Chapter 52: The Black Abyss
Prisons smell the worst.
I’m not even talking about a fleeting bad odor. I’m talking about a suffocating presence that shoves its way down your throat and settles in your lungs. And the Bastille just straight up assaulted you.
It wasn’t quite as revolting as a festering sewage system in the dead of summer, but it was hovering dangerously close on that borderline.
We hadn’t even fully stepped past the threshold, and the stench already was horrifying enough to make my eyes water and my stomach.
It was an unholy cocktail of stagnant moisture, rotting straw, generations of unwashed bodies, and the sharp tang of old blood. It was probably our God-given luck, or whatever twisted deities were currently overseeing our miserable lives, that our objective was simple.
We simply had to rush downward, grab our man, and get the hell out.
We all had stepped into the gaping mouth of the Bastille, collectively crossing our fingers and hoping things would go smooth at least from there on. The entrance was a singular, oppressive room, illuminated by just one flickering lamp bolted to the side wall.
Every angle was flawless and every edge painfully straight.
I forcefully rolled my eyes away from it. There was no way I was going to look at that kind of flawless symmetry again and not be instantly reminded of the maddening fever dream Aunt Hua had trapped us all in just moments prior.
Right before us, dominating the space, was the slope. It was a steep decline that curved downward into the hellhole below, a black abyss currently housing probably hundreds of the worst bad guys this side of the continent.
Granted, a part of my brain reasoned that some of them might have been falsely accused, just like Uncle Zhenhao, but innocence didn’t change the fact that this was a deeply dangerous place.
"Well," said Jian, peering over the edge, "it looks... damp."
"Insightful," Qinyue replied. "Truly. Your wisdom will be carved on the walls one day."
Ignoring their usual banter, I turned my attention to our youngest member. "Is this the way?" I asked Yanyin, pointing a finger at the foreboding slope.
She looked completely ready to dive headfirst and speedrun the entire prison complex if given half a chance.
I couldn’t exactly blame her, though. After everything she had endured, after all the tears and the terror, we were finally only a minute away from the reunion she had dreamt of for months.
"I think so," she replied, with a mixture of certainty and hesitation. "But Aunt Hua would always blindfold me before taking me in. I never actually saw the path."
"Blindfold? Why would she blindfold you?" Liangyu interjected, his paranoia immediately spiking as he looked at me. "Maybe Aunt Hua wasn’t the only threat we needed to worry about. You think there are more guards down there waiting to ambush us?"
"I don’t think so," I replied, scratching the back of my head. "If there was another guard on duty, or any sort of backup, they definitely would’ve shown up by now given the racket we made. Maybe she blindfolded her because the prison has got multiple slopes, with each one directed to a different, confusing path? Or maybe the whole layout is designed like a maze to disorient anyone trying to escape?"
While we were standing around, having our little tactical summit, I noticed Longwei out of the corner of my eye.
He was leaning casually against the cold stone wall with his arms crossed over his chest, watching us talk strategy, and wore a look of such deeply offended insult that you would think we had just spit on his ancestors.
"You wanna add something to the plan?" I asked him, my tone already sprinkled with exhaustion.
"Oh, nothing," Longwei replied. "I was just standing here wondering what you guys are discussing so intensely with me standing right here in the room.
You’re all huddled up, whispering about potential ’threats’ and traps, as if I am not objectively the biggest, most catastrophic threat walking the face of this planet... and currently on your side."
And that right there, my friends, is exactly the kind of bullshit I had to deal with on a daily basis.
Do you see the sheer arrogance radiating from the man? You’re not even existing in my universe, and I would bet you my life that you could smell his colossal ego from wherever you are.
Mind you, this is the same dude who let us get our asses whooped just a few minutes ago because he wanted to have "fun".
And now he’s acting all salty and offended because we have the audacity to be cautious?
I stared at him for a long, flat second, weighing the pros and cons of picking a fight with a sociopathic powerhouse in the middle of a rescue mission. I chose life.
"Fine," I sighed. "Let’s just walk in."
The shift in the group’s demeanor was instant. Qinyue cracked her knuckles. Jian rolled his neck until it gave a satisfying crunch. Liangyu cleared his throat, adjusting his grip, while Mei let out a deep, steadying sigh to center her qi.
Longwei, ever the picture of inappropriate casualness, walked over and slung a heavy arm over my shoulder.
"Wait," Yanyin’s small voice spoke through the tension. She reached out and firmly grasped my robes.
"What’s wrong?" I asked, worried. This was Yanyin asking us to stop?
"I should’ve brought some snacks for Uncle Zhenhao," she said, looking back at the entrance and contemplating if she should go grab some. "He’s probably hungry."
The pure innocence of it nearly knocked me over.
"Or," I suggested gently, offering her a reassuring smile, "we could just focus on getting him out of this horrible place first, and then we can treat him to a hearty lunch? Preferably somewhere with fresh air, before I end up vomiting my guts out from all this stench?"
Her face instantly brightened, the anxiety melting away. She nodded enthusiastically, "Okay!"
And with that, our descent into the abyss began.
Yanyin proudly led the gang, literally hopping her way down the steep incline with a bubbling excitement that felt wildly out of place in our grim surroundings. As we ventured deeper, the shadows seemed to lengthen and crawl toward us, and the air grew noticeably colder.
The stench I had complained about at the entrance only grew stronger and more suffocating the deeper we went.
But the nightmare atmosphere didn’t seem to affect Yanyin in the slightest.
In fact, she seemed to gain momentum, going faster with each joyful hop with her braid swinging wildly behind her back like an energetic exclamation mark punctuating her every step.
