Chapter 142
Chapter 142
The air stopped flowing.
Qin Ying felt as if she had been wrapped in a mass of viscous liquid. In front of her, Hulan’s mouth opened and closed, saying something in slow motion.
The words that left her lips were slowed countless times beyond their normal speed before they finally reached Qin Ying’s ears.
Chaotic light and shadows filled both sides of her vision, and countless noisy whispers rose beside her ears.
Surging clumps of black fog blocked her sight.
Within those black miasmas were many small points of light, some bright, some dim.
Hulan, sitting across from her, was one of those points of light.
Because Hulan had drawn the symbol, Qin Ying could hear her voice with exceptional clarity.
Aside from her, there were a few other points that were especially bright.
Some were gathered to the south, huddled together in a small cluster.
They seemed to be the Believers in Yunwu County to the south.
All of those points of light were murmuring prayers, but Qin Ying’s ears felt as though they had been stuffed with a layer of cotton, and she could not make out the words.
Among the points of light, the brightest and most dazzling one was not far away.
Qin Ying lifted her hand and lightly touched it. In the next instant, her mind buzzed, and she entered an ethereal state.
A scene appeared out of thin air before her eyes-Han Lie, dressed in Sand People clothing, his newly grown short hair tied at the top of his head.
He had obtained a curved saber from somewhere and was sitting cross-legged in front of Qin Ying’s tent, holding the blade as he feigned sleep.
When Qin Ying looked at him, he seemed to start awake from a nightmare, suddenly opening his eyes and looking around.
Qin Ying then raised her head.
With a faint thrill of delight, she found a familiar aura within the black fog-herself.
That connection was subtle, flickering in and out of existence.
She tried to extend her consciousness toward it, but a sudden, severe pain stabbed through both her eyes. Caught off guard, she let out a muffled groan and covered her eyes with both hands.
A burst of hurried footsteps followed. Han Lie had heard the commotion outside the tent and barged in.
Like a leopard, he arched his back and drew his saber.
With one arm, he pulled Qin Ying against him, the tip of his blade pointing straight at Hulan.
Hulan’s eyes were filled with terror. She had no idea what had happened.
All she had seen was Qin Ying mysteriously reaching out and then lifting her head.
She had thought Qin Ying was communing with the god, so she was both expectant and nervous.
Who could have known that this Divine Envoy would suddenly cry out and cover her eyes?
Without any special effects to support the scene, it looked for all the world like she was staging an injury scam.
Seeing Han Lie’s unfriendly expression, Hulan cautiously explained, “Guardian, please calm your anger. I did nothing to the Divine Envoy.”
Han Lie, whose mind was perfectly clear and not the least bit foolish, was not someone who could be fooled by a single sentence.
With a twist of his curved saber, he was about to advance.
He planned to seize Hulan as a hostage first, then summon Wangcai and the other beasts waiting outside the village.
The commotion here drew the attention of the guards. Seeing that a clash was about to break out, Qin Ying grabbed Han Lie’s arm hard.
The blood on her fingers left a vivid red smear on his gray felt robe.
“Stop,” Qin Ying said, forcing herself to endure the agony in her eyes.
She lowered her hands, and only then did everyone see the shocking two trails of bloody tears on her face.
Qin Ying blinked, squeezing the thick drops of blood welling in her eyes out of their sockets. Then she opened her eyes and calmed the conflict. “It was just a misunderstanding.”
She did not explain why at all. Han Lie’s two brows twisted tightly together.
Hulan let out a breath of relief and waved to the guards who had come at the sound, signaling them to leave.
Qin Ying sat back down on the felt rug as if nothing had happened, wiping the blood from her face with her fingers.
In the brief time it had taken for that small amount of blood to flow, her puppet body had thinned by a tiny margin, almost imperceptible to the naked eye.
But inwardly, she was still quite pleased.
Although this business of inventing her own symbolic ritual was a ridiculous, slapdash fraud, it seemed she had found a way to go back.
Qin Ying said to Hulan, “There’s no need to be afraid. You may go back for now.”
This time, she did not keep up that inscrutable, unfathomable air. Instead, she gave Hulan a gentle smile.
Hulan’s heart settled at once, and she rose to leave.
Only Han Lie and Qin Ying remained in the tent.
Han Lie opened his mouth, about to call her Supreme Deity, but remembering Qin Ying’s warning, he changed his words at the last second.
“Ah-Ah Ying, are you all right?”
He stammered awkwardly through the words, so nervous that he swallowed three times in the span of a single sentence.
Qin Ying shook her head. “I’m fine. I need you to help me with something.”
She pushed the sheepskin parchment in front of her toward Han Lie. “This is my symbol. Try praying to this symbol.”
Han Lie had no idea when a symbol had appeared, but whatever Qin Ying told him to do, he did. After closing his eyes and tracing the symbol in his mind, he prayed silently.
This time, Qin Ying once again sensed that strange and wondrous connection.
Once more, she entered that mysterious state.
This time, Qin Ying also traced the symbol on the ground.
The blood on her fingertip left dark red lines across the black stone.
The infinity symbol was completed in a single stroke, and her consciousness abruptly soared upward.
It passed through the clouds.
The next second, Qin Ying stood in her room like a ghost, insubstantial and faint.
Half a step away was her body.
All she needed to do was take one more step forward, and she could return to it.
But she did not move forward. She merely glanced at the alarm clock on her desk.
Only five hours had passed since she entered the World in the Box.
Qin Ying took a step back, and her consciousness suddenly sank.
When she opened her eyes again, she woke in Han Lie’s arms.
They were still inside Hulan’s main tent. It seemed that barely any time had passed here.
Qin Ying’s back was pressed against Han Lie’s chest, and the corners of her lips slowly lifted into a smile.
“It seems I’m one step closer to grasping the doorknob.”
She murmured to herself. Han Lie did not understand what she meant. He only continued to look at her with concern.
Qin Ying slept soundly through her first night in the World in the Box.
The next day, two middle-aged women with wheat-colored skin who looked fairly healthy brought Qin Ying a silver basin for washing up.
Qin Ying was rinsing her mouth with clear water when Han Lie arrived.
He brought some plant twigs and a bit of fine powder.
With an honest smile, he said, “You-You once said you had to brush your teeth properly, so I went to find some twigs that could be used in place of a toothbrush.”
The juice of this plant’s twigs had a refreshing fragrance. Once bitten open with the molars, the end turned fuzzy, like an unfurled brush.
As for the powder, he had ground rock salt between stones until it was extremely fine.
“The nobles in Luoyang use a similar kind of tooth powder.”
Qin Ying tried it. It was just barely usable.
After she finished washing up, she thought of going outside the village to look for Wangcai and the others. She planned to return outside the Box first and send those little creatures out.
The Sand People here were living such miserable lives. Since they were her new Believers, Qin Ying thought she should prepare more water and food for them.
Then she would set out with Han Lie for Yunwu County’s Commandery.
She wanted to see whether she could find anything in Yunwu County’s Commandery that could treat Qin Zhiguo’s lung disease.
Most importantly, Qin Ying wanted to see this World in the Box with her own eyes.
She and Han Lie stood side by side on a sand dune and called Wangcai over.
Wangcai, covered head to tail in sand from rolling around, had eaten the can clean and drunk all the water. Clutching the empty can and water bottle in its mouth, it was reluctant to part with them. But when it heard it could leave this godforsaken desert, it wagged its tail with joy.
Just then, Aman rushed up the sand dune with an anxious look on his face, a ladybug clutched in his hand.
“This is bad. Something’s happened in Yunwu County.”