Chapter 117: Staying Calm in the Face of Danger

The thug unscrewed a bottle of mineral water and held it to her lips; Shi Youxuan drank more than half the bottle in one go, finally catching her breath.

She let out a long, weary sigh and said to the thug, "Thank you, big brother, you really are a good person! Good-hearted big brother, could you put on your mask? It would be best if you wore sunglasses too, and then stand a little further away while we talk. I have a get-rich-quick opportunity I want to tell you about, I just don't know if you're interested?"

Shi Youxuan kept her eyes tightly shut the entire time she was speaking.

The thug was a bit stunned!

In all his years, this was the first time he had been called a "good person."

Although he knew he wasn't, he still felt quite pleased inside.

"You little girl sure have a sweet mouth." He thought to himself that it would be a real pity to sell her off to the mountains.

However, he still listened to her and put on his mask and hat, only then saying, "You can open your eyes now."

He had engaged in the business of human trafficking more than once or twice; crying and wailing were the norm, and he often saw people trying to kill themselves.

Not crying, not making a scene, waking up and first letting him "protect" her, then praising him as a "good person" and even offering him a chance to get rich... such a Shi Youxuan made the thug not only lower his guard but also feel quite favorably toward her.

"Now you can speak. Tell me, how do you plan to make me rich?" He pulled over a chair and sat by the door, feeling that this girl was quite interesting; since he was idle anyway, listening to what she had to say would pass the time.

Shi Youxuan said, "Men die for wealth just as birds die for food. You kidnapped me here, so you must be planning to trade me for money. That's perfectly normal, I don't blame you."

She adopted the posture of negotiating with a business partner, neither humble nor pushy, and showed no signs of fear at all: "It's just, good-hearted big brother, how do you intend to trade me for money?"

The thug said, "As long as you're cooperative on this journey, I'll find you a good husband when we get there, and you won't have to worry about food or clothing for the rest of your life."

The man in front of her was a human trafficker; Shi Youxuan had calmly deduced his identity.

She asked, "Good-hearted big brother, may I ask how much I'm worth?"

Shi Youxuan had already sat up from the ground, her large eyes blinking, flashing with a curious light!

The thug wasn't afraid of her knowing, and said readily, "You're pretty, young and tender-skinned, you can sell for at least this much." As he spoke, he held up his thumb and index finger, gesturing an "eight."

Pretty?

Shi Youxuan knew full well that she wasn't pretty at all while wearing the mask. Since both that Gao Laosan earlier and the thug in front of her now said she was pretty, it could only mean the mask on her face was gone.

But it wasn't nearby, and he hadn't mentioned it. Could it be that the person who originally drugged her wasn't him?

Her mind raced, and while she analyzed this, she didn't delay in maneuvering with the thug.

"Only eighty thousand?"

Shi Youxuan widened her eyes in exaggeration: "Good-hearted big brother, how many of you are there? You can only sell me for eighty thousand in total, and you still have to deduct travel expenses. This trip won't make much money, and there's such a huge risk... tsk tsk, and then you have to split it up... it's not worth it!"

She wore a look of pity, earnestly doing the math for him.

She had been sold, yet she was helping them count the money, and on top of that, she felt the price was too low.

Being stirred up by her like this, the thug also felt that he was indeed working hard, and that high risk with low return was not worth it.

After considering it, he asked proactively, "Little girl, you said just now that you had a get-rich-quick opportunity to tell me about, what is it?" He had found it amusing earlier, just to pass the time, but now he was genuinely becoming a bit serious.

Seeing that there was a chance, Shi Youxuan felt secretly pleased, but the timing wasn't quite right yet.

She asked, "Good-hearted big brother, you brought me here, you should know who I am, right?"

"Don't know."

The thug shook his head; he truly didn't know.

The person had been brought here by Gao Laosan, who only demanded that he sell her far away so she could never be found again; nothing else was said.

Shi Youxuan said, "Do you know Sheng Hanyu? The Chairman of Dingsheng Group. If you call him and say that Shi Youxuan is in your hands, I guarantee he will agree to any condition you set."

"You are Shi Youxuan?"

The thug suddenly raised his voice and widened his eyes in disbelief.

She nodded: "That's right, I am Shi Youxuan. If you don't believe me, you can look it up online."

The missing person notices about her were everywhere online; Sheng Hanyu had offered a reward of ten million to find his missing, foolish wife. There wasn't a soul in Jiangzhou who didn't know about this.

There was no need to look it up online at all; he believed her.

The way he looked at Shi Youxuan now was completely different from before. Such a huge windfall had suddenly dropped on his head, and he couldn't quite believe it was real. He leaned in to examine Shi Youxuan carefully, his eyes full of greed—not the greed of a man for a woman, but the greed of a miser seeing gold.

She also generously raised her face to let him look.

After staring for a dozen seconds, the thug wiped the sweat from his forehead and muttered to himself: "My goodness, it really is you. Have you been hidden away by Daobalian for all these days?"

"That can't be right. He has ten million not to earn, and he lets me sell you? That would be brainless..." The thug couldn't figure it out, but he blurted out the inside information while grumbling.

Thus, Shi Youxuan knew that the person who had drugged her was "Daobalian," and the man in front of her was just a human trafficker who hadn't participated in the kidnapping itself.

The mask probably wasn't taken off by him either.

Shi Youxuan quickly analyzed: the kidnappers knew her identity; someone must have directed them to do this!

The first person she thought of was Shi Yuke, but then she thought it didn't feel right. This didn't seem like something Shi Yuke would do, but rather something Jiang Yadan would do.

With this realization, Shi Youxuan said to the thug, "Good-hearted big brother, I used to wear a mask. The person you mentioned probably didn't know who I was, so you got lucky."

The thug liked the phrase "got lucky"; he was willing to accept a windfall from heaven.

So, without further hesitation, he immediately dialed the number Shi Youxuan gave him!

After Sheng Hanyu answered, his expression gradually became grave: "Hmm."

"That's right, that's how it is."

"I want to speak with her."

Jian Yining, Yun Zhehao, and Sheng Zerong were all there.

Just a moment before this call connected, the group had been arguing incessantly over the kidnapping of Yingzi.

Sheng Hanyu was speaking to the person on the phone, and everyone was listening intently, especially Jian Yining, whose palms were clenched so tightly they were sweating!

The thug held the phone to Shi Youxuan's ear: "Speak."

Shi Youxuan: "Sheng Hanyu, I am Shi Youxuan, you need to help me."

She said "help me" instead of "save me," which made the thug feel quite comfortable, and Sheng Hanyu also detected a different nuance—she was not in danger, or at least not in immediate danger.

The voice was Yingzi's, but she called herself Shi Youxuan... none of that mattered now; saving the person was the priority.

"Where are you? How can I help you?"

What answered him was not Shi Youxuan, but the "beep-beep-beep" of a busy signal.

The thug was full of excitement and said to Shi Youxuan, "Can he give me ten million?"

Shi Youxuan said, "Ten million? If you agree to let me go, I guarantee he can give you twenty million."

"Deal, deal, deal."

The man's face shone with excitement; twenty million, huh?

With that much money, even if one spent it while lying down, it would be enough for a lifetime; why bother with human trafficking and living in fear all day long?