Chapter 164: Chapter 164: A Woman Escaped with a Child Chapter 164: Chapter 164: A Woman Escaped with a Child Cries of alarm echoed intermittently from within the cages.
None of them knew how Lin Qi managed to unlock the cages. Some thought Lin Qi knew how to pick locks, and therefore, said to her, “Young girl, save me, please!”
“It’s useless!” A man’s voice came from a cage in the corner, “You can’t escape.”
Lin Qi looked towards the voice.
She walked up to the cage and furrowed her brow: “Why do you say that?”
The man said, “Have you seen the collar around your neck?”
Lin Qi felt it with her hand.
The man said, “There’s a small bomb inside it, only a specific decoder can unlock it.”
Lin Qi asked, “What decoder?”
The man explained, “We are all ‘merchandise’ here, and the collars can only be opened before being delivered to the buyers. Moreover, there’s only one way to open this collar, which is the commander’s decoder. By entering the collar number into the decoder, the collar will unlock itself. But if the collar is forcibly pried open, it will explode.”
Lin Qi asked doubtfully, “How do you know this?”
The man sneered and glanced at the blood on his body, “How do you think I got this blood? My friend was blown up by one of these collars. Besides me, two of my friends were also tricked here. They were told about a high-paid illegal job overseas, promising three hundred thousand a year. We believed it and agreed to go work together, but then…”
One of his friends was a habitual criminal, who previously lived by stealing, and after being released from prison, he couldn’t find a decent job because of his criminal record.
His home was in very poor condition.
To build a house and take a wife, he had the idea of working abroad.
Little did he know, this trip would be deadly.
When they woke up, they were in a van, wearing collars, and nothing else tied their hands and feet.
His friend, being skilled in picking locks, tried to help another to open the collar.
Unexpectedly, the collar exploded at that moment.
The bomb inside the collar was small, the explosive power wasn’t great, but it was enough to blow through a human neck.
One had their neck blown open and died on the spot, another was beaten to death for not being obedient, leaving him as the sole survivor among the three.
The man clenched his fist, his face flushed red from anger, “We are on a ship right now, can you hear the sound of the sea wind outside? We are in the middle of the ocean, even if you escape from here, where can you go?”
Lin Qi asked, “You mentioned, only a special decoder can unlock the collars?”
The man replied, “Yes.”
Lin Qi asked further, “Where is this decoder?”
The man explained, “Every noon and evening, someone comes to distribute food to us. Among them, the tallest man, they call him ‘commander’, is in charge of overseeing us. I’ve seen it, the decoder is in his possession.”
Lin Qi asked, “So if we get the decoder, we can unlock everyone’s collars?”
The man suddenly became fearful, “I’m not sure… I saw him use it once. After he entered the password, and the collar number, the collar came off.”
Listening, Lin Qi fell into deep thought.
The man suddenly grabbed the cage excitedly, “Even if you unlock everyone’s collars, we can’t escape! We’re at sea, unless you control the whole crew of the cargo ship, otherwise…”
Lin Qi stated, “So what you mean is that we all should just sit still in these cages, wait for the cargo ship to reach the port, and then be dispersed to various buyers, seated and awaiting our deaths?”
The man stuttered, “That’s not what I mean…”
Lin Qi declared decisively, “I don’t want to sit here and wait to die. Since you also know, this organization is a criminal group, we are all ‘merchandise’, auctioned to buyers. Do you know what you are?”
Lin Qi said, “You’re ‘livestock.'”
Others asked curiously, “What does ‘livestock’ mean?”
Lin Qi explained, “It means that every organ in your body will end up on the black market. You are just a temporary container for storing organs. Soon, you will be killed, and your internal organs will be harvested and sold to the black market.”
Everyone gasped in shock.
Lin Qi pointed to his collar, “The tag on our necks; yours is blue, you are ‘livestock’. Those with red tags are ‘meat livestock’. I do not want to explain what ‘meat livestock’ means to you all, but I guess you do not want to become playthings for others, to be unhappily killed at anytime, right?”
Everyone began to check the colors on their own collars.
“I am ‘meat livestock’…”
A young girl looked at the tag on Lin Qi’s collar, which was red.
She asked, “Sister, what color is my collar?”
Lin Qi looked and saw it was blue.
She sat down on the spot, looked around, and asked, “Does anyone here know how to operate a cargo ship?”
Silence fell in the cabin.
A hand reached out from a cage, “I can…”
The man stated, “I used to operate a squid fishing boat.”
Lin Qi responded, “Good.”
Having someone who could navigate the ship was good.
Lin Qi stated, “I’ll find a way to save you all, then, let’s hijack the ship and escape together, shall we?”
Her words hung in the air, the cabin falling silent once more.
Voices emerged, “I don’t want to die! I want to escape!”
“Young girl, let’s escape together!”
Voices surged one after another.
Six hours passed in the blink of an eye.
That group of men walked in again.
They went cage by cage, throwing bread inside.
Suddenly, a person shouted loudly, “Someone has escaped!”
Men immediately gathered around that particular cage.
The woman said, “Sir, I saw a woman and a child escape from that cage! I’m reporting it to you! Could you give me an extra piece of bread?”
The tall man asked, “Which cage?”
The woman pointed to the empty cage, “That one!”
The man went over, and indeed, the cage was empty.
“Damn, the ‘meat livestock’ escaped!” The man cursed, “How did they open the cage?”
The woman shook her head, “I don’t know…” She only managed to say “I don’t know,” her eyes fixed fearfully on the bread in the man’s hand.
The man threw a piece of bread into the cage, then turned around and asked, “Does anyone know where they ran off to?”
The door was locked from the outside.
How could anyone escape?
No one spoke, and no one responded.
The man declared, “Whoever reports it, gets a reward.” He took out a few more pieces of bread.
Soon, voices came from several other cages one after another, “I saw them! They sneaked out when you opened the door!”