Book 9 - Chapter 12 – Torment

Song Qiao stood at the center of the room. “You lot stay away.”

Lei Xinfeng, Miaolin, and Xiao Diya all ducked away.

The temperature inside the room continued to drop without stop. No matter how much they wore, they still shivered non stop.

“Let’s put up our defenses, or we really won’t make it,” Lei Xinfeng suggested. His body began to glow, producing little sparks of lightning. He felt much better, but such defenses exhausted Lun Yin energy rapidly. Not that he had a choice in this situation.

Miaolin just buried herself in the pile of fur, not even showing her head. Xiao Diya was even worse off. Even pulling out all stops on his power couldn’t keep him from shaking violent like a leaf in the autumn window. His face white, he began stuttering. “F…f….f….”

“F..? What?” Lei Xinfeng asked.

Xiao Diya managed to calm himself for an instant. “F… fuck!”

Lei Xinfeng was speechless. “Ah, you don’t need to try so hard. Cover yourself with some pelts. Learn from elder sister Miao a little. At least you won’t be so cold.”

Xiao Diya managed to roll his eyes. “No, no…no…”

“No more pelts?” Lei Xinfeng asked.

“No…no, problem!” Xiao Diya gasped.

“Damn it! Stop talking a word at a time!” Lei Xinfeng snapped.

Xiao Diya was frozen half to death. He made a face, shivering all the time, giving Lei Xinfeng a pitiful look, making Lei Xinfeng take back his words. “Alright, alright. You’re cold, and it’s not on purpose.”

Xiao Diya was so cold he couldn’t speak properly, so he just nodded his head violently. He was indeed so cold he stuttered, and it wasn’t on purpose.

Xin Zhaolun looked over. “Xiao Diya, don’t just stand there. Maybe you’ll be warmer if you moved about a little.”

Hearing the tip, Xiao Diya began to jump and up and like a great frog. His entire body was wrapped in fur, as a matchstick wrapped in cotton. His feet was like it was outfitted with springs, and he bounced up and down rapidly.

Lei Xinfeng watched him. “That works?”

After jumping a lot, Xiao Diya actually felt a lot warmer. Lei Xinfeng was also so cold he couldn’t stand it, so he began to jump too. The two of them jumped in place like two zombies.

Crack crack.

The ice wall began to show signs of cracking. Although a gap hadn’t formed yet, it was still unsettling.

Lei Xinfeng and Xiao Diya jumped wildly, and then they saw a large crack creeping toward the ceiling in the back wall. Lei Xinfeng pointed at it. “Quick! It’s cracking!”

A thin wisp of frosty air drifted in from the crevice. Xin Zhaolun immediately soaked a pelt with water and slapped the pelt onto the crack. By the time the newly soaked pelt touched the wall, it was frozen solid. After some water, it became an effective seal.

The crack continued to crawl up and Fengying slapped on a seal as well.

The tense period of repairing the walls as cracks appeared began. The bunch of people were like a bunch of ants in a heating pot, ranning about all the place, plugging in leaks as soon as they saw it appear. The two biggest offenders was the back wall, as well as the wall that’s connected to the corridors. The other two had much less problems.

While he jumped, Lei Xinfeng commented, “If we knew in advanced, then I’d have created more houses to the left, right, front, back, and above. The central house is the safest.”

Xin Zhaolun cursed. “Who knew it would be this bad this time! This was sufficient before!”

“There’s just a bit of time left, and the most dangerous period is almost upon us! Everyone hang on!” called Chuizi.

No one lowered their guard, and everyone kept there eyes on the two problem walls.

Suddenly, there was a loud cracking sound that got louder and louder, as well as a whistling that signified the entering of the outside air. Finally, with a loud boom, a section of the corridor collapsed.

After listening for a bit, Xin Zhaolun signed in relief. “It’s not our section. It should be the section that Senior Song damaged that collapsed.”

“Good thing that Senior came in from the other side. If it had been on our side…” He couldn’t hold back a shiver. At least two or people would have died, and even he wasn’t safe.

Song Qiao laughed drily. “Well, I didn’t really have a choice to pick and choose a path. If I didn’t act quickly, I’d probably have become a man-shaped ice sculpture.”

“Your luck is good,” Lei Xinfeng said, smiling bitterly.

“Don’t think too much. We must get through this first!” Song Qiao said.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Countless sounds came from above and everyone’s faces changed. Even Song Qiao’s face turned white. He yelled, “Hell! It’s coming from the ceiling!”

A few people immediately flew up with large pieces of pelt, read to fill in holes.

If the ceiling collapsed, none of them will survive, with the possible exception of Song Qiao.

The cracking sounds followed the shriek of the wind, growing louder. Everyone held their breath, and all was silent inside the room except for the rough breathing of a few.

Then all of a sudden, all the sounds from the outside vanished.

No matter if it’s the thin whine of the violent wind, or the continuous cracking of the ice, all the sound that had become familiar suddenly disappeared. For that instant, it was as if they’ve arrived to an unfamiliar world. Lei Xinfeng and Xiao Diyi halted their jumping.

Xiao Diyi stared suspiciously at the others, half talking to himself. “Did I die?”

Then, they heard the hearty laugh of Chuizi and Futou. “Hahaha! The frost is past! Haha, hahaha! It’s over!” To the natives, every occurance of the frost was a process of natural selection. If you weren’t strong enough, you died. To the natives, this was very normal.

Of course, surviving the frost was cause for great celebration.

Lei Xinfeng sat down, suddenly weak, while cold sweat poured down his body. “Damn it, I’m never coming back here!”

“This place is too scary! Never again!” echoed Xiao Diya.

Even Miaolin popped her head out of the pelt pile to offer her agreement. “I’m never coming here again either! Even if I don’t get scared to death, I’ll freeze to death!”

Xin Zhaolun smiled. “Alright, it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have brought you guys here.”

“Don’t worry, elder brother. I’m not blaming you. There were many gains from here, but it’s a bit cold, and a bit scary.”

Song Qiao smiled. “It’s worth it to come here. The main thing about this place is that it has both quality and quantity, including a few materials needed in the construction of Hidden Doors. All the powerful Sages that come here are here for this purpose. Even I came here despite the dangers.”

Lei Xinfeng suddenly thought of a question. “Strange, why is the frost suddenly gone?”

Chuizi smiled. “Its a strange thing about this land. The frost disperses quickly, and it only takes a while to completely vanish. As for the reason, we don’t know ourselves. However, right after the frost, the weather lightens up significantly, and the temperature rises quite a bit too.”

“How long until we can go out?”

“Maybe around ten minutes. It doesn’t take long.”

“Huh? That fast?” asked a surprised Lei Xinfeng.

“It’s not strange. The reason why it’s so cold is because of the wind. Without the wind, the temperature will rise very quickly,” Song Qiao said.

Lei Xinfeng nodded. “I’m going out. This room is making me feel claustrophobic.”

“Wait a little,” said Xin Zhaolun.

The room began to heat up. The weak embers in the brazier flared up in strength, and the remaining oil wood in the tray started to burn through much quicker than before. Soon, even Miaolin crawled out from under the pile of pelts, forehead beaded with sweat. “I want to take a bath! I stink!”

Hongjie offered some consolation. “Don’t be impatient, you’ll get your chance soon.”

After some more time, Xin Zhaolun nodded. “Alright, we can go out now.” With that, he smashed his fist into the wall. With a large rumble, the ice chunks crumbled. After quite a bit of commotion, what remained of the wall was just the steel frame, which he took into his Hidden Lun space. Only then did he walk out of the room and into the corridor.

Lei Xinfeng hurriedly followed him, while Song Qiao accompanied them. “I want to see the part of corridor collapsed,” he said, following.

The walls of the corridor was torn to shreds, some parts thicker than others. The right side of the corridor was completely collapsed. Even the steel was utterly bent out of shape. The floor was filled with scattered chunks of ice, and covered with a layer of frost.

Chuizi came out, carrying his precious hammer. He swung at the corridor walls and the wall exploded into pieces like glass. After the freezing it went through, the ice because extremely brittle, unable to withstand the force of the hammer strike.

Their view of their surroundings clear up.

Lei Xinfeng pointed inside the yard of the house. “What the hell is that?”

Note: Xiao Diya does not actually say ‘Fuck,’ though it’s still a curse. His version goes from “他” to “他妈的.” Lei Xinfeng actually asks who Xiao Diya was talking about, because the first character is Chinese for ‘him.’

There’s actually a more cursing than I’ve been putting, but I don’t like writing them out personally.

Now, I forgot note it in the previous chapters, but Song Qiao and Xin Zhaolun is literally Kool Aid Man, breaking those poor walls.

I’ve decided to forgo an editor because I’m an impatient person, and I’m willing to forgo a little grammatical and logical correctness to have my chapters out faster.