"The drinks are finished; let us go. I will repay you," Mu Nanxin said, unwilling to linger another minute in that place. She turned and took Ling Wei's hand, intent on leaving. They had barely reached the doorway when Ling Wei suddenly tightened her grip and stopped. Puzzled, Mu Nanxin looked back at her friend.
"Nanxin… my things are still in the bar. I must fetch them. Could you wait by the stairs that lead to the VIP passage?" Ling Wei pointed toward the stairway and, without giving Mu Nanxin time to object, hurried away into the crowd.
"Weiwei… don't—" Mu Nanxin's plea died in her throat as Ling Wei vanished among the throng. She tried to call after her, but it was too late. Fear fluttered in her chest; she could only obey her friend's instruction and go to the staircase, waiting anxiously.
In a shadowed corner of the bar, a different scene unfolded.
"Brother Bao… I have brought you someone. May I go now?" Ling Wei asked, fingers white-knuckled on the strap of her handbag, voice taut with nervousness.
"Of course," the man called Bao scoffed. "I told you, if the person you brought pleases me, I will let you go. This woman is pleasing—very pleasing indeed." His eyes locked on Mu Nanxin, who paced uneasily a short distance away, searching the room with frantic glances. With a contemptuous sneer he glanced back at Ling Wei and taunted, "If she has a 'friend' like you, then she is indeed unfortunate…"
A pall fell across Ling Wei's face. She bit her lip until it hurt, watching the man stride toward Mu Nanxin. Her eyes trembled with a volatile mixture of jealousy and hatred.
"Nanxin, please do not blame me. I never wanted those men to insult me like this… Since you always call us best friends, then you should take this for me." Ling Wei fixed her gaze on the struggling girl in the distance and, with a heart chilled by envy, turned and walked away without another word.
Mu Nanxin was seized by Bao's men and dragged up to the landing of the stairs. Seizing a brief opportunity, she stomped down hard on the foot of one of her captors; he loosened his grip with a cry. She swung at another whose hands were on her arms.
"You bastards, perish!" she spat, and kicked the nearest man fiercely. Two of them tumbled together, grappling as they rolled down the stairwell.
Seeing them entangled, Mu Nanxin did not hesitate. She bolted toward the corridor that led out of the club, her breath coming in short, hot gasps. Sweat slicked her hair to her forehead; a fever seemed to rise within her, a burning so intense it blurred her thoughts and made her limbs heavy and urgent all at once.
She could not stop. If she were caught again by those men, she feared what horrors would follow.
Behind her came Bao's furious curses. "D*mn it! You let a drugged woman run? What good are you? Go fetch her—if she dares escape, I swear I'll make tonight a nightmare for you all!"
A cold dread tightened Mu Nanxin's chest. That explained the overwhelming heat searing through her — she had been drugged. Her forehead was damp with sweat; she looked down the dim corridor and saw two figures blocking the far end, like sentinels. She skidded to a halt, panting, torn between flight and confrontation.
The drug's effects, exacerbated by her frantic exertion, accelerated. Heat flushed her face; a burning flush climbed her skin until she felt as though the clothes clinging to her were suffocating she wanted to tear them away to cool the fever that consumed her.
"They're here," a voice called out from behind, closer now.
"You little b*tch, where do you think you're going this time?" Bao's voice cut through the air, thick with menace.
Mu Nanxin's heart hammered so violently she feared it would burst from her throat. Every instinct screamed at her to run, but the corridor narrowed and the two imposing silhouettes ahead offered no easy escape. She pressed her back against the wall, breath hitching, trying to steady herself against the dizzying rush of heat and panic.
From somewhere deeper in the bar came the sound of movement—the scuff of feet, the low murmur of voices—and the realization settled cold and real that she had been betrayed. The warmth surging through her veins was no fever of illness but the wicked work of a drug she had not consented to, turning her limbs uncertain and her mind a wavering surface.
"Brother Bao, she's over here." The footsteps drew nearer, heavy with the certainty of those who believed the chase was nearly done.
Mu Nanxin's gaze flicked to the stairwell where the two men had been overthrown, then back to the narrowing corridor. Her lungs were on fire; her vision shivered at the edges. With whatever reserves of strength she could muster, she pushed off the wall and lurched forward, not toward the waiting men but into the shadow of a recessed doorway, hoping to vanish into obscurity.
Her body trembled, not only from exertion but from the indignity of being preyed upon, from the knowledge that she had been sold into this by someone she had trusted. Rage and fear warred inside her—one urging surrender, the other demanding escape. She steadied herself on the cool doorframe and whispered a vow she barely heard: she would not let this be the end of her story.
Behind her, the villainous laughter of Bao rose, and the bar's lurid lights flickered, casting long, accusing shadows. The men closed in, but in that fleeting moment of quiet, Mu Nanxin summoned the single thing that remained hers—defiance—and clung to it like a lifeline.