Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The morning sun at about eight or nine o’clock rose, but its rays couldn’t reach the Bronx. The tall buildings surrounding it had blocked all the light around, and it wouldn’t be surprising if people who stayed there felt depressed easily.

Right in the middle of the Bronx was a rundown, grayish-white, six-storey building. Tan Guiren had just woken up within it. She hugged her shoulders and shrank into a corner, an arm blocking her forehead instinctively. The blinding rays penetrated from in between the wooden flooring and shined directly onto her face, awakening her. She leaned against the wall and sat there for a little while and waited for the sun’s rays to move before putting her arm down.

Opening her eyes, she began looking around the room she was in. There weren’t any lights in the room. The windows had been nailed shut. It was dark and humid, even in the day. There was merely an occasional ray of sunlight shining through the wooden flooring, making her look neither human nor ghostly.

She didn’t know how long she had been trapped in this little room. When she had just gotten locked in there, she could still try to keep count; however, as the days got longer, and hope began dwindling, she gave up trying to keep track of the days. Tan Guiren felt that she would be trapped there forever.

“Sister… I’m hungry…” A timid voice sounded somewhere near her. Tan Guiren looked over. In that small, squarish house, the owner had used metal railings to separate them into smaller spaces. There used to be a person in each little space, but as time passed, the people stopped whining one by one. They got carried out, motionless.

She remembered that there had been three adults and eight children who were about seven to eight years old in the beginning. However, now there was only her and two kids. They were a boy and a girl, and she saw them as company. They stayed in their own cages and had no freedom, like locked up animals. They had no dignity, either.

The other boy had already begun bawling. Tan Guiren moved over and began to console him from her cage. “Little Quan, don’t cry. You’re a man. A man doesn’t shed tears easily…”

“I’m not a man! I’m only eight! I want mommy and daddy! I want my older brother and sister…” Little Quan began crying even harder.

“What the heck are you crying about early in the morning?!” A rough voice bombarded them through the door. Shortly after, Little Quan’s cage opened and a big man went in with something that resembled a long metal ruler. Without warning, he began hitting Little Quan with it! Little Quan screamed in pain and blacked out.

Even though Tan Guiren was scared stiff, she couldn’t bring herself to see him get beaten to death. Mustering up her courage, she said as bravely as she could, “What are you doing?! He’s just a child!”

The brute turned around and glared at her. Even though she was malnourished, her face still showed her beauty. An evil look flashed in his eyes, and a hairy arm reached out to her. Tan Guiren couldn’t move away in time. When the large, sticky hand touched her face, she fell backwards and avoided his ill-intentioned hands.

“Damn it! You dare to move away from me?! Who the heck do you think you are?!” The brute was extremely angered by the look of disgust in Tan Guiren’s eyes. He went over to her cage in a flash, threw the lock of her cage onto the floor, and barged into her space.

Tan Guiren tried her best to fend him off but couldn’t stop him from opening the front of her clothes. She didn’t know how long she had worn this silk top for. It had already begun to smell. The people there did not allow her to shower. She wouldn’t dare to, even if she was allowed, anyway. However, even in her current state, she was still able to arouse a man.

It had been a long time since Tan Guiren had eaten a proper meal, so she was already weak. Moreover, she often gave the bread they gave her to the kids. She had already lost so much weight, she was nothing more than a bag of bones. How would she have the strength to really fight off this brute?

In no time at all, she was beneath him, unable to move. She looked up at the ceiling with an emotionless expression, and tears began falling from her beautiful eyes. I’m going to lose my first time here, she thought.

Since she was young, she had been a good girl. The Tan’s were a respectable family and were extremely strict with her upbringing. She did not even have the chance to have a boyfriend. Little did she expect that she would be losing her first time here…

As she was feeling depressed and thinking of ending her life, a loud voice came from the back, “Jack! What the f*ck do you think you’re doing?!”

Then she felt a sudden whoosh, and the weight lifted from her. The brute had fallen off from the impact of the punch and was thrown out of her cage by the man. “B… Boss… I… I… Just give her to me, will you? I’ve been eyeing her this whole time!” The kidnapper refused to give up, even when he was outside, and begged them to let him off the hook.

“Get lost!” Then, a bang was heard. No one could hear the kidnapper’s voice anymore. They had no idea if the brute had run off on his own accord, or if he had been punched until he blacked out.

After a while, the door opened. A tall, lean man walked in and threw Tan Guiren a new top. Tan Guiren opened her eyes and saw a cold but handsome man squatting in front of her. She couldn’t hold it in any longer. She let out a piercing scream and scampered to the back of her cage, hiding in a corner where she began trembling feverishly. It had taken her so much to protect her virginity. She would never give it to such people…

The man did not make things difficult for her. Holding a cigarette between two fingers, he flicked the ashes off its tip and said to her hoarsely, “Change out of your top. Nothing like this will happen again.”

Pouting, Tan Guiren turned around, not wanting to look at this man who was so cold and emotionless. However, she gripped so tightly at the top that was covering her that her veins were showing.

After a while, the man walked out. However, he returned shortly with a couple of paper plates with some freshly baked pizzas on them. He placed a slice of pizza in front of each of them and said, “Have some.”

Tan Guiren remained motionless, but the children who were starving jumped at their food and began gobbling it down. The man locked the cages and walked out of the house, closing the door. Then, he turned to the strong men at the door and told them coldly, “Anyone who dares to harass the people inside will end up like Jack.”

The man who had been talking so loudly just now was right in front of them, lying on the floor, face down, with a hole on the back of his head. A mass of whitish liquid leaked out from his head; that was his brain. He had been shot dead in front of the door. The strong men were murderers who had killed countless people. However, they were as meek as mice in front of this cold man. “Take him away and get rid of him,” the man said coldly again before turning around and heading downstairs.

Tan Guiren turned to the window when the sounds outside had subsided. How she yearned to return to the sun, to where she used to be. However, she couldn’t. She didn’t know what she had done to deserve this. Her 24 years of blissful and peaceful life had vanished in one morning.

She couldn’t understand what was going on until now. She was sleeping in her dormitory and not doing anything out of the ordinary. One morning, when she woke up, she was already in this hell of a place. How in the world did she end up here?!

Tan Guiren put on the top that the man had given her, hugged her knees, and returned to her corner. Then, she began sobbing again.

…

Huo Shaoheng returned to his office in the Special Forces branch in New York. The staff planning for the Bronx had already been sent to his email. Turning on his laptop, he opened the email and began analyzing the figures it contained. The Bronx had been an area with the worst security all along. There were many sorts of people, but the majority of them were ex-offenders. It wasn’t easy to find anyone here who had a clean record. However, it was the total opposite if you were looking for someone who had a record. This would be the best place to hide a hostage, wouldn’t it?

No one would know if you were to rob or kill. Even the police couldn’t be bothered to patrol this area anymore. They let the people here fend for themselves. As long as they kept it within the area, everyone took this area as a shadow or a place that didn’t exist. However, in this place that was full of crime, Huo Shaoheng managed to see something different.

In a place where crimes could happen anywhere, there was this particular area that had an extremely low crime rate this month. Even those ex-offenders seemed to intentionally avoid the area. What would make these people, who were not afraid of anything, avoid the place? The only thing to make them avoid the area would be that the area had been taken over by someone who was more evil than they were.

Huo Shaoheng opened the Bronx’s file again. He observed the data of the number of people who were moving about and zoomed in on the exact area people avoided. It was a six-storey building in the middle of the Bronx.

“Little Ze, come and take a look at this. Do you think you’ll be able to get a real time image of this place from the satellite?” Huo Shaoheng pointed at the location and asked Zhao Liangze.

Zhao Liangze took a look and replied, “That shouldn’t be a problem. This place already has a satellite photo of the street. I can retrieve it now.” In a couple of minutes, Zhao Liangze had managed to get a picture of the location. It was a rundown, grayish-white little building. However, its surroundings were exceptionally well maintained. Not only did it not have any garbage like all the other streets in the Bronx, there weren’t even addicts roaming around. It was so clean that it was abnormal.

Even Zhao Liangze gasped and pointed to the picture. “…Would it be here?!”

“Most likely.” Huo Shaoheng touched his chin with one hand and said with a straight face, “But the people here might not be easy to deal with. We’ve got to get enough backup and weapons before heading down.”

“Seriously?” Zhao Liangze blinked. “Even though the people here are daring enough to commit crime, it’s petty crime like fighting and theft. Would we be overreacting by using such a large amount of strength?”

“Don’t interrupt.” Huo Shaoheng looked extremely stern. This was rare. “If Tan Guiren is really here, we need to save her and ensure that we are fine. We cannot be recognized by the American police, Army, FBI, or CIA, and you think it’s that easy? Obviously, it would be best to use the biggest amount of strength and get it over and done with!”