Chapter 1550 - 1537: The Imprisoned Girl

Day 379 of captivity. Ardan struggled to get out of bed and looked through the cracks of the sealed window at the gray sky outside.

It was going to rain. The Southeast Coast enters its rainy season in June, where it drizzles for more than two months. She used to love rainy days, enjoying the ethereal mood after the rain. But after being confined for more than three hundred days, her past life preferences felt like things from a previous life.

She didn’t know where she was being held. The house was old, isolated with no villages or shops nearby, and at night, she often heard the cries of wild animals. Her captor was a local peasant woman, very strong, who spoke in a dialect she couldn’t understand. When she first arrived, she thought of escaping but ended up beaten and bruised by this fierce peasant woman.

This woman often deprived her of food for disobedience and gave her random medication when she was ill, as long as it didn’t kill her. Raised in luxury since childhood, although her mother died early, her father doted on her like a precious gem, never allowing her to suffer. After months of captivity, she became emaciated, getting sick almost every month.

There were several times when the peasant woman forgot to lock the door, and she ran out, but she collapsed before even covering a mile, only to be caught and brutally beaten again.

She later realized that with her health, escaping was as difficult as ascending to heaven unless someone rescued her.

Eventually, Ardan began to deliberately damage things in the house, and the peasant woman would angrily fix them until one day Ardan poured water on the electrical circuit, blowing the fuse. Unable to fix it herself, the peasant woman angrily went to find someone else to repair it.

The woman was cautious, locking Ardan inside, tying her up, and sealing her mouth with tape before calling anyone to fix the circuit.

Once there was a first time, there was a second. She wrote help signals in the corners of the house, but the electric repairmen seemed unable to understand her internationally recognized distress signals, or they simply ignored them.

The repairmen came a few times, barely speaking, quickly completing the repairs and taking the payment before leaving.

Ardan was feeling despair. Her health was so poor that if this continued, she would either die here sooner or later, and it had been a year since her disappearance. She wondered how heartbroken and desperate her father must be.

As she thought about it, she got up, drank some water, and carefully swallowed the buns she had saved from recent days, conserving her strength.

The peasant woman was uncouth and likely uneducated, entirely oblivious to the fact that all the circuit malfunctions were caused by Ardan’s tampering. That morning, Ardan deliberately broke the circuit, and the peasant woman, without any suspicion, went out in the afternoon to find someone to fix it.

Throughout the past week, she had deliberately feigned serious illness, lying weakly in bed, devoid of the strength to speak. As expected, her captor fell for it and only locked the door without binding her when she left.

Ardan checked the time, got up, and listened closely to the noises outside. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before there was some commotion.

"Why does this circuit keep having problems? Did you even fix it properly last time? If it breaks again within three months, I won’t pay you!" the peasant woman grumbled incessantly. "If you weren’t so cheap, we wouldn’t hire you. You get what you pay for, I guess."

The front door opened, and steady footsteps were heard, with the person outside remaining silent.

Ardan heard the sound of a tool kit being set on the ground.

She got up and shattered the mirror in the room into pieces, the fragments scattering all over with a piercing noise.

In the living room, the peasant woman was startled, angrily fumbling for the keys as she cursed while unlocking the door: "What are you up to again? Want a beating?"

Ardan held her breath, panting heavily. Just smashing a mirror made her feel a bit dizzy. As the door was opened, she didn’t hesitate to hurl something heavy towards her.

The peasant woman shrieked, her head wounded and bleeding, lying on the ground and screaming.

Sweating profusely, Ardan tried to run out, but the peasant woman grabbed her leg, causing her to fall.

She looked despairingly towards the door, wanted to cry for help, but her throat was parched, her head heavy, and the sound that emerged was barely audible.

For a week, she truly had been sick, just to gain the peasant woman’s trust.

The commotion in the room was immense. The strong peasant woman, clutching the gash on her head, got up and started punching and kicking Ardan, cursing her all the while.

"The electricity is fixed, 100 bucks," the man’s deep voice sounded.

"You wretched girl, just wait until I deal with you later," the peasant woman said as she finally stopped assaulting Ardan, clutching her wound to find a towel, and then continued arguing about the payment, "I’ll only give you 50 bucks; it broke after just a few months, and you still dare to ask for 100."

The man said nothing.

Ardan struggled to sit up and looked up at him.

It was dusk, overcast, and with the man standing at the door, his face wasn’t visible. He wore a work vest that exposed his strong muscles, with dirty and worn trousers below, a heavily frayed belt loosely cinched at his waist, accentuating his broad shoulders and slim waist, his entire being radiating potential explosive power.

The man was extremely tall, estimated to be one meter ninety, and standing in the doorway like a mountain, clearly a rugged man accustomed to heavy labor, enduring the elements.

"Help me," she clung to his pants leg, speaking with difficulty, focusing her view slightly making out the scar on his face, running from forehead to brow, menacingly confirming he didn’t seem like a good man.

He merely glanced at her indifferently, then looked away.

"Here’s fifty bucks, now get going," the peasant woman returned and shoved the money at the electrician, then yanked Ardan up, attempting to shove her into the bathroom.

Ardan didn’t know where she gathered strength from, but she clung to the man’s leg, trembling all over and pleaded, "Help me, I’ll do anything."

"You wretched girl, thinking I’ll kill you today. Fed you, kept you like Miss, and you still want to run off with some wild man?" The peasant woman charged forward, kicked Ardan once, then pulled her back, yelling at the electrician, "Why are you still here? Mind your own business."

Ardan felt the kick churn her insides, nearly fainting, her eyes filled with despair as she looked at the man.

He remained expressionless, took the money, threw the grubby tool bag over his shoulder, and turned to leave.

The light in Ardan’s eyes went out. She should’ve known he had no intention of rescuing her—she deliberately tampered with the circuit, her distress signals were undoubtedly understood by him. If he wanted to save her, he would’ve alerted the police long ago.

"You disgrace. I allow you to hit me, and you still try to escape. I’ll break your legs; even if I kill you, no one will know." Once the electrician left, the peasant woman immediately began another round of punching and kicking.

Ardan closed her eyes, protecting her head, remaining silently as she endured.

But the anticipated blows never landed. The peasant woman screamed like a slaughtered pig, causing Ardan to freeze. Upon opening her eyes, she saw the scar between the man’s brows. He crouched down, looked at her with dark eyes, and asked hoarsely, "What you said earlier, was it true?"

Being so close, she could smell the sweat on him, a foreign masculine scent.

She nodded, then fainted.

Marcus Quinn looked at the unconscious girl, too delicate and slender even in rough old clothes. Her stunning beauty and ivory skin revealed her upbringing as a well-bred young lady. To him, this woman would be enormous trouble.

He frowned, kicked the whimpering peasant woman unconscious, shouldered the heavy tool bag, disabled the surveillance equipment in the house, then lifted the frail girl, leaving before the storm hit.