Chapter 87: Heart to Heart

After hearing this, Li Jia fell silent at once, unable to tell whether she ought to rejoice or grieve.

"Come with me. I'll show you something." As someone who had already been through it all, Peng Min naturally understood what was on Li Jia's mind. After hesitating many times, she finally made up her mind, rose to her feet, and said as much.

The two of them went into the bedroom.

Peng Min lay down on the floor and half her body disappeared under the bed, as though she were feeling around for something. Not long after, she backed out dragging a small box behind her.

When the box was opened, it contained several syringes and seven or eight bottles of the drug from the night before.

"I saved these up little by little. After all, we girls have those days every month when it's inconvenient to do certain things, and taking clients every day is hard on the body. The drugs they first inject into us here are actually of a very high concentration, meant to make us develop an intense dependency as quickly as possible.

"That's why, when your withdrawal hit for the first time, it came so violently and was so unbearable—worse than death. The fact that you managed to hold on for more than ten minutes already shows remarkable willpower. When I had my first attack, I couldn't even last three minutes before I injected myself again.

"That kind of solution can be diluted into about five bottles of this. The one I gave you last night was one of the diluted ones." Peng Min took a bottle from the box and looked at it in her hand, her expression indescribably complicated as she spoke.

It was as if she had remembered once more the first time her own withdrawal had struck. Fear and helplessness flickered in her eyes.

"Here, Li Jia. During the first few attacks, the intervals between them won't exceed a day, and they're especially awful. I'll give this bottle to you. If you don't want to take clients today, then don't. Think of it as another day of rest." After gazing at the bottle in her hand for a moment, Peng Min turned and placed it in Li Jia's palm.

Li Jia had experienced that feeling of being worse off than dead, so of course she knew how precious this bottle was to Peng Min.

She said, "Sister Min, you said the first few attacks are fierce and painful, and the intervals are no more than a day, but I don't really understand. Isn't addiction supposed to get worse the longer it goes on and the more often it happens, with the attacks becoming closer together?"

Peng Min replied slowly, "Actually, it's a process of the body and mind adapting in both directions.

"Drug dependency mainly consists of two parts: one is the body's reliance and craving for the drug, which is the physical addiction; the other is the mind's reliance and craving for it, which is the psychological addiction.

"At the beginning, when someone first gets involved with drugs, both forms of addiction are only just taking shape. As time passes and the number of uses increases, both become stronger and deeper.

"The high-concentration injections we were given at first were meant to create a very intense dependency in the body in an extremely short time. But that craving doesn't stay fixed. As we are later given diluted doses, the body's intense demand slowly decreases until it reaches a balance point. And as the number of times increases, that balance point rises again and again.

"Now, if I grit my teeth, I can usually go two or three days between injections. Besides, the human body can adapt to anything; it will slowly adapt to the sensation of withdrawal and to the feeling after the injection.

"But that's only in the short term. As the number of times keeps increasing, both kinds of dependency deepen day by day. In the future, it will become as ordinary as eating and drinking every day—we'll never be able to leave it again, and we'll never be able to quit.

"These are things I heard from some of the older hands here, and also conclusions I drew from my own experience."

What Peng Min said came from what she had heard from the older people here, along with her own firsthand experience, so it was not without basis.

After hearing this, Li Jia finally felt a little relief. After all, when the withdrawal had struck before, that sensation of being worse off than dead was something she absolutely never wanted to experience a second time.

Looking at the little bottle in her hand, she thought for a moment and said, "Sister Min, this must be something you saved up with great difficulty. It's precious to you. I can't take it."

As she spoke, Li Jia handed the bottle back to Peng Min.

She had already received so much help from Peng Min. If she took this bottle as well, she truly could not bear it.

She did not want, in the last few days of her life, to owe others a debt she could never repay.

In truth, Li Jia had already long since made up her mind to die. It was only that there were still things she could not let go of for the moment: the situation of her parents, and Huang Yu.

Otherwise, she would have chosen death at once.

Peng Min looked at the little bottle being offered back to her, shook her head hurriedly from side to side, and did not reach out to take it.

She said, "Li Jia, I've already taken you as a friend. If I hadn't, I would never have brought this out. Since I've already taken it out, I meant to give you one bottle, and I will absolutely not take it back."

Li Jia, hearing this, did not relent. She simply placed the bottle on the bed beside her, making her position clear.

Seeing this, Peng Min felt even more that Li Jia was someone worth confiding in, and said again, "Li Jia, looking at how you were yesterday, if I'm not mistaken, what happened yesterday should have still been your first time, right? I'm a woman too, and I've been through this. With the way your body feels today, it's really not suitable for seeing clients. Otherwise, for several days afterward, you'll be in terrible pain down there, and it will seriously affect your life for the next few days."

Li Jia froze when she heard that, and her previously firm stance softened.

Setting aside whether what Peng Min said was true, just the matter of taking clients was something she was deeply unwilling to do. She did not want to go and betray Huang Yu again. Although she had never truly become Huang Yu's woman, in her heart the two of them had already confirmed each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. They were lovers, and in her mind they had even privately pledged themselves for life.

In the end, after Peng Min persuaded her several more times, she no longer refused the bottle.

Holding the little medicine bottle in her hand, Li Jia looked at Peng Min's delighted expression at finally being accepted, and warmth stirred in her heart. She was deeply moved, yet she also thought that this kindness might well be impossible to repay in this lifetime. If there truly were another life, she would be willing to serve her in gratitude.

During the day, although the Great Prosperity Han Palace Nightclub kept its doors open, few customers came to spend money there. The truly lively hours were at night.

For the whole of that day, Li Jia followed Peng Min around and briefly familiarized herself with the places they were allowed to go.

Li Jia discovered that many parts of this place were covered by surveillance cameras, and many key areas were guarded at all times by security. Escaping would not be easy.

Even so, she still carefully memorized the layout and quietly thought over ways to get out.

In fact, she really did discover one possible escape route, but she planned to wait until night, when there would be more people, before acting.

Aside from that stretch of time, the rest of the day, apart from lunch, the two of them spent chatting idly in Peng Min's room.

During that time, Peng Min told Li Jia about some of her own experiences and her family background.

Although Li Jia always called her Sister Min, Peng Min was actually a year younger than she was.

Peng Min was from Kaiming City in Yunnan Province. Her parents were both factory workers, and her family was of ordinary means. After finishing vocational high school, she did not continue her studies, but chose instead to enter society and work.

Because the boyfriend she had met online while in school lived in Peace City, she left Kaiming City alone and went to Peace City to find her online boyfriend.

The two of them clicked immediately when they met, and since her boyfriend was fairly good-looking, they quickly began living together.

But Peng Min was in fact very perceptive. As time went by, she gradually realized that her boyfriend was hiding something from her.

She did not ask him directly, but quietly paid attention in private.

She watched everything, from his daily behavior to the phone he left outside when he went to shower, not missing a single detail.

About two weeks passed like this, and she truly uncovered her boyfriend's secret: he had been secretly using drugs.

For Peng Min at the time, this discovery was nothing less than a bolt from the blue.

She was terrified.

At first, Peng Min had thought of just leaving, but as fate would have it, she discovered that she was pregnant. That put her in a dilemma.

Her pregnancy ought to have been a joyful thing, after all. In her heart, she loved this man and had even thought of marrying him and spending her life with him.

But when Peng Min found out that her boyfriend was secretly taking drugs, the idea of staying with him for life was completely shaken.

Yet because of this sudden pregnancy, she did not choose to leave her boyfriend at once, nor did she tell him she was pregnant.

Perhaps it was those few days of hesitation that led to the situation she was in today: not only had she lost her child, but she herself had fallen into this endless abyss of hell.

After Li Jia heard Peng Min's life story, she fell silent for a long time and did not speak.

In her heart, she hated that boyfriend of hers to the bone and wanted to say it outright, to curse him fiercely, that bastard simply did not deserve to be called human.

But when she saw Peng Min's reddened eyes and the tears trembling as they fell, the words reached her lips and yet she could not bring herself to say them.

From Peng Min's earlier account, she could feel that Peng Min had truly given her heart to that man, intending to walk beside him until old age. But fate was often just like this: those who gave their whole hearts were the ones most likely to meet cold, heartless people.

Leaving aside these past few days, Li Jia's own life, compared with the miserable woman before her, had been happy beyond measure, or at least fortunate beyond measure.

She had a warm and loving family, had been admitted to the university she had dreamed of, and even in college had quickly found a boyfriend who cherished and doted on her in every possible way.

Huang Yu, in terms of education, family, appearance, character, and so on, was exceptional in every respect, one in ten thousand, the ideal boyfriend pursued by countless women.

"It's all over now. It's all over." Li Jia drew Peng Min into her arms and kept gently stroking her back as she soothed her in a low voice.

"Waah..."

Li Jia's gesture seemed to let Peng Min completely release the emotions she had suppressed for so long. They burst out all at once. The soft sniffles vanished, and what followed was loud, heartbroken weeping.