Lu Xiao tightened his grip, retreating slowly with Qian Jinye in his arms. Facing the strange yet familiar creature before them, he swallowed hard.
It was the monster from the stables.
Familiar, because Lu Xiao recognized it at once, it was the very thing that had chased them into the rift in time and space. Unfamiliar, because it was now a full size larger than before. If Lu Xiao remembered correctly, it hadn’t had so many tentacles back then, nor had their color been this deep and grotesque.
Qian Jinye, still cradled in his arms, was completely dazed, stunned by the shrill screams that had echoed through the corridor moments earlier. His mind was still reeling. He opened his mouth to ask Lu Xiao what was happening but Lu Xiao quickly covered it, shaking his head at him. Qian Jinye immediately understood.
They had run into something even bigger.
“Listen,” Lu Xiao whispered, his voice barely audible. “When I say three, two, one, we run. Don’t turn back. No matter what. Do you understand?”
Hearing this, Qian Jinye more or less guessed what kind of situation they were in. Still in Lu Xiao’s arms, he gave a small nod. Every muscle in his body tensed, coiled tight like a spring. The moment Lu Xiao gave the word, he would bolt forward without hesitation.
“Three.”
The monster shifted its massive body, getting stuck in a hole smashed through the wall. Enraged and frantic, it lashed out with another tentacle, widening the gap even more. The corridor let out another miserable, ear piercing scream. This time, Lu Xiao covered Qian Jinye’s ears, though his own head rang violently in protest.
“Two.”
It finally managed to drag all those cumbersome tentacles through. Even so, its speed was still slower than it had been in the stables. The tentacles themselves moved frighteningly fast but the corridor was far too narrow to accommodate such a colossal body.
“One.”
The creature slowly turned its torso toward them. Its horse-like nostrils flared, exhaling hot, rancid breath. Lu Xiao caught a whiff of rot so strong it made his stomach churn. Thankfully, he hadn’t eaten anything, otherwise, he would have vomited everything he had left.
Its goat-like pupils gradually centered, locking onto them with the cold focus of a hunting python.
It was about to attack.
“Run!”
Qian Jinye didn’t hesitate for a second. He surged forward, driven by absolute trust in Lu Xiao. It never once crossed his mind that Lu Xiao might deceive him or abandon him.
But his hand suddenly felt empty.
Lu Xiao had let go of him.
“Lu Xiao?”
“Don’t turn around! Don’t, no matter what! I’ll be right there, just wait for me!”
There was no need to look back. Qian Jinye knew instinctively that whatever was behind him was nothing he should see. Lu Xiao had already seen it. At the very least, one of them had to keep their sanity intact, only then could they drag the other one out, even if by sheer force.
That was exactly why, when Qian Jinye dealt with those “birds” he had told Lu Xiao to close his eyes. Because those things were too disgusting to behold. If both of them saw it at the same time, no one knew what else might be attracted by that shared terror.
Judging by the commotion now, Qian Jinye could tell this was definitely no minor threat. It was probably because he had lost his composure when facing those earlier creatures. At first, it had just been a corridor, relatively harmless. Now, who knew what kind of monster had appeared.
“Then hurry up and catch up!” Qian Jinye shouted as he ran. “If it comes to it, burn another pearl! Do you hear me?”
After yelling that, he sprinted forward without looking back. The monster had broken through the corridor’s restraints and he could see a door up ahead. A strong premonition rose in his heart, the room beyond that door had to be the one where Qian Shengke was.
The corridor had fallen silent. No one knew whether the thing had dissipated or simply passed out from pain. It now looked just like an ordinary passageway again.
Qian Jinye ran forward as if possessed, sprinting with all his strength. He didn’t dare imagine what might have happened behind him.
Lu Xiao hadn’t responded for a long time and anxiety crept into his chest.
“Lu Xiao! Say something, damn it! How am I supposed not to turn around like this?!”
“Brother, keep running,” Lu Xiao’s voice finally came, strained but steady. “You’re almost at the place where Brother Shengke fell. Hurry and wake him up. Then go back and bring Yue’er and Brother Xianguan with you.”
A chill spread through Qian Jinye’s heart. What did Lu Xiao mean by that? It sounded like he was entrusting him with last words yet Qian Jinye couldn’t turn around. His mental strength was already deteriorating, if he looked back now, both of them would die.
“Bastard,” he shouted hoarsely. “You’d better stay alive!”
With that, he shoved open the door in front of him. Light flooded over him in an instant, wrapping his entire body as he stumbled into a new room. The door slammed shut behind him.
Gone.
Only then did Qian Jinye dare to turn around. The place he had come from was no longer there, no door, only a solid wall. His heart sank to the bottom of his chest. What if Qian Shengke hadn’t been locked inside at all but had walked in here of his own accord?
“Jinye, stop looking. This door only lets people out, not in.”
“Brother!”
Qian Shengke was standing right beside him. He shook his head slowly. After all that, it turned out everything they had seen before had been an illusion. There had never been an air wall. They had simply fallen prey to preconceived assumptions. It had all been nothing more than a carefully crafted hallucination meant to mislead them.
“Now all we can do is wait for Lu Xiao” Qian Shengke said quietly. “If he can deal with the monster outside, then we still have a chance to get out.”
Qian Jinye stared blankly at the wall, his thoughts already drifting far beyond it. He could almost see Lu Xiao facing off against that creature. The monsters here were no longer merely savage, they had evolved intelligence.
They could deceive, cooperate, even feign injury. Just when people still believed that monsters were mindless beings without schemes or emotions, creatures that simply followed the law of the jungle, they had already stepped straight into the monsters’ trap.
“Lu Xiao…” Qian Jinye whispered. “You have to find me.”
Lu Xiao heard the footsteps behind him gradually fade away. Good. Qian Jinye had made it out. By now, he should have met up with Qian Shengke. Those two brothers were practically living weapons, Lu Xiao wasn’t worried about them being together at all.
The only thing left to worry about was how to escape alive in front of this enormous thing.
The moment the person behind him disappeared, the corridor seemed to come back to life. It let out a shrill, piercing laugh, as if mocking Lu Xiao. But he didn’t dare turn around. The massive creature in front of him was watching him with keen interest. There was no way he would expose the back of his head to it.
This thing was nothing like it had been in the stables, no longer frenzied or reckless. Instead, it was calmly, meticulously observing Lu Xiao. Its pupils shifted from a goat’s shape into that of a snake.
Then its left eye went horizontal while the right stood vertical. Then the opposite. Back and forth, changing endlessly. Just looking at it made Lu Xiao nauseous. The creature was actually using this grotesque display to erode his mental defenses.
Even for someone like Lu Xiao, a tabletop role playing enthusiast, seeing such a massive being rolling its eyes in front of him in reality was utterly revolting. He had thought he could meet its gaze. Now he knew he couldn’t.
Once you lock eyes with something like this, forget keeping your composure, managing not to wet yourself would already be an achievement. Lu Xiao was just an ordinary person. In this life, at best, he was an investigator. In his previous one, just a regular college student. How could he ever have encountered a scene like this?
Its gaze was cold, aloof, instinctive, the way one looks at an ant. Like a cat playing with a mouse: when it’s amused, it toys with its prey; when it’s bored, it eats it. Right now, it was clearly enjoying itself, completely unconcerned with whether Lu Xiao was worth the time.
These things had never had any concept of time. In this space, it was eternally night. “Two days and one night” was a joke, time itself had never changed.
In truth, from the moment it first appeared and Lu Xiao met its gaze, he had known something was wrong. He simply couldn’t break free from this crushing pressure.
It wasn’t that Lu Xiao didn’t want to run. It was just that his feet felt as though they were glued to the ground, heavy and immovable. As if shackled, even lifting them took immense effort and he couldn’t go far. All he could do was endure the monster’s stare.
And accept,
The arrival of death.
Resign himself to it? Of course not.
Lu Xiao moved swiftly and pulled out the black pearl. Even if his legs wouldn’t move, his hands still could. His attempt to ignite it was nowhere near as smooth as Qian Jinye’s. He struck again and again, clumsy and desperate and the monster immediately sensed his hostility.
It raised a thick, cumbersome tentacle and smashed it down toward Lu Xiao, pupils narrowing to slits. It looked utterly certain, this blow would be fatal.
Cold sweat poured down Lu Xiao’s back. Something that Qian Jinye could ignite effortlessly stubbornly refused to cooperate in his hands. He tried again and again and only when the tentacle loomed directly above his head did the flame finally catch.
At the critical moment, he hurled the black pearl away and squeezed his eyes shut.
The crushing pressure overhead vanished instantly. The surrounding air plunged to freezing cold. Lu Xiao heard the tentacles thrashing wildly, unable to evade in time.
Walls shattered under the blows. The ground trembled violently. The corridor screamed shrilly, as if trying to stop that octopus horse monstrosity. The creature roared back in defiance, first a deep growl, then a piercing neigh.
Lu Xiao crouched on the ground, clutching his head. He didn’t dare open his eyes. Compared to the monsters before him, the black pearl was far more terrifying. When the chaos finally began to subside, he seized the moment, turned and ran, opening his eyes as he moved.
The door ahead flickered between light and shadow, obviously unreal. It seemed Qian Jinye had already fallen into their trap. But Lu Xiao had no choice, there was only that single path forward.
The way behind him was completely blocked by the monster. Besides, he and Qian Jinye had run in that direction for so long without finding an exit. If he could reach that door and release the Qian brothers, what would there be to fear from these vile entities?
The real problem was that Lu Xiao couldn’t defeat this monster alone but with the two young masters of the Qian family added to the fight, things might be different. They had clearly been holding back their strength all along and that white pearl surely had more uses than the few they had seen so far.
“Come on, you big idiot!” Lu Xiao taunted hoarsely as he ran. “Catch me if you can. What’s wrong, can’t even handle a human, getting played around like this?”
It was obvious, Lu Xiao’s words had enraged it. The monster went completely berserk, charging at him with unstoppable force. Lu Xiao sprinted toward the door as fast as he could. Just as his hand reached for the handle, the door vanished.
His expression changed drastically. He had forgotten, these two monsters were working together. From behind came the other’s laughter again or rather, it wasn’t truly laughter but an eerie mimicry of human joy, twisted and grotesque. It made Lu Xiao feel a deep, visceral disgust.
Leaning against the wall, the monster deliberately slowed its pace, forcing Lu Xiao to savor every second of despair. Cold sweat crawled down his back; there was nowhere to retreat.
Suddenly, a spark of inspiration hit him. There was still one path left. The mouse had ingested the Evolution Pearl and mutated into a powerful creature. If the mouse could do it… could Lu Xiao do the same? Could he gain superhuman combat power by swallowing the Evolution Pearl himself?
With no better option, Lu Xiao acted quickly, pulling the pearl from his possession. The monster, unable to discern exactly what he was doing, mistook it for another black pearl. In panic, it staggered back a few steps.
“Heh… coward.”
With a mocking sneer at the creature before him, Lu Xiao swallowed the Evolution Pearl, accepting its transformative power.
✦ ✧ ✦
Nycreth
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
A tiny coffee can be a surprisingly nice “thank you.” ☕
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
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ChaptersChapter 1 · The beginning of the tragedyChapter 2 · Don’t forgetChapter 3 · Look at it directlyChapter 4 · Whom are you trying to seduce?Chapter 5 · TeaseChapter 6 · Sleeping in the same bedChapter 7 · Internal locksChapter 8 · Tampering The rules…Chapter 9 · Black LotusChapter 10 · FledglingChapter 11 · There are no horses in the stable.Chapter 12 · Water-oil separationChapter 13 · The cost of backtrackingChapter 14 · It got biggerChapter 15 · Was it a mouse?Chapter 16 · Too fieryChapter 17 · Administer medicineChapter 18 · Tracing the PearlChapter 19 · A KissChapter 20 · Ge, Kiss meChapter 21 · Ten Thousand Deaths Without RegretChapter 22 · Endless CorridorChapter 23 · CowardChapter 24 · GoodbyeChapter 25 · Back toChapter 26 · It’s is me, Not MeChapter 27 · VictimChapter 28 · Crossed CupsChapter 29 · IntuitionChapter 30 · ChangeChapter 31 · DifferentChapter 32 · ErrorChapter 33 · Mind Your Own BusinessChapter 34 · WanderingChapter 35 · EmbraceChapter 36 · LoveChapter 37 · UnrestrainedChapter 38 · Asking Over a DrinkChapter 39 · As BeforeChapter 40 · SatiatedChapter 41 · A Change in the WindsChapter 42 · A’SuChapter 43 · Welcoming the BrideChapter 44 · GossipChapter 45 · WeaknessChapter 46 · Wedding NightChapter 47 · Brother QingChapter 48 · FadingChapter 49 · Lying LowChapter 50 · CaressChapter 51 · OnceChapter 52 · The Hidden PassageChapter 53 · MotherChapter 54 · FlawlessChapter 55 · ProphecyChapter 56 · EtherealChapter 57 · DecipheringChapter 58 · The TrapChapter 59 · Stone StatueChapter 60 · ChessChapter 61 · AssassinsChapter 62 · The National Preceptor?Chapter 63 · Please return my belongings to me.Chapter 64 · I’m not that desperate.Chapter 65 · No wayChapter 66 · No turning backChapter 67 · I told you, get out of the wayChapter 68 · Still became a monsterChapter 69 · Let’s end thisChapter 70 · Why do you look so much like him?Chapter 71 · One wanted to kill, two stopped himChapter 72 · Unless, the people at Mingzhu Academy are keeping it from himChapter 73 · FraudChapter 74 · Don’t look back, Lu XiaoChapter 75 · It’s coldChapter 76 · Kill MeChapter 77 · We are even marriedChapter 78 · Gege… I Love YouChapter 79 · “It” had arrivedChapter 80 · Wake Up!Chapter 81 · How Nostalgic….Chapter 82 · You already Promised meChapter 83 · Their TerritoryChapter 84 · Jokes were JokesChapter 85 · What you dream was realChapter 86 · Did you cry?Chapter 87 · What’s wrong, young Master?Chapter 88 · No, I only ever said it to youChapter 89 · Honey, Please let me go.Chapter 90 · What are you pretending to be, a gentleman?Chapter 91 · It’s just a shoddy trick to fool people, but I like it anywayChapter 92 · Ge, I did it voluntarily, it’s no useChapter 93 · You little BratChapter 94 · Gege~ please have mercyChapter 95 · Hearing Lu Xiao come in, he patted the seat next to himChapter 96 · Stop fooling around, let me kiss youChapter 97 · “I want…” “Want what?”Chapter 98 · Gege, watch closely how I get youChapter 99 · Little Eleven, how about we talk to ‘it’ first?Chapter 100 · Had it gone mad?Chapter 101 · I will make my decisionChapter 102 · Tsk, how indecentChapter 103 · You are the creator of my original worldChapter 104 · The world is not your toy, go back to where you came fromChapter 105 · He was a boy with snow-white hair and a handsome faceChapter 106 · Haven’t seen you for a long timeChapter 107 · TYRBL Extra: 1Chapter 108 · TYRBL Extra: 2Chapter 109 · TYRBL Extra: 3Chapter 110 · TYRBL Extra: 4