Chapter 160: Life-saving Straw
After Li Duojin’s introduction, Chen Xiaolin finally slightly understood her current situation.
They were experiencing a very realistic “dream.” The versions of them who had reached here were not their real bodies, but projections of their spirits, mirrors of their souls. Their actual bodies were in an unknown condition—those who had fallen into the Dark River might be dying or drifting with the current, perhaps luckily surviving.
After learning the truth, Chen Xiaolin, who had been anxious to say they should quickly return to reality, thought about how she wouldn’t know how to escape the danger once back in reality, and couldn’t help but dejectedly hold back her words.
But soon Chen Xiaolin realized this was a magical small shop; perhaps she could find a method here to help her escape her predicament. She immediately looked at Lin Ling with a face full of expectation and asked, “Boss, do you have any magical props here that can help us escape the danger?”
Looking at the youthful-faced Boss Lin with his harmless smile, combined with Lin Ling’s unique calm demeanor, Chen Xiaolin wasn’t so wary of him, but that didn’t mean she completely trusted Lin Ling.
From the respectful attitudes of everyone else present toward him, Lin Ling’s behavior of throwing what seemed to be those anomalous skeletons from the cave into the fish tank, and so on, she could realize from various details that the “young man” before her eyes was likely also an anomalous being.
“Yes.” Lin Ling smiled and nodded, then turned and reached his hand into the fish tank.
Chen Xiaolin’s eyelids twitched wildly. She had personally witnessed that strange octopus gnawing raw a human thigh bone. She didn’t even dare to imagine what the result would be if a living person stuck their hand in.
But miraculously, Chen Xiaolin saw that when the octopus discovered Lin Ling reaching into the water, its yellowish eyeball actually showed a humanized color of fear. Several tentacles flailed in panic, wanting to escape, but it couldn’t match Lin Ling’s casual scoop. The captured octopus showed despair in its eyes, without even a trace of resistance reaction, its whole body going limp as it was directly fished out of the surface.
Seeing this scene, Chen Xiaolin became even more convinced that Lin Ling was an anomalous being wearing human skin.
The terrifying scene that made Chen Xiaolin’s heart pound with fear continued. She saw Lin Ling toy with the octopus in his hand for a moment before his clean, fair hands directly grabbed the octopus’s head.
Chen Xiaolin swore she would never forget this moment in her life. Her terrified eyes met the octopus’s; the other’s fear was vividly transmitted to Chen Xiaolin’s heart. As the octopus’s two eyeballs were squeezed out of its body by those slender fingers and dropped onto the metal tray on the table, as if prepared in advance, Chen Xiaolin felt countless currents tearing at her reason surge through her body with the sound of “big beads and small beads falling on a jade plate,” her whole body trembling from the inside out.
Lin Ling gently returned the octopus, now devoid of all its eyes, to the fish tank, ignoring how the blinded octopus thrashed madly in the water tank like it had gone insane, with rapid, chaotic bubbles surging from its body—each bubble seeming to carry its endless despairing scream.
Faced with such a mad scene, Chen Xiaolin discovered that everyone else around her had calm expressions, indifferently ignoring the cruel scene just now. In this space, it seemed she was the only one who was the most abnormal.
“You two eat this eyeball, and you’ll gain the ability to live underwater.” Lin Ling said with a smile as he picked up a handkerchief nearby to wipe away the sinful mucus covering his hands.
“Thank you for your bounty.” Li Duojin smiled and was about to accept it, even inquiring about the price of these goods.
Seeing this, the dazed Chen Xiaolin immediately snapped awake and hurriedly stopped Li Duojin’s behavior, dryly laughing at Lin Ling: “Uh, boss, there are some things I’m unclear about with these two eyeballs. Could you explain in more detail?”
Plop.
A black cat with unusually large cat claws suddenly darted out from somewhere, landing on the counter, then walked with elegant, noble steps to Lin Ling’s side. Under Lin Ling’s broad hand, it curled into a docile ball, revealing a pair of golden cat eyes gazing at Chen Xiaolin from its contented, lazy posture, as if peering into her heart.
“Of course.” Lin Ling stroked the cat and said with a gentle smile, “After eating the eyeball, you’ll shed your human bodies and transform into bodies that can move freely underwater, more than enough to help you escape your current difficult situation.”
Chen Xiaolin felt her teeth freeze stiff from the chill surging in her heart, woodenly smiling as she asked: “Um, I’m quite satisfied with my current human body. Is there a method that can both preserve our original bodies and help us escape the predicament?”
“Don’t be too greedy, Miss Chen.” Li Duojin patted Chen Xiaolin’s shoulder and reminded her.
Chen Xiaolin glared at him, hoping he would shut up. She was also thinking of them.
Lin Ling blinked and nodded. “Naturally, there is.”
With that, he walked out from behind the counter, pushed a ladder to one of the shelves of goods, climbed the ladder’s stairs to reach the top shelf, took out two stalks of withered yellow straw, and handed them respectively to Chen Xiaolin and Li Duojin.
“Straw, what effect does this have?” Chen Xiaolin asked curiously. Though the touch felt no different from ordinary straw, she wouldn’t naively think this was just ordinary straw.
Lin Ling smiled and explained: “Have you heard of the ‘life-saving straw’? The effect of this straw is to save your life at a critical moment.”
“Are there side effects?” Hearing Lin Ling’s explanation, Chen Xiaolin was somewhat tempted but still maintained the necessary vigilance.
Lin Ling: “No real side effects. It’s just that its ‘life-saving’ is full of uncertainty. At its best, its life-saving effect can let you retreat from the crisis unscathed, but at its worst, it can only preserve your life, without fully guaranteeing your body’s condition.”
“Are the side effects just these?”
“Mm.” Lin Ling nodded.
“Good, then I’ll take it.” Chen Xiaolin said spiritedly, then asked in a deflated tone, “Uh, what do I need to pay for this?”
In such an eerie place, the chips for a transaction definitely wouldn’t be ordinary—perhaps digging out her heart and lungs, reducing her lifespan, taking away her conscience, or something like that… just like in movies or novels.
“A sincere discount: two hundred bucks.” Lin Ling’s face lit up with delight, his mouth unable to close.
Chen Xiaolin was stunned. “Two… two hundred? Cash?”
“Yeah.” Lin Ling nodded matter-of-factly. “Naturally. This is a business, after all; it can’t be charity given for free.”
Chen Xiaolin was speechless and silently pulled two hundred in cash from her pocket, pushing it in front of Lin Ling, cautiously asking: “So just two hundred?”
Lin Ling picked up the bill, examined it carefully under the light as if verifying it, then smiled at Chen Xiaolin and said: “Mm, just right.”
“Thank you once again for your bounty. We won’t disturb you anymore, Venerable.” Li Duojin wore an expression of overwhelming gratitude, bowed at the waist, then pulled the bewildered Chen Xiaolin out of the small shop.
Hearing Li Duojin’s address for Lin Ling, Chen Xiaolin’s expression changed abruptly. She suddenly recalled the story of the “merciful Venerable” that Li Duojin had once told her in the car.
