"This floor is easier since it doesn't have the vibrations in the first room." Xu Fuyan pushed open the door and plunged his sword into the ground as a door stopper. He and Qin Feng carried the unconscious man inside.
Floor 79 looked identical to floor 80—the same walls of shelves, the same chandelier, and the same sofa with milk and biscuits. Besides the absence of vibrations and roars, as well as the additional scattered journals and writings on the floor, it was impossible to differentiate the two.
"Let's rest for a bit." Qin Feng sat on the sofa and closed his eyes. Punla, managing to escape Xu Fuyan's bosom, jumped off him and ran towards Qin Feng. He reached his leg and climbed. Seeing this, Qin Feng helped him to his lap and let the little guy sleep with him.
"Is there a way to get him back to his right size?" Xu Yuhan poked Punla in the cheek. Punla grumbled and swatted his finger away, and went back to napping. He lay in his curled-up position, snoring along the way. Seeing that he was ignored, Xu Yuhan went to the door, took back his sword, and pushed it back into its sheath.
Qin Feng thought back to the public domain story of Alice in Wonderland and wondered if the biscuit would contradict the milk and make Punla big again. He turned to look at the table, grabbed a biscuit, and shook Punla awake. "Eat this."
Punla hummed and rubbed his eyes. He took the biscuit and bit it. He chewed and swallowed and went back to sleeping.
The changes were fast. Punla grew bit by bit. Qin Feng finally felt that rewatching cartoon shows as a 20-year-old was worth it. Though there was a problem with the transformation.
"Oh, a baby." Xu Fuyan moved closer, wanting to pinch Punla's cheeks, only for the other to bite his finger. "I don't know what I did to offend him."
Punla transformed into a 1 year old baby. His clothes changed into a cute little pink onesie. His skin was white and smooth like mochi; even Qin Feng had the illusion of wanting to bite it. His cheeks were puffed and pink, and his little hands were balled up. He was like the reincarnation of Buddha as a baby, fat and white.
A sudden feeling rose in Qin Feng's heart. He pushed his index finger to the little balled-up hand of the baby, and the sleeping baby unconsciously grabbed his finger and held it.
Qin Feng smiled and let out a sigh. It felt like everything in the world was as it should be. Like this was the feeling he was looking for for thousands of years. The sensation made him feel complete.
"Is this what fatherhood feels like?"
Xu Yuhan looked at their connected fingers and laughed with him.
The other person lying down stirred. He grunted and opened his eyes.
Qin Feng was the first person to see him wake up and immediately stood up and walked towards him. He didn't forget to hand the little guy in his arms to Xu Yuhan. To which Xu Yuhan tried to play, but was ignored.
He kneeled down and checked the man's injury. All his cuts looked healed, thanks to Xu Yuhan's ointment that came from the world of magic. His arm looked fine, but his legs looked a bit swollen.
"Are you alright?" Xu Yuhan asked for Qin Feng.
The man squinted his eyes and tried to acclimate to the light. "I'm fine." He touched his arm and leg. "Where am I?"
"Floor 79." Qin Feng answered. "We saw you unconscious on the stairs. What-" Qin Feng stopped before the headache formed.
The man saw this and gave him the answer he was looking for. "I solved the floor above. The injury is from there."
"Floor 80? How did you get injured? Like someone fought with you." Xu Yuhan was suspicious. "Could we have different floor challenges?"
The man shook his head. "You solved it wrong." He stood up and ignored the pain radiating in his leg. "All floors are like that."
Xu Yuhan's eyes twitched. He snorted at the statement, feeling a rivalry forming in his heart. "Really?"
Qin Feng noticed the rising rivalry and found it stupid. He mumbled an insult that neither side heard. "Childish." But he agrees with the man's statement that they solved the room incorrectly. He missed a lot of information when Xu Yuhan told him everything he needed to do.
The milk and biscuit appearing in the first room seemed to be important, and the quote from the little prince could be leading them to something. But with Xu Yuhan thinking that his first try was correct, he couldn't say anything… not that he wanted to anyway.
The new man turned to Qin Feng and saw a kindred spirit. "I'm Amos. I was a wildlife photographer before all this. I'm now working as - " He scratched his head and frowned. "A Janitor."
Qin Feng nodded and placed his hand on the other's shoulder. "I'm Qin Feng, a marine biologist… now I'm a cleaning lady."
The two silently lit a candle for each other. They shook hands while one tear dripped down from one eye.
6 years of education wasted upon the arrival of these monstrosities. They both were living a relatively normal life, playin- I mean working with animals. They both have a foothold in their field, earning enough money to live a carefree but not too lavish lifestyle. Now they are both forced to do cleaning work, which neither of them has experience in.
Seeing this, Xu Yuhan couldn't help but feel a knot in his throat.
"Why cleaning lady though?" Amos asked. A janitor position would make more sense than a cleaning lady. This implies that the other person does more meticulous work than just maintenance… also that they are a lady. "A 'cleaner' title would have been enough."
"Transphobia?" Qin Feng stated. "Though I'm not really."
Amos stared at him and raised his brows. "Either way. It's just funny for a grown man to have a cleaning lady title." He laughed. "I think those things still have a long way to go to understand us humans."
Qin Feng hummed in agreement. "I did notice how in-depth their knowledge about us is, but I can't tell if the issues are because they know too much or too little," He stated. "It feels like they're playing house."
"How about we solve this room first," Xu Yuhan stated. He frowned, looking at the immediate connection forming between Amos and Qin Feng. "Afterwards, we can say everything we know about this E.N.D. thing."
To Xu Yuhan, the connection between the two looked instant, and his and Qin Feng's were barely there. Qin Feng was mostly silent when he was with him, letting him talk most of the time. He kept to himself and never spoke about what he was thinking. But the moment he and Amos saw each other, they were like best buds already.
If Qin Feng were to hear his inner thoughts, he could have explained the reason.
Both he and Amos came from the same world. Although it might not be the same, the difference was minuscule. They both work with animals and share the same love for them. One showed his love by studying them, and one showed it by preserving their beauty and sharing it with the world. Amos also noticed that Qin Feng felt that Xu Yuhan missed the obvious and knew that had Qin Feng been alone, he would have been beaten and battered as him.
The two were cut from the same jade. Distinctly different yet the same. If the E.N.D. had not come, the two of them would still meet. Though not the same person, but their own version in their worlds.
Probably the only reason why Xu Yuhan liked Qin Feng more than Amos was that Qin Feng never talked back.
Qin Feng mostly just goes with the flow, and with the rules imposed on him, he couldn't really ask what was going on. Xu Yuhan missed a lot of things he noticed, and Qin Feng didn't want to voice them out since the other already formed their own beliefs.
The group turned back to solving the new room. Xu Yuhan placed the sleeping Punla on the sofa and let the little guy slumber properly.
"The Paper tells us how to leave. Xu Yuhan stacked the scattered papers and handed them to Qin Feng.
The papers had a yellow tinge on the corners, and the edges had been crinkled and folded, showing their age. The stack wasn't thick, but the folds on the papers makedit so the stack looked thick. On the papers were broken symbols and images.
Qin Feng filed through them and saw one paper with writing in it and not symbols.
"It learned how to leave." Qin Feng read the words on the paper with one brow lifted.
Amos moved closer to him and read the words too. "It?"
Qin Feng shook his head. "All the other papers were just drawings." He looked back at the papers and stared at the broken images. "They seem to connect..."
Xu Yuhan interjected with more information. "There's a drawer in this shelf locked with a code. The code is in the journal in the shelf to the left." He pointed at the drawer on the right shelf, then the shelf to the left.
Amos walked to where Xu Yuhan was pointing and found an old brown journal. He leaned on the shelf of books as he read through the journal. Xu Yuhan, seeing all these, proceeded to explain what he read from the journal as well.
According to the journal, there was a god that ruled over the Kingdom named Heipao. This God created the land, the people, and gave them a world on par with heaven. A beautiful land. But its people who trapped him.
"The person who wrote the journal wants to set the god free." Xu Yuhan explained. "That person went missing before he set the god free, and now we're going to have to do it." He smiled at Qin Feng and added. "In a way, we could be the trapped god that needs to escape as well."
Qin Feng nodded. It seemed straightforward and also showed that Xu Yuhan has done his research. "Then we need to find a way for this god to be released." He remembered a story in which a whole nation trapped their own god for their own use. No matter how many good things you give to people, they would want more.
A classic case of given an inch wanting a yard.
"Huh…" Amos read the journal again and again. He handed it to Qin Feng and let the other see what was in the journal. "Take a look." He looked at Xu Yuhan with a massive frown on his face, looking at him as if he were a dead man. He rolled his eyes at Xu Yuhan, refusing to acknowledge his behaviour.
Qin Feng read through the journal. His brows furrowed with each page turn. "Odd."
"What is?" Xu Yuhan's dark face returned to normal as he turned to Qin Feng.
"The dates are weird."
Amos nodded. "They're not chronologically correct. Someone bound them incorrectly." He paused to look at the previous papers that were on the ground. "This could mean two things: one is that those ugly things made a mistake and didn't understand how numbers work. This sounds far-fetched but still possible. The other is that this was also a puzzle."
"You think those things are smart enough to make something like this?" Xu Yuhan proceeded to fight with Amos.
"We can't say for sure. But they are intelligent." He raised his brows and smiled as Xu Yuhan. "Enough to fool the young Immortal."
Continuing to ignore the tension, Qin Feng said as he read through the pages. "There are numbers on the page." He looked at Xu Yuhan. "Is this for the drawer?"
Xu Yuhan nodded. "I've put the code before, and the doors opened. So it is the right answer." He glared at Amos. "At the very least, more correct than not having an answer at all."
Amos rolled his eyes and proceeded to sit next to the sleeping Punla.
Even in his sleep, Punla never forgets to hurt anyone who is near him, except for Qin Feng. He kicked Amos's leg, making the other wince in pain. "Why do you hate me? I've never done anything to you."