Ghost-head Chang's compound held at least several hundred hostages, making it impossible for Chen Rou to save them all.
Yet, as a soldier who had sworn under the red flag, she had to save the women and minors within her power.
Then there was the boy tied to the stern of the speedboat, surnamed Kuang and called Kuangzai. The reason Chen Rou specifically asked about him was because, insignificant child though he seemed right now, in the timeline without Chen Rou, he was the companion who would escape the Philippines alongside Nie Zhao, and in the future, he would remain Nie Zhao's close personal bodyguard.
To be a billionaire's personal bodyguard for many years proved that the boy possessed no ordinary capabilities.
Thus, saving Kuangzai held no drawbacks for Chen Rou, while seizing the speedboat would make it easier for her to acquire gasoline. Weighing the pros and cons, she decided to carry out the rescue.
Since Wandaozai had claimed to be very manful, she intended to test just how much of a man he truly was.
When it came to killing those mercenaries, he would have to take the lead.
……
The mercenaries on the speedboat belonged precisely to Ghost-head Chang's compound. The few prostitutes and the youth were escaping hostages they had captured along the way, and the ones currently scouring the sea surface in the speedboat were searching for Chen Rou and Nie Zhao.
They had spotted the medical ship long ago, but refrained from boarding and searching at will because it belonged to Americans.
Suddenly, however, someone in a white lab coat on the medical ship waved at them and shouted, "Hey buddy, come over here!"
There were three mercenaries in total on the speedboat: one driving, and the other two each holding an AK.
Hearing the shout, the driver spun the wheel, revved the engine, and the speedboat surged toward the medical ship.
As the speedboat drew slowly closer, one of the mercenaries asked, "Pal, what's going on? Did we run into escaped hostages?"
As it happened, Wandaozai himself was a hostage, and these mercenaries actually recognized him.
Sure enough, as the mercenary asked, he sensed something was wrong and suddenly raised his gun: "Damn it, you motherfucker are the hostage!"
The person in the white lab coat was none other than Wandaozai, who indeed was a hostage. Seeing the mercenary raise his gun, he was scared nearly to the point of pissing his pants. At that exact moment, a gunshot rang out. The mercenary about to fire took a bullet right between the eyebrows and crashed down on the spot.
Wandaozai dropped flat in an instant. The other two mercenaries raised their weapons to fire, but right at that same moment, the lying-in-wait Chen Rou fired two rapid shots, ruthlessly blowing the brains out of both mercenaries.
With a mere three gunshots, all three mercenaries lay dead in pools of blood.
Retrieving her gun, Chen Rou sprang up, took a running start, leapt off the deck into the sea, and swam toward the speedboat. Wandaozai followed closely behind, plunging into the water with a loud splash.
Left without a driver, the speedboat spun wildly in circles in the sea. Chen Rou swam laboriously, eager to climb aboard the speedboat. Of the three women bleeding from their heads, two merely stared blankly, while one kept screaming.
It was the youth surnamed Kuang, tied to the stern, who used his foot to kick the towline into the sea so Chen Rou could climb up quickly.
The moment she clambered onto the speedboat, she roared at the screaming prostitute, "If you dare scream one more time, I'll blow your head off!"
Mistaking her for another pirate who intended to capture and continue selling them, the screaming prostitute stopped shrieking and stammering, "We are Ghost-head Chang's prostitutes! If you dare take us away, he'll hunt you down to the ends of the earth and kill you."
Soaked to the bone, Chen Rou pulled her pistol and pressed it against the prostitute's head, retorting, "If I kill you, will Ghost-head Chang avenge you? What makes you think you mean anything to him!"
The prostitute was stunned by her retort, terrified by her ferocity, and instantly shut her mouth, holding her breath.
Glancing back to see Wandaozai swimming up, Chen Rou gave him a hand, hauling him onto the speedboat. She pulled a dagger from a dead mercenary, cut the ropes binding the youth surnamed Kuang, and pointed the blade at his nose: "Now we're going to strip these three mercenaries and throw their bodies onto that medical ship. To keep anyone from noticing, we have to be quick. You may be young, but you aren't stupid; you'll help us with the work, right?"
Throwing the three mercenaries into the sea was an option, but their floating corpses would expose Chen Rou and her group's tracks.
Transferring them to the medical ship was a bit more troublesome, but the advantage was that their whereabouts wouldn't be exposed in the short term.
Since Kuangzai would later become Nie Zhao's most capable bodyguard, Chen Rou watched him coldly and saw that he indeed was not slow-witted. Showing exceptional initiative, he shook his hands and immediately began stripping the clothes off one of the mercenaries.
Wandaozai followed suit, starting to strip a mercenary as well.
By this time, due to the ocean currents, the speedboat had drifted quite far from the medical ship. Chen Rou took the helm of the speedboat, restarted the engine, and steered it back toward the medical ship.
Watching this, Wandaozai said, "Miss Chen, you actually know how to drive a speedboat! Why didn't you say so earlier?"
He added, "Don't tell me you can drive a large ship, too."
When it came to the special forces of countries around the globe, if Zhonghua claimed second place, no one dared claim first.
Not to mention cars and boats, she could pilot various types of fighter jets; she not only knew how to pilot large ships, but she excelled at it.
Yet someone truly capable never went around boasting and bragging. She said, "Wandaozai, it's daytime now, and a boat could pass by at any moment. Look at Kuangzai and look at you. If you keep dawdling like this, I'll kick you out of the boat."
Wandaozai looked back and saw that young Kuangzai had not only stripped two mercenaries' clothes, but was already holding the towline, ready to hook it onto the medical ship the moment they got close enough.
Wandaozai was dumbfounded at the sight, thinking to himself that this little punk was certainly clever.
Back on the medical ship, Song Yuanchao had been learning how to steer the boat, but upon hearing gunfire outside, he grabbed a length of rope, tied the doctor to the pilot seat, smashed the ship's satellite phone to pieces, and came out to help.
Seeing three dead men on the speedboat, he tacitly and immediately fetched the stretcher and towline.
It was early morning, and while the frequent skirmishes along the Philippine coast meant they hadn't attracted much attention, those three mercenaries still needed to be disposed of as quickly as possible. Otherwise, once spotted by other mercenaries, they would be dead for sure.
Although their group was temporarily assembled and not exactly elite, they weren't completely incompetent either.
With Song Yuanchao helping hoist people aboard from the medical ship and someone handling the transport from the speedboat, it took only a few rounds to transfer all three mercenaries onto the medical ship.
Drawing on the experience accumulated from countless battles, Chen Rou believed in thoroughness when killing, so right before hoisting them up, she slashed horizontally across their throats like a butcher, draining all their blood into the sea.
She was a woman, and only twenty-two years old, yet her throat-slitting posture was as practiced as that of a veteran butcher.
The poor prostitutes were still bound, huddling together and shivering.
In their eyes, Chen Rou's method of dispatching one person per slash was far more terrifying than those mercenaries.
She was practically a merciless, cold-blooded female demon.
Now, there were three sets of mercenary uniforms in total. Wearing them would provide a great degree of safety. Wandaozai put on one set, Chen Rou took another, but one set remained. Since Kuangzai was too young and couldn't fill it out, Chen Rou said to a rather plump prostitute, "You wear this set. How about we disguise ourselves as mercenaries and escape?"
She shouldn't have asked. The moment she did, two of the prostitutes burst into tears. The one who had screamed earlier said in a Taiwanese accent, "Sister, we're all women, have some pity on us. We're worthless, anyone can have us however they want, but we don't want to die. Please don't harm us, okay?"
Wandaozai found it ridiculous: "Big sister, are you stupid? Miss Chen is clearly trying to save you."
"If she wants to save us, she should let us go! Why make us wear this? We don't want to," the prostitute cried.
People were diverse: some good, some bad, some smart, some foolish, some naturally kind, and others inherently vicious.
Both the plump prostitute and the Taiwanese-accented prostitute were crying, refusing to wear the clothes. However, a skinny, frail-looking prostitute spoke up: "This lady, give the clothes to me. I'm not afraid to die, and I don't want to be bullied by those mercenaries anymore. If you have a gun, you'd better give me one too. I want to kill mercenaries—one for every one I meet."
This proved that appearances could be deceiving; the skinniest and weakest of the three prostitutes was the bravest.
Chen Rou immediately cut the ropes binding her and tossed the uniform to her.
Three people in three military uniforms—as long as no one looked too closely, they made a passing squad of mercenaries.
Seeing Chen Rou cut her companion's ropes while ignoring her own, the plump prostitute grew unhappy again and timidly asked, "Sister, can you untie me too? The ropes are hurting my wrists and my knees are aching so much."
Wandaozai despised prostitutes above all else; though filled with contempt, he wouldn't curse at them casually.
Chen Rou was different. She had saved these prostitutes out of kindness to help them, yet she was exceptionally harsh toward them. Glancing coldly at the plump prostitute, she asked, "You want to be untied too?"
The plump prostitute nodded repeatedly: "Please."
The Taiwanese-accented prostitute also whined coquettishly, "Please, sister, untie me too! My arms hurt so much!"
Chen Rou instructed, "Wandaozai, find two rags and gag their mouths for me, so they'll stop making a racket."
Wandaozai chuckled. "Yes, madam!"
The two prostitutes tried to struggle, but Wandaozai found two rags and efficiently gagged them.
Next, Chen Rou tied the speedboat to the medical ship so it would trail along behind them, eliminating the need for a dedicated driver.
She, Wandaozai, and the skinny prostitute were all wearing mercenary uniforms. If they used black cloths to cover their faces, even the mercenaries from Ghost-head Chang's compound wouldn't recognize them in the short term, buying them some breathing room.
It was only ten o'clock in the morning, still too early, and heading to Ghost-head Chang's compound wasn't ideal just yet. While the ship circled at sea, everyone could take the opportunity to rest.
Chen Rou told Wandaozai, "I'll keep watch. You go to sleep first, then we'll switch."
Having stayed awake for a long time, everyone was exhausted. Yet despite looking as thin as a bean sprout and being a coward, Wandaozai proved he was truly a man. He said, "Miss Chen, I'm a man, you know. I can easily pull through a few more all-nighters."
The newly rescued youth, young Kuangzai, remarked, "You don't look like you're in great shape. You can pull all-nighters like that?"
Offended, Wandaozai snapped, "What the hell do you know? I used to be a famous nightlife prince in Taipei, able to drink three bottles of XO in a single night. I can pull all-nighters however I want."
A bottle of XO cost thousands of Taiwan dollars, something only the ultra-wealthy could afford. If he could afford XO, there was no way he'd end up as a laborer in the Philippines. Hearing this obvious bullshit, Kuangzai rolled his eyes at him, then turned to Chen Rou and said, "Miss Chen Rou, actually, I know you."
Because her original self had run for Miss Hong Kong and achieved a degree of fame, nearly everyone in Hong Kong recognized Chen Rou.
Yet young Kuangzai saying he knew her suggested there was another reason.
Chen Rou pondered for a moment and asked Kuangzai, "Kuangzai, did you know Mr. Nie Zhao from long ago?"
In the previous life, Nie Zhao and this young Kuangzai had escaped the Philippines together, after which Kuangzai remained by Nie Zhao's side as his close personal bodyguard. Chen Rou suspected the two of them might have been old acquaintances.
Sure enough, young Kuangzai replied, "My dad is Kuang Chengde, who runs a traditional Chinese medicine clinic. He was the family physician for the late elder Mrs. Nie. Mr. Nie Zhao and I are indeed old acquaintances; I've known him for a long time because I often accompanied my father on house calls."
He added, "When Ghost-head Chang was torturing Mr. Nie Zhao, I was actually in the next room and heard his voice."
Since Wandaozai insisted on acting tough and claimed he didn't need rest, Chen Rou lay down first to catch some sleep.
After a brief thought, she asked Kuangzai, "How were you kidnapped and brought here? Do you know why you were abducted?"
Kuangzai answered, "I was seized on my way out to sea to collect medicinal herbs, and I've been held here for three months. I asked the pirates why they kidnapped me and if they could let me go, but they only beat and abused me, telling me nothing else."
He then tentatively asked, "Miss Chen Rou, Mr. Nie Zhao escaped too, didn't he? Is he on that medical ship?"
Though overwhelmingly exhausted and on the verge of sleep, Chen Rou forced her eyes open and said, "Kuangzai, if not for me, you would have found a way to help Mr. Nie Zhao escape together with you, wouldn't you?"
Without hesitation, Kuangzai replied firmly, "Of course."
Chen Rou understood one more thing: this boy Kuangzai was actually the key to Nie Zhao surviving his escape in the previous life.
Because of him, Nie Zhao had been able to crawl out of the grave and escape back to Hong Kong after being buried alive by Ghost-head Chang.
It was likely this shared experience of flight that caused the future Nie Zhao to trust Kuangzai so completely—trusting him day in and day out for decades, even when he couldn't trust his own parents, siblings, Nie Han, or her two younger brothers.
Chen Rou running into Kuangzai today was entirely a coincidence.
Yet, judging by her years of operational experience, for two acquaintances like young Kuangzai and Nie Zhao to be kidnapped by the same pirates and brought to the same place, the same compound, could hardly be a coincidence. It had to be a premeditated operation.
In other words, Ghost-head Chang wasn't the mastermind behind this kidnapping; a much bigger boss must have been lurking behind him.
Since young Kuangzai's father was a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner and the personal physician who had treated Nie Zhao's mother, Han Yuzhu, did that mean Nie Zhao's abduction was also connected to the deceased elder Mrs. Nie, Han Yuzhu?
Did it mean the people wanting to kill Nie Zhao were also enemies of his mother, Han Yuzhu?
In terms of seniority, Han Yuzhu could be considered Chen Rou's mother-in-law.
Having transmigrated, Chen Rou had never met Han Yuzhu, but her original self had.
In the original's memories, Han Yuzhu was an ailing, pale, and frail, yet exceptionally kind woman.
Han Yuzhu was far more than just the billionaire Nie Rong's wife.
According to the case files Chen Rou had read, Han Yuzhu's maternal family, the Hans, had been the true premier tycoons of Hong Kong in earlier years. Nie Rong had only become Hong Kong's richest man after marrying her, gaining the Han family's backing combined with his own business acumen.
Han Yuzhu was no ordinary person either; she had once been the chief financial officer of the Nie Group, and the Nie enterprise had grown and prospered under her hands. It was only after giving birth to Nie Zhao that her health gradually declined and she withdrew from the company.
Later on, Nie Rong took a second wife, and after lingering on a sickbed for several years, Han Yuzhu passed away quietly.
As Chen Rou pondered the affairs of the Nie family, overwhelming fatigue set in, and her eyes drifted closed.
Yet just as she was about to slip into a dream, her eyes snapped open, and she said, "Kuangzai, do you know traditional Chinese medicine?"
Kuangzai replied, "My family comes from a lineage of traditional doctors. I understand a bit of TCM, though I haven't practiced independently yet."
That made sense. In her past life, Nie Zhao had been gravely injured, just like now, facing nine deaths for every life as he crawled out of his grave. It would have been impossible for him to return to Hong Kong alive on his own; Kuangzai must have escaped the water dungeon and helped him.
Since the doctor on the ship was useless, why not give Kuangzai a chance to use traditional Chinese medicine methods to revive Nie Zhao?