In the dark carriage, Su Ding and others had their eyes blindfolded and their hands tied with ropes, stuffed into the back seats, guarded by four burly men.
She could feel the car starting again.
She wondered where these people were taking them, and who they were.
The image of the driver's corpse flashed in her mind, and her heart felt incredibly heavy and distressed. After realizing they were lost, the driver had begun to bear the blame.
He hadn't said a word, and without daring to waste a minute, he had been searching for the road and a signal.
Yet, when he saw the black car ahead, he had rushed towards it excitedly without a second thought. At that moment, his heart must have only been thinking of their group's rescue.
Even at the moment of his death, the driver hadn't realized why this had happened.
Every time Su Ding remembered the driver's excited and eager face before he died, her heart felt an immense pain. She clenched her fists and closed her eyes.
"Wuwuwu…" Beside her, Zhao Qin, perhaps thinking of her own tragic fate, or perhaps thinking of the poor driver, couldn't help but sob.
The other women also wept silently, their eyes filled with fear and unease.
They were all women, and the words of those men implied that they might be violated. This was too terrifying…
"Mmm… ah…" Faintly, Su Ding heard Yueyue let out a sound of pain.
She followed the sound and turned her head, more accurately identifying that Yueyue was in great discomfort. She was even pregnant.
What should they do now?
After an unknown amount of time, the car stopped. The burly men grabbed them and walked them a few steps along a bumpy path before entering a damp, foul-smelling space.
*Slap!*
The black cloth was ripped from their eyes, and Su Ding and the others took in their surroundings.
It was a room in an abandoned factory, cluttered with dry grass and tree trunks, dark and chaotic. In a corner of the room, another woman was also huddled.
The woman was looking up at them with a terrified expression. Her fair face was smudged with dust and bore a few scratches.
She appeared to be in her early thirties, wearing a red dress that made her skin look even fairer. Her beautiful face was almost perfect, without a single flaw.
"Heh heh, stay put. After we've eaten, we'll come and grace you with our presence."
One of the burly men rubbed his hands lewdly, his gaze lingering on Su Ding with a particular meaning.
Su Ding didn't meet his eyes. Instead, she lowered her gaze and gathered with the others…
As the burly men left, the factory room door was slammed shut.
The sound of it being locked followed.
"He locked the door! What are we going to do!" Huang Guifang exclaimed, anxious and terrified.
"I don't want to die! I shouldn't have come to this damn temple. There are so many temples in Jiangcheng, why did we have to come here? If that master's prediction was accurate, why would we be going through this!" Xiaoxiao, in her extreme fear, no longer pretended to be the good girl, saying indignantly.
She glanced directly at Zhao Qin, who was huddled in the corner, clearly directing her anger and resentment.
Xiaoxiao's mother-in-law, Zhang Lan, couldn't help but poke her, reminding her, "Xiaoxiao…"
"Don't touch me! We're all going to die, and I can't even say a word? If I hadn't come here, I'd still be home, putting on a face mask and watching TV. I wouldn't be suffering like this!" Xiaoxiao said indignantly.
No one responded, but everyone's face was pale with despair.
Su Ding looked at the woman in the red dress in the corner, who hadn't spoken for a long time. She felt a sense of familiarity, but upon a second glance, she was sure she had never seen her before.
"Hello, may I ask how you were captured?" Su Ding asked, approaching the woman in red.
"I… I came to Qingfeng Temple. On the way back, my navigation failed, and I was intercepted by these people," the woman in red replied softly. Although there was fear in her eyes, her overall state was relatively stable.
"And you?" the woman in red asked proactively.
"Us too," Su Ding said in a low voice. "It seems this group mainly targets tourists descending the mountain in this area."
The woman in red nodded, a hint of worry on her beautiful face.
Seeing Su Ding talking to the woman in red, Xiaoxiao quickly walked over and asked anxiously, "How long have you been captured?"