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墨書 Inktalez
Upon hearing this, I realized my junior brother was joking, which meant he wasn't in any serious trouble. I jumped down and said, "If we're going to stir things up, let's make sure it's beneficial for the construction of socialism. As the saying goes, 'Men and women working together makes the job easier.' We must fully utilize the advantages of our country's population ratio. By the way, for the sake of our socialist spiritual civilization, could you please take care of your personal hygiene first?"
My junior brother was covered in half-dried eye gunk. While it was unseemly, the real issue was the smell—goodness, it was almost enough to drive anyone away!
"That's exactly what I'm about to do!" he said, glancing at A Li with a grin as he took off his shirt and started slapping his body.
At that moment, no one noticed that the seven-meter-long tongue (referring to the Giant Tongue) suddenly twitched. Three black tendrils quietly coiled around my feet. Just as everyone was discussing how to leave this place, those tendrils suddenly contracted and lifted me off the ground. By the time I realized what was happening, I found myself hanging upside down in mid-air.
My junior brother cursed loudly, "You old hag! Here I am, frustrated with no outlet for my strength and no way to take revenge. And here you come, offering yourself up! This is perfect; if I don't show you my power, you won't know your place!"
While he was shouting, he didn't waste any time. He kicked off the wall with a leap and landed on the back of the tongue. With a swift motion, he grabbed one of the tendrils while his other hand flashed with silver light. I felt a lightness around my ankle as my vision quickly sank.
His series of movements were so fluid that it all happened in less than three seconds. Even A Li and I were left dumbfounded, unable to react as dozens of black tendrils twitched and fell to the ground.
I rolled over and stood up just as the tongue let out a final unwilling roar before going limp and crashing heavily to the ground.
My junior brother toyed with his dagger in one hand while using the other to pat the still writhing tongue. "Mudfish, what are you so arrogant about? Aren't you just here to be ridden by your grandpa?" He looked like a tamer subduing a ferocious beast, exuding confidence.
As the old saying goes, extremes lead to reversals; joy can turn into sorrow. Just when everyone thought everything was fine and dandy, a loud rumble echoed from above. Turning around, we saw that the tail of the tongue had been smashed into meat pie by a massive granite boulder, sending clouds of dust swirling upward.
The tongue's final roar became the last straw that broke the camel's back; the cave began to collapse. In an instant, countless large stones started falling from above, shaking the ground beneath us until it became impossible to stand.
My junior brother jumped down from the tongue in an instant and shouted while covering his head, "Damn it! What are you waiting for? Run!" He took off like a rabbit.
I cursed him for being ungrateful but called out to A Li to follow me. I wished I had an extra pair of legs to keep up with my junior brother: "I'm just looking out for you! I let you run ahead so you wouldn't hold us back!"
"Ha! You think you're so clever!" my junior brother retorted. "Back in my school days on the track team, I was like a soul figure! If it weren't for worrying that Senior Brother would be too lonely inheriting our master's legacy alone, I would have won countless Olympic gold medals!"
I said, "You can keep bragging! Your entire school's track team has only five members—one is on leave, another is studying abroad, and the remaining two are girls. If anyone is the soul of the team, it has to be you; your spirit is with them!"
My junior was about to retort when A Li interrupted, "Can't you two keep it down? What time do you think it is? Follow me and don’t scatter; I’ll take you to find Qiao Brother."
"Hmph, Qiao Brother? You sound pretty close! How long have you known him? That guy is slippery; don’t let him trick you into giving him money!" My junior snorted and suddenly sped ahead.
I knew he was just venting, so I didn’t argue back. I exchanged a glance with A Li, signaling her not to take my junior seriously. A Li rolled her eyes, indicating she was used to it.
I glanced back, and to my shock, I saw a ground fissure had opened up—a crack as wide as a truck tire—right in the middle of the ground. Debris falling from above was almost entirely swallowed by the fissure, kicking up a cloud of gray dust.
The fissure opened at an unimaginable speed, almost snapping at my heels. If I let my guard down for even a moment or hesitated just a bit, I would surely be consumed without a trace.
A sense of pressure unlike anything I had ever felt washed over me. My mind raced with thoughts: Would this fissure extend all the way to the center of the Earth? If someone fell in by accident, would they have any chance of survival? What if I suddenly dropped down and the others didn’t notice until it was too late, leaving me to die silently?
At this thought, I shuddered and felt invigorated. As recorded in "The Book of Wei: Biography of Zhang Puhui," "Life comes with death; if one dies appropriately, what is there to regret?" Our great Motherland's Chinese Dream has yet to be realized; dying quietly like this certainly wouldn’t count as "dying appropriately." It seemed I still had to live—for the sake of my thirteen billion compatriots.
I gritted my teeth and quickened my pace while reminding A Li to stay close to my junior; after all, he was part of the track team.
We pushed ourselves for nearly ten minutes when suddenly a three-way intersection appeared ahead. A Li shouted while running, "Take the middle path and jump after crossing!"
As we reached the intersection, I was still pondering what A Li meant by "jump after crossing" and where exactly we were supposed to jump—how far? Suddenly, I saw the two in front leap into the air. Gathering all my strength, I followed suit and thought that jumping a few meters further would surely be better than not jumping far enough.
Half a second later, I saw my junior and A Li land safely on a piece of broken granite across from me. They were looking at me with expressions that seemed to say I was an idiot for still being in mid-air.
Based on my takeoff strength, they had landed just as I reached the peak of my jump. As for why they looked at me that way—it soon became clear.
In the next moment, my chest slammed against the granite with a thud. My body encountered an opposing force during its inertia; these forces countered each other, leaving only gravity to take effect as I began to fall straight down.
I saw my junior’s expression change as he reached out his hands at lightning speed, trying to catch me. A Li’s face turned pale as she shouted my name and stretched out an arm in an attempt to grab me.
It was a pity that my fingers brushed past them one by one, until I fell into complete darkness, with only the sound of rushing wind by my ears and the frantic beating of my own heart.
How deep was it below? Why hadn’t I reached the bottom yet? What would be down there? If there was water, perhaps I could survive; if it was granite... then I would only see the next life.
Before I could think any further, suddenly, something tightened around my waist, as if something was constricting me. My body instinctively sank a few more centimeters before hovering in mid-air.
The thing around my waist was uncomfortable—thin and hard, barely digging into my flesh. Damn it, even breathing hurt like hell! I reached down to touch it, and sure enough, it was the safety rope. My junior brother had some sense, knowing to wrap it in several layers of cloth; otherwise, I would have been cut in half.
At that moment, my junior brother's voice came from above, echoing slightly: “It seems to be stuck! Brother, can you hear me?” He even shook the safety rope.
The pain made me gasp sharply. Just as I was about to curse loudly, a sharp pain pierced through my right lung.
I froze—oh no! It seemed to be pressing against that broken rib. In my panic to escape earlier, I hadn’t felt it; now I realized that rib was indeed broken. All the pain exploded at once; it was nothing short of a miracle that I didn’t faint immediately.
I couldn’t describe what I felt at that moment; all I knew was that if given a choice, I would have preferred my junior brother not to have caught me. Even if it meant falling to my death, it would have been ten or a hundred times better than this!
However, this maddening pain didn’t last long. My consciousness began to blur gradually, and soon I felt nothing at all.
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