"Damn, these are all top-grade goods, picked with care. At the Nightingale Pavilion, they'll fetch quite well"
"Mm. There's a nice payday coming..."
…
Lynn was jolted awake by the noise. A splitting headache throbbed through his skull as he opened his eyes to cold iron bars and several ragged figures crouched nearby.
"I… wasn't I in a hospital ward?" he muttered. "Where is this?"
His gaze swept the surroundings, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
The bars in front of him formed a full iron cage, enclosing him on all sides. Inside were boys and girls huddled together, skin stretched tight over the bone and dressed in filthy rags. They looked no different from beggars.
Outside the cage, the scene was loud and lively.
A wide yard bustled with activity. Several burly men lounged around with their shirts open, drinking and bragging, with foul language flying everywhere.
Their bare torsos were each marked with tattoos of a bloody ghost hand.
Their language was foreign, yet Lynn understood every word instinctively, as if it were burned into his mind.
'Wait.'
He'd never left the country so how had he ended up in the hands of foreign traffickers?
As his thoughts slowly cleared, Lynn noticed something even stranger.
His body… worked.
For seven or eight years, he had been bedridden with a terminal illness. His muscles had long since wasted away. Yet now, though weak, his limbs responded. He could feel strength, as meager as it was, flowing through him.
He raised his hands. They were thin, but not sickly.
And still… they weren't his.
Those hands had been with him for more than twenty years, through countless lonely nights. Even when they had grown useless near the end, they had never been this small or slender.
Had he transmigrated? Taken over someone else's body?
With no clues, Lynn forced the questions aside. Survival came first.
So that was it? Someone just tossed him here and washed their hands of it?
Where was the system?
Where was the cheat?
"System bro?"
"Open beginner gift box!"
He whispered frantically while scanning the yard, trying everything he could think of.
Nothing happened.
The others in the cage stared at him muttering to himself, their expressions saying it all.
'Great. ' they thought 'Another lunatic.'
"Yo, the kid's finally awake, might be the tenderest piece in this batch."
A man with yellow, crooked teeth pointed at Lynn and grinned at his companions.
"With skin that smooth, once he's scrubbed clean he'll sell for a fat price. The Nightingale Pavilion's mammy loves this type."
"Shame the boss keeps such a tight watch," another added. "Otherwise we could've had some fun tonight."
Yellow Teeth sighed, grabbed himself crudely, then tore into a piece of roast rabbit from the table. A faint gamey smell drifted through the air.
Lynn met the man's greedy gaze and felt his stomach turn.
Better dead than end up in that man's hands.
Right now, he was nothing more than "goods." His freedom was already gone. If he didn't act, he'd soon be "enjoying" life at the so-called Nightingale Pavilion.
He slid closer to the others in the cage and whispered, "Hey. Where are we? Why are we here?"
The trembling kids glanced at him, but no one answered.
In a place like this, no one bothered explaining.
Only a girl of about fourteen hesitated. Seeing Lynn's delicate face, pity flickered in her eyes.
Someone like him… the Nightingale Pavilion would destroy him.
"This is the Blood Hand Gang's base," she whispered. "They kidnap lone women and children. We were caught so they're going to sell us to the Nightingale Pavilion."
Her face drained of color as she spoke. She lowered her head, tears dripping silently onto the ground.
Lynn didn't comfort her. He lowered his own head, pretending not to notice, and began thinking furiously.
A trafficking gang. Begging was useless, soft hearts didn't survive in this line of work.
Fight? This malnourished body couldn't even shake the cage.
Ransom? He didn't have a single coin, nor a single acquaintance in this world.
Then… join them?
With these skinny arms and legs, would they even want him?
Lynn frowned. If his body was useless, then he had to offer value elsewhere.
His eyes swept the yard and landed on a scrawny man in the corner. The man sat hunched over a crude abacus made of iron rods and bone beads, clicking them with a dark expression.
The drunken shouting nearby kept interrupting him, clearly irritating him.
A thought crossed Lynn's mind
So this gang had no scholars? And this miserable fellow is their only "intellectual"?
And judging by his face, the accounts were beyond him.
This was his chance.
Lynn took a deep breath, crawled to the edge of the cage, grabbed the freezing bars, and shouted with all the strength he had:
"Someone! I want to see your chief! I can make him ten times more than you'll get by selling me!"
His throat was dry, his voice hoarse, and the words came out sharp and almost hysterical.
The other captives shrieked and scrambled away, pressing into the far corner of the cage to distance themselves from him.
The yard fell silent.
Every thug stared at Lynn as if he'd lost his mind.
Yellow Teeth blinked, then burst out laughing. "Brat, scared stupid? You can make money?"
"I'm not crazy." Lynn met his gaze without flinching. "I can do your accounts, clean up your books and show you how to make money grow more money."
"Make money grow?" Yellow Teeth sneered. "What are you, some hidden Lord Wizard?"
Laughter erupted around the yard. Even the gloomy bookkeeper cracked a faint smile.