Chapter 103 - Escaping from Burial Grounds (x.x.xIII)
Editor: Kitty
Luo Jian seemed to understand what Ah Lan said. He turned toward Ah Lan and smiled at him: “The way you phrased your words sounded as if you knew what would happen in the future.”
“I don’t know,” Ah Lan replied to him in a rather serious manner, “I don’t know what the future will be like, what will happen to all of us in the future, whether we will survive or die, have fortunate or unfortunate encounters. I’m unable to understand all this, and I also don’t want to think about it. But now! I want to tell you one thing, Luo Jian… I have to tell you that you…”
Feng YuLan did not manage to finish saying what he wanted. He really wanted to tell Luo Jian certain matters. For example, he wanted to inform him about the child holding the red umbrella. Although Feng YuLan still did not know how to put what had happened into words, he felt that he had to give Luo Jian some information or leave some clues—things that could offer him a slim chance of survival or clues that would pull him out when he was in a horrifying peril and help him survive.
But when Ah Lan had yet to finish speaking, someone interrupted him. The little devil holding the red umbrella who had been fighting with Duan Li suddenly raised his hand and threw a dagger towards Feng YuLan as he was talking to Luo Jian!
Less than ten inches, the sharp blade held a kind of inhuman strength and finesse as it flew straight toward Feng YuLan. The current Feng YuLan was not able to block this attack. Just by looking at where the boy had aimed, one could see that he was obviously trying to aim for Feng YuLan’s vitals! If he succeeded in his attack, even if Feng YuLan did not die, he would be heavily wounded.
Not even Luo Jian, who was standing next to Ah Lan, could react in time. Although he noticed the blade flying towards them dangerously, his body couldn’t respond at that very moment. He wanted to block it with his short knife, but just as his fingers touched his blade, the enemy’s dagger was already close at hand!
There was something wrong with the dagger!
As the blade swiftly flew by like the wind, Luo Jian suddenly felt his heart inexplicably palpitate because he witnessed everything clearly! When the boy threw the dagger out, it was suspended in the midair. The dagger should have been quite a distance away from Luo Jian and Feng YuLan, but the dagger he threw out seemed to leap through s.p.a.ce in an instant. It was able to teleport instantly and appeared in front of them within seconds!
That feeling, that was right…… It felt like the stalker’s weapon!
It was similar to Xing Yan’s weapon! Xing Yan could also do this because his weapon’s ability was related to s.p.a.ce. Not only could he stride over s.p.a.ces, but his weapon was obviously also able to do that!
How could that be? Who was the boy holding the umbrella?!
But Luo Jian did not have time to mull over it. Now, he did not even have the ability to resist this attack. He could only watch the dagger fly fiercely toward Ah Lan.
Ah Lan almost thought he was going to die.
But something shocking happened next! The boy with the red umbrella suddenly disappeared into thin air and re-appeared in front of Ah Lan, following behind the flying dagger. His speed was so fast that he was able to reach out to grasp the handle of the dagger and suppress its inertia. Following that, the boy’s body turned sideways and jumped behind Feng YuLan. He held Ah Lan’s shoulder with one hand and held the dagger against his throat.
In just a few seconds, the boy had successfully taken Feng YuLan hostage and used his hands to hook his shoulders. His red umbrella floated next to him as if it had a living consciousness. At that instant, Feng YuLan even heard the boy whisper behind him, “No matter what you want to say to Luo Jian, don’t disclose my affairs to him.”
Ah Lan stiffened but heard that boy continue speaking: “You must have heard of something like the ‘secret chamber’s will.’ To be honest, it is very similar to the ‘world’s will.’ If I must describe it, it is the so-called ‘fate,’ and fate is always deemed as just a plaything for the G.o.d who created us.”
“We are mere playthings.” The boy lowered his voice, pasted himself to Feng YuLan’s ear, and softly spoke. His voice was heavy and even sounded depressed: “We can’t resist, so don’t disobey fate. Even if we want to escape from it, we can only deceive it.”
Deceive fate.
And similarly deceive G.o.d.
Feng YuLan was stunned. It was as if he was given a great shock. Nothing came out from his mouth. The blade near his throat pressed against his Adam’s apple. The cold of the icy blade seemed to penetrate through his skin into his flesh and blood and seep into his entire body, following his blood vessels. Such coldness was also pressurizing him.
Luo Jian, who was standing beside him, responded by stabbing backhandedly towards the boy. The boy turned his head slightly and looked at Luo Jian with his inky black eyes. Right then, the two people’s lines of sight met. Luo Jian was stunned and could feel his heart beating more and more intensely, but he did not stop attacking. The blade still moved forward as it attempted to stab the boy.
“Do you want him to die?” The boy did not attempt to dodge at all. He floated behind Feng YuLan and held a dagger against his neck. Luo Jian saw beads of blood seeping out of Ah Lan’s neck with just a little pressure. Luo Jian could not help but halt the movement of his blade despite being extremely unwilling to do so at the moment.
But no matter how unwilling he was, Luo Jian could not neglect his comrade because he knew that no one in the world could live alone forever.
“Everything that happens is within my grasp now.” The boy suddenly raised his voice so that everyone present could hear him, making everyone focus their attention on him.
Duan Li seemed to have expended too much energy. In fact, when the boy threw the dagger at Ah Lan, he had wanted to rush towards Feng YuLan to block the attack. However, within mere seconds, the situation had changed. As Ah Lan was being held captive, Duan Li also momentarily did not know what kind of action he should take in such a plight.
As Duan Li stood aside, he remained silent as he bided his time. He quietly glanced at the boy. It seemed that he did not intend to partic.i.p.ate in the scuffle. At intervals, Luo Jian took glimpses at the stalker, only to find that he was not dividing part of his attention to Luo Jian. Luo Jian felt his heart cool. What happened? Who was the boy? Why did he want to attract everyone’s attention? After deliberating, he still did not understand, so he could only place his full attention on the boy.
But unexpectedly, when he turned around, he found that the child was looking at him.
“Luo Jian, how about we have a fair compet.i.tion?” The boy’s eyes lit up as he slightly smiled. His smile held a kind of familiarity that frightened Luo Jian, but he did not understand where this familiar feeling came from. He could not explain the feeling, so he could only shiver and squeeze a sentence out between his teeth: “What kind of compet.i.tion?”
The boy suddenly withdrew the blade from Ah Lan’s neck. The white blade still held stains of blood. The boy noticed that and with a light wave, his dagger disappeared. Then, he took out a band-aid from somewhere and floated in front of Ah Lan’s face. With a serious expression, he pasted it on Ah Lan.
Feng YuLan showed a helpless and numb face as if he didn’t know how to react, so he simply kept his mouth closed and did not speak. To a certain extent, Ah Lan was familiar with people from all walks of life, but he didn’t realize it himself. Even though he did not realize it, he knew that he could not get involved in the so-called ‘fair compet.i.tion’ between the two men. It was a face-off that cut across time and s.p.a.ce, that was conducted at an unmatchable height.
And in this compet.i.tion, regardless of who won, its result was not what Feng YuLan would like to witness.
“Look, Luo Jian.” Like a magic trick, the boy also made two jade pendants appear in the palm of his hand. It was the love token of the ‘G.o.d’ and the ‘ghost.’ The green jade was divided into two pieces.
“I think all of you should have guessed what my ability is, so here, I will not bother hiding it,” the boy said with a bright smile, “I have certain methods I can employ to hypnotize others. I can control every person I see in a very short time span.”
Hearing this, Luo Jian’s eyes twinkled as if he saw through what the boy was thinking. The boy immediately said, “But don’t worry; I said it’s a fair compet.i.tion, and I cannot use this ability limitlessly. In fact, so far on your team, I’ve only used it on Ah Lan.”
The boy bent down a little, but he was still floating in the middle of the air. Now, he was at a height even taller than Feng YuLan, so he naturally hugged Feng YuLan’s neck with his hands. Ah Lan felt even more helpless now. Although there was no expression on his face, when the boy stuck to him, Feng YuLan could not help but reach out to hug the boy’s waist. The boy was very thin, so Feng YuLan was always afraid of the repercussions if he fell down.
The boy turned his head and looked at Ah Lan. He had a brilliant smile on his face. Feng YuLan, seeing his smile, was slightly in a daze.
“You see, he’s still under my control,” the boy continued to say to Luo Jian in a gentle tone, “And I can give you a chance, Luo Jian. If you want to save your comrade from me, then defeat me in this compet.i.tion.”
“Don’t you think the compet.i.tion was unfair from the very start?” Luo Jian frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“Because you have all the bargaining chips.” Luo Jian narrowed his eyes, and similar to the boy, he also smiled. He did not notice that his expression seemed to strangely coincide with the other party’s expression.
“Think about it; the hostage is by your side…” Luo Jian continued, “And isn’t the jade pendant also with you? Why do you have to compete with me when you can escape here with your jade pendant?”
Truth be told, Luo Jian did not know why the other party wanted to s.n.a.t.c.h the jade pendant. He did not know that the jade pendant was a key prop in this secret chamber. He just intuitively felt that it was an important clue in deciphering the relationship between the G.o.d and ghost and that it had something to do with escaping from the secret chamber. Therefore, he said that, trying to pry some information out from the other party. What he wanted to know was not only the truth of the jade pendant, but also the boy’s purpose.
“You don’t have to try to fish for information here. I’ll tell you everything that I know.” The boy easily saw through Luo Jian’s purpose as if he almost knew what he was thinking. At this moment, Luo Jian felt ineffably discouraged. He even suspected that the boy could not only hypnotize but also read people’s minds.
“I used hypnosis to wheedle out the whereabouts of the exit from the ‘G.o.d.’ Actually, this secret chamber’s exit is also very obvious. Just think about why the huge tree is set as an object that ‘can’t be destroyed in any way.’” The boy took a look at the huge tree trunk that was not far away from them.
His action caused Luo Jian to also look at the huge tree. The exit appeared imposingly in front of everyone. On the contrary, because of this, people would easily neglect its existence. People often paid too much attention to things far away but ignored things close at hand.
“You say that tree is the exit?”
“That’s right.” The boy smiled: “When you found the guy who called himself a ‘G.o.d,’ wasn’t he ingrown in this tree? Right, see, there is a small groove between the part where he and the tree were connected. Place the jade pendant into it, and the mechanism can be activated, and the exit will appear.”
“That’s it?” Luo Jian still felt a little disbelieving. After struggling to find the location of the exit for such a long time, they effortlessly obtained the information from the boy.
“It’s the same principle as when some ancient tombs were built. Craftsmen secretly chiseled a pa.s.sageway for themselves in order to not be funeral accompaniments. The ignorant G.o.d signed a contract with the secret chamber, and when building the tomb, they did not totally heed the requirements of the secret chamber to build a completely closed-off chamber with no exit and left a pa.s.sageway for themselves,” the boy said. He suddenly stopped smiling, and with a cold expression, continued, “This is probably the reason why he can never escape from the control of the secret chamber.”
“Wait.” After hearing the boy’s words, Luo Jian was stupefied. He said, “You mean that the secret chamber’s will intended this to be a secret chamber without an exit, right?”
“Yes.” The boy shrugged. “When it sent us in, it didn’t intend to let us escape.”
“And what about you? What’s your purpose of telling me all this?”
The boy stretched out his hands, and within his palms, there were the two pieces of the jade pendant: “Only you can open the exit of this secret chamber.”
“Me?”
“That’s because…… you’re the ‘ghost.’”
Luo Jian was stupefied for a few seconds as if he couldn’t understand the meaning of the other person’s words at that very moment. The boy easily saw that, so he explained to him, “You still hold the ident.i.ty of the ‘ghost.’ There are only two NPCs in this secret chamber, and only they can open the exit. The G.o.d has died, so only you can open the door now.”
“Wait! What do you mean by that?” At this time, the female strategist, who was among the several enemies listening to him, interjected, “You’d allow the enemy to activate the exit? Then what would happen to us? Besides, you previously gave me the jade pendant… Is it fake?!”
“Yup, it’s fake.” The boy did not hesitate to admit this and swayed the two pieces of the jade pendant in his hand.
With the other party’s blatant admission, the woman was left wondering how to reproach him for a moment.
The boy did not pay any more attention to the woman. He turned to look at Luo Jian and even floated in front of him. He put two jade pendants in Luo Jian’s palm with a smile: “Now, go activate the exit.”
Luo Jian’s heart was racing, especially when the boy handed him the jade pendant. When his fingers touched Luo Jian’s palm, he felt gooseb.u.mps all over. He stared at the boy in surprise: “Do you really want me to activate the exit?”
“It’s impossible to transfer the ident.i.ty of the NPC that the secret chamber imposed on you directly. Since I cannot seize the ‘ghost’s’ ident.i.ty from you, I have to let you activate the exit, right?”
“What about your so-called compet.i.tion?”
“This is the compet.i.tion?”
“What do you mean?”
“Whoever can escape from this chamber first will win.” The boy chuckled, “And I’ve given you the biggest advantage. It’s fair enough, isn’t it?”
“What about Ah Lan?” Luo Jian was worried about Feng YuLan’s safety.
“As long as you get out of here successfully, what’s the use in detaining him? Of course, he will come back to you intact.”
Luo Jian held the jade pendant in his hand, sucked in a deep breath, and looked at the boy. He said, “Sure, let’s have a compet.i.tion then.”
This time, the boy did not answer him. Without anyone noticing, he had stopped floating, and instead, he landed on the ground. He still held Ah Lan’s finger with one of his hands, but his eyes were staring at Luo Jian the entire time. His eyes seemed to urge him to quickly activate the exit.
Luo Jian knew that the boy was probably scheming something, but he had no other solutions, either. Then he looked at Ah Lan, and Feng YuLan also looked at Luo Jian at the same moment. His eyes gleamed as if he wanted to convey something to Luo Jian, but at this moment, Luo Jian could not understand the look in Feng YuLan’s eyes at all.
Because his heart could not stop racing, Luo Jian’s judgement had been clouded.
T/N: I want to give a big shoutout and thank lovely VeiKyuu, who has has created a fanart of the boy with the red umbrella:
This fanart looks awesome, doesn’t it? <3