Ye Lan listened to her accusation, but instead of getting angry, she laughed morbidly.
The laughter was crisp yet carried a chilling creepiness that echoed through the empty room.
She admitted it generously, with a smile full of reckless abandon, “Yes, you’re right. I am sick. Maybe this is the real me. Holding back before just tied my hands.”
She walked to the bed, bent down, and ignored the fear and resistance in Mu Xi’s eyes, effortlessly scooping her small body into her arms.
Mu Xi was very light; forty kilograms felt nearly weightless in her arms.
“Let me go! What are you doing?!” Mu Xi struggled, her fists pounding against Ye Lan’s shoulder, but it was like an ant trying to shake a tree—utterly futile.
Ye Lan’s arms were as hard as iron, tightly restraining her, making it impossible to move.
Ye Lan did not answer.
She carried her, turned, and walked toward the door.
The metal door hinges made a slight sound as she stepped out onto the metal staircase leading upstairs.
The stairs were made of cold metal, each step producing a “thump, thump” that echoed clearly in the silent building.
The air still carried a faint smell of disinfectant, mixed with the metallic chill, creating the oppressive atmosphere unique to the Silent Language Building.
Mu Xi’s heart sank with each footstep.
She didn’t know where Ye Lan was taking her, but instinct told her it wouldn’t be anywhere good.
Third floor.
There was a terrace and two small rooms here.
Ye Lan didn’t head to the terrace, nor to the room used as a monitoring station where the escort team was stationed.
Instead, she walked toward another tightly shut door.
Ye Lan raised her foot and kicked open the slightly worn metal door.
A cloud of dust rose from behind it, making Mu Xi cough.
A mixture of dust, mustiness, and rusted metal assailed her senses.
The room was small and dim, with only a narrow, high window crisscrossed with thick iron bars.
The faint, pale light that trickled in barely allowed Mu Xi to make out the room’s contours.
It was filled with all sorts of clutter.
In the corner were several dust-covered wooden crates, next to which lay some rusty metal parts that seemed to be components of some machine.
Against the wall leaned a few old chairs draped in gray cloth, and there were discarded pipes and cables on the floor.
The whole room felt cramped, messy, and cold, like a forgotten corner.
The walls were rough concrete, icy to the touch.
Ye Lan set Mu Xi down on the floor.
Mu Xi stumbled before managing to stand steady.
She looked around warily, her fear deepening.
“Ye Lan, what exactly are you trying to do?”
Ye Lan picked up a bundle of coarse hemp rope from the corner, then found some metal shackles with cold locks.
Seeing these things, Mu Xi instantly understood Ye Lan’s intent, and her face turned pale.
She backed away, trying to escape, but Ye Lan grabbed her arm and easily pulled her back.
“No… don’t…”
Ye Lan moved quickly, without hesitation.
She twisted Mu Xi’s hands behind her back and bound them tightly with the hemp rope, the coarse fibers digging into her skin, causing a rough, abrasive pain.
Then she took the metal shackles and locked them around Mu Xi’s wrists and ankles.
They were cold and heavy, and the locks clicked shut.
Finally, Ye Lan connected a short iron chain to a metal ring preset in the wall.
The ring was at just the right height to allow Mu Xi to barely stand or sit, but her range of movement was confined to a tiny area by the wall, making even turning difficult.
The cold metal pressed against her skin, and the wall’s chill seeped into her bones through the thin fabric.
Mu Xi was firmly fixed to the wall, like an object awaiting processing, unable to move.
She looked up at Ye Lan standing before her, her eyes filled with despair and hatred.
Ye Lan dusted off her hands, looked down at her, with no expression on her face.
The earlier madness and teasing had vanished, replaced by a near indifferent calm.
“Think carefully about what I said. Little Xi, you need to calm down,” Ye Lan said flatly.
Then, without another glance at Mu Xi, she turned and walked toward the door.
“Ye Lan! Come back! You can’t do this to me!” Mu Xi screamed, her voice echoing in the empty storage room, filled with helpless despair.
Ye Lan’s footsteps did not pause.
She reached the door and pulled the heavy metal door shut.
A dull “bang” cut off the inside from the outside.
The last trace of light disappeared, and the storage room was plunged into pitch-black darkness.
Then came the sound of a lock turning: “click.”
Only the mixed smell of dust and mustiness, and the cold touch of the wall, reminded Mu Xi of her desperate situation.
The darkness swallowed her like a tide, carrying biting cold and boundless fear.
Leaning against the icy wall, Mu Xi trembled slightly from the cold and fear.
Ye Lan was gone.
In the darkness, only she remained, imprisoned in this pure, impenetrable darkness that stretched out in front of her.
It was like a solid entity, pressing heavily on Mu Xi’s eyelids, seeping into her mouth and nose, wrapping around her entire body.
The smell of dust, rust, and decay in the storage room was magnified infinitely in the absolute darkness, filling her lungs with a suffocating tightness.
Time lost its meaning.
A few hours?
A day?
Mu Xi couldn’t tell.
All she could perceive was the accumulating pain in her body.
Her wrists and ankles were tightly locked with cold metal, the short chain pinning her to the metal ring in the wall.
The height prevented her from standing fully upright or lying down.
She could only curl up and sit on the cold concrete floor.
To maintain this sitting posture, her bound hands behind her back had to bear some of her body weight, the hemp rope cutting deeply into her flesh with a burning pain.
Even worse, her arms remained in a twisted position for a long time, causing numbness like ant bites spreading from her shoulders to her fingertips, nearly losing sensation.
The cold from the walls crept through her thin clothes, making her teeth chatter and her body shiver involuntarily.
Her stomach was empty; hunger started as a dull ache, then turned into sharp cramps that made her dizzy.
Her throat was dry as if it were on fire, each swallow accompanied by a scraping pain.
The physical torment constantly eroded her will, but even more overwhelming was the fear and despair brought by the boundless darkness.
Ye Lan… that name was like a poisoned barb, deeply embedded in Mu Xi’s heart.
She thought of her parents’ tragic deaths, of the days and nights she was toyed with and tormented, of the humiliation under Luoyuan’s control.
Hatred burned like a cold flame in the darkness, silently.
The chip had failed, and she finally regained control of her body and will, only to fall into this madwoman’s hands again.
Ye Lan said she needed to calm down.
‘Calm?’ Mu Xi almost laughed out loud.
She was now perfectly calm, coldly hating her, coldly planning—once she got the chance—how to take revenge a hundredfold.
She curled up in the corner, licking her wounds, gathering a weak but resolute strength.
She couldn’t die here.
For Li Xin, for Little An, for the lives that had been lost and the dignity trampled, she had to survive.