Although the tall slave trader was reluctant to serve the six girls on the ground, he had to do so because he was afraid of Xia Qiu's strength. Three girls regained consciousness after drinking some water, but the other three were still unconscious.
But the slave trader was making calculations in his mind. He felt that if he really waited until Xia Qiu's companions arrived, he would probably be imprisoned. Instead of being caught by them and tortured, it would be better to escape now. good.
He had a habit of hiding a knife in his left shoe. Taking the opportunity to give water to the girls they captured, he quietly took the knife out of his shoe and put it against a girl's neck. He threatened: "Don't move. If you dare to move, this girl will die! Also, throw away the knife in your hand!"
"Okay!" Xia Qiu had no choice but to throw the plum blade to the ground obediently, and then advised him, "Don't hurt her!"
At this time, Snow Rabbit had already recovered some strength. Because the slave trader's entire attention was almost entirely on Xia Qiu, he did not notice that she would make any move on the side. She exhaled gently from her mouth, and the knife in the slaver's hand was tightly wrapped in thick ice. He was not very willing and used the knife to scratch the girl's neck twice. As a result, the round icicles could not cause any damage at all.
"Damn it, this little girl is actually a snow girl," he yelled. Seeing that the dagger in his hand lost its attack power, he had no choice but to give up his escape plan.
"Where is this place?" The girl whose neck he had held just now sat up from the ground and asked them, her eyes still looking confused.
"This should be the lair of human traffickers. Do you still remember how you were captured by him?" Xia Qiu asked her.
"I came to Wangcheng to find something to do and make some money. Because other hotels in Wangcheng were relatively expensive, so I stayed at the relatively cheap Sparrow Hotel. When I got there, the hotel staff was very welcoming. He talked to me rudely, not only invited me to dinner, but also said that their kitchen might need someone, and I can't remember what happened after that." The girl was recalling the scene before she was knocked unconscious a few days ago. Bian responded, then her eyes turned to the slave trader pretending to be a clerk who fell to the ground and died, she let out a scream and shouted, "Ah! Isn't it him?!"
"Tell me where we are?!" Xia Qiu was a little curious as to why Ouyang Xiaoleng and the others couldn't find her and Snow Rabbit for so long.
"Isn't this the underground warehouse of the Sparrow Hotel?" The slave trader said, pointing to his lifeless companion on the ground, and continued, "He accidentally discovered that there is a secret passage in this warehouse that leads directly to the outside of the city. It’s just convenient to take the kidnapped girl out of the city.”
Xia Qiu asked curiously: "Passage? Where is the entrance?"
The slave trader raised his hands to convince Xia Qiu and Snow Rabbit that he would not escape, and then walked to a floor tile while counting. He looked at the frozen dagger in his hand and said, "Please restore it. Without its help, I can't pry it open."
Xia Qiu ignored his plea, because with the lessons learned from the past, it was hard for her to believe that this slave trader would not continue to look for opportunities to escape, or harm those few of them. She inserted the plum blade into the gap between the floor tile the slave trader pointed out to her and the one next to it, and pried it hard. After making a muffled sound, she pried open the floor tile. The floor tiles were very heavy, and it took a lot of effort to turn them over. Under them, an entrance that could only be used by one person was revealed.
"There really is an entrance!" Snow Rabbit sighed, and she looked down. Although the light below was very dark, she could still vaguely see the stairs slowly extending downward step by step.
The door of the warehouse was pushed open from the outside. Xia Qiu and Xue Tu turned their faces away almost at the same time. Ouyang Xiaoleng rushed in, followed by Qian Qi, Ling Yu, and the donkey-faced boss.
"Xia Qiu, Snow Rabbit, are you okay?!" Ouyang Xiaoleng checked the situation of the two of them respectively. After making sure that they were not injured, he found the body lying on the ground.
"Let me tell you, how can they be my sister Xia's opponents?!" Ling Yu said and wanted to run over and hug Xia Qiu, but almost fell into the passage on the ground.
"According to him, this secret passage leads to the outside of the city. By the way, how did you find us?" Xia Qiu stretched out his hand to support Ling Yu and asked.
"We analyzed it and found that since they often choose single girls staying in hotels to target, they will definitely hide these girls nearby in order to deceive others." Ouyang Xiaoleng explained.
After realizing that he had lost Xia Qiu, he searched for a while, but the elusive slave trader used some method to disappear without a trace with Xia Qiu. He had no choice but to rendezvous with Qian Qi and Ling Yu, and analyze the possible hiding places of the slave traders on the road. Later, he thought that maybe they were somewhere near the Sparrow Hotel and had not gone far.
So the three of them returned to the Sparrow Hotel again. After asking the boss, they found that the hotel indeed had a very hidden underground warehouse. Because the warehouse is full of old things and sundries, few people usually notice this place, and no one enters this warehouse all year round.
The second before Ouyang Xiaoleng saw Xia Qiu with his own eyes, he was not sure whether she would appear here. In any case, he did not want to lose news about her again. If she disappeared suddenly in front of him again, it would What a terrible thing. Fortunately, as he expected, he found Snow Rabbit and Xia Qiu.
Xuetu kept her head down and didn't speak. One reason was that her impulsiveness caused a lot of trouble to others; the other reason was that when she faced them again, she still felt a little embarrassed in her heart. She didn't know what her mother was. Miaoxueyu had already admitted his crime to them, so he decided not to bring up that topic.
"Let's go back to Chenji Palace together. Everyone is worried about you, especially Wangyue and your mother. Grandpa Yong is also waiting for news!" Ouyang Xiaoleng said to Xuetu in an elder brother's tone.
"Yeah!" She nodded, and then suddenly thought of the girls on the ground, "But what about these girls?"
"I'll ask this boss to take care of them first. If they need anything, just come to us in Chenji Palace!" Ouyang Xiaoleng turned to the donkey-faced boss standing at the door and said.
When the donkey-faced boss heard that it was the Demon King Fox who told him the matter, he immediately responded cheerfully: "Yes, yes, leave it to me! This time it's my fault for not using people well!"
"Has this secret passage always been here?" Ouyang Xiaoleng suddenly remembered the secret passage and asked further.
"What passage?!" The boss came over, took a look, shook his head and replied, "This is the first time I know there is such a secret passage here. I didn't know this brick could move before."
"When did this hotel start operating? Are you the first owner?" Ouyang Xiaoleng continued to ask.
"No, I took over here later. The previous owner here was called Mrs. Lan. She was the first owner. I bought this place more than ten years ago." The donkey-faced boss replied truthfully.
"Mrs. Lan?" Ouyang Xiaoleng repeated thoughtfully.
He suddenly remembered that Ouyang Yong and Ouyang Hongye had told him that on New Year's Eve sixteen years ago, many of Qingyun's men suddenly appeared in the royal city, catching his father's army off guard. Could it be that they took advantage of this secret passage at that time? Or there may be more than one secret passage like this. He felt that he must find out all these secret passages and destroy them, so as not to give him an opportunity to take advantage of him when he went to war with Qingyun again.
When Mrs. Lan was mentioned, the donkey-faced boss became very angry and complained: "That old monster is very smart. He coaxed me into spending a lot of money to buy this hotel. As a result, the business has been very poor, that is, It has gradually improved over the past few years.”
"Let's kidnap this slave trader back to Chenji Palace first." Ouyang Xiaoleng suggested to the others.
"Let's go!" Qian Qi responded, then patted Ling Yu, "I'll leave the arduous task of tying him up to you!"
The five teenagers returned to Chenji Palace and met Wang Yue and Ouyang Hongye head-on. Wangyue saw the Snow Rabbit from a distance, and ran over in a few steps. He originally planned to raise his hand to slap the little girl to teach her a lesson, but although he raised his hand, he finally failed to make up his mind to do so.
Snow Rabbit knew that Mochizuki might hit him, but he didn't dodge. Instead, he closed his eyes and faced it. After waiting for a few seconds, he started to cry loudly. She couldn't remember the last time she cried like a child regardless. There were too many things in her heart at this moment.
"Stop crying, your body hasn't recovered yet, it's not good to cry like this!" Mochizuki advised, stroking her hair distressedly.
But Xuetu couldn't stop her tears at all. She threw herself into Mochizuki's arms, crying like a storm, which took away the remaining strength from her body and temporarily isolated her worries.
"How to deal with this guy?" Ling Yu asked as he pulled the rope off the tied slave trader.
"Lock him up first. I want to talk to Grandpa Yong and the others about the secret passage in the Sparrow Hotel." After Ouyang Xiaoleng finished speaking, he remembered that it was late and Xia Qiu looked very tired, so he asked her, " Do you want to go home? Or stay here?"
"I think there is someone who might know something about Mrs. Lan and the secret passage." Xia Qiu said without answering.
"Yes, I have to discuss that person's matter with Grandpa Yong and Hongye." Ouyang Xiaoleng then responded. After being reminded like this by her, he remembered the previous incident where Miao Xueyou was a traitor. He actually made him forget about Hei Yun.
"Who are you two talking about?" Qianqi asked, blinking at them in surprise.
"You'll know in a while." Ouyang Xiaoleng even pretended to be secretive.
"It seems that I can't go back today." Xia Qiu decided to stay in Chenji Palace to rest since he had no strength to return to the human world.
Lingyu, who was still in women's clothing, said with a charming face: "That's great, Sister Xia, you can sleep in the same room with me."
"It's been a long time since I saw Miss Que'er!" Xia Qiu was amused by his appearance and joked.
"That's right!" Snow Rabbit also burst into laughter.
Recalling what happened when Ling Yu first arrived in the royal city, it seemed like just yesterday that they were strolling around the shopping street together. But in the blink of an eye, everything is different.