Before time-traveling, Chen Rou was born on June 18, 1988—coincidentally, the exact day the original body had died.
Two women with the same name and surname, one dying just as the other was born. Furthermore, Chen Rou had seen photographs of the original owner and found they looked identical, leading her to suspect that the original owner might well have been her past life.
Unlike her previous life as a gritty, tough special forces soldier, her current self was young and frail. Her only available weapon right now was her looks. Piteously, she said to the guard, "Brother, I can't move."
The guard reached out a dark, filthy hand. "Come closer, I'll pull you up."
He had no intention of untying her or opening the iron cage; he simply wanted to take advantage of her through the bars.
Embarrassed, Chen Rou looked around. "There are too many people watching. How about we wait until dark?"
The man turned his head and saw a few shadowy figures outside the main gate, peeking and peering about.
They were mercenaries who drifted on the sea year-round. To them, seeing a woman was like a wolf seeing meat. According to the rules of the armed compound, once the boss finished playing, everyone else could have a turn. But that kind of treatment would literally work a woman to death, and some wouldn't even get a chance to play.
Afraid the boss would find out and not wanting to ruin things with a heavy-handed act, the guard just wanted to take a quick bite for a taste of satisfaction while he had watch duty.
However, if his comrades swarmed in too, the situation would spiral out of control.
Greedily eyeing the woman's round buttocks tightly wrapped in jeans and her slender waist outlined by her knit sweater, he said, "I'll go get you some water and food right now, but when it gets dark, you have to let me have my fun."
Seeing Chen Rou give a shy nod, he swallowed hard and walked away.
Nie Han was still young and innocent, unable to grasp Chen Rou's motives. Stifling her disgust, she whispered, "Sister A-Rou, my uncle has been very good to you. He paid for your studies, and when my grandfather opposed your marriage, he insisted on marrying you anyway. You even registered your marriage with him—you can't just yield yourself to someone else for a cup of water!"
Chen Rou was not angered by the misunderstanding. She calmly asked in return, "Do you think we'll make it back alive?"
Nie Han shook her head frantically, tears rolling down like broken beads.
Even as a sheltered young lady, she could tell that the men holding them were not ordinary kidnappers, but pirates. That proved this was not a simple kidnapping for ransom; someone wanted them to disappear, or rather, to die.
Thinking of that foul-smelling One-eyed Dragon and the stinking Beard, her tears fell like rain. "I'd rather die than let those filthy men touch me. I want to kill myself!"
Patiently, Chen Rou retorted, "You have the courage to kill yourself, yet you never thought about escaping alive?"
Gazing into Chen Rou's firm eyes, Nie Han's confused and terrified gaze gradually regained a glimmer of light.
At that moment, footsteps sounded behind them—the guard had returned.
He was carrying a woven basket containing not just water, but also pineapple buns and ham sausages.
Struggling, Chen Rou knelt up. The guard reached his hand in, stroked her face first, and tried to feed her a bun. Instead, she deliberately lunged forward, knocked the bun to the ground, and then bent her head down to devour it like a dog.
Seeing her eat with such gusto, the guard tossed the ham sausage and an opened bottle of distilled water into the cage. Noticing people still peering in from the main gate, he went off to chase the onlookers away.
Taking the opportunity, Chen Rou whispered, "Nie Han, I will get you out of here, but to keep up your strength, you must eat right now."
Nie Han stared in a daze, opening her mouth to speak, but Chen Rou cut her off immediately. "Shut up. If you want to escape, you can only listen to me."
After shooing away the onlookers, the guard returned. Chen Rou quickly lowered her head and began wolfing down the food in large bites.
Although Nie Han was the daughter of a wealthy tycoon, her grandmother and parents had long passed away. She was the eldest, with two younger brothers beneath her. The current Madam Nie was a concubine elevated to the principal wife's status; while she treated the children of the first wife well, she was not their biological grandmother, and friction always existed. Thus, despite growing up in wealth and witnessing plenty of backstabbing, Nie Han was no fool.
She harbored some doubts about Chen Rou's almost chilling composure, but right now, all she wanted was to escape, so she managed to keep her cool.
Even though Chen Rou had told her not to speak, seeing the guard walk away again, she blurted out, "What about my uncle? If we escape, we escape together!"
The guard had gone to a corner and was unzipping his pants to pee.
Instead of answering the question, Chen Rou said, "The boss here is called Ghost-head Chang. You must have heard of his reputation. Right now, he's probably interrogating your uncle about something. He's going to use the two of us as leverage to force your uncle to agree to his terms. But even if your uncle agrees, we'll still die, because Ghost-head Chang never leaves witnesses."
Southeast Asia was full of big bosses nowadays. Men like Zhang Ziqiang, who had once kidnapped the eldest grandson of the Li family, were notorious and struck terror into the hearts of the people of Hong Kong; yet as long as he got his money, he didn't kill. Ghost-head Chang was different—he was a pirate who wanted both money and lives!
As Nie Han chewed on the name Ghost-head Chang, tears and saliva streamed down together.
The man finished urinating and was pulling up his pants when Chen Rou said sternly, "If you dare say another word, we all die together!"
Shrugging her shoulders, Nie Han nodded silently.
The guard returned, pulling down his mask to reveal a young, pimply face as he cast lecherous looks at the two women.
Having eaten her fill to preserve her energy, Chen Rou simply lay down. Trembling, Nie Han curled up beside her.
Unable to bear it after all, Chen Rou lowered her voice to comfort the young girl. "Your uncle is in the camp area. We'll go rescue him in a moment."
Having learned her lesson, Nie Han kept her mouth shut this time, nodding silently while cowering like a little quail.
The reason Chen Rou told her not to speak was simply that she was still too young, lacked patience, and always liked to scream and shout when things happened.
That would not only fail to help Chen Rou's escape plan, but would actually interfere with it.
The crudest and most effective way to keep Nie Han from dragging her down was to make her shut up.
Of course Chen Rou was going to save Nie Zhao.
Leaving aside the fact that he was the original owner's husband, now that she had stepped into the original owner's shoes, since she had the ability to escape, she had to save her husband.
Furthermore, Nie Zhao would later become a recipient of the Grand Bauhinia Medal for his outstanding contributions to Zhonghua and Hong Kong.
Everyone in the country knew how heavy the weight of the Grand Bauhinia Medal was in Zhonghua.
And the reason Nie Zhao would receive it was even more crucial: for promoting national reunification and safeguarding peace across the regions.
As a third-generation special police officer by family trade, if Chen Rou fled while leaving him behind, she would fail her ancestors who served three generations in the police force, and she would fail the police badge on the brim of her cap.