Chapter 13 Fire Princess Carry
Shoutout to nyanmaru for the commission!
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“Is anyone there? Is anyone there??”
Bang, bang, bang, bang. Five-year-old Little Shiyu was trapped in the elevator, banging on the door continuously with his little water gun.
He wanted to go to the third floor to get his water gun back. When the elevator reached the third floor:
Clunk!
Suddenly, it got stuck.
Little Shiyu pressed the open door button hard, but the elevator didn’t respond.
Click, click.
Standing on tiptoe, Little Shiyu pressed all the buttons on the elevator panel, and suddenly, inexplicably, the elevator started to ascend again.
Beep, beep!
The lights inside the elevator flickered as the circuit was burnt out, and then went out.
A burnt smell filled the elevator car.
Sensing trouble, Little Shiyu kept pounding on the door, trying to force it open—
Crash!
The ascending elevator paused for a second…
And then suddenly started descending!
It plummeted downward like a drop tower ride at an amusement park! Little Shiyu fell to the ground, clutching his head. The mirror on the ceiling of the elevator shook violently, almost falling down—
Bang!
The elevator got stuck again, this time between the second and third floors.
The lights went out, and the elevator was pitch black.
Little Shiyu was trapped alone in there. He dared not pound on the door anymore, so he could only tap rhythmically, hoping that other Little Xies passing by outside could hear…
Soon, a beam of light appeared outside.
Little Shiyu thought someone had come and pounded on the door even harder.
After a while, he realized that the door was getting hotter and hotter…
A wave of smoke came in through the gap under the door.
The light grew brighter and redder.
—It’s on fire!
The door gradually became scalding hot. Little Shiyu couldn’t use his hands to pound on it anymore, so he used his water gun instead.
The enclosed elevator burned in the raging fire, and the metal material on all sides heated up rapidly…
Rescue time remaining: 4 minutes.
Second floor.
Click—
With the wrench in hand, Chu Feng pried open the elevator door, creating a gap. He braced himself and pulled hard—
Flames gushed out!
Chu Feng dodged aside. The tongues of fire sprayed for a moment and then retracted, burning. Chu Feng endured the high temperature and looked into the elevator shaft—
Taking a glance almost suffocated him:
The elevator shaft was completely on fire, with the elevator above him, stuck between the second and third floors, just burning on top of the raging flames.
The square metal elevator car was like a live oven, with Little Shiyu trapped inside!
Chu Feng’s voice trembled slightly:
“Xie… Shiyu?”
No response.
The fierce flames stood between life and death.
Chu Feng immediately pulled out the pry bar and, ignoring the scorching heat, leaned his upper body into the elevator shaft to pry open the elevator car’s door.
The elevator was now stuck at around the 2.7th floor. After prying open the elevator car door, there would be a small gap, and if Little Shiyu was crouching down, he should be able to crawl through it. Chu Feng planned to escape with Little Shiyu from the second floor—
—If Little Shiyu was still alive.
Chu Feng couldn’t help but think:
At such a high temperature, if he saw a charred corpse after prying open the elevator car door…
Chu Feng took a deep breath.
Don’t think about this issue.
But uncontrollably, a warning floated into his mind:
“If a loved one dies in an accident, please do not upload them into Dream City. You will not gain any solace; you will only witness their death again and again, powerless.” – Player Forum
Chu Feng’s wrist trembled for a moment, then resolutely inserted the pry bar into the gap of the elevator door.
He didn’t witness, in reality, Xie Shiyu sitting on that plane, falling from the sky from tens of thousands of miles high; the flames engulfing Xie Shiyu in the cabin, burning every inch of his skin, until he turned into ashes in the deep Pacific Ocean.
— Such a scene might be replayed in Dream City, making him witness it firsthand.
The trauma of losing a loved one has never healed completely, and it’s being torn apart again. Even so, Chu Feng was unwilling to stop, like an endless thirst for poison.
Click! Click!!
As the pry bar was leveraged, Chu Feng exerted force…
— The elevator door won’t budge!
The elevator was positioned too high, and Chu Feng standing on the second floor found it difficult to apply force. With the fire burning in the elevator shaft, he was already at his limit sticking his head in; if he were to crawl in fully, he would probably be burned to death.
Chu Feng gasped for air and tried again. The oxygen in the tank was depleting rapidly, and soon a prompt came:
[Oxygen Remaining: 15%…12%…]
He was not a professional firefighter, and this was his first time facing such a massive fire.
In reality, Chu Feng’s knowledge of fires was limited to the hand-copied reports he made in elementary school and the fire drills in middle and high school. During recess, when the school sounded the wailing alarm, he and Xie Shiyu would chat while walking down the stairs, crouching together with their classmates on the playground. When the alarm stopped, they stood up and listened to the principal explaining the significance of our school’s fire drill…
Twenty-nine years of peace and prosperity, Chu Feng had never even opened a fire extinguisher.
Rescue time remaining: 3 minutes.
“Xie Shiyu!”
With only 9% of oxygen left, the pry bar inserted into the elevator car finally cracked open a tiny gap.
“…Chu Feng?”
Finally, Little Shiyu’s weak voice came from inside.
Chu Feng chuckled, “You should call me big brother.”
“I’m not calling you big brother.”
Chu Feng: “Are you okay? I’ll get you out right away…”
In the moment the elevator door was pried open, Chu Feng fell silent.
The metal interior of the elevator resembled a red-hot boiler in a steel mill. He saw that Little Shiyu’s shoe soles had melted, becoming a sticky gel stuck to the bottom of the elevator. Little Shiyu was afraid to move, trying hard to raise his feet to avoid the hot elevator floor from touching his skin…
5-year-old Little Shiyu was trapped in place, afraid that he would worry, so he told him:
“I’m fine.”
Under the scorching flames, the elevator’s hook, hidden from their sight, began to loosen…
The intense heat made it hard for Chu Feng to keep his eyes open. He took a step forward, exposing most of his body to the firelight in the elevator shaft, reaching out to Little Shiyu:
“Grab onto me!”
Little Shiyu could see that Chu Feng had put his whole body into the elevator shaft to save him, even though it was extremely dangerous, even with protective gear.
“You step back a bit.”
Enduring the heat, wearing melted shoes, Little Shiyu took a few steps forward and squatted down, so Chu Feng wouldn’t have to strain himself so much to rescue him.
Little Shiyu reached out his tiny hand through the gap in the elevator door…
Just a little more.
Rescue time remaining: 2 minutes.
Ignoring the scorching temperature, Chu Feng braced himself against the edge of the second floor’s elevator shaft, tiptoed, and stretched his arm…
Got it!
Chu Feng touched Little Shiyu’s small hand.
Just as the fingertips of the two hands touched, before they could grasp each other…
Click.
The hook on the elevator broke!
Crash—
In an instant, gravity pulled the elevator and everyone inside, all plummeting down! Into the crimson flames below…
Little Shiyu fell!
Chu Feng’s mind went blank—
In the next instant, he threw himself down as well, leaping into the searing flames!
—Chu Feng plummeted down the vertical elevator shaft, surrounded by flashes of electricity and sparks, with only 1% of oxygen left in his tank, dense smoke about to fill his nose and mouth…
Chu Feng wondered, which would come first, burning to death, suffocating to death, or falling to death?
When he reached the bottom, he could ask Xie Shiyu to guess too.
—Plummeting, plummeting!
The anticipated agony did not come crashing down on him.
It seems death isn’t so difficult after all, Chu Feng thought. When Xie Shiyu’s plane crashed, was it a similar feeling? It probably wouldn’t be too painful…
Eternal sleep in endless darkness was slow to come.
—Am I dead?
Chu Feng felt himself floating lightly in the air. A hand cradled his bent leg, holding him, letting him rest against a warm chest.
—Is this how the Yama of the underworld comes to claim souls?
Chu Feng opened his eyes.
“Don’t move.”
The hoarse voice echoed in his ears.
The man holding him was tall, wearing a dark gray cloak, with a silver spear spraying out fire extinguishing foam behind him, like white snowflakes fluttering all around, instantly bringing a chill as if winter had arrived, extinguishing the raging flames.
…X?
The faint glimmer of a spark reflected in his eyes, X looked down at Chu Feng and smiled:
“Not too late, am I?”
Chu Feng looked at X. They were in the elevator shaft on the ground floor, where X had instantly extinguished the surrounding fire. The charred elevator car and floor had already cooled down, and snowflake-like foam floated around. X was effortlessly supporting the extinguished elevator car with one hand, as casually as a waiter in a dessert shop holding a plate of cupcakes. The fallen Little Shiyu was lifted out of the elevator by X and was now lying on X’s back, looking displeased:
“…Chu Feng!”
Five-year-old Little Shiyu crawled over X’s shoulder and swiftly into Chu Feng’s arms, hooking his arms around Chu Feng’s neck, wanting a hug.
“It’s okay, it’s okay!”
Chu Feng hugged Little Shiyu tightly, gently patting his back, unsure if he was comforting the child or himself.
The ashes after the fire fell on Chu Feng’s eyelashes like the flying ashes of Qingming paper money. X saw the person in his arms holding onto the child tightly, eyes closed, not shedding tears, but with slight trembling shoulders.
Suddenly, X felt that this was the true vulnerability of the little beauty.
The last time the little beauty was practically bound by a bomb, yet they could still act nonchalant with him on the bus. But after losing this child, they were on the verge of collapse, even jumping down the elevator shaft without reason, as if committing suicide.
X was moved. He glanced at the five-year-old Little Shiyu and asked:
“Your child?”
Chu Feng: “…”
X: “Doesn’t look much like you.”
Chu Feng: “…………”
Little Shiyu reached out and hit X:
“Don’t you dare hold him!”
X blinked innocently: “His leg is injured.”
Little Shiyu lowered his head and saw the long cut on Chu Feng’s thigh, possibly from being scraped by a metal strip in the elevator shaft during the fall.
Little Shiyu frowned, and Chu Feng quickly hugged him: “I’m fine, just a scratch.”
X held Chu Feng and his “child,” stepping on the scorched ground, walking out of the ground floor’s entrance.
The fire on the second and third floors was still raging behind them, turning into a sea of crimson flames, with black smoke billowing up into the sky.
Seventy high-pressure water guns were set up on the kindergarten playground.
X passed by, the wind lifting his clothes as he waved his hand—
Sizzle sizzle sizzle!
Seventy high-pressure water guns automatically sprayed water towards the kindergarten, rushing down like a torrential rain…
Three Little Shiyus anxiously waited in a small grove 500 meters away from the kindergarten, waiting and waiting…
Until a stranger emerged from the sea of fire, holding Chu Feng!
— in a princess carry!!
Beep—
Chu Feng received a notification in his ear: [Little Xie Illustrated Handbook] reminds you:
[Red Hat Little Xie]
[Squeaky Shoes Little Xie]
[Popsicle Little Xie]
Mood value -4
Chu Feng: …
As they walked into the small grove, the five-year-old Little Shiyus rushed over, Chu Feng broke free from X’s embrace, crouched down, and opened his arms to the little Shiyus. The Little Shiyus, with their short legs, bounced into Chu Feng’s arms one by one:
“Chu Feng! Chu Feng! Chu Feng!”
Chu Feng: “Call me Older Brother Chu Feng.”
The four Little Shiyus unanimously replied: “No!”
The Little Xie holding the water gun pushed the Squeaky Shoes Little Xie aside: “You move, you’re crowding me!”
“You should move! Chu Feng just held you for so long, his arms must be sore!”
“Okay, okay.” Chu Feng smiled and hugged the four little dumplings. The five-year-old Little Shiyus were adorable, with soft hands and faces, staying by his side healthily and lively, bringing heavenly happiness.
X stood behind Chu Feng, watching for a while, unable to help but ask, sounding somewhat surprised:
“You… gave birth to four?”
“…”
Chu Feng rolled his eyes in his heart, too lazy to explain.
The Red Hat Little Xie snorted and buried his little head in Chu Feng’s neck, asking:
“Who’s this weird uncle?”
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