CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“Can you take me to the place that woman said?” Li Feng asks Zheng Chao.

“Yeah, it won’t take long,” Zheng Chao replies and leads the way. She takes Li Feng and An Yu to the stairway in a few minutes, and they go down.

The fifth and six levels of the mine are both residential and laid out very similar to each other. The one constant between them are the hallways separating the quadrants. A hallway travels in each compass direction, dividing the floor into fourths. The quadrants aren’t separated by business type or resident social class, but they help trying to locate a particular house. The first through third levels don’t have quadrants, but there are substantially less doors on those levels than on the residential levels.

Zheng Chao takes a few minutes to arrive at the apartment the counter woman sent Li Feng to, and she knocks on the door. For a few seconds, there is no answer.

“Ming?” A voice finally replies from behind the door. Unlike An Yu’s door, this one doesn’t have the viewing hole.

“No, my name is Zheng Chao,” Zheng Chao introduces herself. “And my friends Li Feng and An Yu are here.”

“Hello,” An Yu says.

“Greetings,” Li Feng says and steps forward. “Miss Ya, I need to know if I can help you.”

“Huh?” Ya looks at the three people in front of her, questioningly. “What do you people want?”

“I want to help you get back at those men that kidnapped you a few weeks ago,” Li Feng says, and Yu flinches as she remembers the event. “I just need you to lead me to their lair, to where they performed those obscene acts.”

“We need you help, Ya,” An Yu says. “Those men took Li’s servant while she was out running errands. You’re the only one who can help us find her.”

“Right,” Zheng Chao says. “This young master comes from an influential city nearby, and he’ll be able to ask the Chen family for assistance rescuing his servant.”

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“Can you please lead the way, miss Ya?” Li Feng asks. “Can you help me save my servant?”

Ya rapidly changes her glance between Li Feng and the ground. She’s scared of the five man that brutally kidnapped and raped her, but she wants to help any way she can. As a victim, she wants to run back into her apartment and shut the door, not opening it for anything other than her friend, Ming, to bring her food. On the other hand, Ya cannot just let someone be raped by those men like she was.

“Are you going to get reinforcements?” Ya asks the group.

“I’ll get some from Chen Yan once I confirm the location of those men and my servant,” Li Feng says, confidently answering Ya’s question.

“Then, we better hurry,” Ya says, and steps out of her apartment and closes the door behind her. “I still remember the way I had to crawl out when they let me go.”

“Miss Zheng, Miss An, thank you for everything until now,” Li Feng says, bowing to the two women. “If you’d like to go home, I think I can manage from here on out.”

“Alright, but come get us if you need help with something,” Zheng Chao says.

“Right, I’d be glad to help however I can,” An Yu says, and the two waitresses leave Li Feng and Ya.

“Well then, let’s get going,” Li Feng says and makes room for Ya to walk past him.

“Okay,” Ya says and sets off toward the stairway, Li Feng in quick pursuit.

On the stairway down, Ya descends at a slow pace. It’s enough for Li Feng to keep up without any magical assistance, and he doesn’t try to make Ya move any faster. The girl shows clear signs of abuse, her body bruised and bandaged in several places. Ya’s gray tunic likely hides the majority of the damage done to her body, but the hand marks on the back of her neck are larger than the bandage she used to cover them.

The two keep descending the stairs until the seventieth level of the mine. The area around the stairway is brightly lit, but beyond that is dim. Lanterns scarcely hang off the walls of the level and many of them are extinguished. Compared to the sixty five levels above it, level seventy is not cesspool of filth. In fact, it looks quite similar, abet darker than, level four.

“I was taken to one of the next ten floors. I don’t remember exactly which, I just remember seeing seven as the first number of the floor level,” Ya says, referring to the wooden signs that mark each level on the stairway.

“Do you remember which room you were held in?” Li Feng asks.

“No, I don’t,” Ya answers. “I got out as fast as I could, and I didn’t think to remember the way back.”

“That’s fine,” Li Feng says and steps forward, into the darkness. “Wait here for now. I’ll be back.”