Little Girl

"Captain! You can rest assured in my work. I've mixed over a dozen types of sedatives from our ship into the water, and I replace the bottle every single day. I guarantee that by the time we reach the Underground City, there is no way he will wake up!"

"That's good. And make sure the chains used to restrain him are Seastone. Also, arrange for two men to watch him 24 hours a day. The moment there's even the slightest movement, change his IV immediately! Do not let him wake up!"

Even after hearing Barque's reply, Captain Gill still felt uneasy and proceeded to issue further instructions to the others.

"No problem, I'll go arrange it right away!" Hearing the captain's orders, Barque nodded quickly, indicating he would handle it immediately.

"Hmm!" Hearing Barque's assurance, Gill nodded in satisfaction. He tugged at his soaked clothes once more before standing up and heading toward his room. He needed a hot shower; after all, just sitting with Chen Qiang for that short while had made him sweat profusely from nerves. Fortunately, he hadn't let Chen Qiang notice. Now that the man had consumed the sedatives they prepared, he could finally relax, bathe, and get some rest.

"Where is this?"

When Chen Qiang groggily woke up, he had no idea how much time had passed. Even though his eyes were 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 finally adjusted to the dim light and saw his surroundings clearly. The room was filled with various iron chains and torture devices, much like the interrogation room he had been in when he first transmigrated. It almost made him think that everything that had happened recently was just a dream.

Fortunately, as Chen Qiang slowly regained his senses, he realized his condition was exactly the same as it had been in the interrogation room, and he finally understood what was going on.

Chen Qiang saw that he was tightly bound to a wooden board by various iron chains. There were so many chains, wrapped layer upon layer, that his entire body was submerged beneath them.

Only his head and one hand were exposed. Furthermore, an IV drip was attached to that exposed hand, with an unknown liquid continuously flowing through the tube into Chen Qiang's body.

Chen Qiang also discovered that he couldn't muster any strength at all. Even without the chains, he felt he wouldn't have been able to move regardless.

"You're actually not dead?"

Just as Chen Qiang was trying to recall what had happened—how he had ended up captured again after waking up—a tiny voice suddenly sounded from nearby.

"Who's there!"

Controlling his head, he struggled to turn it toward the direction of the sound. In a dim corner, he saw a young girl bound with hand and foot shackles, a collar locked around her neck. It was she who had spoken.

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

Seeing Chen Qiang's reaction, the girl instinctively wanted to put a finger to her lips to signal him to be quiet. However, the moment she moved, her chains rattled, forcing her to stop immediately. She only whispered to Chen Qiang.

"Little girl, what is your name? Do you know where this place is?"

Seeing how cautious the girl was, Chen Qiang cooperated by lowering his voice and asking her quietly.

"My name is Lin, Bennett Lin. This is the brig of the Defu Slave Ship, specifically used for holding special slaves!"

Damn it, I was already being so careful, yet I still got caught. But how did they know about my low resistance to poison? That's really strange!

After hearing Lin's words, Chen Qiang immediately understood his situation. Especially after hearing the name of the slave ship, everything became clear. What he couldn't figure out was how they knew his weakness; it simply wasn't scientific.

Actually, this wasn't Chen Qiang's fault. After arriving in this era, he discovered that while the people here spoke Chinese, the written language—aside from the Arabic numerals he recognized—was completely foreign to him.

These characters were neither Chinese nor Japanese; they didn't belong to any country from his previous world. Instead, they looked like a new type of script formed by combining characters from all nations. This made Chen Qiang a complete illiterate in this world, save for his ability to communicate verbally.

This was also why, when Captain Gill had handed him the bounty poster, he hadn't recognized the text and had no idea what was written on it, only seeing his own bounty of two hundred million.

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

After processing this, Chen Qiang told Lin his name and asked why these people had captured him.

"I'm not entirely sure, but when they were awake, I heard them mention something about the Celestial Dragons!" Regarding Chen Qiang's question, Lin admitted she didn't know much, only sharing the name she had overheard.

"Do you know how long I've been locked up here?" Chen Qiang asked again.

"You were brought here over ten days ago. They tied you up as soon as you arrived and have been changing your IV drip every day. Those two guards have been watching you constantly. In these ten days, I haven't seen you eat or drink anything, so I thought you were a dead man!"

"Guards? There are no guards here," Chen Qiang said, struggling to lift his head to scan the room. He didn't see anyone other than the girl, so he asked with some confusion.

"They were here before, but when they left, I heard them say they had reached some place called the Underground City. The others went out to have fun, but they had to stay behind to keep watch."

Just as the girl, Lin, was explaining this to Chen Qiang, footsteps echoed through the otherwise quiet environment, approaching rapidly. Before she could finish her sentence, the footsteps stopped, and the room returned to silence.

"Little Jack, I was only gone for a moment, and you actually fell asleep? If the captain finds out, you're in for it!"

The person whose footsteps had just approached stopped at the door and spoke with dissatisfaction.

It seemed that the two men had been guarding the room; one had left to get something, leaving the other to keep watch, but the latter had fallen asleep.

"John! You have the nerve to say that? You left me here to guard alone while you snuck off to the wine cellar to get a drink!"

The man who had just been woken up was clearly unhappy with the other's remark.