BPIFC -Volume 1 – Chapter 38 A Way Out

After the two openings were fully revealed, Che Qianzi instinctively took a step backward.

Pointing at the two dark passages, he asked Sun Desheng,

“What does this mean? It’s expecting the two of us to go in? What’s with these two doors?”

Sun narrowed his eyes and studied the openings.

“What else could it mean?” he replied leisurely.

“One is the Door of Life, and the other is the Door of Death.”

“If we’re lucky and choose the Door of Life, we might still make it out alive.”

“If we’re unlucky and pick the Door of Death, then you and I will be keeping Zhao Lianyu and the others company down here.”

“It must be dreaming.”

Che Qianzi sat down on the ground with a thud.

“I’m staying right here.”

“I refuse to believe everyone in the Second Division is dead.”

“Someone will come down and rescue their two directors.”

“We’ll just wait.”

“My old man said a person can survive a week or so without food or water.”

“Give them a week—even if they hand a shovel to a monkey, it’ll eventually dig a tunnel down here.”

Halfway through his speech, he suddenly noticed Sun removing his left shoe.

“…Fatty, what are you doing?”

Ignoring him completely, Sun took off the shoe.

He closed his eyes and spun around three times on the spot.

Then, without bothering to check which direction he was facing, he hurled the shoe high into the air.

After hearing it hit the ground, he opened his eyes.

Using his flashlight, he located the shoe and examined the direction the toe was pointing.

“The left passage,” he declared.

“That’s the one.”

“What do you mean, that’s the one?”

Che Qianzi’s eyebrows shot up.

“You’re completely wrong!”

“If you die in there, that counts as suicide, understand?”

“Fatty, I’m not in a hurry.”

“Let’s wait for the Second Division.”

“Didn’t they say they’d also call the Sixth Division?”

“We can wait a little longer. Worst comes to worst—”

“Brother.”

Sun interrupted him while putting his shoe back on.

“Even if we stay here, does that guarantee we’ll survive?”

“You and I are out in the open.”

“That fake Xiong Wanyi is hiding in the dark.”

“If he dared trap us here, then he definitely has a way to kill us.”

“If you don’t believe me, stay here.”

“I’ll go in first and scout around.”

“If anything strange happens to you, come inside and find me.”

With that, Sun stepped across the rubble and slowly headed toward the left passage.

Seeing that he had already reached the entrance and had no intention of turning back, Che Qianzi slapped his thigh.

“Fine!”

“At worst we’ll die on the same day.”

“Fatty, write your will.”

“And tell them to investigate my background.”

“Then burn the results for me on my seventh-day memorial.”

Carrying the still-unconscious Ximen Lian on his back, Che Qianzi followed Sun into the left tunnel.

Inside was another long passageway.

The air was damp and heavy with moisture.

No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t understand why there was so much humidity beneath a desert.

The farther they went, the wetter it became.

After roughly a hundred meters, even the dirt beneath their feet had turned muddy.

“So this is your ‘road to life?'”

Che Qianzi grumbled as he struggled under Ximen’s weight.

“I’ve twisted my ankle again.”

Seeing that Sun was still confidently pressing forward, he continued:

“Fatty, maybe we’re both going to die here.”

“Before we do, tell me the truth.”

“Did you read my Book of Life and Death or not?”

“Who are my parents?”

“At least let me die knowing.”

Sun stopped and looked back at him.

Then he broke into a grin.

“Why are you so suspicious?”

“How about this? I’ll swear an oath.”

“If I, Sun Desheng, ever read what was written in Che Qianzi’s Book of Life and Death…”

“…then may your sister-in-law cuckold me.”

“And if she has two or three more children, may none of them be mine.”

The oath was so vicious that Che Qianzi had no response.

Sun had dragged his own wife into it.

Even if he really had read the book, there was no way to press the issue now.

They continued forward.

The moisture gradually transformed into fog.

Mist filled the passageway.

The farther they went, the thicker it became.

A few minutes later, visibility had dropped to almost nothing.

Even stretching out a hand, they could barely see their fingers.

Che Qianzi remained on high alert.

Keeping close behind Sun, he feared that something might suddenly emerge from the fog.

His attention was fixed ahead.

He wasn’t watching his feet.

Suddenly he tripped over something.

Fortunately, he caught himself before falling and dragging Ximen down with him.

Just as he was about to continue, he realized something was wrong.

Sun Desheng had disappeared.

“Fatty—”

Before he could finish shouting, a plump hand suddenly reached out and clamped over his mouth.

Sun’s greasy voice whispered beside his ear:

“Brother, don’t make a sound.”

“Something’s wrong ahead.”

“There’s something extra here.”

Before Sun had even finished speaking, a shadow flashed before them.

At the same moment, a sharp whistling sound cut through the air.

If they hadn’t stopped moving when they did, Sun would already have been lying in a pool of blood.

Che Qianzi wasn’t the type to swallow an attack.

Instantly drawing his short sword, he shrugged Ximen off onto Sun and lunged toward the shadow.

Unfortunately, he was a step too slow.

After missing its strike, the figure immediately turned and fled deeper into the tunnel.

His thrust hit nothing.

Che Qianzi had always been reckless in a fight.

Sword in hand, he charged after the fleeing figure without hesitation.

No matter how loudly Sun shouted behind him, he ignored it.

He didn’t care whether the thing ahead was human or not.

Once he caught it, he intended to stab it to death.

After a long chase, the figure suddenly vanished.

Che Qianzi searched through the fog for some time but found no trace of it.

Only then did he realize something else.

He had already left the tunnel.

As for where exactly he was now…

He had no idea.

I should’ve taken Ximen’s pistol when I had the chance, he thought.

At least he could fire a shot and alert Sun.

Now all he could do was shout.

And even if Sun heard him, the shadow from earlier would probably hear him first.

Just as he was considering retracing his steps, a metallic voice suddenly echoed through the mist.

“I told you.”

“I’d be waiting for you.”

“So what if you found the Door of Life?”

“You’re still going to stay here forever.”

Sun had been right.

This really had been the Door of Life.

But Che Qianzi felt no joy.

He immediately recognized the voice.

It belonged to the fake Xiong Wanyi—the one whose brains he had smashed out earlier.

You escaped before.

Let’s see you escape this time.

Holding his sword, Che Qianzi charged toward the source of the voice.

Unfortunately, the dense fog distorted all sense of direction.

He rushed back and forth four or five times without finding the speaker.

After repeated failures, his temper flared.

Shouting into the mist, he roared:

“Didn’t you say you were going to keep me here?”

“Come on, then!”

“If you can’t do it, from now on you’ll have to call me Dad!”

“I’m going to teach you a lesson, you little bastard!”

No amount of cursing brought the figure back out.

Che Qianzi was already searching for even filthier insults when a shadow suddenly flashed before him again.

At the same moment, another weapon sliced through the air toward him.

This time he didn’t dodge.

Instead, he dropped into a crouch.

The attack whistled over his head.

Then he sprang upward like a released spring and chopped downward with his sword.

Learning from his earlier mistake, he abandoned stabbing and switched to slashing.

The shadow reacted quickly.

It raised its weapon to block.

Clang!

Metal collided with metal.

The object in the figure’s hand snapped in two.

Seeing he had gained the advantage, Che Qianzi immediately swung again.

Just as the second strike was about to land—

Bang!

A gunshot echoed from behind him.

Hearing the shot, the shadow instantly turned and fled into the fog.