Chapter 294: [Unswerving Devotion] Escaping Back to the Xu Manor
These birds appeared grotesque and twisted in form.
They were likely modeled after the Biyi birds, for they sprouted a wing only on one side, while human arms remained on the other.
Grasping Xu Taotao tightly, Bai Cha sprinted forward while executing her skill for a second time.
“They are seeing illusions.”
[System Prompt: Lie has taken effect. Duration: 10 seconds.]
“Go!”
Bai Cha and Xu Taotao charged forward using every ounce of their strength.
Ten seconds elapsed in the blink of an eye, yet they had arrived merely ten steps away from the main entrance.
However, those heavy main doors were swinging shut slowly.
With a sudden, violent shove, Bai Cha threw Xu Taotao out.
Xu Taotao tumbled directly through the doors, rolling a considerable distance across the ground, left so bruised and battered she couldn’t even stand up for quite a while.
By the time she raised her head once more, only a gap the width of a single person remained of the doors.
Bai Cha had sprinted up to the doors as well, looking as though she could step out in the next instant.
Yet the bird monsters behind had snapped back to their senses, charging toward Bai Cha at lightning speed.
In merely a single split second, a wing swept horizontally toward Bai Cha’s back.
In all probability, if this blow landed, Bai Cha might be finished.
Yet Bai Cha’s silhouette vanished in the exact moment before the wing made contact.
A mirror fell to the floor.
Staring with wide eyes at this scene, Xu Taotao held zero time to let out a breath of relief, reaching out her hand instantly.
A slender vine sprouted rapidly from her palm, coiling tightly around the mirror on the floor before the flock of birds could react.
A bird monster extended its claws, intending to stomp the mirror to pieces.
Clenching her teeth, Xu Taotao mobilized virtually every shred of strength she could muster. Unaware of how to wield this power, she knew only that every ounce of her will was focused onto this single point right now.
Faster, I must be faster! I absolutely cannot allow that mirror to be stomped to pieces!
The vine of the Dodder Vine retracted into her body at an incredible, almost unbelievable speed.
Grabbing the mirror in one hand, Xu Taotao scrambled to her feet quickly, sprinting toward home in a disheveled flurry.
Fortunately, those bird monsters didn’t pursue her outside.
The doors of Biyi Tower had slammed shut.
Yet piercing bird screeches echoed continuously from within.
The sound proved inexplicably tragic and sharp; paired with the frigid wind and winter snow at this hour, it sounded like a signal of death.
Xu Taotao sprinted a long distance in one breath, until she genuinely couldn’t catch her breath due to severe physical exhaustion and found her legs unable to take another step. Staggering twice, she halted against a wall for support.
She collapsed directly onto the ground, completely devoid of any graceful posture.
“Sister… are you alright?” Xu Taotao panted heavily, looking at the mirror in her hand, discovering that the mirror failed to reflect a human face.
Yet after she spoke, Bai Cha’s face surfaced across the mirror, accompanied by a malevolent female ghost with bleeding eyes behind her, scaring Xu Taotao so badly her hand trembled.
“Place the mirror on the ground,” Bai Cha said.
Following her instructions, Xu Taotao set the mirror onto the ground, which was already carpeted in a layer of snow.
Bai Cha thereupon crawled out from within the mirror.
Xu Taotao stepped forward instantly to embrace her. Though her entire body shuddered violently due to physical collapse, perhaps those shudders stemmed from the fear and worry she had just endured as well.
“Scared me half to death… why did you push me out…”
She broke into tears.
Sitting on the ground as well, Bai Cha patted her gently, saying, “The situation was urgent back then. I could enter the mirror, but you might not have been able to.”
If the two of them entered together, Zhao Xiaoai’s present power didn’t appear sufficient to support them both.
Thus, Bai Cha had thrown her out first.
Yet in truth, this remained extraordinarily risky; if the mirror were shattered, her body would still be ejected out.
Her thought at the time, however, was that if the mirror were shattered and she were ejected out, she could make a sprint outward, perhaps managing to step straight out of Biyi Tower directly.
That was an operation holding an extraordinarily high difficulty coefficient, predicated on the premise that those bird monsters wouldn’t step outside from within.
She simply hadn’t anticipated that Xu Taotao could wield Dodder Vines.
That was clearly merely a seed planted inside her; if real power existed, it belonged to Xu Taotao herself.
So were Xu Taotao and herself truly the exact same person?
Most importantly, even she held zero means to retract Dodder Vines that had already been deployed—released energy couldn’t be reclaimed.
Yet Xu Taotao had accomplished it.
The Dodder Vines had returned inside her body, as though they had never manifested at all.
Bai Cha stared at the drifting snow overhead, sitting on the ground alongside Xu Taotao, waiting silently for her physical endurance to recover.
After a good while had passed, they supported each other to stand up.
Tragic, sharp bird screeches continued to echo from within Biyi Tower, sounding utterly tragic beyond human endurance.
This cast a pervasive shroud of ominous aura over the entire city.
“Come, let’s head back first.”
Bai Cha held full clarity that this in all probability implied massive trouble lay ahead.
Yet by that same token, the deeper elements of this instance were bound to be laid bare as well.
Nodding, Xu Taotao walked with slow, hesitant steps toward the back door of their home alongside her.
Perhaps owing to the bird screeches from Biyi Tower, everyone in the Xu household currently gathered in the front courtyard, for Biyi Tower could be seen clearly from the front courtyard.
That building towered extraordinarily high—taller than every structure in this city—allowing every household to view it from their own courtyards.
Thus, Xu Taotao and Bai Cha returned without alarming a single person.
Thereafter, Bai Cha had Xu Taotao lie on the bed to sleep.
“What about you?”
“You sleep first. Once you wake up, I’ll sleep, just in case.”
Xu Taotao knew full well that if Bai Cha were discovered, she would bounds to be treated as some sort of monster or specter.
Particularly given that they seemed to have stirred up trouble today—no, that couldn’t be called stirring up trouble.
Recalling the City Lord and the scenes inside Biyi Tower witnessed today, Xu Taotao harbored doubts regarding this world.
So the world she inhabited held these strange, fantastical occurrences all along?
Holding zero time to ponder anything further, her physical exhaustion drove her into a groggy, deep sleep.
Exhausted as well, Bai Cha thought for a moment and crawled beneath the bed.
She still needed to get some sleep while nothing was amiss for the moment, though it proved rather cold.
As her consciousness steadily sank, the white butterfly wing pinned to her hair shuddered subtly.
The “Dream Butterfly” prop held zero special utility, remaining pinned atop Bai Cha’s head all along.
Bai Cha basically overlooked the Dream Butterfly for the most part, yet she constantly felt that the Dream Butterfly might hold utility in reality as well, for she had dreamed of past memories in reality multiple times already.
And at this moment, she entered a dreamscape.
Inside the dream, her younger self stood in the dead of a pitch-black, snowy night.
Numerous eyes surrounded her.
Those eyes were clearly pitch-black as well, blending into the dark night, yet they allowed one to perceive with crystal clarity that they were individual eyes.
They were observing her.
Bai Cha experienced a monumental sense of terror.
That form of terror was something she had never tasted before.
She wanted to utter a cry to call for help, only to discover her tongue had been severed by someone.
Curling herself up in the snow, a bone-chilling coldness seeped continuously into her marrow.
Bai Cha woke up from the freezing chill.
Opening her eyes, drowsiness remained present, even urging her to close her eyes once more, yet Bai Cha held zero desire to close her eyes again—it was far too cold—so she could only force her eyes open, staring at the bedboards above her head.
And then, she caught the sound of footsteps.
