Chapter 103
Chapter 103
Wu Xiaojiu froze first. The man, however, didn’t catch on. He hadn’t had much contact with Bo Suihan, and from that hoarse, muffled voice alone, he couldn’t tell who it was.
His footsteps came to an abrupt stop. He raised the gun in his hand, aiming toward the direction the voice had come from, ready to attack.
“Wait. Come here first. I know that voice.”
Wu Xiaojiu had no idea how to explain it, so he first shoved the man behind him. Then he poked his head through the curtain by himself and peered into the pitch-black dolphin exhibit.
“Wu Xiaojiu?”
Bo Suihan had recognized his voice as well. That hoarse male voice rang out again.
Doubt appeared on the man’s face, but in the end, he didn’t stop him. He only tapped Wu Xiaojiu on the tip of the nose, warning him not to try anything funny.
“We’ve already gone overseas and all the way out to the outskirts, and you still run into someone you know? So your name’s Wu Xiaojiu? Pretty nice name. You can go in, but don’t stay too long. I still need the two of us to head deeper in and rescue the Soldier King.”
At this point, Wu Xiaojiu would have agreed to anything the man said. Once he had permission, he stopped caring about anything else.
Wu Xiaojiu pulled open the curtain and strode straight inside.
“Where are you? Weren’t you kidnapped? Why are you here alone? Or is the enemy still with you?”
There were no lights inside the venue. It was pitch-black. Fortunately, the dolphin exhibit had an enormous open-air tank. Under the moonlight, the murky water shimmered in layer after layer, barely illuminating the dead dolphins still floating inside, as well as a small area around the tank.
Wu Xiaojiu felt his way along the tank, relying on its edge to move forward. But even after walking all the way from the entrance of the dolphin hall to the exit, he still didn’t see Bo Suihan anywhere.
Confused, Wu Xiaojiu turned back and looked around.
The place was so dark he couldn’t see a thing, so he decided to walk back again and search more carefully.
Just as he turned his head and started retracing his steps along the edge of the tank, treading through the moonlight reflected off the water and into the exhibit hall-
A pair of slimy hands suddenly grabbed his ankle.
The grip was terrifyingly strong. Wu Xiaojiu felt as if the tendons in his heel were being squeezed out of shape. Before he could even cry out in pain, a cold sweat broke out across his back.
He remembered once watching an American horror movie about a group of scientists conducting biological experiments in an aquarium. The experiment had gone smoothly, and just when they were about to inspect the results, a chemical leak forced the scientists to evacuate the aquarium. But after the chemicals had mostly dispersed and they tried to return to examine the results, they discovered that the intelligent creatures inside had been infected by the chemicals and had all mutated into amphibious monsters capable of moving on both land and water.
Wu Xiaojiu swallowed nervously, because he could feel that the hands gripping his ankle were sticky and reeked of fish. It was a distinctive fishy smell. The palms were wrinkled, and a translucent layer clung to them, like fins attached to fishlike hands.
Stiffly, he wanted to lower his head and see exactly what it was. But before he could, out of the corner of his right eye, he saw that at some point, the enormous tank beside him had drifted over with the corpse of a dolphin floating inside. The dolphin’s originally grayish-white body had now gone completely pale. Its huge corpse was swollen, with a large black livor mortis patch beneath its snout. Its body was bloated from the water, and the overwhelming stench of fish seemed almost strong enough to seep through the tank.
Worst of all, the dolphin’s small, cloudy eyes were still open. Its dead, Dead Sea-like gaze stared heavily at Wu Xiaojiu, making him shudder. For a moment, his whole body went weak and trembled.
Wu Xiaojiu squeezed his eyes shut. At a moment like this, only one line floated through his mind.
If I die, I die. Whatever.
“Please, I’m begging you, save me! As long as you’re willing to save me, I’ll pay you anything!”
A voice suddenly came from beneath his feet. Wu Xiaojiu jumped at first, then listened more carefully and realized it was a human voice.
Some of the fear in his heart faded. He poked his head around and lifted his foot slightly, trying to see who was down there.
The man at his feet looked seventy or eighty years old. His temples were white, and he seemed ancient and decrepit, but he was especially fat, with an enormous belly. His entire face was practically swallowed by folds of flesh, squeezing his features until they were almost impossible to see. He was dressed in a suit and tie, but he was covered in blood and looked utterly wretched.
“Who are you? Why are you here?”
Wu Xiaojiu looked at him and asked with innocent confusion.
The man stared up at him, pleading written across his face, his body, even his eyes. Hearing Wu Xiaojiu ask that, he assumed the other didn’t believe he could offer a high price, so he immediately revealed his identity.
“Han Fu! You should know my corporation. It’s a publicly listed company in Europe, with daily turnover in the hundreds of billions. In this place, I have money. I’m the boss. I’ve held a spot on the richest man rankings for ten years straight! As long as you save me, I’ll give you two hundred million. Three hundred million is nothing, pocket change!”
The name Han Fu was anything but unfamiliar.
The moment Wu Xiaojiu heard it, he started kicking back and forth like a rabbit, trying to shake off Han Fu’s hand.
“Don’t lie to me. This isn’t something to joke about. If you really are Han Fu, me leaving you to die is already merciful. If I don’t stab you twice for good measure, that counts as me being righteous.”
Seeing such a huge reaction from him, Han Fu had no other choice. He braced himself against the ground and forced himself upright, then staggered and threw himself at Wu Xiaojiu, clinging tightly around his waist. No matter how Wu Xiaojiu shook, he couldn’t get him off.
“We’re all family here! You can’t just stand by and watch me die! Can you justify that economically? Can you justify it to your conscience? Please, I’m begging you. This place is remote, with barely anyone around. Aside from you wandering here for no reason, there’s no one else who can save me!”
Han Fu was huge, his body heavy and massive. He pinned Wu Xiaojiu down like a mountain crashing from above, leaving him unable to move, crushed so badly he could hardly breathe.
Even so, Wu Xiaojiu shoved at Han Fu over and over like a chaste maiden defending her virtue, fighting to throw the man off him.
“I don’t want to! I don’t have any obligation to help you! Get off me. If I really save you today, Bo Suihan will fall out with me tomorrow! I can still tell which of you matters more!”
He was on the verge of tears. Wu Xiaojiu knew perfectly well just how much sin Han Fu carried on his back. First, there were personal ties involved, and second, justice lived in people’s hearts. Wu Xiaojiu genuinely did not want to help him.
But the man’s bulk was simply too much. He was pressing Wu Xiaojiu so hard that he was about to die on the spot.
The key was that Han Fu kept wriggling around like an eel. Though he was injured and blood kept pouring out of him, he showed no sign of weakness, nor any hint that his strength was fading.
Instead, he seemed to grow stronger and stronger, pinning Wu Xiaojiu in place so he couldn’t move at all.
Just as Wu Xiaojiu was sinking into utter despair and preparing himself for a drawn-out battle with Han Fu, a figure suddenly rose from the darkness and walked toward them.
Han Fu noticed the footsteps behind him. His thrashing body froze at once, then slowly went rigid. His head turned back against his will.
“I told you to beg him. Not like this.”
A voice like an evil ghost from hell sounded behind him.
Half of Han Fu’s body went cold. His lips trembled, but before he could get a word out, a hand grabbed him by the scalp and yanked him backward with brutal force!