Chapter 144: 第144章 7岁的苏苒和12岁的江执_1

She turned it over carefully in her mind, and the face in her memory lined up perfectly with Jasper Rivers’ stunning features today. Back then, with both her parents gone, she hadn’t known how to go on — how to survive in a village that had nothing left to offer her.

She had even considered stealing, or worse. It was from the mouth of some old bachelor in the village that she’d heard about the most lucrative way to make money. That idea had taken root in her head. As for Ash Sinclair — she hadn’t cared. The way she’d seen it then, they were both just kids. Everyone figured out their own way to survive.

Once she knew the path, she had genuinely been ready to walk it. Then the kidnapping happened. Death was more likely than survival, but she believed that if she could just stay alive, she could make it to the other side.

She knew her face was her greatest asset. She had already imagined the worst-case scenario — maybe whoever was behind all this would take a liking to her, groom her, and eventually she’d have more money than she knew what to do with.

So how do you stay alive as long as possible in a situation like that?

The first thing Rian Sinclair had decided was: don’t show them how smart you are. A pretty face paired with a sharp mind was a death sentence at the bottom of the food chain. So she would play the pretty, empty vase. No more, no less.

Being too clever, too unusual — that only made you stand out. And standing out got you killed early.

So Rian made herself look ordinary. She studied the fear on the faces around her and mimicked it, making herself appear as fragile and helpless as possible.

Which was why, when twelve-year-old Jasper Rivers saw through her, she felt a brief flash of surprise — quickly smothered. She kept her expression blank and went on hugging her knees in the iron cage, slowly shuffling backward.

Only when her back pressed against the cold metal bars did her emotions settle. As if being caged was the only thing that made her feel safe.

Young Jasper’s eyes were full of cold menace and contempt, yet something in his bearing — some faint, involuntary trace of righteousness — left Rian feeling strangely disoriented.

The twelve-year-old Jasper leaned quietly against the bars of the cage, watching the girl who kept her head down and her body trembling, and found himself growing curious.

He nudged her with his foot. "Hey. What’s your name? How’d you end up here? Cut the act — I know you’re not actually scared."

That last line hit her like a jolt. Her composure stiffened for just a fraction of a second before she smoothed it over, pretending she hadn’t understood what he meant.

Jasper wasn’t put off by her silence. Back then he wasn’t the man he is now — he leaned closer and pressed on.

"Just tell me your name. I’ll get you out of here. You can go home."

Rian nearly laughed at that. And who exactly did he think he was? He could save her? He’d ended up in the same place she had. He could barely save himself, let alone anyone else.

She had always hated people who talked big. Besides, she’d never planned to leave from the start. So she filed his words away the same way she’d file away a bad joke — heard, dismissed, forgotten.

Jasper, never great at holding his temper, started to lose it. Even a kid younger than him was ignoring him, and that got under his skin. He shoved her, irritation bleeding into every word.

"You can’t even answer one question?"

Rian was caught off guard and went down. Flat on the ground, staring up, she had already cycled through a dozen different ways to kill him.

But her control wasn’t flawless. A thread of impatience, a whisper of killing intent — it leaked through just enough to make Jasper’s eyes light up.

He leaned over her, voice buzzing with excitement. "I knew you were different from the rest of them. Did you actually plan to end up here?"

Rian stared at him for a moment, genuinely taken aback. Reading between the lines — he hadn’t been taken. He’d come here on purpose. She looked him dead in the eye and said the only word that fit.

"Lunatic."

What she didn’t know then was that she would go on calling him that for the better part of her life.

"See, I knew it," Jasper said, unable to hide how thrilled he was. "You’re nothing like the rest of them. Look at those people — look at the state they’re in."

He gestured around at the other captives — children and young adults, filthy and hollow-eyed, feet bloody, wrists and ankles shackled.

But by the same logic, Jasper should have been shackled too. The question must have shown in Rian’s eyes, because he caught it immediately.

He leaned in close and dropped his voice to a murmur. "I make myself useful to them — they keep me loose. You’re smart too, so why not do the same?"

Rian looked at his face, lost the battle with herself, and rolled her eyes. She didn’t answer him. She just held his gaze for a long beat, letting every bit of the disdain she felt show through.

Jasper blinked, then nodded to himself as if she’d made a valid argument. "Being a pretty vase isn’t bad either, actually. Efficient choice at your age."

Then he tilted his head and added, "I thought you were mute. Guess not. So why were you ignoring me?"

"Why would I bother?"

Her question stopped him cold for a moment. Then he nodded again, slowly, as if genuinely working through it. "Fair point. Why would you bother?"

Watching him sink back into his own thoughts, Rian had honestly wondered at the time if something was wrong with him upstairs. And looking back now — clearly, yes. Severely.

But a moment later he was at it again. "Hey, what’s your name? I’m Jasper Rivers." He spelled it out like it meant something. "Jasper, as in talent running dry. Rivers, as in stubborn as the current."

Talent running dry. Stubborn as the current. What a way to introduce yourself. She looked at his outstretched hand and ignored it completely.

He didn’t seem to mind at all. He smiled, pulled his hand back, and said, "That’s fine. You don’t have to tell me now. You will eventually."

She wrote that off as more empty words and thought nothing of it. After that, Jasper talked in her ear nonstop, until she felt like her head was going to split.

"You know, I thought you were just like everyone else at first. Turns out I was wrong."

He pointed across the cage. "Look at that guy over there. County magistrate’s son. Fed so well his whole life he can barely move, and now all that fat is basically a death sentence in here."

Rian followed his gaze. The boy he was pointing at had his bloated body slumped against the bars, barely able to hold himself up. She remembered him — mostly because the whiplash had been so jarring, watching someone go from swaggering and fearless to prostrating himself before anyone who came near. The transition had been almost too fast to follow.

The weight was visibly melting off him now, and what was left underneath was covered in wounds that weren’t easy to look at.

Rian came back to herself. Her fingers drifted to her chest, tracing a rough patch of skin — the scar that had never fully smoothed away.

She could have had the system erase it. She’d chosen not to. That memory was too deeply carved into her. It had never stopped being a warning.

She glanced at the boy once, then looked away. Jasper was still going, relentless as ever.

"Hey, you know once we cross the border it’s practically impossible to mount a rescue? Like finding a needle in the ocean."

There was anticipation in his voice. And against her better judgment, something in Rian stirred — because wasn’t that exactly what she’d been counting on? Jasper felt the shift in her, even if she hadn’t meant to show it.