Chapter 471: Ruins 15

The firelight rushed into the abandoned bank's underground structure before them; Luo Qi pushed Liu Ziyi into the vault and grabbed the heavy blast door, pulling it inward with all his might. The thick iron door, which had not been used for who knows how many years, finally began to move under his strength, but the speed was too slow. Through the huge gap in the door, Luo Qi saw countless ghostly figures.

"Luo Qi!" Liu Ziyi screamed, "Hurry!"

"I'm trying my best," Luo Qi shouted in annoyance; the process of closing the door was too slow.

Liu Ziyi looked around nervously, searching as if it were her second instinct. "This isn't right. Humans don't have strength as great as yours; the door shouldn't be this heavy."

"This is old junk from who knows how many years ago; it's long since rusted shut."

"Then I'm going to be killed because of you," Liu Ziyi said. Suddenly, she noticed a vertical handle on the door. "What is this?"

"Phallic worship?" Luo Qi said in his anxiety.

"Shut up, you're really annoying." Liu Ziyi gripped the handle. "You know humans never use brute force. This must be the handle for the hinges; they must have used a winch to open and close the door. I've seen something similar before."

In his agitation, Luo Qi didn't know what Liu Ziyi was talking about, but from the moment Liu Ziyi began to rotate the handle, the speed of the door closing increased. Luo Qi glanced at Liu Ziyi in surprise. "Pull faster!"

Liu Ziyi cursed at Luo Qi clearly and unmistakably, "You do it then."

"Keep going," Luo Qi said. He completely let go of the iron door, moved a step away, and stared intently at the puppets that were only a few steps away from pouncing on the entrance.

"God, why aren't you controlling them yet?" Liu Ziyi yelled, desperately rotating the winch with all her might. The iron door retracted bit by bit.

Luo Qi did not speak. Everything had a price; his loss of control just now made it difficult for him to concentrate, and focusing his mind instead began to drag him into a trance-like state. He had to maintain absolute clarity of mind, otherwise, the first person he would attack would be Liu Ziyi.

"Luo Qi!"

"Just a little more, and the door will be closed," Luo Qi said, sweat dripping down from his head. The door was almost there, and the closest puppet was also almost there; the puppet had stretched its arm out as far as it could. As long as he could close the door, it wouldn't be hard to deal with just one puppet getting in, and that would save energy, giving him time to recover.

"Luo Qi!" Liu Ziyi cried out. The blast door was about to close when a puppet's arm was thrust in at that very moment, getting stuck in the door with a gruesome thud. Liu Ziyi let out a nauseated scream. At the same time, that zombie began to use strength that neither humans nor Mages possessed to shove its shoulder into the gap, using its shoulder to pry the door open. More of its companions would arrive immediately, and they would tear the door open again.

"Get back," Luo Qi shouted. He shoved Liu Ziyi aside with his shoulder, applied a fierce amount of force to the winch handle, and then suddenly hit the door with a freezing Magic.

The puppet froze; the arm stuck inside the door instantly turned to ice, freezing into a sickening blue-purple color. Luo Qi did something he never thought he could do: he jumped up and kicked that frozen piece of human tissue with all his might. The puppet's arm snapped off along the door gap inside the room, and the door slammed shut heavily on its final bit of momentum. He immediately locked the door. "Liu Ziyi, you have a Mage's way of locking doors, don't you?"

Liu Ziyi nodded stiffly. Bypassing the severed limb, she began to chant Growth Magic. Elements consistent with the composition of the iron door began to overflow, and the blast door merged with the door frame, continuously reinforcing and layering itself into the wall. After completing all this, her sweat also dripped down from her head. The puppets outside kept slamming against the door. They waited quietly for a while; the door was even thicker and more secure than they had imagined.

After a good while, she came back to her senses and stared blankly at the arm on the ground. Luo Qi suddenly flew over and kicked the arm into the corner.

Liu Ziyi hugged her own arms and took a few deep breaths, managing a faint smile. "That's a truly impressive solution. Battle Mages usually condense a weapon for themselves, rather than cutting off an arm."

"I don't know that kind of Magic," Luo Qi said. "I only know Basic Magic, and I can't even accurately control the temperature when lowering it."

"It seems low enough is good enough," Liu Ziyi said dryly. She endured for a moment, then couldn't help her curiosity. "But I never knew that once the temperature is low enough, the human body becomes so brittle. How do you know that so clearly?"

"Do you think I often secretly freeze people and shatter them?" Luo Qi asked.

"You know that's not what I meant!"

Luo Qi looked at her for a while before saying, "I read it in the Library. In the past, some Mongol tribes had a penal code for dealing with criminals that involved breaking their legs. They would tie the criminal up and put them in a warm tent, with only one leg extended outside the tent into the freezing cold. After a few hours, the leg outside the tent would freeze, and at that point, you only needed to strike it hard, and it would break off."

Liu Ziyi opened her mouth in astonishment. After a long while, she said, "Truly... impressive barbarism."

"Yes, so I remembered it," Luo Qi said in a low voice. "But that was something done during the barbaric period of humanity many years ago, and if you look at it from a merciful perspective, frostbitten stumps are less prone to infection. Compared to using a knife to sever a limb, this way the criminal has a higher survival rate."

"Alright," Liu Ziyi said uncomfortably. She thought for a moment and then asked, "The Library?"

"The City Library; you can get there directly by subway," Luo Qi said.

"You really are prepared to live in human society, aren't you?" Liu Ziyi said casually, wanting to say something else to distract herself and alleviate the tension caused by the zombies constantly pouncing on the door.

"Yes, I can live quite well," Luo Qi said in a low voice. He turned and walked inside. "Let's see what's in here, shall we?"

Liu Ziyi followed his footsteps, and they walked into the depths of the vault together. It was much larger than they had imagined; rather than a place to store banknotes, it was more like a giant factory.

It was very cold underground, and their clothes had long since been soaked through by the rain outside. Now, the clothes clung to their bodies, icy and cold, and both of them were shivering. As she walked, Liu Ziyi made an Energy Bean and shared half with Luo Qi.

"I want to go home. Eat some food, real, hot food," she said, shivering.

"We both have to wait," Luo Qi said in a low voice.

Liu Ziyi smiled and joked, "What are you waiting for? Food?"

Luo Qi shook his head.

"A game console?"

Luo Qi shook his head again.

"You seem very patient." Liu Ziyi paused, put a bean into her mouth, and fired a gust of wind at a target on the ceiling, clearing out a structure that looked like a ventilation vent. "You seem like you've been waiting for a long time, longer than the time you've spent here. You have a habit of waiting."

"Yes, I've been waiting for a long time." Luo Qi's hand reached into his pocket again, fiddling with the Pine Branch, poking shallow pits into his own fingertips. "I also want to go home."

She thought for a moment—relative to her agility, she had thought for quite a long time—before asking, "Your parents' home?"

For a moment, Luo Qi looked like he didn't want to answer her; his lips parted several times. The surroundings were quiet, with only the wailing sound of the wind blowing in from the ventilation duct. Their breathing sounded very loud, yet his voice was almost weaker than the sound of his breathing. "A place that is more inclusive and respectful of me."

"You must have already found that place, right?"

"Yes." Luo Qi glanced at her.

Liu Ziyi watched him, pondering.

"I will serve the Qionglin with all my heart, I think," Luo Qi said, raising his voice.

She blinked. "So you mean, the Qionglin is the place that is more inclusive and respectful of you than your original family?"

"Yes," Luo Qi said. "Just like you all, finding a place to belong there. Like you and... Du Zhengyi."

She shrugged and made a face. "Yeah, anyway, besides doing these things, we don't have anything else to do."

Luo Qi's hand squeezed the Pine Branch tightly in his pocket; the pine needles pierced his skin, and beads of blood emerged from his fingertips.