Pinnacles’ Edge

Chapter 2: Break Free

Translator: Choco Lover

The night was the darkest and seemed eternal in Xi Jingfei’s life. She came back to senses as one of the person present sprinkled water on her face. They again asked but now that their bargaining chip was already destroyed, they could do nothing but wait to torture her more the next morning. They were under instruction that they had to keep the girl alive until she told the location. As such, they didn’t torture her the same night as that of her family’s death, but decided to it the following day.

Upon waking up, Xi Jingfei felt her numb heart again and a whisper of her soul, “You are alive. Get up. There’s no turning back even if you don’t feel good.”

Xi Jingfei cried the whole night. The pain in her heart subdued all the rest. But the faint cries of her heart and determination of the soul did not let her breakdown anymore.

“I have been trying to run away from here for almost a week. The watch ticking on the wall, other than my painful whimpers and those heartless people’s laugh, is the only sound heard around. The first day after an eternity long question and torture session, soon as the leader of those who held me, went out for a stroll, I asked for a glass of water and cut my rope with it and fled away but was brought back. They had tortured me even more.”

“The second day, I feigned as if feeling giddy but to no avail as they didn’t fancy bringing me to hospital instead kicked me harder in frustration leaving me to groan.”

“The third day, however, I had learnt my lesson. With that, I started paying more attention to the surroundings instead of wasting my energy and efforts and getting tortured.”

“This place has iron nets near walls but they are rusty and also covered with spider nets. It also has a handful weapons. The pipes and iron rods above to the ceilings. There is a pungent smell getting in my nostrils. It took me a day to distinguish all the different gases that had their wings spread out in the place. It had a mix of benzene, potassium and lithium. All these are quite inflammable substances.”

“If only I could get my hands lose, I could make use of my knowledge a little more and I might find a break through.”

Xi Jingfei was rummaging her head to come up with a plan to deal with the situation. After losing her family, she could only rely on herself to break free and bring those culprits to justice.

“The glass piece from my last attempt is still hiding in my clothes. I can only rely on it again.” After a few attempts and getting her hands all bruised, Xi Jingfei finally cut the ropes. The minions of that culprit who earlier questioned her along with the leader himself, were sitting not too far from her but having indulged themselves in gambling and cards, they didn’t notice the girl.

The girl as moved her legs that had gone numb for sitting in a place for so long, almost fell to ground but pushed herself up with support of both her hands. Though painful all over, she didn’t make much sound. Reaching out to the axe that was on the iron net, with all her remaining strength, she hurriedly flung it into the air aiming the pipe above. A big hole appeared with a loud sound soon after followed the sound of the axe falling.

The girl covered her face with rags to avoid suffocation and once again collecting all her remaining strength, she ran frantically to the exit. Before the felons could process all that happened and react to it, the girl was already out and had locked the door from outside. The place wasn’t big so it didn’t take much time before there was coughing sounds from the inside. Because of her previous escape through the skylight, the culprits had sealed it completely to avoid any future troubles. Hence the gas inside got no place to escape.

Not too later, the girl inserted a bunch of dried grass from a hole in the door and ran away. Reacting to the gases inside, the grass caught fire. The place burnt down along with those inside.

As she looked around to see where to escape, she noticed that this place was an abandoned chemical factory with two of its units connected through pipes that passed from the storage kind of room she was held in. Realizing the place would soon be blown completely, the girl rushed out without thinking for another second.