“Peijin.”

I became aware of my existence once more. My entire body was throbbing, and my senses were slowly recovering. My spit was thick in my throat, and every time I inhaled, my nose let out a small whistling sound.

“Peijin, are you up?”

Was someone speaking to me? I tried to open my eyes, yet they remained frozen, along with the rest of my body.

“She’s been drifting in and out. I wouldn’t be surprised if she passes out again.”

“Come on, wake up Peijin.”

“Are you stupid? She’s not sleeping beauty. You can’t will her awake.”

“...”

“Hey, couldn’t ‘Demonic Fire’ wake her up?”

“Are you trying to kill her?”

“No, but since demons all hate each other, then wouldn’t demonic fire burn the pollen out of her body or something?”

“You sound like a European doctor from the 1800’s.”

“Could you not speak nerd for a second?”

“Both of you need to stop arguing with one another. The train is moving. We need to figure out what’s going on. Yang, you should carry Peijin if we need to run.”

“The doors won’t open until I select my skill, so we should be fine. Has your sponsor said anything else?”

“Archangel Michael? He’ll be in trial for a while since he technically colluded and got caught.” The voice paused for a moment, and I could make out the slight banging of a weapon on the metro ground. “Apparently, Peijin’s luck is bad. She’s popular with the observers though, so at least that helps her get some spiritual energy.”

“Why the hell would they like Peijin? All she does is get mutilated every room.”

“She’s done it for you, too, so be more grateful Yue.”

“Hey, I am grateful!”

“There’s no point in bickering with everyone, Yue. Hey, are her eyes opening?”

“Ugh, I told you, I’m not—”

Before me, a fuzzy figure with long black hair suddenly hovered over my sight of vision, peering closer before gasping and jumping back.

“She’s awake!” Yue looked back down at me. “Peijin, can you speak?”

My eyes twitched, not having adjusted to the harsh train lights. I attempted to lift my index finger, yet it remained glued to the metro floor. My eyes darted around the car, and I found Zhige lying beside me. The blade’s red eye was peering straight into my own.

“Mmph-” I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut and letting out a heavy sigh. The moment I moved, I would be met with a searing pain.

Two large heads popped into frame, both looking expectantly. Finally, the tiny blonde head of Amelia joined.

“Peijin!” She cried, immediately jumping onto me and sobbing violently. Her fists crumpled up the fabric of my sweatshirt, and I let out an involuntary, pained wheeze.

[Observers Chat]

Nipon23: welcome back jia li. your room starts soon ;) nervous?

Socrates: Do you know how hard it was to get observers to give you spiritual energy?? You’re lucky you’re popular because it’s the reason you didn’t die! Your whole party was scrambling, spending thousands of stars on medicine while I was stressed out of mind trying to get you spiritual energy

Socrates: You drive me absolutely nuts, Jia Li. Don’t go out and almost die like that again.

I shut my eyes again. Socrates was acting like a mother scolding their teenage son for staying out too late.

Yue lifted Amelia up by the back of her blue hoodie, holding her in the air like a small dog. “Hey, don’t just jump on Peijin like that! She’s delicate!”

“S-sorry Yue-ayi!” Amelia apologized through her flurry of tears. Wiping her face, she looked down on me with furrowed brows.

I opened my mouth, trying to force the words out of my throat, but my voice failed me again, and I looked as idiotic as a floundering fish.

[Scathing Reviewer activated!]

“Amelia,” I croaked, reaching up to pull her out of Yue’s grasp.

Suddenly, with a loud and violent creak, the entire subway lurched forward, causing everyone to stumble. I slid down the floor of the metro while Yue fell straight on top of me with a loud “hmph.”

My entire body jolted forward as I let out a loud cough, immediately shoving off Yue. Finally, I caught sight of my arm.

The one with the black tattoo was still perfectly intact, but my other was bandaged from my hand up to my shoulder in a thick, white bandage. For a moment, it reminded me of a similar one wrapped around Wei’s forearm.

I picked up Zhige off the ground, my nails struggling to lift the hilt for a moment, before I left a small, clean cut through my wrapped shoulder.

“Peijin!” Yang shouted, immediately slapping the blade out of my hand.

Letting out a loud sigh of relief, I chuckled for a moment. The blood that streamed came in red streaks—there was no more of that golden sheen.

With a closer look, I could now see that Yang’s lower lip was peeling, dried blood in the cracks. He must have been nervously chewing on it again.

“I’m fine,” I reassured him. “I was just checking something. How long was I out? I told you to wake me up in six hours.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Yang turned away from me, and Wei responded instead.

“Let’s just focus on beating the next room,” Wei said.

I glared at him, finally sitting up and taking Amelia’s hand. “I need to know.”

An awkward silence ensued, and my eyes drifted up to Yang’s face. The cut was already gone.

“Four days,” Wei murmured.

My body automatically got up before I could even process the words. Four days? Did I lose a lot of my observer and god viewers? Wei’s room was already going to be a challenge to push through with their support.

“Peijin,” Yang exclaimed, gripping my shoulders tightly, “Don’t overexert yourself. Your room is next.”

“What skills did you get? Have you picked yet?” My voice was rushed, but my words were still slightly slurred from my exhaustion. Even if my physique levels were constantly increasing, it didn’t prevent mental burnout.

“Peijin.”

“How many stars did you spend on treating my arm? You should’ve saved it. I’m fine.”

Four entire days because I was knocked unconscious. I was the party leader, and yet I couldn’t even push through a single arc. I was holding my entire party behind now.

How could I have let it get here?

“Peijin!”

Two firm hands gripped my shoulder, jolting me back to reality.

Yang’s orange eyes glared into my black ones, and I finally noticed the deep purple eyebags that seared into his tender undereyes.

“Peijin, stop it. Calm down.”

With a heavy inhale and exhale, he signaled for me to control my breathing.

Even now I was reliant on him. I was reliant on him in the first chapter, the second dungeon, and the third dungeon. If I was being honest with myself, who was saving who?

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out.

[Observers Chat]

Socrates: Now I feel bad for yelling at Jia Li. You’ll be fine, okay?

Observer ‘Socrates’ sponsors 20,384 stars.

[Observers Chat]

Socrates: There. That’s how much your party spent on your medical treatment. Archangel Michael probably would’ve paid for it.

There was a strange burning sensation in my nose, but I couldn’t pinpoint the foreign sensation until my vision blurred.

I was tearing up. Did I really become this weak?

[Scathing Reviewer is flickering!]

My chest tightened. The anxeity of my room and what awaited me only made things worse. I hadn’t cried since I was child, back in that house. I couldn’t cry. If I did, he’d be back, with that horrifying grin stretching from eye to eye, and then it’d begin again. I’d be back to fourteen years old and weak and helpless and still that same goddamn insufferable bitch, and—

[Warning! Scathing Reviewer is flickering!]

Yang’s voice cut through.

“Peijin, are you okay? Is this about your poster? Your room?”

[Scathing Reviewer deactivated.]

My face fell immediately before I covered up my blank expression with a smile. A strange numbness took over my body, and suddenly, nothing was felt.

I slowly stood up, my shoulder sloping downward. My hand was reassuringly placed on Yang’s shoulder. “I’m fine now. Let’s pick your skills and move on,” I said. “We’re more than halfway done with this arc.”

Yang flinched in surprise, blinking at me and picking up on the strange shift in my demeanor. “Sorry?”

I approached the chest, looking at the three glowing skills before me.

[Cloud Somersault

Alternates

Yaogui’s Mask]

“Which one do you want?” I asked firmly, looking blankly at the options before me.

“You’re being weird again, Peijin,” Yang replied softly. “Do you want to rest a bit before your room?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t want us to fall even further behind.”

He bit down firmly on his lower lip before sighing, grabbing his temple with his hand. “I was thinking of ‘Alternates.’ ‘Yaogui’s Mask’ sounds advantageous since it’d give me a similar power to the…” he trailed off awkwardly.

‘Yaogui’s Mask’ would allow Yang to inherit similar traits to that of the flower demons, such as ‘shape shifting, seduction, and mind control—however, there was no doubt Sun Wukong would vehemently protest this.

After all, he used the term to berate the Bull Demon King.

“Did you talk to him?”

Yang gave a curt nod. “He didn’t like the skill.”

“Mm. Unfortunate.”

Amelia looked up from below me, gesturing that she wanted to be lifted into the air. I picked her up stiffly, my body still aching and sore, before I gently threw her over my good shoulder.

Yang stared awkwardly, his brows furrowed, before he looked away again. It was obvious that he had much to say, but there were no words to communicate what he felt.

For an avid reader like him, that said enough.

I continued speaking: “You should pick ‘Alternates,’ unless you plan on running away from everyone with ‘Cloud Somersault.’”

Both skills were also inspired by Sun Wukong—by pulling out pieces of his hair, Sun Wukong was able to duplicate himself countless times, hence the name ‘Alternates.’ Sun Wukong was also known for his incredible speed and distance, often flying on a cloud to efficiently fight and travel.

“Don’t joke about something like that.” Yang snapped, his expression only growing more tense. “You’re acting strange.” His cheeks were slightly sunken in, as if a deep hunger had been affecting him.

“I’m not joking,” I shrugged. “You don’t understand what the rest of this world holds. You’re just as naive as when we were talking in the pest control van after I forgot the steamer.”

“You’re being cruel.”

“Are either of us surprised?” I smiled, “You know me better than anyone else.”

“And I’m telling you that this is psychotic,” Yang said firmly, his expression hardening.

Amelia shifted in my arm, holding onto me tighter. “Peijin, please don’t be upset at Yang-shushu.”

“You’re too old to be acting like this, Amelia.” My hand brushed through her hair before I placed her back down on the ground.

I was promptly shoved forward before a hand spun me around. I was lifted up into the air by my collar.

“The fuck is wrong with you, Peijin?” Yue barked, glaring down at me while jolting me forward by my collar again. “Do you know how hard it was to keep you alive? You wake up, and this is how you start acting? This isn’t a fucking hospital!”

I smirked up at her, tilting my head to the side as I gripped onto her arm. “Yeah? And who are you? Tell me that.”

“He Yue. What bullshit are you spewing now?”

“Yeah, that’s your name, but what was your childhood? How’d you grow up?”

“I grew up in a tumultuous household, got into university, and now I’m stuck here with the likes of you.”

I let out a cold laugh, looking down at the metal ground. “Tell me one thing you were doing a week ago. Before all this.”

“I was coming back from school the day the apocalypse started.”

“That’s not what I asked you. What did you do a week ago?”

Since the apocalypse began, I debated whether or not any of the characters I met were real. Did they have a life outside of what I’d written?

Yue froze for a moment, as if unable to recall anything she had been doing. She paused before glaring at me, pulling me up and slamming me against the wall of the car, her eyes dark.

It was just as I thought. None of my characters had lived through their backstories. All they had were prescribed memories that I spoon fed them.

Her chest heaved up and down unsteadily now, and she trembled as she held onto me. “What did you do to me?”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said, finding my nose burning again. “I’m just a pest control worker, right?”

Wei shoved the two of us apart, separating us with his sword. “Yue, stop. Her room is next, and you know that anxiety.

“But, Peijin, this is stressful on all of us. Even if you are the one doing everything, don’t pretend that it doesn’t impact all of us the same. Sacrifice yourself, jump into the frontlines all you want, but don’t sit back here and pretend we don’t exist every time you do.”

‘But you aren’t real. I know that now for certain,’ is what I wanted to say. It was foolish of me to have thought I found something here. Yue didn’t need me in her room, and in Yang’s room, I became nothing other than helpless and humiliated.

I really was a loser.

The sound of a faint grumbling threw me out of my thoughts. I looked over to see Amelia avoiding my gaze while clutching her stomach. Immediately, my tone softened.

“Are you hungry?” Of course she was. It’s been days that they waited for me to wake up.

She shook her head, her blonde hair swishing. “I’m not.”

I walked over and gently took her hand. “There’s food in the next room. Let’s eat there, alright?”

[Scathing Reviewer activated!]

Yang selected ‘Alternates’ and the chest immediately disappeared, the metro shooting forward once again.

“...”

The metro car was filled with a heavy silence for a moment while I avoided the sight of my poster, instead staring down at the top of Amelia’s head. I gently pat the top of it, ruffling it.

Nothing but the racing sound of metro tracks surrounded us until Yang finally broke the silence.

“Peijin, are you going to be alright in this room? It looks like it’s a-”

“I know,” I replied softly. “Thank you.”

The metro finally came to a screeching halt, the doors sliding open.

[Custom room now commencing!]

[Tailored for: Disciple Liu Peijin.]