Chapter 16
Chapter 16
Lu Lingzhu and I climbed out of the bottom of the pit together. This time, we were a little smarter. We tied a spell rope around our wrists, then moved forward carefully, keeping about a meter between us.
That way, no matter which one of us fell into a pit, the other would notice right away and pull her back up.
Even so, we took turns falling in several more times, and still couldn’t find our way out of this space.
I just couldn’t understand it. This pagoda wasn’t even that big. How could there be so many pits?
By the time we’d fallen in enough times, we were both exhausted and in a complete mess. Lu Lingzhu flew into a helpless rage and started losing her mind.
“Let’s just burn the whole place down!”
“We still haven’t found Feifei and Huahua. We don’t even know what floor we’re on. If a pagoda this tall catches fire, none of us are getting out alive.”
Lu Lingzhu snapped, “I don’t care. I’ll drag these damn ghosts down with me.”
As she spoke, she reached for her talisman papers. I grabbed her wrist.
“No. Calm down.”
“She can’t calm down.”
A familiar voice suddenly sounded behind me. Delighted, I spun around.
“Feifei-”
But in the next second, my smile froze on my face. My heart clenched, and a chill rose from the soles of my feet, spreading through my entire body.
Song Feifei was standing about two or three meters behind me, hand in hand with Lu Lingzhu. Both of them looked disheveled and filthy, their hair hanging loose. At a glance, they had clearly just climbed out of some pit.
But if there was another Lu Lingzhu beside her, then who was the one beside me?
The Lu Lingzhu next to me flew into a rage. “Damn it! What kind of monster are you, daring to impersonate me?”
Song Feifei, standing across from us, let out a string of cold laughs.
“Stop pretending. You’re the fake one!”
Lu Lingzhu panicked. “Feifei, are you stupid? Don’t fall for it! Hurry, come over to our side.”
Song Feifei frowned. “Qiao Moyu, why are you here?”
I was completely at a loss, so I told her everything that had happened earlier. Song Feifei nodded.
“I get it. If you trust me, come over right now. Lingzhu and I found the way out.
“The one beside you is fake. Hurry up and come here.”
Song Feifei waved at me anxiously, then pointed toward a pitch-black corner, saying that was the direction of the exit. The exit here shifted every few minutes, and it had taken her and Lingzhu so much effort to figure it out. If we delayed any longer, we wouldn’t be able to get out.
Her expression was sincere and urgent. The Lu Lingzhu beside her also kept trying to persuade me, and her posture, expression, everything was exactly like the Lingzhu in my memory. I couldn’t tell the real from the fake at all.
I shoved the Lingzhu beside me.
“I still trust you more. Hurry up and refute them!”
Lu Lingzhu stammered, “I, I, I-”
“Wait, you aren’t actually the fake one, are you?”
Lu Lingzhu exploded. “I’m gonna kill you, you fake piece of crap!”
As she spoke, she untied the rope around her wrist, then lunged at the other Lingzhu with claws bared. The other Lingzhu gave a cold laugh and charged forward without the slightest fear.
“The fake wants to die? Fine!”
The real and fake Lingzhu tangled together in a fight. Their movements were identical, and they both used the same dirty, underhanded tricks. Their faces and voices were exactly the same too, making me dizzy just watching them.
After they fought for a while, the Lingzhu on Song Feifei’s side gained the upper hand.
Song Feifei ran over and grabbed my arm.
“Come on, let’s go!”
Seeing me frozen in place, she stomped her foot in frustration.
“What are you still hesitating for?
“How could the real Lingzhu possibly lose to a fake?”
I suddenly understood. “Oh. That makes sense.”
I followed Song Feifei forward. The two Lu Lingzhus stopped fighting, and one of them quickly chased after us. The remaining Lingzhu-the one who’d been with me before-sat alone on the ground, staring blankly ahead with a lost expression as she muttered to herself,
“Impossible. There’s no way I can’t even beat a fake. Impossible.”