Fengli was stumbling along behind the two of them, clearly having some difficulty catching up. Her breathing was heavy and she had trouble walking straight. Annu sensed that something is amiss, turned around, and noticed her condition. Even though they were in a rush, he decided to inquire about it, his voice deepened with concern.
“What’s the matter, Fengli?”
“Nothing, I’ve just been running around the entire city eluding guards, and I’m a bit tired” she answered dismissively.
“We have to hurry” cut in Fuhei “the hideout isn’t far. What were your plans from now on?”
“We want to leave the city as soon as possible. I hoped there is some hidden passage out that you know of.”
“There isn’t” Fuhei shook his head sadly “but there might be one soon”
Annu looked at him, puzzled, but the young fox didn’t elaborate further.
“At any rate, no one saw our faces, so we should be ok even if we go back. You on the other hand….”
“Don’t concern yourself with me, I’m fine!”
“You don’t look fine, the way you’re holding your right arm!”
The wolfgirl didn’t pay much attention to what they were talking about, as her vision doubled, and weird, gritting noise played an unbearable melody in her head. It was even worse than the pain in her wounded forearm, though judging on the amount of blood dripping from it, she’ll have to address that soon, as well.
Suddenly she realized that the gritting noise forms words, and the words visualized in front of her eyes as some kind of floating, colorful letters.
*All power demands sacrifice*
She imagined the words gathering in one spot and forming a disgusting, slimy frog. Then with the power of her imagination, she crushed it and tore it into little pieces of blood and gore. The noise stopped, and the words didn’t reappear again.
She giggled. What the hell, it was that easy?
“Oi, Fengli, what are you laughing at?” asked Fuhei, angry tones in his voice.
“Ahaha, well, you know…I’m just happy we escaped~” she lied, wiping away tears of laughter with her blood-stained hand. Oh, so now the scarlet liquid will be all over her face, huh? Not good, but whatever.
After a long while of briskly walking through dimly lit underground tunnels, they finally reached their destination, or so it seemed, as Fuhei suddenly stopped and started investigating a nearby wall.
Finally, he found what he was looking for, a loose brick, and attempted to take it out with just his left hand. This task proved rather difficult, so Annu helped him out. There was a lever underneath!
Fuhei pushed down the lever, and the entire wall moved, revealing a corridor leading into pitch-black darkness.
“Got a fire stick?”
Annu nodded, and browsed in his backpack, finally finding what he was looking for. He quickly lit it up, illuminating the three of them and their surroundings.
They wordlessly made their way inside. The corridor led to a large, oval room, surrounded by stone from every side.
Alongside the walls stood crates, cupboards, chests, and barrels of various shapes and sizes. In the middle was a large table, and several layers of maps were sprawled on it. Annu approached it and had a look.
“This is amazing! The map of the city….the map of the underground waterways…even the map of the Kiyi castle! How did you get a hold of all that!?”
“I didn’t” shrugged Fuhei. “The previous owner did”
“…?”
“Ahh, don’t give me that look! Did you really think I could organize all this by myself? I just found this place, and played a hero!” his voice trembled, and he shot them a self-deprecating smile, before shaking his head and sitting down on a nearby chair.
But before he could share his life story, both fox and the sheep noticed the state Fengli was in.
Illuminated by the flame, her bloodstained figure became apparent, as well as the fact that most of the blood clearly wasn’t her own.
However, that didn’t concern Annu as much as the wound on her forearm. He quickly ran up to her and examined it.
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“It’s a stab wound!” he exclaimed in terror “What happened!? You said you had no trouble, you said you were fine! You promised!”
While Annu was panicking, Fuhei quickly jumped up to one of the chests and took out some clean cloth, then a bottle filled with an unknown, colorless liquid.
“I know that professional healers are fond of using fancy tools like acupuncture needless and leeches, but allow me to show you how we do it in the slums”
After pouring the contents of the bottle over the wound, and making sure there are no foreign objects stuck inside, he warped the cloth tightly around. But not overly tightly, the goal was to stop further bleeding and help the blood clot, not cause necrosis.
Normally, the sensation of cleaning the wound with 65% baijiu would be rather unpleasant, and the patient in question would either grimace or curse the heavens, depending on their disposition. But Fengli remained silent throughout the entire procedure, and merely stared at one point without as much as batting an eye.
“Can you move your hand?”
“Can you?” repeated Fengli sarcastically, her voice hollow and distant. But soon after that she came back to reality and gave a serious reply “Yes, I can move it and feel it just fine.”
To demonstrate that she clenched her fist and then waved the arm around.
“She is totally out of it” Fuhei brought the fire stick uncomfortably close to her face, and studied her eyes. Both pupils were abnormally dilated and didn’t contract even close to the light.
“Obvious signs of concussion….She probably got hit in the head!”
Annu jumped in, wanting to have a look as well. He was angry-not at Fuhei, nor at Fengli, but at himself, for agreeing to that stupid, reckless plan.
“….!”
Her eyes were exactly as the fox said, but there was something else that terrified the sheep even more than their size.
It was the color of her left eye. No longer hazel, its pupil was now red!
…………
The violence that begun nearby the guard outpost spread all over the city; xiaren were marching out, torches, sticks, and makeshift weapons in hand, ready to take revenge on their overlords for every slight, real or perceived that they’ve suffered at their hands thus far.
The guards, undermanned and incapable of containing the spreading chaos, had to give up on pacifying the Xiaren Ghetto. They found themselves on the defensive and were slowly retreating towards the western districts, where terrified humans lived.
They erected ad hoc barricades alongside the length of Plum Blossom road; the plan was to not let even one bloodthirsty xiaren pass through it; but not having enough people to defend them, they soon had to give them up, and routed towards the central market plaza, where they got properly surrounded.
Ironically enough, surrounding them was not such a brilliant idea; whence they would once break the line and run, having no obvious way of retreat now, the surviving guardsmen had no choice but to fight until the last drop of blood. If the mob of xiaren had a commander, Bai Zihan would have him flogged for incompetence; alas, a mob was only a mob, and no rational tactics could be realistically expected from it.
“Are we going to intervene?” asked Mai Rulan, gazing at the chaotic panorama of the city below. She looked uncharacteristically worried, and Bai Zihan knew why-if the guard outpost was overrun, chances are high their prisoner of interest escaped along with the others.
“Looks like we’ll have to” she answered calmly, dodging the subject; she didn’t want her protege to think she blames her for this turn of events; no, if there is someone who needs to be blamed, it’s the Supreme Leader herself.
For too long the sect remained removed from the daily proceedings of civilians; mistakenly believing that society and economy does best when it’s left to its own devices. The result is death and destruction unfolding in front of their eyes now.
She extended her hand over the City of Stone, and commanded:
“Dispatch all the cultivators available and bring order back to the streets of Kiyi; protect humans from xiaren menace! And let there be silence!”
Mei Rulan saluted and grinned, showing all her white teeth. Whenever this girl…no, this woman….smiled like that, she was on the track of a prey. And now, it was time to begin the hunt!