CH 31.3

Chapter 31: She is light, she is hope (3)

The girls, most of whom were seeing Chi Xin for the first time, looked at her with little curiosity and lots of indifference and pity, and her heart tightened.

“Chi Xin, are you okay?” Wo Na asked her and looked for any injury, “The leader…”

“Ji You brought me out.” Chi Xin knew what she was worried about, “I am fine.”

Wo Na was obviously very relieved and Chi Xin glanced at Ai Xi, who was hiding beside Wo Na and blinking at her. Her expression softened and she said in a gentle voice: “Ai Xi, good morning.”

“Sister Chi Xin.” Ai Xi whispered as a greeting.

Chi Xin almost melted. She had a bunch of items in her space but right now, she couldn’t take anything out. She patted her body instead and after a few seconds, she found the break Ji You had given her earlier and handed it to the young girl.

“Do you like bread? This is for you.”

Chi Xin realized that when she did that, everybody stared at her. Wo Na was startled for a moment and immediately pushed her hand away: “Are you mad? Don’t show stuff like that here, it will be stolen!”

Chi Xin smiled but kept handing the break to Ai Xi: “Little Ai Xi, do you want it?”

Ai Xi smelled the sweet fragrance of food and her eyes clearly showed longing: “I almost have forgotten the taste of bread…”

“Take it.” Chi Xin put the food in her hand, “Eat it, don’t worry. No one will take it from you.”

Whether it was her tone or her temperament so different from the girls here, Ai Xi looked at Chi Xin with bright eyes and thanked her obediently. The worries on Wo Na’s face gradually disappeared and she sighed as she watched the young girl eat the bread cherishedly. 

“Li Chen didn’t come today.” Wo Na whispered, “I overheard the men chatting, saying that it looks to be very sick and was unable to stand up this morning.”

From Wo Na’s point of view, this was as much as a direct affirmation. Her breathing sped up and a flush of excitement appeared on her face. The hope that had been suppressed for so long was making itself known again and her voice shook at the thought: “Tell me. As long as I can help, I will put my life on the line.”

“Your life is too important so you can live well in the future.” Chi Xin said, “Do you know the base’s approximate topography?”

Wo Na’s lips trembled and she lowered her head to hide the single tear falling from her face. She raised her chin again, wiped her cheek, and the hatred and confusion from yesterday had morphed into bright hope.

“I don’t have many chances to go out, I only know a little.” She answered, “The leader’s room you went to last night is at the center of the entire base. We are on the westernmost side and while this base seems small, the mountain roads make it hard to know where people will hide. It’s not easy to escape.”

She added: “And these girls had been tortured for so long… even if they manage to escape, they won’t be able to survive the wilderness.”

“You don’t necessarily have to flee.” Chi Xin whispered.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Chi Xin temporarily stopped her plan to form and asked a few more questions.

“Chi Xin…” Wo Na hugged Ai Xi in a daze, “Can we really go back to our lives before.”

“Yes.” Chi Xin’s voice was soft but firm and Wo Na buried her face in Ai Xi’s hair.

Chi Xin hesitated for a moment and asked without much hope: “Wo Na, do you know… where are the prisoners usually hidden?”

Wo Na raised her head in confusion.

A beautiful woman was sitting, a smile on her face and staring at the bread in Ai Xi’s hand: “I slipped out to the bathroom last night and saw them pushing the cage away. I know where they are.”

Chi Xin and Wo Na glanced at each other. Wo Na’s eyes showed a trace of boredom and she asked: “Wen Suxin, you had to sneak to the bathroom?”

“Yes.” The woman nodded but her face had a guilty expression, “I saw them push the cage and where they went.”

Seeing Wo Na’s attitude, Chi Xin realized there might have been something wrong with Wen Suxin. She smiled harmlessly and asked: “Can you show me? Ji You said he would bring me bread again tonight.”

“It’s a deal! You give me bread and I will take you.” Wen Suxin agreed.

Wo Na watched the other woman turn around and leave and whispered: “Don’t trust her, she’s just as brainwashed as Han Yiyi.”

“You know Han Yiyi?” Chi Xin wondered.

“She used to live here just like us.” Wo Na replied, “But then she escaped and when she came back, she got the leader’s favor. I don’t know what exactly happened but Wen Suxin has always been jealous of her. You really shouldn’t trust any of them.”

“Don’t trust them…” Chi Xin murmured, “I know.”

Wo Na looked like she wanted to add something else but when she saw Chi Xin’s calm and indifferent face, she swallowed her words back. She didn’t know what Chi Xin was planning but she had unprecedented trust in her.

***

At night, Ji You naturally did not come to deliver bread to Chi Xin and she wasn’t going to count on him. She picked some she didn’t like from her space and gave it to Wen Suxin instead.

Wen Suxin ate the food in seconds and said: “I will take you.”

She led Chi Xin through a narrow and dark path, where they did not encounter any guard along the way. Chi Xin was quite amazed at first until she saw Yangyang and the other girls in the big cage.

“I won’t go farther, there are guards over there.”

Chi Xin nodded and looked at her run away.

Perhaps because nobody expected a group of women to escape, the cage had been placed on the edge of the cliff and only two guards were there. Both men were obviously tired, guns in hand, slightly dozing off.

Chi Xin looked through her space and realized she had given the anesthetic bullets to Wo Na. Instead, she settled on a baseball bat.

She walked quietly on the snow and approached the men silently. She had only seen one cage when she had been in Song Liangping’s room but there were actually more than a dozen girls here, kept in four different cages.

Yangyang was not cathartic like the others and was biting her fingernails, an expression of resentment and despair on her face. When she tried to pick the lock again, she looked up and noticed a familiar figure.

She almost startled.

Facing Yangyang’s wide eyes, Chi Xin put her finger on her mouth and gestured her to stay quiet. Yangyang immediately reached to her throat, afraid she would make any noise.

She watched Chi Xin walk straight to the two guards’ back and swing the baseball bat hard; before they could realize what was happening, their eyes went blank and they fell to the ground.

Awakened by the noise, the other girls also raised their heads and saw Chi Xin with her bat on her shoulder. She stepped on one of the men’s faces and strode towards them.

Just like a dream.

“Chi Xin?” Yangyang whispered her name, “Is that you?”

“It’s me.” 

Chi Xin looked at the girls’ state and found out they were mostly only afraid and tired, with no obvious injury. She breathed a sigh of relief and asked: “Is everyone okay?”

“We’re okay.” Yangyang replied in a trance, “They want to sell us, that’s why they don’t dare hurt us.”

“Good.”

In Yangyang’s case, a girl shrunk in the corner crawled out and looked at Chi Xin timidly.

“Chi Xin, is that really you?”

Her face was full of hope yet full of fear. All the girls leaned towards Chi Xin and they all looked at her with similar expressions.

“It’s me.” Chi Xin answered, “You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

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TL note: This chapter was supposed to be the fourth update of last week… Obviously, I don’t have time on the weekend and I should probably realize that and stop procrastinating. I still have a half-translated chapter of LSOBP to release cause we visited many houses instead. Oops. It’s coming, I promise! I have to try to stop thinking I can do anything after Fridays tho.

TL second note: …and we spent most of our Sunday putting an offer together. Which is complicated, and stressful, and I wish the market wasn’t so crazy. I’ve been a big ball of anxiety these past two weeks because of the slightest things related to buying a house. I mean… it’s a shit ton of money and it’s our first house, of course people would be stressed. But now is really not the time! Did you know that first home’s budget was considered luxury less than a decade ago? Ugh, so. much. stress. You have to add so much money in appraisal, repairs, anything they can suck blood from to get a house without the office you really really wanted. At least I’m learning a whole new vocabulary! And who knows, we might get lucky and get the house! It needs some work but it’s in a great neighborhood and has a great yard! Fingers crossed okay? But also, happy reading! There should be two more updates this week.