Chapter 51: Dust Off
"Huh?" Jian narrowed his eyes, clearly skeptical. "I thought it was Long-"
"Of course it was me, you clowns," Longwei interrupted, stepping forward and waving his hand at me in a dismissive manner.
He scoffed loudly. "Do you all really think that this little wanker actually saved any of you? Please. I personally toyed around with that porcelain doll over there on the ground for quite a while until I eventually got bored, and bitch-slapped her into oblivion that it shattered her concentration, which ultimately got you all out of this whole mess."
He finished his arrogant speech by pointing a thumb towards Aunt Hua’s unconscious form in the dirt.
"Yeah, right," I scoffed back, rolling my eyes. "With all due ’respect’, you weren’t even there. Listen up."
I eagerly began the highly detailed telling of my epic tale to the rest of the group.
"I explicitly knew something was wrong right from the very beginning of the attack. The lack of any natural sound in the forest was the very first major red flag. I eventually reached Qinyue, who had supposedly already been killed, and I instantly knew in my gut that the whole damn thing was fake.
Because there’s no way in the universe that our Qinyue was ever going to lose a fight that embarrassingly quick."
Hearing that, Qinyue straightened her posture. She clearly felt intensely proud of that statement. "Damn right I wouldn’t."
"So then I reached Jian," I confidently continued, gesturing with my hands. "Saw Mei and Liangyu there too, all supposedly dead. But since my brilliant brain already knew the whole environment was an illusion, I didn’t even shed a single drop of a tear.
She was clearly frustrated by my unfazed reaction and began to attack me, which was of no use, might I add because I knew the trick was to not care. After a long while of her trying to hurt me, and me yawning out of boredom, she finally reached the peak of irritation and lost all control.
The illusion dropped immediately. If my deduction is correct, I bet even Lai was an illusion. Which, now that I say it out loud, explains the whole eating and shitting problem. You guys wouldn’t get that. Anyway, you’re welcome."
Qinyue and Mei lightly clapped their hands for me in mild applause.
Jian however, being the bitch he was, heavily frowned. "I seriously don’t know about that story, man. I kind of feel like you actually just cried like a baby the whole time, because honestly we all did, and you just somehow managed to get lucky when the spell broke."
"Plain as day, Jian," Longwei added, giving me a look. "Funny how the timeline of the illusion dropping for you and me slappin’ the shit out of her syncs perfectly. And the only way you somehow doubted her illusions, if you’re even telling an ounce of truth, was because the real Aunt Hua was with me the whole time and she clearly had to put in much more power to keep me in the illusion which led to a few slip ups on your side."
"I so wish you were dead," I replied, because clearly I had nothing else to say to defend myself.
"Keep praying," he winked.
After this whole intense, adrenaline-fueled rush of a chaotic conversation began to finally wind down, our collective gaze naturally shifted a little lower to the ground nearby.
We all remembered exactly why we were standing there in the first place.
Little Yanyin had been quietly standing right there the entire time. She had been patiently staring up at us with wide eyes, silently waiting for her turn to speak.
The terrifying realization that a small child had been present for that horror show hit us all at once. Qinyue and Mei immediately dropped to their knees in the dirt and frantically pulled the little girl into a tight hug.
"We are so, so incredibly sorry you had to hear all of that terrifying stuff, Yanyin!" Qinyue rapidly said, forcing her tone into her sweetest, most comforting voice. "Did the bad old lady hurt you? Did you see us all die?!"
Yanyin just stood there, unbothered. She stared at us for a long second with a blank and totally innocent face.
"Aunt Hua sat down with me, told me you all went for a quick nap and gave me some candy to eat. So I kind of like her now." She showed us her palms. "I only ate half of the candy before I blinked my eyes, and suddenly she was asleep and the candy was totally gone now. Did you all have some kind of weird, bad dream while you were napping?"
"Yeah, kid," I finally replied, letting out an exhausted sigh. "We had a nightmare. We’re glad at least you were spared from it."
Apparently satisfied with that simple answer, Yanyin turned around and started to joyfully run towards the gates of the Bastille.
We followed her.
As she ran, she briefly paused and noticed Aunt Hua still lying face down on the ground. "When will she wake up?"
"She’s gonna have a long nap, kiddo," Longwei immediately answered.
We all stood shoulder-to-shoulder, staring into the prison. There was no welcoming light waiting for us on the other side. Instead, it was like staring directly into the mouth of some ancient, starved beast.
The dragon shaped design didn’t help either. Made it more authentic actually. Wan knew what he was doing.
"So," I began. "We just waltz in and get our man?"
"Yes!" Yanyin replied. "Let’s go in and get our man!"
I looked down at the little girl, bewildered by her absolute lack of survival instincts, before turning my gaze toward the resident demigod of our group.
"Or," I suggested, "maybe you could go get him? It’ll take you what? A second?"
"Way less," Longwei replied. "But what fun would that be? Maybe taking a thorough tour of this hellhole will highly benefit you guys if at all you’re thrown in here in the future."
I narrowed my eyes at him, unamused. "Please do not jinx us right now."
"Come on!" Yanyin aggressively tugged at my clothes, "I can’t wait!!"
