Upon hearing the voice and seeing the person, I exclaimed, "Well, isn't this Wang Peng, my former colleague from the company!"
Wang Peng was previously my colleague at the company. We weren't particularly close, but we were the type to greet each other and share a cigarette.
This fellow hadn't died, but had been captured by a few people from Kasha and enslaved. Looking at him now, he must have been living a miserable life.
A disheveled woman beside Wang Peng heard his cry and suddenly looked up, shouting my name with immense surprise.
Upon closer inspection, this person was none other than Chen Nannan, whom I had been searching for!
Seeing that Chen Nannan was alive, I was overjoyed. I rushed to the fence and with a single slash, cut through the wooden barrier.
When Wang Peng saw me enter, he eagerly called out, "Brother Ye! Brother Ye! Hurry and untie our ropes! If you had come any later, they would have tortured us to death!"
Besides Wang Peng, several other people inside the enclosure looked at me expectantly, like people suffering hardship seeing a savior.
With a few quick slashes, I cut the ropes binding their hands, letting them shout joyfully and revel in the happiness of regaining their freedom.
I looked at Chen Nannan with concern and asked gently, "Nannan, how are you? You must have suffered a lot these past days."
Only then did I have the chance to examine Chen Nannan from head to toe.
As I looked, anger welled up within me.
Chen Nannan was in a pitiful state. In my memory, her face was always beaming with smiles, but now only numbness and fear remained, like a startled bird.
Her exposed skin was covered with countless scars, some already scabbed over, while others were still bleeding.
Seeing this, I slammed my fist against the fence, startling her into instinctively flinching backward.
Her reaction filled me with both heartache and regret.
Regret for not rescuing her sooner!
I pulled Chen Nannan into my arms, patted her back, and said softly, "It's alright, it's alright. You're safe now that I'm here."
Chen Nannan was silent at first. Then, in my warm embrace, her body began to tremble violently. Finally, she couldn't hold back any longer and burst into tears in my arms, as if to release all the grievances she had suffered over the past days.
Feeling her bony body tremble in my arms, my heart ached more and more, and I felt even more tender towards the poor soul in my embrace.
After an unknown period, Lin Nannan gradually stopped crying and looked up at me quietly.
It was only when our eyes met that I suddenly noticed Lin Nannan's complexion was extremely pale, looking unlike a normal person, as if she were suffering from some illness.
"Nannan, what's wrong?"
Chen Nannan licked her chapped lips and forced a smile at me.
"Brother Ye, I'm fine. Just malnourished. It's so good to see you."
Hearing Chen Nannan's words, I could only manage to suppress the unease in my heart, hoping that once we returned and Jiang Luoya could treat her, she would help Nannan regain her health.
Little did I know then that if I had discovered some things earlier, the tragedy that followed would have been averted...