When Lin Duoer regained consciousness, it was when her body was being pushed.
The surroundings were dark, and warm wind blew past her. She felt she was in a narrow pipe.
The person pushing her paused slightly with each push.
Was she being rescued? Otherwise, she certainly wouldn't be here.
"Who are you?"
"Shh!" a low voice came. "If you're awake, turn over and crawl yourself. I can't push anymore."
Lin Duoer felt her limbs. The binding cloth strips were gone, and she raised her hand to touch her face; the mask was also gone.
When she rolled over, her head hit something with a "buzz."
"Sigh!" A soft sigh came. "Why are you so clumsy? This is a ventilation duct. Just turn around slowly in place."
Lin Duoer's face burned. Although no one could see, she was angered by the mocking tone.
After she managed to turn over in place, she placed her arms under her chest and crawled forward with all her might.
She crawled silently for a while, then stopped and softly asked, "Is there a direction?"
"No," the person's voice was even softer. "Just crawl. If you feel like you're going up, that's the right way."
After crawling for an unknown amount of time, Lin Duoer's ankle was grabbed.
"Don't move, don't make a sound. There's someone here."
Someone?
The excitement of escaping had not yet subsided when Lin Duoer was startled by these words, as if a basin of cold water had been thrown on her in the middle of winter. Her whole body turned ice cold.
She now fully understood what kind of place that KTV was. If she were caught again, she dared not imagine the consequences.
She lay still, not daring to move. Even though warm air was blowing through the ventilation duct, she was covered in a cold sweat.
After a while, she heard no sounds. Lin Duoer couldn't help but ask, "Did you hear wrong?"
"Shh!"
The person let out an annoyed shushing sound, but it was too late.
"Huh?" A surprised sound came, followed by another. "I heard a woman's voice."
Hearing this voice, Lin Duoer crawled forward with surprise. "Aunt Ouyang."
"Is that Lin Duoer?"
"It's me."
Seeing this, the person also crawled toward Lin Duoer. Young Master Yan had asked him to help this woman escape, saying someone would be waiting outside. This didn't sound like the welcoming party.
At a place with faint light, the two groups met.
Lin Duoer was extremely excited. "Captain Tian, Aunt Ouyang."
Tian Jing looked indifferently at Lin Duoer and the young man behind her.
Seeing that Captain Tian remained silent, Lin Duoer's excitement cooled. She had caused trouble for Captain Tian.
Tian Jing glanced at Lin Duoer. Judging by her condition and aura, she hadn't been mistreated. According to A Yun, new arrivals, if kept intact, could be sold for a good price.
Only then did she feel relieved and turn back to arrange the rescue of the women trapped in that den of iniquity.
She said coldly, "Pies don't fall from the sky. If they do, they're poisonous."
Lin Duoer was stunned for a moment, then nodded. "I've experienced it firsthand. I saw Lin Man."
"Lin Man was here too?" Tian Jing frowned. "Did Lin Man recognize you?"
"I don't know," Lin Duoer shook her head. "I didn't see her when I was outside the room. Later, I was disguised and brought into the room with a mask."
The young man saw that there were only two women opposite him, and these three women were chatting. He was anxious. "Let's go quickly. Young Master Yan said someone would be waiting at B4."
"Who are you?" Tian Jing finally spoke, asking the young man.
"I'm a waiter at the KTV," the young man replied without hesitation, then urged them to hurry and crawl out.
However, all four of them were blocked here. They couldn't turn around.
Tian Jing reached out and gently pried, and the grille of the air outlet, where the light shone through, was pulled off.
Tian Jing gestured for Lin Duoer and the young man to step back.
Then she crawled forward, a person's length, and stopped. She put her feet into the air outlet and backed into it.
Before jumping down, Tian Jing said to Ouyang Meihua, "Sister-in-law, you take them back to the hotel first. I'll go help."
Ouyang Meihua thought, "Is it not my business again?" She had specifically bought a rope.
Using the air outlet, Ouyang Meihua reversed her body, reinstalled the grille, and crawled forward with the two.
As she crawled, she grumbled about the darkness of society, the treachery of human hearts, and the greed of human nature.
Lin Duoer listened and shed tears.
Ouyang Meihua heard the quiet sobs and stopped speaking.
...
The air outlet Tian Jing jumped into led to a medium-sized communal bathroom.
Exiting the bathroom, she looked up at the low ceiling of the corridor, her brows furrowed.
There were many rooms along both sides of the corridor, with room numbers on the doors.
Tian Jing tried some doors; some opened, others didn't.
For those that wouldn't open, she listened. There was no one inside.
Exiting this corridor led to a large hall with rows of attached dining chairs and small stainless steel stoves in the corner.
Combining this with the beds in the rooms that could be opened, this floor was likely the dormitory.
From the dining hall, there were three corridors. The one Tian Jing had come out of was on the far side.
Tian Jing chose the middle corridor and walked in. The doors here were labeled "Security Room," "Manager's Office," and so on.
The last double door was labeled "Monitoring Room."
"Monitoring room?"
Tian Jing darted to the side of the door. Several vines on her hand swayed, and she kicked the door open. No one came out.
Glancing behind the door, Tian Jing raised her hand and put on a shield of her ability, then walked boldly into the monitoring room.
"Don't move!"
A loud shout came from the doorway, and a man emerged with a gun.
"Don't move?" Was that possible?
As Tian Jing turned, vines from her hand had already coiled in the direction of the voice.
Two gunshots rang out, hitting the flexible, snake-like vines. Two of the vines paused, but couldn't stop the others from coiling around.
The bullets passed through the vines and flew towards Tian Jing. The ripples around Tian Jing flickered. The extremely fast bullets, with the ability shield, were indented into a concave pit, then the pit sprang back. With two "clinks," two bullets fell to the ground.
"Bang!"
The gunman was tightly wrapped by the vines like a mummy, including his outstretched arms. Seeing the anomaly beside Tian Jing, he fell to the ground in shock.
"Crack!"
The gun in his hand dropped not far away.
Tian Jing calmly looked behind the monitoring screen. "You come out, or do I come to tie you up?"
"I... I'll come out." A disheveled woman emerged from behind the monitoring screen.
The woman was gorgeously beautiful, her upturned eyebrows exuding seductive charm.
"I... I was forced. He told me to accompany him."
The woman pointed at the man who was tied up. As Tian Jing's gaze shifted to the man, the woman suddenly produced a gun, pointed it at Tian Jing, then sprang up and ran towards the exit.
Tian Jing's hands grew vines again, and she flung them towards the fleeing woman.
The woman was extremely fast, but one of her heels was also caught by the vines. With a "snap," she fell sideways.
Tian Jing pulled hard, and the woman was dragged back.
The woman being dragged on the ground raised the gun in her hand and fired repeatedly at Tian Jing.
They were all blocked by Tian Jing's body, then fell to the ground with "clink, clink, clink."
The woman stared at Tian Jing in disbelief, shouting, "You're a monster, you're not human, you're a monster!"
Amidst her cries, the vines had already wrapped her into a mummy.
Flinging out two vines to pick up the two guns on the ground, Tian Jing asked coldly, "Where is this place?"
The woman's cries stopped. "You don't know where this is?"
Tian Jing shook her head.
The woman's eyes blinked. She opened her mouth to speak, but the vines blocked her mouth horizontally.
Tian Jing looked at the man. "You tell me, where is this place?"
The man, who had been stunned, was jolted awake by the woman's screams. He saw her mouth blocked by vines, but he knew this beautiful woman was definitely not a monster.
Seeing the beautiful woman asking him, the man quickly replied, "This is the administrative department and accommodation area of Golden Rose KTV."