Chapter 2: Making Friends
1105 Words
Chapter 2: Making Friends
The unmanned taxi completely ignored Jiang Yuesheng’s shouting. It made another sharp turn and entered a narrow dirt road overgrown with wild grass, with corn taller than a person lining both sides.
The inertia caused Jiang Yuesheng’s head to slam into the car window with a muffled “thud.”
“What the hell are you doing?!” Jiang Yuesheng was furious and began cursing.
The car bumped along the grassy path for a few dozen meters before it finally stopped, then the doors and windows opened simultaneously.
“Your destination has been reached. Please exit the vehicle.”
Jiang Yuesheng, utterly confused, yelled at the car, “i***t! I’m going to Xiaguan!”
As soon as he finished shouting, he saw a muscular man with a flat-top haircut emerge from the cornfield beside the car. The man was holding a gun, saying nothing, and fired at him.
With a “pfft” sound, Jiang Yuesheng felt a sharp sting in his shoulder. His heart leapt to his throat in fear, and before he could react, he felt dizzy and passed out.
How much time passed, he couldn’t tell, but Jiang Yuesheng soon heard a rumbling mechanical noise, and the hard floor beneath him began to vibrate.
He recalled that he had been shot in the shoulder with a tranquilizer dart, and then everything went black.
He tried to open his eyes, and his vision slowly became clearer. He found himself in what seemed like a warehouse. No, wait, it was more likely the cabin of an airplane.
Through a row of oval windows, he saw plasma jet engines mounted on the wings.
As a minor military enthusiast, he recognized that this wasn’t a Chinese-made aircraft because China didn’t have these types of rectangular intake plasma jet engines.
The engine’s intake alone indicated that the plane’s manufacturing was rough. Looking around the cabin, the materials used on the walls were outdated carbon fiber panels, some of which had frayed edges. It felt like this plane was an old, decommissioned model.
When he tried to sit up, he realized both his hands and feet were tightly bound with ropes and numb.
“He’s awake!”
Jiang Yuesheng heard a man’s voice.
Following the sound, he saw a man in his thirties with a flat-top haircut, the same one who had shot the tranquilizer at him earlier.
A chill ran down his spine, and his breathing quickened, as if death was closing in on him.
Then, from behind the flat-top man, another man appeared. He looked about forty, tall, and had a scruffy beard.
“Give him some water,” the tall man ordered the flat-top man.
After a moment, the flat-top man brought a bottle of water and walked over to Jiang Yuesheng. He twisted the cap off and poured the water into Jiang Yuesheng’s mouth.
Jiang Yuesheng was parched, so he drank quickly, gulping down the water.
However, because he was drinking too fast, he started coughing violently with “cough-cough-cough” sounds, choking on the water.
After a few sips, he felt much better, although his throat and windpipe burned from the coughing.
“What do you want with me?” Jiang Yuesheng asked hoarsely, his voice trembling.
The tall man took a step forward, his face cold as he asked, “Is your mother named Jiang Yu?”
“… Yes!” Jiang Yuesheng hesitated, then nodded. He didn’t understand why his being captured had anything to do with his mother.
“Is she on the Moon?” the tall man continued.
“Yes,” Jiang Yuesheng nodded again.
“We want to become friends with your mother. But she claimed she didn’t know us, so we brought you here,” the tall man said with a sneer, looking at Jiang Yuesheng with contempt.
Jiang Yuesheng realized then that the people who had kidn*pped him were trying to extort his mother. Although he didn’t know much about his mom’s research projects, he was aware of her reputation in the scientific community.
After several hours of flying and a rough landing, the plane finally touched down.
A while later, the airplane doors opened.
The two men walked over to Jiang Yuesheng, and like they were lifting a dead pig, they pulled him up.
Before they even reached the airplane door, Jiang Yuesheng saw an endless expanse of blue sea, and a wave of hot, humid air hit him.
He noticed a large ship parked not far from the plane. It turned out he had been in a seaplane, which had just landed on the water. A small speedboat was docked next to the plane.
Apart from the big ship, the speedboat, and the plane he had just been on, there was nothing else around.
The two men carried him onto the speedboat, which then took them toward the large ship.
Once on board, he was locked in a pitch-black cabin.
“My grandmother must be frantic looking for me,” Jiang Yuesheng thought as he lay on the cold floor.
He figured his mom must also know by now that he was missing, and she would be worried sick as well.
At this point, he wasn’t as scared anymore; instead, he felt helpless and confused, while also worrying if his mom and grandma might be so anxious that they could fall ill.
He was also concerned about his limbs. They had been tightly bound for so long that they had gone numb, and he wondered if they had been damaged.
Eventually, after an unknown amount of time, the cabin door opened, and the two men dragged him out and untied the ropes around his body.
Blood began to slowly flow back into his numb limbs. After so long without circulation, the sudden rush of blood caused sharp, agonizing pain, making him moan continuously. The constant pain almost drove him unconscious.
After about twenty minutes, the pain slowly started to fade.
He tried to move his arms and legs. They were still functional. His heart finally eased; it seemed he wasn’t disabled after all.
A little while later, his limbs regained most of their mobility. Using his stiff right hand, he pushed himself up and managed to sit.
He looked around and saw that the ship appeared to be approaching a dock. Behind the dock, there seemed to be a small town with many buildings. But these buildings didn’t look like homes; they looked more like factories.
Why would there be factories out here in the vast ocean?
The two men led Jiang Yuesheng to a two-story building on the shore.
- Writer
