Tales of Aegiceras: Cave in

18. The Fire (6)

Translator: Superbomb

Lu Xia nodded hard. He then grabbed Sun Zheng by the arm and rose to his feet. However, as soon as he had just stood up, he felt dizzy, as if he were choked on the smoke.

The two of them had no choice but to immediately fall to the floor. They exchanged glances, feeling both funny and anxious.

His sense of reason told Sun Zheng that he was doing something crazy that he had never done before: crawling forward in an invisible fire.

If he could maintain his previous rationality and critical spirit, he would insist on staying here to see if this enigmatical burning sensation had anything to do with the fire that broke out that night.

However, driven by his instinct and the guy beside him, he was crawling to the door in a clumsy manner.

“As long as Liu Qunfang opens the door, we can get out!” Lu Xia was chocked badly and he couldn’t utter a word, so he could only express himself by changing the shape of his mouth.

Sun Zheng nodded. He could understand what he meant without looking at his mouth.

But as if he suddenly thought of something, he stopped moving forward.

Lu Xia looked back at him with a confused look.

Sun Zheng spoke with difficulty, “Then, what will we see… when the door opens?”

Would it be Liu Qunfang who had pushed the door open and rushed in?

Lu Xia froze for a moment and then changed the shape of his mouth again. “You won’t see anything… Just close your eyes… and rush out.”

Biting his lip, Sun Zheng moved on to the floor following Lu Xia, but he felt increasingly more hesitant.

He couldn’t tell if he was afraid of something.

People always fear the unknown.

He was just one step away from the door when a sudden click ringing before a gust of chill wind blew in.

With a solemn look, Lu Xia immediately pulled Sun Zheng up.

In a daze, Sun Zheng almost lost his balance. He hadn’t fully realized what was happening yet.

“Close your eyes!” A hand covered his eyes. Before he could react, he felt a hard push from behind, and then the hand over his eyes was moved away.

The door was open and he stumbled out of the room with his eyes closed.

Instantly, he felt a chill deep to the bones.

As if his body had gone numb, he almost fell to the floor.

Then he heard a loud bang coming from behind.

Coming back to his senses, he held against the wall and turned around.

He froze on the spot as if he was struck dumb again.

The door had been closed and Lu Xia was still in the room!

“Lu Xia! Lu Xia!” When Sun Zheng realized what had happened, he started slapping the scalding door.

From inside came a faint cough.

“Lu Xia!” Sun Zheng tried to grab the knob on the door, but it was too hot, so he had to withdraw his hand. Gritting his teeth, he suddenly grabbed the scalding knob again and turned it, but it seemed the door had been locked.

He then moved sideways and banged against the door. To his disappointment, the door shook, but it didn’t open.

The surroundings were filled with endless darkness and only the sound of the door creaking echoed throughout the corridor on the 4rth floor.

What to do?

Sun Zheng was filled with despair for the moment.

‘What should Lu Xia do? How come I’m the only one who came out?’

“Lu Xia, can you hear me?” Sun Zheng shouted with all his strength.

“You’re shouting so loudly… Of course, I can hear you,” the one who was speaking inside seemed to be joking, but his voice sounded kind of feeble.

“Wait a minute! I’ll find a way to open this door!” When Sun Zheng heard Lu Xia’s voice, he felt a little relieved.

“Scholar Sun, why are you so brainless at this moment?” the person inside seemed to be speaking close to the door.

Sun Zheng also stuck to the door. “What are you talking about? What do you mean?”

Lu Xia knocked on the door from inside. Sensing that he was lying with his stomach on the floor, Sun Zheng squatted down.

“Have you ever played a game?”

“What?” Sun Zheng was both anxious and angry. How come Lu Xia was still in the mood for a joke at this critical moment!

“We are now like two people who entered the game world. Everything around us… cough… cough… We feel like we’re touching something real, but it’s not…” It seemed to be increasingly difficult for Lu Xia to make a sound.

Sun Zheng was in no mood to listen to him talking nonsense. He scanned around, trying to find something to pry open the door. However, his heart sank when he saw nothing except for the pitch-dark corridor.

“Listen!” Lu Xia slapped the door from inside as if he had figured out what was on Sun Zheng’s mind. “We are in the cavern now. Once anything in the past starts to repeat itself at a specific time, what we meet and see is what was happening in the past. If the door was not opened in the past, it will never be opened. People who appeared in the past will show up here from time to time. If we encounter them, we have only our own bad luck to blame. So…”

“So there’s no way that we can open the door?” Sun Zheng said grumpily. “I don’t know where did you pick up these weird theories. I’ll go find a tool to open the door right now. Hold on!”

With that, he rose to his feet.

Lu Xia seemed to be anxious too. He slammed the door with all his strength while shouting, “Don’t run around!!”

Turning a deaf ear to what he said, Sun Zheng racked his brains with his chest heaving violently, trying to find a way to open the door.

In the pitch-dark space, he felt as if he were not standing in a corridor, but in the most pristine wilderness, surrounded by the undercurrents.

Apart from darkness, he could see nothing.

The chill around him made him tense.

Where could he find a tool? What could he do to get Lu Xia out?

What if… What if Lu Xia couldn’t come out?

He dared not think about it anymore.

He, who had been unwilling to accept reality, was now enveloped by the fear and confusion of hitherto unknown.

All of this was beyond his understanding.

“Zheng…” Lu Xia’s voice came from behind the door again. “Listen, don’t turn off the torch and go find the next safe place! It’s better if one of us can get out than both of us are stuck here… Don’t run around, because you don’t know what you’ll meet… Did you hear me?”

Sun Zheng managed to calm down. Clenching his fists, he walked deeper into the corridor.

Leaning against the door, Lu Xia felt his skin parched, and he was short of breath.

There was no response from the one outside, so he didn’t know if Sun Zheng had heard his last sentence.

‘There’s no way that I can get out of here… Zheng, try your best to escape…’

Only he himself knew why he failed to get out of the room just now. As soon as he had realized the door was open, he pushed Sun Zheng out of the room. Unfortunately, he forgot to close his eyes.

He froze on the spot and couldn’t move a step further. Yes, it was impossible that he could step over that “thing”!

He couldn’t tell what he had seen. Was it Liu Qunfang who had pushed the door open and rushed in? While pondering, he couldn’t stop his right hand from shaking.

He knew that if he was stuck here all along, he would eventually become like all the others who had disappeared.

Had they ever, like him, been constantly looking for a way out of this hospital, struggling in this abyss-like predicament, constantly seeing the last scene in this world and those things… Would he end up exhausted like all the people in the cavern, and repeated day after day what he was doing before he stumbled into it?

That was not bad! Sun Zheng had been watching him play with the phone when it suddenly went dark around them.

But Sun Zheng still had a chance to escape.

He was just afraid that Sun Zheng might not be able to face such a situation. He didn’t know what else was waiting for Sun Zheng in this big and dark hospital.

Could he get out on his own?

Lu Xia felt even more suffocated, and the burning sensation started to spread all over his body.

He seemed to have heard a woman crying bitterly outside the door.

He had no time to think about it anymore. Leaning against the door, he sensed that the door leaf was shaking slightly. If it was not Sun Zheng who was hitting the door, it might be that vicious woman…

But what was she crying for?

Where was Sun Zheng now?

With a trace of a bitter smile on his stiffening face, Lu Xia lifted his right hand with difficulty. At this time, he still couldn’t help but worry about Sun Zheng! He struggled to lift his right hand and reach inside his pocket.

Right at this moment, the door shivered even more violently, as if someone were slapping it desperately.

It was useless!

In a trance, Lu Xia suddenly felt a chilly wind scratching his face. When he looked up, he froze on the spot.

How lucky he was to have seen this twice a day!

This was what on his mind for the moment.

Next, the door behind him suddenly opened, causing him to fall out of the room.

He was instantly sobered up by the cool and fresh air.

In spite of the burning pain in his feet, with his last bit of strength, he hurriedly moved out a little bit. Now his whole body was totally outside of the TCM Department! To His surprise, the door closed again with a bang!

Lying on the floor, exhausted, Lu Xia looked at the darkness overhead, lost in thought again.

“Lu, Lu Xia?” Not far from him, another person was gasping. He stared at him in shock while shining the torch on his face.

Lu Xia turned his head and forced a smile. “This door… is so miraculous…”

Sun Zheng ran over quickly and helped Lu Xia up. With a mixed feeling, he asked, “You… How did you come out?”

Lu Xia blinked at him. “Guess!”

“Come on!” Sun Zheng was both angry and amused. Halfway through his words, he widened his eyes, as if he suddenly thought of something. “Could it be… I really…”

“What are you talking about?” Propping on the floor with one hand and grabbed Sun Zheng with the other, Lu Xia sat up. “Now I know what happened.”

Sun Zheng looked at him in surprise, waiting for his explanation.

Lu Xia turned off the torch and asked, “Do you know why Chen Juan went upstairs on the night of the fire?”

“She knew that Liu Qunfang had found out about her secret, so she went upstairs to find her mother and her child.”

“That’s right. When she reached the 4th floor, her mother and the baby had probably fallen asleep. To her consternation, she found that the room was on fire, but the door was locked from inside.” Lu Xia said with his face twisted with pain.

Sun Zheng’s face lit up instantly. “Now you know that it wasn’t Chen Juan who set fire to kill them, nor did she lock the door?”

“Yes, I did misjudge Chen Juan.” Lu Xia admitted his mistake honestly. “When Chen Juan arrived, the room was already on fire. She slapped the door desperately, trying to wake up her mother and the baby, who were sleeping inside.”

“How did you find out?” asked Sun Zheng.

“I heard her… For no reason, I heard her voice. She didn’t give up and kept slapping the door, but we ignored that. Liu Qunfang also heard her. I didn’t think carefully about what Liu Qunfang said before she rushed into the door.”

“She’s here! She’s here!” Sister Qunfang shouted excitedly, “She’s crying, she’s crying…”

“Mommy, or the baby?” Sister Qunfang suddenly threw the torch away. “Chen Juan, Chen Juan…”

“When Chen Juan’s mother woke up with a start, she found that they were surrounded by fire. As the door was locked from inside, her daughter was desperately trying to save them outside.”

“What does she mean when Liu Qunfang said ‘Mommy or the baby’?” Sun Zheng asked.

Moving a little, Lu Xia answered, “That’s mean Chen Juan had to make a choice. If you can only save one of them, will you save your mother or your child?”

Freezing for a moment, Sun Zheng asked back, “Why can’t both be saved?”

“Because…” Lu Xia revealed a bitter look in the darkness. “The fire had reached her mother’s knees and she couldn’t move anymore. As the fire was so intense, if she carried her baby out, she had no time to save her mother; and if it was the other way around, the baby would definitely die.”

Sun Zheng looked at Lu Xia in shock. “How did you know?”

“Because I saw it.”

“What?!” Sun Zheng could not believe Lu Xia’s words at all.

“If you were Chen Juan, how would you choose?” Lu Xia looked up and asked Sun Zheng.

“Me? I…” Sun Zheng became hesitant.

Lu Xia smiled uneasily. “You don’t have to choose at all.”

“Why?”

“Because your mother will make the choice for you!” Lu Xia moved his “injured” feet again as if he wanted to see if he could stand up. “Even if your mother is on fire, she will hold your child firmly in her arms. In spite of the burning pain all over, she will climb to the door, open it with all her strength, and push the baby out. So that you won’t risk going in to save her, she will shut the door…”

The torch in Sun Zheng’s hand suddenly fell to the floor.

Lu Xia pointed at himself and continued, “That’s why I had a narrow escape.”

“You saw everything?” Sun Zheng still couldn’t believe it. “You really saw it in the darkness? What did you see?”

Lu Xia shook his head and said, “You won’t want to know.”

As if he was moved, Sun Zheng let out a sigh.

Lu Xia patted him on the shoulder and said, “There’s no ghost bearing grudges in this room, and there’s only a mother who has no regrets as well as another mother and her daughter who entered the cavern with great regret.”

“No, there are two people who have no regrets,” Sun Zheng corrected him, his eyes shining in the darkness.

Lu Xia didn’t say anything as if he had lost in thought.

The two of them remained silent for a long time. At this moment, the silent hospital didn’t feel so suffocating as it had been just now.