Chapter 91 - The Institute (32)

"....."

Chu Yi, who had all along been speaking softly to the two suddenly silenced, immediately prompting the vigilant Tang Shun to glance back at him,

Something was off....

Chu Yi's focus had been torn away from the hauntingly beautiful painting and fixed onto his own hands, gazing intently at his curled fingers, 

His eyes fettered with an gloomy overcast, the tranquility beneath shattering like a broken mirror– under the watchful gaze of the two, droplets of crystalline, red blood suddenly oozed from the cicada thin cut that unbeknownst to them had been sliced deeply into the snow white fingertips!

Slowly, the warm blood slid down his fingers in a winding scarlet trail that left sharp numbing tingling appearing at the root of his fingertips,

Tang Shun instantly frowned in confusion,

Chu Yi, watched without much reaction as the blood stained his pale fingertips in it's breath, quickly pooling at the base of his fingers and continuing its travel down the fine lines of his arm.

Then dripped onto the floor in glaring, red pools.

Hugh––

Chu Yi exhaled softly and slowly clenched his fist, the crimson blood squeezing from the cracks between his fingers and dyeing his nails a charming red.

Chao Bin sensitively noticed the changes in the atmosphere and wanted to quickly move towards them–

Nevertheless, he had only gotten a few steps when suddenly he yelped in sharp pain, dozens of bloody crisscross lines appearing beneath the white color of his shirt.

Tentatively, he tried to take a step back but was immediately caught off guard by the feeling of countless, delicate soft knives thinly slicing away at the skin of his legs!

"Fuck–"

Chao Bin's face distorted in pain, a soft hissing appearing at the back of his throat, blood oozing from his chest and legs in a blinding red cascade.

The wounds were shallow, almost as if they had been cut by countless thin wires, however the pain itself felt like millions of tiny fire ants crawling into his veins and setting his body ablaze with their scalding venom! 

The motionless Tang Shun was the only one unharmed but his brows had since furrowed into deep gullies as he squinted at the air before him,

In the dim overhead light, he could faintly make out thin luminescent lines that glittered with a flickering white dust, the lines themselves were as thin as a butterflies wing and covered the entire room in what resembled a spider–like pattern.

Nevertheless, the wires, although fine were extremely sharp and durable, no matter where they turned they would not be able to escape being turned into sieves by them.

There was no prior warning to this situation and in a short time, Tang Shun could not think of a suitable way to escape, even ducking would prove futile as the wires ran vertically parallel to the ground, 

They were trapped in place in an inescapable wiry prison.

"Maybe try burning it?"

Chao Bin who had gradually suppressed the itching pain, suggested first. As the wires were thin with the likeness of spider silk– something that was made of protein and was therefore highly flammable, maybe the fire would spread and burn the other wires,

Tang Shun accepted the idea, pulled out a lighter and flicked it under the line closest to him,

Almost instantly a faint putrid smell that resembled rotten eggs that had been left out for a month erupted from the spot where the flame burst!

Tang Shun who was the closest, immediately burst into choked coughs, the smoke felt like a strange gelatinous liquid traveling down his throats and he couldn't help but wave his hands with the sudden onslaught of disgust, even the burning red lines that appeared on his hands couldn't wash away the sick feeling in his chest.

The action was futile in any case and so were the flames, as aside from the nastly odor, the lines were unharmed.

Chu Yi who had mostly been silence at this time, suddenly made an unexpected move, he stepped forward– was this purposely asking for pain....

But before Chao Bin's face could settle in shock, he quickly noticed that something was different, Chu Yi was unscathed!

Huh?

"Are we already released?"

Before Chu Yi could speak, Chao Bin's limbs moved faster than his brain, and he took a step forward–

"Ow!!"

Another glaring red line appeared on his leg instantly, deeper than before, the blood trickling down pass his ankles to create a faint bloody red footprint underneath his shoe,

Tang Shun stared at him with some helplessness, and suppressed the laughter in his throat, then turned to look at where Chu Yi had moved,

It was only then did he recognize that in front of Chu Yi there seemed to a faintly outlined white grid with the letter one drawn in the middle of it, just wide enough for them to stand.

This was obviously a safe space,

When Chu Yi experimentally tried to take another step forward, he was instantly carved by the wires, 

It looked like they were still limited in their steps.

Tang Shun looked down at his feet and saw two golden grids drawn at his feet and in a flash of inspiration, he jumped with both feet into the grid,

He wasn't cut by the wires, this obviously meant that they were to take turns.

Chao Bin watched them move and exclaimed excitedly after a minute, "Isn't this just like those children games that we used to play."

"Hopscotch right?"

In Hopscotch, the grids are connected along a vertical forward direction, generally marked with numbers 1 to 9 respectively. Among them, the grid with 4 and the grid with 5 are horizontally placed side by side, the grids with 7 and 8 are also side by side, and all other grids are separately drawn in rows, fall together along a straight line.

Chu Yi stared at the grids below him, faintly feeling that is was more than that, 

Chao Bin took a step forward immediatrly when the grids appeared, nothing happened..

Then it was time for Chu Yi's turn again, but this time the minute his feet landed on both of the grids, Chu Yi instantly felt a scalding hot pain traveling from the tips of his feet to every part of his body!

The grid was burning! 

Caught off guard, he couldn't help but stumble–

The minute his left hand went beyond the field containing the grid, countless shallow red lines appeared all over his arms, it was as if he had been pushed into a whirlwind of killer knives! Blood instantly spurted from his arm and dropped to the floor like a gushing river, at first sight there seemed to be no skin left unharmed on his fingers! He could even feel an agonizing burning sensation coming from the remaining flesh of his left hand! 

Obviously, if he continued to fall, he would be sliced into hundreds of pieces, leaving nothing but bloody red meat chunks of flesh and guts when he finally collapses to the floor!

He had to do something, 

Chu Yi's eyes sharpened instantly, the adrenaline spiking powerfully in his veins, with a fierce and deadly light, he forcefully twisted the leg that was falling backwards and dangerously made a turn on the spot to spin himself around, pulling himself right back into the range of the grid!

Hugh––

His pupils dilated and his chest heaved to match the speed of his heartbeat. Nevertheless, when he raised his hand, the damage had already been done. 

Blood dripped from the countless slashes in his arms from the thin wire, burning as if he had been rubbed with harsh poison, the grid under his feet still sent scalding waves of pain into his body and unless he moved, he would be forever subjected to double the wave of agony!

Tang Shun had already had a faint guess in his heart when he saw Chu Yi suddenly stumble but when he watched the fresh blood fall from his arms and pool at his feet in a bright glistening red puddle, he still couldn't but feel startled at thr gruesome sight and after a brief moment of shocked stillness, he immediately stepped onto the next grid,

Something was wrong these grids–

Chu Yi, who felt the pain below his feet recede and he nodded at Tang Shun, "The grids below your feet will probably become like scorching magma at any point in time, this game is forcing us to endure the onslaught of pain because if we do stumble, we'll fall into the net of wires and have our bodies sliced into gory flesh chunks."

Chu Yi didn't seem fazed by the pain in his arms, although there was a slight grimace on his face, his voice still held no fluctuation when he relayed such first hand news.

Tang Shun glanced at Chu Yi's arms with a solemn look and added on quickly, " It's also a game of memorization, we have to remember all the right steps until all the grids disappear. If not, we might lose a leg in this way."

Chao Bin nodded seriously and after watching Chu Yi bandage his arm quickly and signal at them to begin again, he immediately made a jump forward, nervously keeping track in his mind, 

Chu Yi followed by stepping forward and then it was Tang Shun's turn, almost immediately after his feet landed, they noticed a painful grunt coming from between his teeth, and his hands clenched tightly at his side, forcefully controlling his flailing arms.

He had stepped on a burning grid!

Chao Bin bit his lips nervously at the painful face made by Tang Shun and stepped forward hastily when the grid appeared, only hoping to alleviate his pain but although he was warned, the nervous Chao Bin was still wholely caught off guard when his feet landed on the grid and an almost paralyzing heat traveled up his veins and into his heart!

Nothing could prepare him for that kind of pain, and uncontrollably he stumbled forwards!

He tried to control his legs but in the end it was too late to stop the forward inertia!

"Ah!–

Tang Shun and Chu Yi both frowned in their hearts and immediately prepared for the worse, however the regretful emotion didn't even have time to settle in their chest when Chao Bin did the unthinkable!

As if his waist had no bones, Chao Bin completely turned his upper body to a full 180° and used the force of the spin to bring his falling leg back!

"....."

"....!"

Both Tang Shun and Chu Yi couldn't help but raise a brow in surprise, this was something only seen from trained gymnasts, Chao Bin didn't look like someone who had done such training....

Chao Bin exhaled a gasp in residual shock and carefully twisted back to the normal position,

It was only then did he notice the curious looks being sent his way,

"Cough––"

Chao Bin's face immediately burst into flames and his fidgeting fingers gave away to his nervous mindset , he didn't seem to want to go into detail about this sudden skill and eventually the others had to look away.

Now they were all acquainted with the mechanisms of the game, thankfully there were no more incidents, altough this game mostly relied on endurance and memorization, it still ended without anyone becoming half dead.

Shortly afterwards, Chu Yi finally stepped onto the last golden grid and with that, the thin but deadly wires disappeared from the room.

Chao Bin tentatively made a long sweep with his arms and after confirming that they were truly out of danger, he sighed in exhausted relief.

Although the game seemed simple, the mental arithmetic that it took to keep up with the right pattern as well fight the agonizing pain coming in staggering waves still made him more exhausted than if he had ran a marathon.

"Have you remembered it?"

Chao Bin blanked, "Remembered what?"

The helplessness on Tang Shun's face grew deeper, "The sequence of the number in which the burning grids appeared."

"..."

"We were supposed to keep track of that?!"

Chu Yi gazed at him as if looking at an idiot and reported a string of numbers to Tang Shun, " There were 6 numbers that appeared: 5, 6, 11, 12, 16 and 18. And we had approximately 20 grids."

Tang Shun nodded in agreement, he had also reported similar numbers, " But what exactly do these numbers mean? Would it be the access code for the hidden hatch in the confinement room?"

Chu Yi nodded but looked doubtful, "I don't think it is as simple as that, maybe these codes have something to do cipher text or glyphs that we'd need to decipher later on."

Chao Bin looked between the two, once again doubting his intelligence, he wanted to cry with no tears,

Tang Shun glanced at his mournful face and his eyes deepened unnaturally, "Then let's head back for now, I have an uncanny premonition that we have a long fight ahead of us."