Chapter 54: Free at Last
Still grinning like an idiot, Yuanjun carefully stepped over, slowly walking out of the dark cell and into the corridor. He took a deep breath of the foul air, stretching his arms wide. "Wow. I truly can’t believe it. After all this time, I’m finally free!"
"What’s that, by the way?" Longwei asked casually, pointing at the ground near Yuanjun’s feet.
In the exact same fraction of a second, Longwei’s hand shot down, smoothly covering both of Yanyin’s eyes and pressing her face into his robes to muffle her ears.
Yuanjun paused his stretching. He lowered his gaze, following Longwei’s pointing finger.
He looked down to notice his own severed right palm lying on the floor, a small pool of blood already expanding around it.
A silence blanketed the atmosphere for a moment. Time seemed to stand perfectly still. All of us stood there frozen like statues, staring wide-eyed at the severed palm on the ground.
It’s like Longwei has a hard-on for severing people’s limbs, doesn’t he? It’s his go-to move.
Realizing what was about to happen next, we all simultaneously slapped our hands over our own ears in perfect unison.
A split second later, the horrifying reality caught up to Yuanjun’s nervous system and let out an agonizing scream that tore through the prison.
Several moments of echoing screams and buckets of panicked tears later, Longwei sighed as if bored. Without removing his hand from Yanyin’s face, he snapped the fingers of his other hand. Yuanjun’s hand was healed.
Yuanjun collapsed against the wall, hyperventilating, clutching his newly restored hand to his chest as if terrified it would detach again.
Longwei then turned his calm, smiling face toward us. "Should I do it again?" he asked politely.
I won’t lie to you. As horrifying as Longwei was, it was immensely satisfying watching this cruel idiot suffer the consequences of tormenting a little girl. So, without an ounce of shame, I firmly nodded my head along with the rest of my friends.
"NO!" Yuanjun shrieked. He scrambled forward, throwing himself to his knees and pressing his forehead so hard against the stone floor at Longwei’s feet that it bruised. "I beg of you, please! I’m sorry!! I’m so sorry!!"
Satisfied, Longwei removed his hands from Yanyin’s face. Blinking against the dim light, Yanyin looked down and saw the picture of Yuanjun on his knees, drenched in tears and begging for mercy. She looked back up at Longwei with curiosity.
"Did you teach him a lesson?" she asked innocently.
Longwei gave her a wink. "I did. Now," he turned his gaze to Jian and Liangyu, the warmth vanishing instantly from his tone. "Put him back inside. We’ve wasted enough time. We got work to do."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Yuanjun pleaded in a hurry, digging his heels into the floor. "I know I have a harsh tongue, and I know I’m a fool, but I’m actually a good man! I swear it! I even have a daughter of my own! Please, you have to let me go!"
"Not compelling enough," Longwei replied dismissively, inspecting his impeccably clean fingernails.
"I was falsely accused!" Yuanjun screamed, playing his final card.
"Ugh," Jian groaned. "Is literally every single person in this prison falsely accused or what? Is that the standard qualification for getting in here?"
"Yes!" Yuanjun nodded. "I don’t know about the others, but most of us down here in this block are actually just harmless farmers! We only retaliated after a corrupt, wealthy businessman tried to seize our farming land.
When we fought back, we were thrown into this prison under horrific crimes we never even committed!"
"Hmm," I muttered, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. "Interesting."
"Interesting?" Longwei’s eyes flashed with disdain as he looked at me. "It’s fuckin’ tragic! This is systemic corruption at its finest! And I’m the villain?"
"I was just- what the f-" I stammered, completely derailed by Longwei, the man who just casually amputated a guy for a laugh, suddenly taking the moral high ground on socioeconomic injustice.
Before I could defend myself, Longwei stepped past me and threw a surprisingly friendly arm over Yuanjun’s trembling shoulder.
"Listen to me," Longwei said, his voice lowering into a tone of dark command. "The keys to these cell blocks are hanging near the entrance desk. I saw them when we walked in. Run up there, grab them, and go free your friends."
Yuanjun’s eyes widened to the size of saucers, filling with fresh tears, this time of overwhelming gratitude. "I... I won’t ever forget this help! Thank you! Thank you!" He then spun around to face Yanyin, his demeanor entirely shifted from the mocking fool to a desperate informant.
"Little one," he rushed out, pointing down the dark corridor. "Your uncle is most probably being held at the lowest cell. It’s located in a separate room at the very bottom of the slope.
They usually blindfold anyone going down there so you don’t see the complex magic combination required to open the main door. But," he swallowed hard, glancing nervously at Longwei out of the corner of his eye, "I’m guessing you folks don’t exactly need to know the combination to get through it."
He took a step backward toward the exit, his adrenaline pumping. "Anyway, I owe you all my life!!"
With a final, deep bow, he turned and sprinted blindly back up the steep slope toward the entrance.
"Let’s move!" Longwei ordered, not wasting another second watching the man flee. He turned and continued his rapid descent downward.
"Wha- what if he was lying?!" I sputtered, gesturing frantically both up the slope and down. "Which he most definitely was!"
My protests fell on deaf ears. The entire group had already filed past me, following Longwei into the deeper dark. I cursed under my breath and jogged to catch up.
A few tense minutes later, my stomach aggressively rolled over. The stench had reached an unbearable, physically hurting stage. I knew immediately we had reached the lowest level of the Bastille.
Standing directly in our path was a pair of iron doors. Unlike the rusty cages above, these doors were pristine, completely sealed tight with a sprawling network of bright spiritual energy.
Longwei stepped right up to the barrier and stretched out his arm, fully intending to shatter the complex magical array with brute force.
Before he could make contact, Yanyin darted forward and nervously tugged on the sleeve of his robe.
"Wait..." she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. The bravado from earlier was evaporating as the reality of the moment set in. "I... I don’t know what to say to him. What if he gets mad at me? What if he’s angry that I broke into a prison?"
"I’m sure he’ll understand, Yanyin," Longwei answered gently. "And if, for some crazy reason, he doesn’t? I’ll make sure to have a very long and very persuasive chat with him to convince him otherwise."
Satisfied, she turned back to the door. Longwei pressed his bare palm flat against the center of the bright seal. He just pushed.
With a sharp crack that sounded like glass shattering in a quiet room, the magical seal splintered and dissolved into harmless particles of light. Longwei placed both hands on the heavy iron doors and pushed them slowly inward.
