The underground casino located in the southern suburbs was filled with the excited shouts of people. Men and women screamed at the top of their lungs in the crowded space, the clinking of chips representing money mixed with the dazzling lights, intoxicating everyone's eyes.
This place was a melting pot of all kinds of people, from every walk of life.
Those who dreamed of getting rich overnight without working would eventually lose everything here.
Jiang Jiansheng wasn’t here to gamble; he had a target.
At the dawn of the new millennium, society was chaotic but full of rare opportunities.
Standing at the forefront of this wave, many businessmen who had ventured into the market made a fortune, especially in Jiang City, where countless people became overnight millionaires.
Having lived in poverty before, once they tasted wealth, they craved more.
Jiang Jiansheng saw the "business opportunity" in this. He began intentionally infiltrating these circles.
It started at the mahjong table, with small bets of a few hundred yuan for excitement.
Then, he gradually lured them in, boasting about how much money he had made at the casino.
Greed got the better of them, and they couldn’t resist the temptation, following him into the casino.
And then, they struck it big.
This was the hook. Once the target got a taste of success, they would come back no matter what, even if they had to fight their way in.
Now, the fish had taken the bait, and he had to keep a close eye on them.
Beside him, his "friend" had already lost everything, his eyes bloodshot with desperation.
It was the third day, and after a series of wins and losses, he had lost all his savings from the past three years, as well as his house.
Jiang Jiansheng couldn’t let the other party find him, so he had to slip away unnoticed while his "friend" wasn’t paying attention.
He had shares in the casino, and this deal would net him over forty thousand yuan.
Forty thousand yuan at the turn of the millennium was one of the biggest deals he had ever made.
Still, seeing the desperation in the man’s eyes, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of unease.
With that thought, he quickened his steps as he left the casino.
His underlings were busy luring in other targets, so today he needed to take a taxi back to the city.
The cool breeze cleared his mind, and he hummed a tune as he walked out of the casino, heading toward the main road outside the village.
There weren’t many cars on the road, and after waiting for a while without seeing one, he lit a cigarette and continued walking.
He was in a good mood.
At the same time, he was thinking about retiring from this line of work.
Those in the underworld had to know when to quit while they were ahead.
He had heard rumors that the authorities were cracking down on underground casinos. He sensed that this business had only a couple of years left, and it was time to consider legitimate ventures.
With the startup capital he had, it was time to get out. Otherwise, if he got caught and ended up in prison, all that money would be confiscated, and his efforts would have been for nothing.
He wasn’t like those brainless fools who thought they could live comfortably off this forever.
Lost in thoughts of the future, he didn’t notice the vehicle slowly approaching him.
It wasn’t until the suffocating sensation of a hand covering his mouth and nose hit him, causing his limbs to go limp, that he realized something was wrong.
In that instant, his body thrashed violently, his eyes wide as he fought to stay conscious and avoid falling into unconsciousness.
But no matter how strong his willpower, it was no match for the effects of the anesthetic.
What he thought were intense struggles were, to his assailant, nothing more than slight twitches before the drug took full effect.
When Jiang Jiansheng woke up, he found himself lying in a pile of dry grass in a deserted factory in the southern suburbs.
He tried to get up, but his limbs felt as if they had disappeared.
Terror instantly spread across his face.
His first thought was that someone had sought revenge on him, but he had no idea who it could be.
Gradually, he began to feel his body slowly regaining sensation.
This filled him with a sense of relief.
"Heaven hasn’t abandoned me," he thought to himself.
After four or five minutes, he felt he could speak again.
However, even though he could speak, he didn’t dare to shout for help, as it was clear he was in a desolate place.
He didn’t want to call out and attract the wrong person instead of a rescuer.
His eyes were filled with a desperate will to survive, along with a hint of ruthlessness.
If he ever found out who had done this to him, he would make sure they ended up in cement at the bottom of the river, teaching them the consequences of crossing him.
After a while, he felt his hands regain some movement.
Overjoyed, he reached out, grabbed the grass, and began to slowly crawl away.
For some reason, this scene felt oddly familiar.
But it was just a fleeting thought, quickly pushed aside.
As he inched forward, he gradually made his way out of the grass enclosure.
His lips curled into a grin, and his eyes sparkled with intense relief.
But that relief froze on his face when he looked up and saw a figure standing before him, dressed in a raincoat and rubber boots.
The person was completely covered, wearing a mask, gloves, a black raincoat, and black rain boots. He couldn’t recognize who it was.
But he recognized the hammer in their hand.
In that moment, a chill shot up from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, making his scalp tingle.
His face twitched, and he stammered, "I... I don’t know when I offended you... I apologize, please... please spare me..."
For the first time in his life, he spoke such humble words of plea.
Fear coursed through his entire body, leaving him in a state of extreme tension as he lay on the ground.
Unable to move, he was nothing more than a pig on the chopping block to the person before him.
But for Ye Sangsang, picking up the weapon and getting to work was all that mattered. Any unnecessary words would only insult her excitement.
She took a step forward, bent down slightly, and stuffed a rag into his mouth.
In this remote wilderness, sound wouldn’t carry far, but the rag was mainly to prevent Jiang Jiansheng from biting his tongue in agony.
With the rag securely in place, and under Jiang Jiansheng’s increasingly desperate gaze, Ye Sangsang raised the hammer.
To make it easier for Jiang Jiansheng to crawl two kilometers, she only broke his legs, leaving his arms severely injured but functional.
With each strike of the hammer, Jiang Jiansheng’s pain grew unbearable, his body trembling uncontrollably.
"Run. If you can crawl out, I might just let you go~" Ye Sangsang said with a playful tone.
Her voice was as gentle as if she were discussing what she had for lunch, but the content of her words sent shivers down the spine.
Jiang Jiansheng convulsed in pain, watching as Ye Sangsang removed the rag from his mouth. He instinctively twitched.
"Ahhhhhhhhh!"
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
His agonized screams grew louder and louder, matching the intense pain coursing through his body.
The pain terrified him, and for the first ten minutes, he couldn’t move at all.
It was only when he realized that the person before him intended to torture him further that he began to crawl.
He had heard that people like this had little patience. If he stayed still, they would eventually grow tired and kill him.
Driven by the will to survive, he began the excruciating crawl for help.
If he could just make it out of this desolate place, he could get help!
As he dragged himself forward, the blood from his broken legs left two trails behind him.
Crawling with just his hands was far more difficult than he had imagined.
At first, he called out for help, hoping someone might hear him.
But shouting required energy, and he soon had to stop, focusing solely on gripping the grass and pulling himself forward.
After half an hour of grueling effort, he realized he had only crawled about two hundred meters.
The effects of the anesthetic were wearing off, and the pain in his body grew even more intense.
He felt dizzy, and his strength was fading fast.
[He’s almost out of energy. This task isn’t easy.]
[Two kilometers, with eighteen hundred meters left. What a loser.]
[He needs some motivation.]
The live chat was buzzing with comments.
Ye Sangsang stood there, flexing her fingers slightly before slowly walking forward.
The sound of her footsteps on the ground jolted Jiang Jiansheng back to reality, and driven by instinct, he began crawling again.
But Ye Sangsang, contrary to expectations, turned and walked away.
The live chat was flooded with question marks.
[Wasn’t she supposed to chase him? Why isn’t she doing anything?]
[Is Sister Sang giving up on the mission?]
[Probably. Jiang Jiansheng is too useless. She’s waiting for him to collapse before finishing him off.]
The live chat was full of speculation about what was happening.
Unfortunately, Ye Sangsang didn’t care for the live chat and had no interest in explaining herself.
When Jiang Jiansheng heard the footsteps fading, his first instinct wasn’t to look back but to keep crawling forward as fast as he could.
It wasn’t until he hadn’t heard any sounds for a long time that he finally turned his head.
The silent demon who had been standing behind him had disappeared without a trace.
He tried to stop, but after more than ten minutes, the other party still hadn’t appeared.
Realizing this, a glimmer of joy flashed in Jiang Jiansheng’s eyes.
The pain was overshadowed by overwhelming relief, and the instinct to survive took over his mind. He clung tightly to the roots and soil that might help him move.
Bit by bit, for the sake of his hope, he crawled inch by inch toward the direction where he might escape.
Unbeknownst to him, in a corner he couldn’t see, someone was watching his every move.
When it came to prey, Ye Sangsang had endless patience.
After all, it was where she found her amusement.
Jiang Jiansheng’s tenacity exceeded Ye Sangsang’s expectations.
With both legs broken, every time he dragged his body, rocks and soil scraped against his wounds, and the pain never ceased. Especially with his hands also injured, reaching his goal was an almost impossible feat.
Yet, driven by instinct, he managed to drag himself the required two kilometers.
Nothing was truly impossible.
[I didn’t understand before, but watching him crawl, I get it now.]
[It’s kind of pitiful. Just thinking about it makes me feel the pain.]
[To the person above, don’t rush to pity him. He deserves this. If he has to crawl two kilometers under these conditions, it means he did something equally terrible to Sun Bin’s girl. Don’t be so quick to empathize; it makes you seem delusional.]
The barrage of comments fell silent after this remark. The person who had expressed pity went quiet.
From the victim’s perspective, this scene would only bring them satisfaction.
Their upbringing had taught them to habitually avoid anger and lean toward empathy, but that wasn’t always a good thing.
Sun Bin’s actions might not have been appropriate, but that didn’t give them the right to criticize or subtly blame him.
Ye Sangsang’s eyes remained calm, for it was time for her to make her appearance.
When Jiang Jiansheng was just a dozen meters away from the main road, his face beaming with joy, she approached slowly from a distance, holding a knife that glinted silver in the light.
Her heavy footsteps echoed like a deep drumbeat, each step pounding against Jiang Jiansheng’s heart.
He turned his head and saw Ye Sangsang standing seven or eight meters away.
The hope in his eyes vanished in that instant.
He stretched out his hand and, like a madman, began crawling forward desperately.
His fingers, scraped and bleeding from the stones and dry grass, left trails of blood, but he seemed oblivious to the pain.
Just then, he spotted a figure about three meters ahead.
“Help…” he rasped, stretching out his bloodied hand toward the person.
The green grass of spring had yet to grow, and the withered weeds swayed in the wind. The sunlight cast a glow on the figure’s back, making it impossible for him to see their face.
He crawled with all his might toward the figure, clinging to this lifeline.
The good news was that the footsteps of the killer behind him had stopped.
Filled with hope, he crawled toward the figure, lifting his head like a desperate dog, begging for help.
When he was within two meters, he looked up again, tears streaming down his face, and stretched out his hand once more. “Help… help…”
The words “save me” caught in his throat the moment he saw the face of the person before him.
