12 Trapped
Zi Mei stared at the "storeroom" in awe. This is the first time in her life to see such a "storeroom". It was not even a storeroom, to be exact. Her home was recreated exactly, complete with peeling paint on the walls and her rickety old furniture, in the same exact position in a space as large as her home. There was even a rickety wooden staircase leading upstairs.
She ran upstairs and there it was, her room. Exactly as it was at home. She went to the windows and looked out. She was looking out at the street, the same street her actual home faces. There were even cars whizzing past the street and she could feel a slight breeze from the window. She is certain it was an illusion but it looked and felt so real.
She sat comfortably in her rattan chair in her "fake" room. Since the ancient dragon had recreated her home here within his home, she supposed she could stay here instead of going back to that room where they had imprisoned her.
She must plan a way to escape. There must be a way out of the place. It looked like a huge spacious condo but now she knows it is a magical space created by Thorin. It could probably change and morph every day according to his whims and fancies. She might never find it's exit too. Maybe that was why they stopped chaining her to the bed and locking her room. She is free to roam and there was no way to leave the place.
She eyed her old laptop on the table. She wondered if it works or if it was another illusion. She opened it and powered it on. It turned on to her surprise and she realised it was actually her real laptop. Excited, she searched for wifi connection and found "ThorinTheGreat". She rolled her eyes. Really? She tried to connect it. It was not password protected so she connected easily.
"Yessss!!!" she cried out.
She quickly opened her email. There were hundreds of unread emails, mostly spam and she saw a few from Darren, Sheena and Jazzmine. They must be so desperate that they had resorted to emailing her.
Darren's first email was titled "Where are u?". It was dated early this morning. She clicked on it.
"Zi Mei, this is unlike you. What is going on? Where are you? I can't reach you on your phone, so hoping you can check your email."
His second email was sent a few hours later and titled "Please reply!"
"Someone came and cleared out your stuffs. I tried to stop them but they were much stronger. I called the cops but the cops said they had documents to prove that you had ordered them to move your things for you. What is going on? Are you in trouble? Please, please, reply."
His third email titled "Hello" was brief and to the point.
"If you're in trouble, hit an empty reply and I will find a way to find you."
Emails from Sheena and Jazzmine were equally frantic and concerned. They sent her a few emails telling her about Darren's panic and how he was thrown out of her house for trying to stop the men from clearing her stuffs.
She hit reply to Darren first. She can't tell him about Thorin or the contract that she had signed. But, she can still back out of it. It is still not too late. She held on to that hope.
"I am safe but I am trapped. Don't worry. I will find a way out," she typed then she clicked sent. The cursor circled and circled.
"Email was not delivered. Please check your internet connection." popped up.
She clicked sent again.
Again, the email could not go through.
"What the fuck is this!" she cursed. She clicked sent numerous times angrily. Each time, it came up with the same message. She checked the wifi connection and the internet speed. It was running at high speed and there was nothing wrong with the internet.
She went opened a browser and searched for "dragon shapeshifter". It came up with a Wikipedia entry on shapeshifting and mythology along with a link to online reading platform, Webnovel, with a list of romance books on dragons and shapeshifters, including wolves and vampires.
She scrolled through various webpages and most of it were on mythology, Eastern myths on dragons, Western myths on dragons, Norse mythology on shapeshifters but nothing about a dragon living as a human and mating with humans to get heirs.
She googled "Thorin Loong" and immediately dozens of pictures of him in various angles, most of which of him in a business suit, came up. He looked exceedingly good in each photo. His cheekbones sharp and his gaze so intense, it was as if he was staring out of the screen at her. There were a few business news articles about him as the CEO of Loong Group Holdings announcing the annual company revenue hitting $20 billion in 2020.
However, she couldn't find anything about his private life except for one article with a photo of him with Jessica and just a caption naming the gorgeous woman as Jessica Xiao, the wife of Thorin Loong.
Out of curiosity, she googled Jessica Xiao and came up with nothing except for a few photos of her with Thorin in some official functions. Then she went back to googling Thorin. After reading the 10th boring business article about his company and its increase in revenue, she clicked the x and closed the browser.
There was nothing much about Thorin Loong except for his company. A few articles mentioned him as a young billionaire aged 30 years old and there was one old article that said he had inherited the company and fortune from his father, Loong Tian Shen, who is deceased. Since Thorin is thousands of years old…she wondered how old his father would have to be to die. She googled Loong Tian Shen and gasped when pictures of Thorin, looking older, popped up.
She stared at the picture. It suddenly clicked. It was Thorin. That's not his father. He had merely disguised himself to look old and faked his death and then he became young again and continued on. That must be how he kept growing his company and fortune from generation to generation…it was all along him with different names, different identities.
She went back to her email and tried to send an email to Darren again. It failed, again. She deleted her email and tried to send an empty email instead. It couldn't go through either. So, they must have blocked her from sending things out. She tried sending an empty email to Sheena and Jazzmine. It couldn't go through either. This confirmed her suspicions. She can go online. She can check her emails. She can even google stuffs but she can't send anything out.
Then she remembered something. She logged into her phone and click on the "Find my phone" function. The cursor ran and ran and ran and snagged. It came up with "Phone could not be detected. Power must be switched off or it was not connected to a line."
She blew her breath in frustration. She couldn't even locate her phone. She is really trapped in here with no way of contacting the outside world. Is she destined to become Thorin Loong's baby making slave until he released her?
It sounded like a bleak life. She supposed it will not be as bad as being forced into prostitution. And Thorin is handsome. It would not be so bad to have sex with him, she supposed. She slumped into her chair in defeat. She is trapped for now. Maybe she could get him to let her out once they have "mated", she thought. Perhaps, he will trust her a bit more if she agreed to mate with him and actually went ahead with it and seal the contract.
