chains and torture implements. It looked much like the interrogation room where he'd ended up after first crossing over. For a moment, Chen Qiang almost thought everything that had happened to him lately had been a dream.

Fortunately, as he slowly came to, he realized his condition was exactly the same as it had been in the interrogation room. That was when he finally understood what had happened to him.

At that moment, Chen Qiang was tightly bound to a wooden board with all kinds of chains. They were wrapped around him in layer after layer, nearly covering his entire body.

Only his head and one hand were exposed. An IV drip was attached to the exposed hand, and some unknown liquid was steadily flowing through the tube into his body.

Chen Qiang also realized that he couldn't summon any strength at all. Even without the chains holding him down, he didn't think he'd be able to move.

"You're still alive?"

As Chen Qiang tried to remember what had happened—how he'd ended up captured again after falling asleep, and what was going on—a faint voice suddenly came from beside him.

"Who's there?!"

He struggled to turn his head toward the sound. In a dim corner, he saw a little girl with chains on her wrists and ankles and a collar around her neck. She was the one who had just spoken.

"Shh! Keep your voice down. Do you want to alert the guards outside?"

When the little girl heard Chen Qiang, she tried to put a finger to her lips to hush him. But the moment she moved, the chains in her hands rattled, and she quickly stopped. She spoke to Chen Qiang in a low voice instead.

"What's your name, little girl? Do you know where we are?"

Seeing how cautious she was, Chen Qiang lowered his voice too and quietly asked her.

"My name is Lin. Bennett Lin. This is the hold on the Defu Slave Ship, where they keep special slaves!"

Damn it. I was already being careful, but I still got caught. How did they know I was vulnerable to poison? That makes no sense.

After hearing Lin's words, Chen Qiang immediately understood what had happened to him. Once she mentioned the name of the slave ship, everything clicked. He just couldn't figure out how they'd learned about his weakness. It made no sense.

Actually, Chen Qiang couldn't be blamed for that. Since arriving in this world, he'd discovered that although people here spoke Chinese, he couldn't read their writing. Aside from Arabic numerals, he didn't recognize a single character.

The script wasn't Chinese or Japanese, and it didn't belong to any country in his old world. Instead, it seemed like a new writing system formed by combining scripts from every country. So in this world, Chen Qiang could communicate with people, but when it came to anything written, he was completely illiterate.

That was why, when the captain named Gill had handed him the wanted poster, he hadn't recognized the writing and had no idea what it said. He'd only noticed his own bounty of two hundred million.

"Hello, Lin. My name is Chen Qiang. Do you know where they're taking us?"

Once Chen Qiang had figured things out, he told Lin his name and asked why these people had captured him.

"I'm not sure. I only heard them mention something about the Celestial Dragons when they were awake." Lin didn't know the answer to Chen Qiang's question, but she told him one name she'd heard.

"How long have I been kept here? Do you know?" Chen Qiang asked again.

"You were brought here more than ten days ago. They chained you up here and changed your IV every day. Those two guards stayed by your side the whole time. In all those days, I never saw you eat anything or drink any water, so I thought you were dead!"

"Guards? There aren't any guards here." Hearing the little girl mention them, Chen Qiang struggled to raise his head and looked around the room. He didn't see anyone besides Lin, so he asked in confusion.

"They were here earlier, but when they left, I heard them say we'd reached some place called the Underground City. Everyone else went out to have fun, but they had to stay behind and keep watch."

Just as little Lin was explaining this to Chen Qiang, footsteps broke the silence and rapidly approached. Before they could finish talking, the steps stopped, and the room fell silent again.

"Little Jack, I was only gone for a little while, and you fell asleep! If the captain finds out, you'll be in for it!"

The footsteps stopped outside the door, and someone spoke in an annoyed voice.

It seemed that the two men had been guarding the place, but one had gone to fetch something while the other stayed behind. That one had fallen asleep.

"John! You've got some nerve talking. You left me here alone to keep watch while you sneaked off to the wine cellar to get a drink!" The man who had just been woken up was clearly unhappy with the other's words.