Greeting the man

He found a bundle of rope.

He tied all five people together, back-to-back in a circle.

Then he turned to search the room.

The utility room.

The kitchen.

The bathroom.

None of them.

Li Wei frowned.

"Where are the children?"

He was certain he hadn't misheard at the beginning.

There must be a hiding place here.

He just hadn't found it yet.

He turned back to the living room.

The five men were all groaning in pain.

Li Wei walked up to them and squatted down.

"Where are the children?"

His voice was cold.

The Bald Man raised his head, his eyes fierce.

"Who the hell are you?"

Li Wei didn't answer.

Instead, his gaze suddenly fell to the floor.

Amidst the mess on the floor, there was a transparent plastic bag.

It contained a dozen or so pink pills.

They were very conspicuous.

Li Wei carefully picked it up with his fingers and examined it under the light.

"What is this?"

The expressions of the five men changed drastically at the same time.

"This... is naturally... medicine for treating illnesses."

Seeing their panicked expressions, Li Wei smiled.

"So you're not going to talk, huh."

He opened the plastic bag and poured out a pill.

He walked up to the Bald Man.

"Since it's medicine for treating illnesses, let's start by treating your stubbornness. Open up."

The Bald Man, however, gritted his teeth tightly.

Li Wei didn't waste any words.

He reached out and firmly gripped the man's chin.

Click!

The jaw dislocated.

The mouth opened.

Saliva also involuntarily flowed out along with it.

Under the Bald Man's terrified gaze, Li Wei, expressionless, dropped the pill inside.

Then he forcefully pushed the jaw back into place.

"Gulp."

The Bald Man swallowed it.

His gaze, however, remained fixed on Li Wei.

Li Wei didn't care; he didn't know who he was anyway.

Li Wei turned to the second man.

"I'm asking you, where are the children?"

The man turned pale.

"I... I'll talk... I'll talk..."

"Skinny! If you dare to talk, see what happens! Aren't you afraid Brother Hu will go after your whole family!"

Another tattooed man roared.

Li Wei glanced at him and walked up to him.

He dislocated his jaw again and stuffed a pill in.

Then the third, the fourth, and the fifth.

Finally, only the tall, skinny man from the beginning remained.

That man was already trembling with fear.

"I'll talk! I'll talk!"

"The children are in the basement!"

"Open the refrigerator door, there's a secret passage behind it!"

"It leads straight to the basement!"

"Please, I beg you, don't make me eat that!"

Li Wei looked at him.

"What is that?"

The man bit his lip.

"Aphro... aphrodisiac..."

Li Wei's eyes turned cold as he looked at the other five men.

Sure enough, their faces were flushed and their breathing was heavy.

It seemed the drug was starting to take effect.

He untied the ropes and locked the five men, who had lost their ability to fight, into the utility room one by one.

Then he tied up the skinny man separately.

"You'd better not lie to me!"

Li Wei looked down at him.

"No, they're really there, I swear."

The tall, skinny man kept assuring him.

Li Wei glanced at him, stood up, and went to the refrigerator.

The refrigerator was green, looking very old, with some parts even rusted.

Li Wei pulled open the door.

It was indeed empty inside, but there was indeed an opening behind it.

It was pitch black.

Li Wei turned on his phone's flashlight and shone the light inside.

It was a staircase leading down.

Li Wei gripped his pen tightly and walked in.

The stairs were very narrow, only wide enough for one person.

The walls were rough concrete, with water stains.

Li Wei walked down step by step.

The air grew colder, and there was a strange smell, like disinfectant mixed with the stench of sweat.

He walked down about twenty steps, and suddenly, the view opened up before him.

A dim yellow light illuminated the surroundings.

This was a cylindrical basement surrounded by concrete walls, with quite a few rooms.

It was pitch black, and it looked like many of them had padlocks on them.

As far as Li Wei could see, in a corner where a tattered carpet was spread, five or six children were lying there.

The oldest looked to be no more than thirteen or fourteen, and the youngest might only be five or six.

They all had their eyes closed, breathing steadily.

Li Wei walked over, squatted down, and reached out to check the breath of the nearest child.

They were still alive.

He gently patted the child's cheek, but there was no reaction.

It seemed those people hadn't lied; they must have been fed sleeping pills.

Li Wei breathed a sigh of relief and was just about to stand up.

At that moment, a sound of wind breaking came from behind him.

Li Wei instinctively rolled to the side.

Bang!

A steel pipe smashed into the spot where he had just been squatting, creating a hole in the carpet.

Li Wei looked up.

Three men rushed out from the shadows, all holding steel pipes in their hands.

"Damn it! Are the people upstairs dead? How could someone come down here!"

"Kill him!"

The three of them swung their steel pipes at him simultaneously with great force.

Li Wei flipped and stood up, but he hadn't yet adapted to the dim light, and his movements were a step too slow.

A steel pipe landed right on his shoulder.

"Hiss—"

Li Wei let out a muffled grunt, sharp pain shooting through his shoulder.

But he didn't stop; he pulled the pen from his pocket and thrust it out fiercely with a backhand.

The first man's thigh was pierced through, and he fell to the ground, screaming.

The second man's steel pipe swung over again.

Li Wei dodged to the side, and the pen stabbed into the man's wrist.

The man let go, and Li Wei kicked him in the knee.

Click!

The man knelt down.

The third man's face turned fierce; he threw away the steel pipe and drew a gleaming dagger from his waist to stab at Li Wei's face.

"Go to hell!"

Li Wei didn't even frown.

The combat skills granted by the system allowed him to dodge this fatal blow with a side step.

Then a cold glint flashed in Li Wei's eyes, and the sharp tip of the pen plunged directly into his ribs.

Clang~

The intense pain caused the dagger to slip from his hand.

A thick smell of blood wafted over.

The man looked in disbelief at the blood gushing uncontrollably from his waist.

He let out a miserable howl, fell to the ground, and clutched his wound tightly.

The three men instantly lost their ability to fight.

Li Wei rubbed his shoulder, which was excruciatingly painful, not knowing if the bone was injured.

He wandered around the basement, found some rope again, and tied up the three men as well, then dragged them into a corner.

Li Wei checked the children again, confirming they were all still alive, and turned to walk toward the stairs.

He went up to the first floor.

The tall, skinny man who had revealed the children's whereabouts had his eyes wide open.

"You... how did you come back up?"

Li Wei looked at him expressionlessly.

How could he not know that it had been a trap just now.

The man seemed to realize something, and his face instantly turned pale.

"You... you did them..."

"They are naturally the same as you all."

Li Wei walked up to him and squatted down.

"You thought I would die down there?"

The man was trembling all over.

"No... it's not..."

Li Wei stood up, walked to the plastic bag on the floor, picked it up, poured out a pill, and walked up to the tall, skinny man.

"Wait!"

Seeing Li Wei holding the pill, the man screamed in terror.

"I already told you!"

"You promised not to make me eat that!"

Li Wei smiled.

"You can play tricks, why can't I? Besides, you were the one who didn't follow the rules first?"

The man was stunned.

Taking advantage of his daze, Li Wei gripped his chin.

Click!

The jaw dislocated.

The pill was stuffed in.

Click!

The jaw was pushed back.

The man's tears flowed down.

Li Wei turned around, dragged the skinny man into the small room where the other four were being held, and kicked him inside.

The six of them were instantly piled up like a human pyramid, squeezed inside.

Li Wei closed the door and locked it.

Through the crack in the door, he could hear terrified conversations coming from inside.