Chapter 164 18

Chapter 164

The girl they found was Chen Shihan.

Pan Na had previously learned through inquiries that this girl was "merchandise" from Shen Xi. Without even bargaining, Pan Na had purchased her outright.

Pan Na had originally intended for Chen Shihan to identify Shen Xi from the surveillance footage captured in Paradise. However, after reviewing the footage, she found that Shen Xi was either obscured, blurry, or only shown in profile, making clear identification difficult. That's why she had Shen Xi come to the bar, asking the girl to identify him in person.

But the corridor was crowded and dimly lit earlier. When Pan Na brought Shen Xi in, Chen Shihan was nervously hiding behind a corner and didn’t get a clear look.

Cha Xin waved his hand and said, "Bring her closer." After a moment’s thought, he pointed at Pan Na and added, "To make it simple—prepare a fruit platter and have her pretend to be a waitress. Let her deliver the platter and take a good, close look."

By this point, Chen Shihan could only nod submissively.

But this attitude didn’t seem to satisfy Cha Xin. He suddenly reached out and, this time, clamped his hand around Chen Shihan's neck. His grip was so tight that her originally pale face quickly turned crimson from suffocation.

Chen Shihan hadn’t expected Cha Xin to suddenly act like this. She thought she had been cooperative enough.

Yet she couldn’t resist. Her slender neck was trapped in the man’s grasp, and she struggled to breathe, her expression filled with terror as she gasped desperately for air.

Just as Chen Shihan felt she was about to pass out, Pan Na spoke up from the side, "Easy, easy, that’s enough. We bought her because she might be useful, and we didn’t even bargain. If you kill her, we’ll take a loss."

"Remember what I told you," Cha Xin reminded her again.

With Chen Shihan nodding desperately, Cha Xin finally released her.

He pulled a tissue from the table, wiped his hands, and instructed Pan Na, "Take her to change clothes."

The threats and intimidation were over. Now it was time to offer an incentive.

Pan Na smiled and warned her, "If you behave, we’ll reward you later. If you lie, I’ll only make you suffer more. Remember that, sweetie? Be good if you want to survive."

The clothes Chen Shihan had been wearing were already torn to shreds by her previous seller. Pan Na took her out, changed her into a clean server uniform, combed her hair, and tidied her up a bit.

After observing the now neatly dressed and somewhat pretty Chen Shihan, Pan Na placed a generous fruit platter in her hands with satisfaction. "Do well, and you’ll be rewarded."

One of the thugs led the way. Chen Shihan’s legs trembled, her teeth chattered, and she shivered as she made her way down the corridor.

A month ago, she had been trafficked to a foreign country, passed between several traffickers, subjected to beatings at any moment. Then, suddenly, she was taken here and told to identify someone.

Earlier, standing in the corridor, she hadn't even seen the person’s face clearly.

But she had a rough idea of who they wanted her to identify.

From that fleeting glance, she thought the person she saw resembled him—both in build and appearance.

The person who had led to her current plight—Shen Xi.

She had never been a clever child, often slow on the uptake, always half a step behind her classmates in school. She seemed timid but sometimes had quiet defiance.

When she first realized she had been deceived, even trafficked, Chen Shihan felt a sense of confusion, but also resentment. She hated herself for her lack of restraint, for taking out loans to buy flashy bags and makeup. She hated herself for trusting the wrong people, and she hated the traffickers for their cruelty.

But after being inspected and evaluated, bossed around, and witnessing the true evil here, she gradually grew numb. She deeply felt that, given her current situation, hatred was the last emotion she should harbor.

Now, facing the source of all this, Chen Shihan felt her fingertips grow cold, and an instinctive dread rose in her heart.

If it really was Shen Xi, how would she face him?

The thug beside her urged her on. Chen Shihan took a deep breath at the door and entered the VIP room.

Five people were seated inside. The lighting was dim. A young Chinese-looking man sat at the table, holding playing cards. Scattered cards, along with discarded high heels and stockings, lay on the table.

Among the four women, one was already drunk, while the others, though sober, had flushed faces as they focused on their cards.

Chen Shihan placed the fruit platter on the table. The man was looking down, so she crouched down, pretending to straighten the fruit arrangement to get a better look at his face. A strand of her bangs fell forward, and she used the motion of smoothing her hair back to cautiously glance up at the man’s face.

Her heart pounded.

Chen Shihan didn't know Shen Xi particularly well. The owner of the livestream studio was named Zhu Peng. Because she owed money from online loans, she had done some live streaming for a while. Later, Zhu Peng approached her, saying the tips she received weren’t enough to cover even the interest on her loans.

Zhu Peng gave her two options.

Either she could push the boundaries of her streams, be bolder, and market her sexuality, or she could follow a man named Shen Xi abroad to work, and her debt would be cleared.

Short pain beats long suffering. She knew what would happen if she kept increasing the risqué nature of her streams, so after some hesitation, she chose the second option.

But she had forgotten that, as a child, she was worst at multiple-choice questions—always eliminating the correct answer first among the four options.

The moment she took out those loans and secretly started working at the "Zoo" behind her parents’ backs, she had already lost the chance to make the right choice. The two options left to her were both wrong.

How could she expect a right life when choosing from wrong answers?

While fantasizing about paying off her debts and starting anew abroad, she met Shen Xi.

Shen Xi introduced himself as a friend of Zhu Peng and complimented her looks. Like an interviewer, his eyes scanned her from head to toe, over and over, as if she were a commodity waiting to be priced.

He was a silver-tongued young man, depicting a comfortable and beautiful life abroad, constantly reassuring her and promising everything was legal. This gradually eased Chen Shihan’s guard, leading her down this point of no return.

It was only after she was sold here that she realized the choice she had made. Once she left the country, she had no one to rely on and was entirely at others’ mercy.

In the quiet of the night, she finally understood what lay behind Shen Xi’s gaze…

Under the dim light of the VIP room, Chen Shihan finally got a clear look at the man’s face. His skin was pale, but unlike Shen Xi’s pallor from a life of indulgence and lack of sunlight, his was pale in a bloodless way. His eyes and brows resembled Shen Xi’s, yet something felt different—more defined and severe than the Shen Xi she remembered.

Chen Shihan struggled to recall what Shen Xi looked like, but the more nervous she became, the more her thoughts tangled. Her hands shook slightly from the turmoil, and a grape rolled off the platter, landing near the man’s feet.

Chen Shihan shuddered, but when she saw the man merely glance up before returning to his cards, she breathed a sigh of relief.

This small incident gave Chen Shihan a clear view of the man’s entire face. If his eyes and brows bore some resemblance to Shen Xi’s, his lips and nose were different—handsome in a way she didn’t remember Shen Xi being.

Chen Shihan gulped, quickly rehearsing her response to Cha Xin later, then stood up to leave.

But before she could reach the door, a voice suddenly called out from behind, "Stop."

Compared to the deafening music in the bar, the voice wasn’t loud, but it was impossible to ignore. Chen Shihan felt as if she had been frozen in place, unable to move.

Then came another command: "Come here."

Those two words shattered Chen Shihan’s hope of a quick escape.

She could only meekly turn around, shuffle back into the room, and stop about five meters away from the man.

"Come here. Don’t make me say it a third time." The man’s tone wasn’t harsh; it even carried a lazy, almost teasing note. But his voice was loud enough that the other four people, previously focused on their game, looked up.

Chen Shihan’s legs trembled with nerves. She didn’t dare look up, but she could feel a gaze sweeping over her. The sensation was extremely unsettling, yet it reminded her of the day she met Shen Xi—it was this same appraising stare that had made her so tense back then.

Was this man really Shen Xi? Chen Shihan’s doubts resurfaced.

But she dared not disobey. If Cha Xin was a wolf, this man was a poisonous snake. Neither was someone she could afford to provoke.

Chen Shihan had no choice but to take a few more steps forward, standing about a meter away from Shen Xi.

Apart from the noisy music outside the private room, it had grown completely quiet inside. Everyone remained silent, which made Chen Shihan even more nervous.

"Boss Shen, why do you keep staring at her? Let's keep playing," a drunken, delicate voice suddenly spoke up. It was one of the four beauties—the first to have gotten drunk earlier. When Chen Shihan entered, she had already passed out on the table. Now, having just woken up to this scene, she started whining flirtatiously.

Only then did Shen Xi withdraw his gaze from Chen Shihan and turn his attention back to the card table.

"Come here and pour the wine," he commanded Chen Shihan.

So that's all it was. Chen Shihan breathed a sigh of relief, but before she could even feel glad about escaping another crisis, things took a sudden turn.

Just as she finished pouring a glass of wine and was about to hand it to Shen Xi, his arm bumped hers as he went to play a card.

The wine in the glass instantly spilled, and a few drops splashed onto the cuff of Shen Xi’s shirt, quickly leaving a stain.

This time, Chen Shihan was so scared she started crying. She instinctively knelt down, repeatedly apologizing, "I'm sorry, Boss, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."

But her apologies received no response. Just as she mustered the courage to look up, she felt a sudden chill on her head—a bottle of red wine was poured directly over her, drenching her completely.

The cold, sticky liquid flowed down her collar and spread across her body, making Chen Shihan's blood run cold. In her ears, she heard the gasps of the women, who seemed amused by Boss Shen’s actions.

But Chen Shihan could only grit her teeth, not daring to make a sound.

Next came the second bottle, the third bottle… an endless stream of wine was poured over her. The whip marks on her body began to sting from the alcohol, and her eyes burned so badly she couldn’t open them. She could only silently weep, her humiliation reaching its peak. Chen Shihan even felt like she wanted to take these beasts down with her.

Just as her hatred reached its climax, the door was suddenly pushed open.

Pan Na’s cheerful voice entered before she did: "What’s going on here, Boss Shen? Even though I said I’d treat today, you don’t have to take such advantage of my offer, do you?"