American homeless people, surviving in the city

Chapter 133 Domestication of Humans

When Lin Qi saw the scene before him clearly, he finally understood where the stench, like that of a pigsty, came from.

This basement is structured like a farm, but looks like a complete hell.

The people locked here included men and women, young and old, but there were no particularly young children or young women. The vast majority of them had blank expressions and empty eyes, leaning against the wall motionless like walking corpses.

Perhaps because they were tied up here from morning till night, sewage was flowing everywhere on the ground, and the entire basement floor was soaked in a brownish-black liquid.

The basement walls and even the ceiling were covered with brownish-black grime and dark red bloodstains.

The stench was coming from the sewage that filled the basement!

When Lin Qi saw the scene before him, he felt a chill run down his spine.

A feeling somewhere between nausea and fear instantly filled his mind, giving him goosebumps and causing his body to tremble slightly.

This is the instinctive aversion that a "human being" would feel when seeing other people of the same kind being kept like livestock.

Lynch's reaction was already quite restrained. Behind him, when Sylvia saw the scene before her, she was completely unprepared to see such a sight and couldn't help but open her mouth wide.

Fortunately, Lynch was quick-witted and noticed Sylvia's unusual behavior. He reached out and covered her mouth a second before she screamed, thus preventing her from making a sound that could easily alert potential enemies.

After the initial shock, Sylvia quickly forced herself to calm down through her own efforts—not completely calm, but at least able to control her emotions.

She nodded apologetically to Lynch, then turned to the basement, muttering to herself, "...What is all this?"

"Why is this happening?...Why!"

Clearly, seeing this scene had a profound impact on her mental state.

Meanwhile, as Sylvia struggled to control her emotions, Lynch's nerves tightened unconsciously.

Compared to Sylvia, after realizing that there was something unusual about the cabin, he was prepared to see all sorts of strange things inside, so he was relatively more accepting of what he saw.

But he never expected that so many humans were being kept in this basement!

What made him even more nervous was the possibility behind this: if someone was keeping humans in the basement, it could mean that there were guards in the cabin responsible for monitoring these people!

Or, those farmers may very well return to this cabin soon!

Lin Qi's hand unconsciously tightened around the knife hilt again, carefully feeling it over. Fortunately, he didn't sense any immediate danger.

He then felt a little relieved.

But then, a scream suddenly rang out from the group of people who were chained to the wall!

Lin Qi turned around abruptly, looking in the direction from which the scream came.

Among the group of people who looked like zombies with empty eyes, a few, though their expressions were blank and their reactions slow, eventually realized that Lin Qi and his companion had appeared.

After Lin Qi and his companion pushed open the door and entered, they slowly raised their heads to face the blinding light of the flashlight. It took them quite a while for their eyes to gradually adjust to the rare light in the basement.

Then, when they realized that the visitors were two strangers, they were immediately terrified, and one of the women let out that piercing scream.

"Hey! Stop yelling! Calm down, I'm not here to hurt you."

Lin Qi was afraid that if these people continued to scream, they would attract the attention of any guards or cultists who might be tracking them, so he quickly stepped forward and explained.

Upon hearing Lin Qi's words, the group actually calmed down.

However, before Lin Qi could relax for even a second, a middle-aged man who was so thin he was practically skin and bones suddenly struggled to sit up and lunged at Lin Qi.

Although he had only crawled a few centimeters toward Lin Qi before the chains stopped him from moving any further, Lin Qi was still startled.

"Hey, calm down!"

Lin Qi jogged a little away from the middle-aged man, but the man seemed not to have heard him at all and remained excited.

Even with his body bound by chains, he couldn't suppress the wild joy and excitement bursting from his withered frame: "God...you're a stranger? You're not one of them? God...you're an outsider! And you weren't captured! God! God!"

His voice was extremely hoarse, yet filled with an almost frantic plea: "Then, are you here to save us? Please, take us out! Out! I need to get out!"

"...Wait, everyone calm down! Keep your voices down!"

Lin Qi could understand the other man's ecstasy, but the middle-aged man's excitement was almost neurotic, and the expression and demeanor on his face frightened Lin Qi.

He took a few steps back, then gathered his thoughts and asked, "Tell me first, what's going on here? Why are you locked up here?"

The middle-aged man remained lost in his ecstasy, seemingly having no intention of responding to Lynch. Seeing this, a middle-aged Black woman nearby—the one who had screamed first—speaked tremblingly, "We...we...we were all kidnapped...those monsters...they're demons! Messengers of Satan!"

devil!"

"We were all homeless people on the streets, but they kidnapped us and brought us here...locking us in this basement! They don't give us water, and they only feed us food that tastes like excrement!"

"They're also drawing our blood...locking us up here like livestock...so please...take us away..."

Beside him, another gaunt old man spoke up, his words slurred: "Yes... I beg you... so many people have died here... some were taken away from here, supposedly for live organ harvesting, and others died of illness here..."

"I don't want to die... I don't want to die!"

Lynch's heart sank.

He strode forward, approached the people, and carefully examined them by the light of his flashlight.

Almost all of these people had obvious needle marks and surgical scars. Some even had chunks of flesh cut off their arms and thighs. The wounds were simply bandaged and were clearly infected and suppurating.

These people are kept here, but they are treated worse than livestock!

Sylvia leaned against the door, her face deathly pale. Her voice trembled as she asked, "You...you're all homeless people who recently went missing from the streets?"

The old man almost roared, "Most of us are! Some of us weren't before, but now we're all the same! The same!"

He strained his voice, and a few tears streamed down his aged face.

At this moment, Lin Qi finally understood the truth about the wooden house. He also finally understood the truth about the missing homeless man that had been troubling him.

Although the truth came so suddenly, it was also so heavy.

This wooden hut is the cult's stronghold. And this place is their breeding ground, where they keep the homeless people they kidnap from the streets!