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nTranslator: Lonelytree

nI smiled but the mirth didn’t reach my eyes. “Well, my math is not good. I mistake 4 for 1. I’m sorry.” I stood up before them and tapped the iron bar repeatedly against my palm as I studied Tan Si. Tan Si’s eyes moved along the movement of the iron bar.

nI then walked around them, dragging the iron rod against the ground. It created a very grating sound. I stopped at the only window in the room and then walked back to stand before them.

n“I live in this big house all by myself. There’s a basement here where my grandfather used as his wine cellar. He passed away many years ago so the basement has been abandoned.

n“I doubt the four of you would have made plenty of noise infiltrating into the house yesterday night. After all, you were trespassing. Now… Let’s say I lock the four of you in my cellar, do you think anyone will come looking for you?”

nI walked back to the window. “I suppose there might be, for example, the person who hired you. But if I were them, I wouldn’t bend over backwards to look for you. After all, this kind of illegal transaction is normally done in 2 stages, a deposit up front and then the final payment after the job is done. If I don’t hear from you guys again, why would I risk my own safety to come looking for you? I’ll pretend I have never hired you, I’ll even save a final payment this way.”

nI walked back towards them. “What about my supposed buyer then? Again, I don’t think so. First, they wouldn’t have known my real identity, or else they wouldn’t have dropped the bid to purchase me. Second, in this line of work, it is quite common for a deal to go wrong. People might not show up, the work might be shoddy or you’ve attracted the attention of the police. Since you haven’t delivered the good, I wouldn’t have given you the deposit. Then I have lost nothing. I would move on to deal with the next group of people, why would I put my neck out for you people?”

nI walked back to the window. “Now who else, who else? Okay, your gang might come looking for you. Of course, if you took this job in private, they might just let you be. But if you took this job as a task for the gang, then the gang would observe this place for weeks before they sent people into the house. By then, I would have left this place already and no one would know the way to the underground cellar.”

nI thought about it and added, “Suppose the gang did find the cellar… Hmm, in that case, I would have to put you four into the filled wine barrels. I promise that drowning is the most peaceful way to go. Plus the alcohol will further compromise your actual state of death. So what would 4 barrels of wine contaminated by human remains benefit your gang? What do you think of my plan? Have I missed anything or anyone?”

nThe four of them looked at me with eyes filled with fear.

nTan Si and the others were dumbfounded.

n“Miss Pretty, Great Madam, please forgive us! We don’t dare to do this again! If you let us go, we will do everything you say!” Tan Si cried, “Miss Pretty, please let us go. We, we all have parents and children to feed, they can’t survive without us.”

nI scoffed. “Now you think about your family? What about my family? Brother Tan Si, if you succeeded and I was captured and sold, what kind of life would I have? Have you thought about that?

n“You people do not have the moral high ground and don’t think I’ll ever pity you because you never thought to pity me. If you want to be saved, better consider answering my questions instead.”

nThis time, Tan Si didn’t look at Ah Hu and answered hurriedly, “It was a young lady who ordered your kidnapping. We don’t know her identity. We took her deposit and we would shoot a picture of the receipt with the buyer to get the final payment.

n“The buyer is someone from Southeast Asia. This is our first time doing it, so we don’t know much details. It wasn’t us who contacted the buyer either. It was our gang boss who personally did that. Our boss is Han Cheng, West City’s Underworld Boss. 4 of us belong to the same unit. There are around 8 units like ours working under Brother Han Cheng. One unit has around 4 to 10 people.” Tan Si spilled all the beans.

nI was very satisfied.

nTan Si looked at me with pleading eyes. “Miss Pretty, we’re wrong. Please let us go, we’ll never do this again.”

nI smiled. Of course, I didn’t believe him. If I let them go now, they would immediately returned with reinforcements.

nI took out my phone instead. The greatest advantage of the informational age was that, as long as you were alive, you would be remembered as your trace would live on permanently on the web. Of course, the downside was that no one could really be anonymous.

nIt didn’t take long for me to look up all the info on this Han Cheng. I was quite surprised that this small organization would have a central server. It was truly a great find.

nI hacked into their data centre and found a lot of useful stuff.

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