Chapter 164 A Woman Escaped with a Child
The cages erupted with gasps of astonishment.
None of them understood how Grace had managed to open the lock. Some assumed she was a lock-picker and pleaded, "Miss, please help us!"
"It's useless!" came a man's voice from a cage in the corner. "You can't escape."
Grace looked toward the sound.
She walked to his cage and frowned. "Why do you say that?"
The man replied, "Do you see the collar around your neck?"
Grace reached up to touch it.
"There's a small bomb inside," the man explained. "Only a special decoder can open it."
"What decoder?" Grace asked.
"We're all merchandise here. The collars can only be removed when we're delivered to buyers. And there's only one way to open them—through the supervisor's decoder. He inputs the collar's serial number, and it opens automatically. But if you try to force it open, it explodes."
Grace looked skeptical. "How do you know this?"
The man let out a bitter laugh and glanced down at the blood on his body. "What do you think this blood is from? My friend was killed by one of these collars. Besides me, two other friends were kidnapped. They told us there was high-paying illegal work overseas—we could make fifty thousand dollars a year. We believed them and agreed to go together, but instead..."
One of his friends had been a career criminal who lived by burglary until he was released from prison. With a criminal record, he couldn't find decent work.
His family was destitute.
Desperate to make money, he'd gotten the idea to work abroad.
It turned out to be a death trap.
When they woke up, they were in a van with collars around their necks, though their hands and feet weren't bound.
His friend, naturally skilled at picking locks, tried to remove another person's collar.
The collar exploded on the spot.
The bomb inside was small with limited blast power, but enough to blow through someone's neck.
One died instantly from the blast, another was beaten to death for being uncooperative. Of the three, only he remained alone.
The man clenched his fists, his face flushed red. "We're on a ship now. Can you hear the ocean wind outside? We're in the middle of the sea. Even if you escape this place, where could you possibly go?"
"You said only a special decoder can open the collars?" Grace asked.
"That's right."
"Where is this decoder?"
"Every noon and evening, people come to give us rations. The tallest man among them—they call him Supervisor—he's in charge of watching us. I've seen the decoder in his hands."
"If we got the decoder, could we unlock all our collars?"
The man suddenly looked frightened. "I'm not sure... I saw him use it once. After inputting the password and the collar's serial number, it came right off."
Grace fell into thought.
The man suddenly grabbed the cage bars excitedly. "Even if you opened everyone's collars, we still can't escape! This is the ocean. Unless you control everyone on this entire cargo ship, otherwise..."
"You mean we should all stay quietly in our cages, wait for this ship to reach port, then be distributed to various buyers and wait to die?" Grace interrupted.
The man mumbled, "That's not what I meant..."
"I don't want to sit here waiting to die. Since you know this organization is a criminal group and we're all merchandise that buyers bid on, do you know what you are?"
"What..."
"You're pork."
The man froze.
Others curiously asked, "What does 'pork' mean?"
"Pork means every organ in your body will end up on the black market. You're just a temporary storage container for organs. Soon, you'll be killed, your organs harvested and sold on the black market."
Everyone gasped in horror.
Grace pointed to the collar around his neck. "The tag on your collar is blue—you're pork. Red tags mean 'meat pig.' I don't want to explain what 'meat pig' means, but I assume none of you want to become disposable toys for someone's entertainment."
Everyone began checking their collar colors.
"I'm meat pig..."
"I'm pork..."
Lily looked at Grace's collar tag—it was red.
She asked, "Sister, what color is my collar?"
Grace glanced at it—surprisingly, it was blue.
She sat down cross-legged and looked around. "Does anyone here know how to operate a cargo ship?"
The hold fell silent.
Suddenly, a hand emerged from one of the cages. "I do..."
Grace looked over.
It was a short, slight man.
"I used to captain a squid fishing boat," he said.
"Good," Grace replied.
Having someone who could navigate was crucial.
"I'll figure out a way to save you all. Then we'll hijack the ship and escape together. Agreed?"
After her words, the hold fell silent again.
Then voices began rising, "I don't want to die! I want to escape!"
"Miss, let's escape together!"
"Count me in!"
The voices rose one after another.
Six hours passed in a flash.
The door opened.
The group of men entered again.
They walked from cage to cage, throwing bread inside.
Suddenly, someone shouted loudly, "Someone escaped!"
"What?"
The men immediately surrounded that cage.
A woman said, "Sir, I saw a woman and child escape from one of the cages! I'm reporting them! Could I get an extra piece of bread?"
The tall man asked, "Which cage?"
The woman pointed to the empty cage. "That one!"
The man walked over and saw the cage was indeed empty.
"Damn it, the meat pig escaped!" he cursed. "How did they open the lock?"
The woman shook her head. "I don't know..."
She was too frightened to say anything but "I don't know," her eyes fixed hungrily on the bread in the man's hand.
The man tossed a piece of bread into her cage, then turned and asked, "Does anyone know where they went?"
The door was locked from the outside.
How could they have escaped?
No one spoke or answered.
"Whoever reports gets rewarded," the man announced.
He pulled out several more pieces of bread.
Soon, voices rose from the other cages, "I saw them! They snuck out through the door when you opened it!"