“Many chess pieces can move up, down, left, and right. There must be detailed rules inside,” Zhu Ming said, standing up and clapping her hands after she had eaten and drunk her fill. “Let’s go. If the treasure chests here correspond to chess pieces, the number is limited. We need to seize the opportunity.”
…
Another large door and another question appeared.
But this question was something Zhu Ming had never seen before—it was a history question. Although the phrasing of the problem seemed a bit off.
“Who was the monarch that ruled over the southern domain of the Yangtze River ten thousand years ago?”
Zhu Ming looked at the four multiple-choice options. She didn’t recognize a single one. “Ten thousand years ago? Humanity was still in the early Neolithic period. Were there even kingdoms back then?”
Wenren Tu shook her head. “It must be a legend or a myth. Stories get exaggerated. Do you remember any related legend?”
“No.”
“Then we can only guess randomly.”
A: Yun Shiheng, B: Zhu Nu, C: Ting Jinbi, D: Xuan Shu.
Wenren Tu stopped Zhu Ming, whose fingers were itching to press an answer, and made the choice herself. First, she picked C, the name that sounded the richest. The answer was wrong. In an instant, the entire passageway erupted in flames like purgatory. Fortunately, Zhu Ming’s ability provided considerable control over fire, allowing her to pull Wenren Tu safely out of harm’s way.
Wenren Tu touched her slightly singed hair, then directed Zhu Ming to press another. “Try B.”
Don’t even mention it—trying it actually turned out to be a success.
The entire large door rumbled as it rolled upward. Zhu Ming pondered, “Zhu Nu? Is that a formal name or a nickname? What kind of monarch is named something like that?” [T/N: Zhu Nu translates to Pig Slave.]
“Who cares so much about that? Who knows which tiny backwater region produced such bizarre, strange legends.”
“True.” Zhu Ming chuckled, subconsciously rubbing her fingertips together.
After the door opened, Zhu Ming left a number marker with sand and continued forward. In no time at all, the two heard that ominous swishing sound.
Zhu Ming’s expression changed. “Looks like our luck is pretty bad this time. Hurry, we need to find the treasure chest.”
Opening a treasure chest carried a certain probability of moving the entire zone away from the pursuing sound.
No time for words. The two fled from the sound while pushing onward, and at last, found the location of the treasure chest.
“I’ll do it.” Zhu Ming grabbed her longbow and flipped open the chest. Pfft! A cloud of white smoke burst forth, and from within flew a flock of birds made of stone!
“What the heck are these things?!”
The flock surged like a torrent, charging straight at their faces. Zhu Ming instinctively closed her eyes but didn’t retreat backwards. She ducked down and lunged forward! Zhu Ming snatched the metal block inside the treasure chest, turned, and ran.
These stone birds were numerous and terrifyingly agile. A dark mass of them nearly packed the entire passageway. Zhu Ming raised her arm to shield her eyes. With a roar, flames engulfed her entire body.
But this wasn’t a great tactic. For one, the flock of birds fearlessly swarmed closer, not afraid of her flames at all. For another, Zhu Ming had to painstakingly control the fire so it wouldn’t burn her clothes. She’d be better off condensing the flames into a concentrated orb and randomly blasting whichever birds she could.
The bird flock was a dark cloud, a mountain, a shapeshifting army. A lone individual within their siege had virtually no power to fight back.
Her vision blocked, Zhu Ming bent low and fled, having no idea which branching path she was escaping down.
“Zhu Ming, over here!” Ahead, Wenren Tu called out to her.
“Coming!”
Though she said so, within moments, Zhu Ming had actually lost sight of her!
Wenren Tu had been near the passageway’s exit and ran out quickly. Once she was gone, the flock of stone birds concentrated their assault entirely on Zhu Ming. It was crazy-making.
“A-Tu! Where did you run off to?”
Zhu Ming clutched her head and ran, shouting, but she received no reply. Damn it, they had likely been separated again.
And yet—whether good fortune or bad—at that very moment, Zhu Ming heard another person calling her name.
“Mingming?”
Yin Yu? When had she gotten here?
Zhu Ming was completely unable to lift her head to look at her. Inside the encirclement of stone birds, Zhu Ming’s hair had practically become a bird’s nest. The trench coat she had snatched from Yin Yu was now tattered and torn. She looked like a beggar… no, worse than a beggar. Even her sand pouch had split open.
She strained to peer through the gaps in the flock toward the direction of the voice and caught a glimpse of Yin Yu’s cheongsam. The other woman was approaching her.
The flock of stone birds didn’t attack Yin Yu—perhaps because she hadn’t been the one to open the chest, or perhaps because her ability was at work.
While Zhu Ming was in the depths of utter disarray, Yin Yu barged directly into the stone birds’ siege circle. Her steps carried urgency, unlike her usual composure.
She drew closer to Zhu Ming and raised her arm. Casting aside her usual elegance, she helped beat back this relentless flock of stone birds!
At that moment, a strange sense of emotional upheaval arose in Zhu Ming’s heart. Why was this happening… she couldn’t figure it out. Was Yin Yu worried about her? Did she want to protect her?
Did she really worry about her, to this extent? Could it be that her heart did, indeed, still hold a place for her?
Zhu Ming… Zhu Ming didn’t dare believe it.
“Mingming.”
“Quite the coincidence.” Zhu Ming responded vaguely. For some reason, she felt incredibly awkward. But with the stone birds besieging her, she couldn’t calm her mind enough to analyze it.
Thankfully, as the distance grew, the mass of stone birds gradually dispersed. Combined with Yin Yu’s help, the flock was no longer as terrifying as before.
Zhu Ming didn’t know how to face her. To be moved and say thank you felt awkward. To rebuff her and say she didn’t need her help felt ungrateful and petty.
She simply stopped looking at Yin Yu and turned her back to her. Gripping the longbow like a staff, she swung it. Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! She smashed several stone birds’ wings, sending them tumbling to the ground.
“Once this dungeon is over, I’m definitely roasting that examiner!”
These stone birds looked exactly like that Examiner Crowcrow; just seeing them made her furious.
But then.
Squelch—
A dull, muffled thud of impact sounded against Zhu Ming’s body.
She looked down in disbelief. A piercing red color spread through the khaki fabric of the trench coat. Warm blood slid downward, tracing thin rivulets of crimson down her legs.
A knife.
A sharp little knife fashioned from a stone shard was firmly lodged in her lower back.
Stabbing pain, intertwined with fury, surged through Zhu Ming’s entire body. With a thunderous roar, fire, like a sea, engulfed her completely, scouring the entire passageway with the force of crushing dried weeds and smashing rotten wood.
“Yin Yu…” Zhu Ming staggered forward a step, bracing herself against the wall. She gnashed her teeth. “I’ll fcking kill your whole damn family!!!”
It hurt so much!
Even the slightest movement tugged at the wound. The cold blade was encircled by warm, flowing blood, and she wondered when it, too, would be given a human’s body temperature.
Zhu Ming whipped her head around, but all she saw within the blazing red inferno were a few stray stone birds.
Yin Yu was gone.
Ha… Haha… She really shouldn’t have believed her. She shouldn’t have thought this woman had a heart. Saying all that… saying she liked her, utter rubbish! It was all a scheme!
At that moment, the fury in her heart climbed to its absolute peak. She completely lost all reason. The flames, driven by pain, burned through the passageway madly, ceaselessly, as if wanting to incinerate everything in sight to pure nothingness.
After an indeterminate length of time, Zhu Ming’s strength gradually gave out.
Bracing against the wall, she slowly sank to sit on the floor. The flames vanished, and the underground passageway returned to that sickening, murky pink-purple hue.
Zhu Ming closed her eyes and panted. Rationality gradually returned. The pain at the wound site also greatly lessened. Yet her expression only grew worse.
First, the small knife wasn’t poisoned, nor had it stabbed her spleen or caused massive hemorrhaging. However, Zhu Ming’s wounds always healed quickly, especially when she erupted her ability—the rough, uneven stone knife had fused together with her flesh and blood. If she didn’t pull it out fast, the flesh would heal over it and seal it shut.
Second… in her blind rage, she had failed to control her ability. The stolen clothes were also destroyed…
“Hsss…” Zhu Ming gritted her teeth and grabbed the knife’s handle. With a ruthless heart, she yanked it violently outward.
Squelch.
“Yin Yu, may you die a horrible death!!”
After the passageway had been crazily bombarded by flames, it was now occupied once more by a woman’s string of curses.
She tossed the knife aside and pressed firmly against the wound. She swore, when she had pulled the blade out, she had heard a wet, spurting sound. Blood, her precious blood, had come spurting out like that with the noise.
The agony of the wound being torn open again made her whole body tremble violently. Zhu Ming’s head tipped back, then bowed forward. She panted raggedly, a picture of utter disarray and wretchedness.
She pressed tightly on the wound, then grabbed her own face, as if that could somehow ease the suffering.
Finally, the person struggling painfully in the corner grew still. She closed her eyes, her forehead beaded with cold sweat, her entire form curled into a tight ball.
Blood stains spotted practically her entire body. Old blood had burned black, while fresh blood streaked vivid as plum blossoms, interlaced in a chaotic pattern. On that sickly pale flesh, they merged together, scattered like stars, inevitably bringing to mind red roses, demonic, crawling over black iron railings within an all-pervasive white fog.
Zhu Ming quieted down.
But not completely.
She curled into a ball. The overexertion had left her head swollen and throbbing, so she shut her eyes to rest.
But her mouth hadn’t stopped. She mumbled nonstop, cursing Yin Yu: “Yin Yu! If you’ve got any guts, face me head-on! Playing dirty tricks… garbage, bitch, scum! Fck your whole family, your ancestors are blown to hell, I hope your entire household explodes!”
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
“Blowing up my entire household might be a bit difficult. Perhaps consider targeting someone else?”
Soft footsteps sounded. Yin Yu’s voice echoed from up ahead once more.
Zhu Ming’s head shot up, her eyes snapping open. “Yin Yu!”
Completely unlike Zhu Ming’s own pitiful, wretched state, Yin Yu was perfectly intact, clean, and tidy—not a single strand of hair out of place.
“Mhm, that’s me.” Yin Yu looked curiously at Zhu Ming, who was hugging herself tightly. “Why is Mingming cursing me?”
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