Qiao Ying's car was stopped at the entrance.
Arkenlin was a polarized area, with some so poor that there were people starving by the roadside, and some so rich that they engaged in drunken revelry every day.
The huge gap made people's hearts greedy and sinister.
It gathered all kinds of people, big drug lords, arms dealers, and businessmen who came to squander money for stimulation.
There were countless ugly and unimaginable, unspeakable businesses here.
The various forces within were very clearly demarcated, with people guarding each entrance and exit, and you had to pay money to get through.
Qiao Ying rolled down the car window and handed out a wad of money.
The man preparing to collect the money caught sight of the hand holding the money, slender and fair, clearly a woman's hand.
He looked along the hand into the car, and through the windshield, he saw an extremely beautiful Asian girl's face.
In an instant, like a hungry wolf spotting meat.
He alerted his companions.
Several people squatting at the entrance keeping watch stood up and approached the car.
Coming closer, they found the girl to be even more amazingly beautiful, with skin so nice that just looking made them unbearably itchy.
Seeing that there was only the girl alone in the car, they were slightly surprised, but didn't care—no matter who she was, once in this place, it was all the same.
The few surrounded the car, with greedy looks on their faces.
With such looks, and a pure-blooded Asian at that, she could definitely be sold for a sky-high price—they happened to be lacking resources recently, and didn't expect that such a top-grade one would deliver herself to their door.
So they took her money, but had no intention of letting her through. Instead, they tapped on the car window to signal the girl to get out of the car.
Impatiently, someone directly stuck his arm through the fist-sized gap in the car window to grab the car keys.
Qiao Ying hit the gas pedal and rammed the person over, crashing through the checkpoint and rushing inside.
The man's arm was caught in the car window and dragged for a stretch before his whole body tumbled to the ground with a broken arm.
The several people clambered up in a mess, watching as the off-road vehicle left.
"Notify the higher-ups that an Asian woman has broken in—she must be found." Such a top-grade resource could not be allowed to escape.
The tossed vehicle could not be started.
Qiao Ying grabbed her backpack and abandoned the car to proceed on foot.
Marijuana and opium poppies could be seen planted everywhere along the way.
The place was originally an extremely exclusionary tribe that survived by planting these things. Later it attracted the interest of drug dealers.
It still retained many native characteristics, like the wooden houses and some articles of clothing.
Every piece of land here was controlled by someone, because people were mixed, resources scarce, it was a no-man's-land, and the various forces had always been unwilling to give an inch of land, fighting bloody battles at the slightest disagreement..
Outsiders with unfamiliar faces were already eyed by them from the moment they stepped across the border, unknowingly becoming the meal on their plates.
The unlucky ones would first be robbed of their possessions and violated, then their corpses tossed by the roadside before even making it inside. They mostly traveled in groups.
As dusk fell,
Qiao Ying, wandering alone, was like a sheep entering a tiger's den.
Everyone she met on the road eyed her covetously, and some even blatantly followed behind her.
All the way here, Qiao Ying noticed most people had a totem tattoo on the sides of their necks, red and the size of a fist.
This was the Wuma Family's totem.
The people who stopped her at the entrance also had them on their necks.
Clearly, she was currently in the Wuma Family's territory.
From what the big bearded driver said, Arkenlin was mainly divided between three powerful forces, one of which was this Wuma Family.
The other two forces were a completely unscrupulous big drug lord and an arms dealer with absolute power over life and death.
If Black Spade A had really developed his own power here, then given Black Spade A's ambition and abilities, it was highly likely that he was one of these three forces.
At this time, the Wuma Family was holding a dehumanizing auction as usual.
What was being auctioned were not objects or lands,
but people,
women.
The spacious auction hall gathered many people as an Asian girl on stage was being auctioned off like livestock.
The bidding grew more and more excited, like starving beasts seeing meat.
The girl on stage had her hands and feet bound, her mouth sealed with tape. She cried incessantly in fear, rather delicate-looking, crying so pitifully it wrenched the heart.
To these people, Asian women had small frames, mostly harmless appearances, and no body odor.
Completely different from European women.
This stimulated their lust even more.
The bearded driver had emphasized this to Qiao Ying.
So Asian women were an absolutely rare existence here.
Now they understood why those people showed such greedy, excited looks when they saw Qiao Ying.
Even the average-looking girl being auctioned on stage fetched astronomical prices, let alone a beauty.
Qiao Ying hid with her backpack in the shadows of the corner on the second floor, quietly watching the outrageous auction below.
So this was the kind of dirty business the Wuma Family was engaged in.
Suddenly, a familiar silhouette walked past below, followed by several subordinates, heading towards the exit.
Qiao Ying's gaze followed that back view. The distance was somewhat far and she couldn't see his face clearly, but the red totem on his neck was very conspicuous.
Soon, the girl was sold away.
Night fell.
The girl was bought by a black man. With hands and feet bound, the girl was brought to his residence and thrown savagely onto the bed.
The girl struggled to sit up on the bed. With her mouth still sealed, the tearful girl could only whimper pleadingly.
But the more she cried, the more the black man's bestial nature was incited.
He pounced eagerly towards the girl on the bed.
Pinned under him, the girl could barely breathe. Vision blurred with tears, clothes torn, only despair filled her heart.
Suddenly the weight lifted. The dizzy and tearful girl heard the sound of a slashed throat, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground, and the faint smell of blood.
The girl froze, then slowly realized the man atop her was gone.
She turned to see another girl about her age in the room, using a strip of cloth she had cut from the black man's clothes to wipe a short knife in her hand.
And that black man lay unmoving at the other girl's feet.
The smell of blood grew thicker.
After wiping clean the short knife, Qiao Ying looked towards the girl on the bed and walked over.
She flicked her wrist and cut apart the bonds on the girl.
The girl ripped off the tape over her mouth, a heart-wrenching sob about to burst forth, when the cold voice of the other girl cut her off. "Quiet."
The girl quickly covered her mouth, still shaken, looking at Qiao Ying with lingering fear..
Qiao Ying walked to the window and pushed open a corner. She looked at the black man's subordinates below, then returned inside.
"P-Please save me... I was brought here against my will too, I'm also from Hua Country..." The girl suppressed her sobs as she pleaded with Qiao Ying.
Qiao Ying glanced at her, then put away the short knife. She casually tossed her backpack aside before lying down on the bed. "Don't wander around," she said indifferently.
Accommodations that accepted outsiders were hard to find in this place, even if you had money.
Like a frightened bird, the girl still gripped by terror huddled in a corner of the bed, looking at Qiao Ying lying on it.
And the black man's corpse still on the floor.
Too scared to sleep, the girl merely watched Qiao Ying, who had fallen asleep, eyes wide open, terrified that her lifeline might disappear with so much as a blink.
