Little Pink Starfish

The Princess Meets Xiao Gu in the Stone Chamber

When Yu Xiaoxiao landed, she found herself in a stone chamber. The room was empty, save for bloodstains on the walls and floor. The walls were also fitted with many iron rings. Having been to the Dali Temple prison before, Yu Xiaoxiao could tell this was a torture chamber—those rings were clearly used to shackle people.

Roars echoed through the walls and reached her ears.

Yu Xiaoxiao walked up to the eastern wall of the chamber. It was soaked through, damp and covered in moss. The ground near it was stained with large patches of dark, dried blood.

“Who’s over there?” Yu Xiaoxiao banged on the wall and shouted loudly.

The monsters she had seen at the Huguo Temple were silent unless in combat. These roars from beyond the wall sounded brutal—clearly someone was battling the monsters.

“Roar—”

Aside from the howling, no human voice responded.

Yu Xiaoxiao walked to the chamber’s entrance and looked outside. A narrow corridor stretched out in a winding path toward the southeast. Standing at the doorway, she couldn’t see where it ended.

Along the corridor walls, oil lamps were mounted in pairs every three meters. Though not enough to light it like daylight, the lamps made it easy enough to see one’s steps.

“The monk must have come up through here,” Yu Xiaoxiao muttered to herself.

A normal person would probably follow this corridor, but Yu Xiaoxiao was not a normal person. After mumbling to herself, she retreated back into the chamber and returned to the east wall. Why take the long way around when the battle was just one wall away?

Standing before the wall, she yanked off a chunk of moss. Besides the roars, she could also hear rushing water. Feeling droplets land on her head, she clenched her teeth, stepped back, and punched the wall.

Cracks spread out from her fist in all directions.

The bronze bell on her hand got in the way, so Yu Xiaoxiao let the wall keep cracking while she tucked the bell into her waistband. Her waistband also held the wind chime Gu Xinglang had given her. She touched it and made a mental note to string the little bronze bell onto it once she got back.

While she looked down, the cracks widened. Water started seeping through, and soon the wall, battered by the increasing flow, partially collapsed.

A rush of water from an underground river poured down on her, soaking her completely. The water level in the chamber rose rapidly.

Wiping her face, Yu Xiaoxiao saw another wall behind the collapsed one. Between the two flowed a turbulent underground river. Facing this force of nature, she didn’t dare be careless. She jumped to the second wall and punched it with full strength.

Inside a low stone chamber, hundreds of monsters lay dead on the ground. Gu Xinglang was unconscious next to Xiao Wei.

After the bell stopped ringing, the long worms had begun inching toward the two once again.

A deep chime echoed from the chamber, slowing the worms’ movement.

When Yu Xiaoxiao’s punch collapsed the second wall, the underground river flooded into the lower stone chamber.

She leapt inside. The first thing she saw was Jiang Zhuojun, unconscious inside an iron cage. She was about to jump onto the cage to rescue him when something made her glance at the ground.

Amidst monster corpses and worms, she spotted Gu Xinglang and Xiao Wei.

She quickly moved the two of them onto an iron cage and checked their faces and hands—any exposed skin—for signs of crawling worms. Finding none, she finally relaxed. If she hadn’t gotten here in time, those worms would’ve gotten them for sure.

The water continued to rise. The monster corpses sank, but the worms floated.

Since they lived in blood, they couldn’t drown. Seeing them draw nearer with the rising water, Yu Xiaoxiao released a bolt of lightning. It crackled and sparked as it hit the water.

The worms floating on the surface turned to ash in an instant.

She glanced at the monster corpses submerged below. With her sharp eyes, she confirmed they were dead. Not wasting time figuring out who had killed them, she wondered if any remaining worms still lurked inside. So she sent another bolt of lightning into the water.

The temperature soared, boiling the water. The monster corpses vaporized like the worms.

With the most pressing threat gone, Yu Xiaoxiao released a third bolt of lightning deep into the chamber. Just because she could withstand the sound waves didn’t mean she wanted to.

The large clock, mounted on a mechanism designed to ring at intervals, was shattered into countless pieces. They fell into the water with barely a splash.

With the chiming silenced, Yu Xiaoxiao held Gu Xinglang and called, “Xiao Gu?”

Gu Xinglang’s breathing was steady, but he remained unconscious.

Water splashed on his face, waking Xiao Wei. “Princess?” he gasped, startled when he saw her.

Yu Xiaoxiao still had her hand on his face. Concerned, she asked, “How do you feel? Any discomfort?”

Xiao Wei circulated his internal energy, then shook his head. “No injuries, Princess.”

“Do you feel anything crawling?” she asked again.

Xiao Wei’s memory flashed back to what he saw in the chamber—rows of monsters. His face went pale.

“Focus,” Yu Xiaoxiao grabbed his hand. “Don’t panic.”

He concentrated, then shook his head again.

“Then it’s fine,” she let go. “If those worms were in your blood vessels, you’d feel them moving.”

Still pale, Xiao Wei was startled again by the blood-covered Gu Xinglang. “What happened to the Prince Consort?!” he asked, reaching to check his breathing.

“He’s not hurt,” Yu Xiaoxiao told him. “That’s monster blood.” The medicinal smell mixed in told her as much.

“Monsters?” Xiao Wei looked around at the now-flooded chamber. In his memory, the room had been full of them. Now, none remained.

“Did you two run into anyone?” Yu Xiaoxiao asked him.