“What are you smiling about? If it weren’t for me, you would have been in danger! I rushed here so quickly… look, I’m still wearing slippers!” Xia Mi angrily showed her feet to Chu Zihang.
Chu Zihang looked at her pretty feet, now red from the cold, and said softly, “Thank you.”
“By the way, why is there a subway operating in the middle of the night? Where are we, anyway?” Xia Mi asked, quickly pulling her feet back under her Bohemian-style skirt when she saw him staring.
A sudden topic change, or “diverting attention,” it was always like this.
“Nibelungen, or the Realm of the Dead,” Chu Zihang said softly. “My guess has finally been proven. The real realm of the Dragon Raja doesn’t exist in a normal dimension; it’s in a strange dimension called Nibelungen, an independent domain constructed with alchemy. If I’m not mistaken, the Bronze City that Lu Mingfei entered was also a Nibelungen. Once inside, everything appears far bigger than from the outside. Lu Mingfei said everything looked new inside because time doesn’t change.”
“What are those things, anyway?” Xia Mi picked up a piece of bronze-colored bone to examine it.
“Death Servitors,” Chu Zihang said softly. “Hybrids consumed by the Dragon Raja’s bloodline, existing between human and dragon, life and death, having lost their consciousness, like wandering spirits…” He knew his fate might end up the same.
“If this is Nibelungen, then the Dragon King must be here too,” Xia Mi said. “Too bad we blew up the subway. It was probably going to take us to find the Dragon King, right?”
“No matter, we’ll follow the tracks and get there,” Chu Zihang said as he pushed himself up and took off the black box from his back, placing it in front of Xia Mi. “Could you help me carry this?”
Xia Mi got angry. “Hey! Are you serious? I’m wearing slippers without socks, and I came to save you! Now you’re asking me to carry something for you? Do you have any decency?”
Chu Zihang hurriedly waved his hand. “No… I mean, carrying the black box is inconvenient for me…”
“And it’s convenient for me to carry it?” Xia Mi glared at him.
Chu Zihang felt a little helpless. Pressing his forehead, he sighed softly. “I meant, since you’re wearing slippers, it’s not convenient for you to walk. I can carry you… but if I’m also carrying the black box, it would be uncomfortable for you.”
After a long silence, Xia Mi shrank her head and said quietly, “Oh…”
The train stopped at the platform. The platform was extremely old, with a concrete floor, green tiles along the edges, and heavily peeling whitewashed walls. Large, eye-catching red characters were painted on it, “Fushouling Station,” with a date next to it—1977. There was only one incandescent lamp illuminating the platform, covered in cobwebs. Zhao Menghua, Gao Mi, and Wan Boqian carried Lu Mingfei off the train.
“Hey! We’ve been here for almost half a month, not you, okay? Even though you’re not exactly fat, at least you’re not frail, so why are you pretending to be a patient?” Wan Boqian said irritably. When she entered the labyrinth, she had been wearing a skirt and stockings; now her calves were as thin as those of a supermodel at a Paris fashion show.
“It’s not that I don’t want to walk by myself, it’s just that when I think about staying here for hundreds of years, neither dead nor alive, I just… just f***ing shiver,” Lu Mingfei said.
“You’ll get used to it. That’s the dealer,” Gao Mi said softly.
Lu Mingfei looked up and saw a figure draped in dark brown burlap sitting under the incandescent lamp. The dealer slowly raised its face, and Lu Mingfei almost fainted in shock.
It was the same Lamia Queen from the tunnel, the one who didn’t know whether to kiss him or drain him dry. Its nine heads were swaying side to side, each neck vertebra twisted like the spine of a snake.
“Don’t worry, the dealer won’t harm anyone,” Gao Mi said. “Even if you attack it, it won’t retaliate. Just think of it as a machine.”
Lu Mingfei followed Gao Mi nervously as the four of them sat around the dealer. The dealer’s nine skulls operated separately, observing each of the guests, then tossed a tin bottle cap in front of Lu Mingfei. He picked it up and looked at it. It had the words “Beibingyang” on it, an old bottle cap from an orange soda that used to be as popular as cola in Beijing. The dealer then tossed dozens of dark gold coins to Gao Mi, the same to Wan Boqian, and to Zhao Menghua, along with an aluminum compass.
“No way! I only get a bottle cap?” Lu Mingfei was on the verge of tears. “I know I’m new here, and I haven’t accumulated much despair yet, but at least give a newbie a couple of coins!”
Gao Mi pulled him aside. “Don’t be silly. The Beibingyang bottle cap is the most valuable chip here—each one is worth a thousand dark gold coins. That compass Zhao Menghua has is worth a hundred at best. If you want to exchange it for smaller chips, just throw the bottle cap to the dealer.”
Lu Mingfei tried tossing the bottle cap and hitting one of the dealer’s skulls. A few seconds later, clink, clink, clink—a total of one thousand finely crafted dark gold chips piled up in front of him, like a small mountain.
“Wow! Is this a starter pack for beginners?” Lu Mingfei was pleasantly surprised. “You guys only have that little… do you want me to share some with you?”
“Not every newcomer gets that many chips. When Gao Mi and I first came, we each only got a compass,” Wan Boqian said, her eyes filled with a bit of envy.
Gao Mi nodded. “The dealer examines you and knows your state of mind. The more loneliness you have, the more chips you’ll receive. Once you’ve used up this round of loneliness, you have to go back to the train and keep circling endlessly.” He glanced at Wan Boqian, extending his hand to hold hers. “If we hugged and talked, we’d feel much better, but we’d receive fewer chips when we returned to the gambling table. If we ignored each other or got angry, we’d receive more… so actually, every time we held hands, it reduced our chances of leaving. But,” his eyes held a misty smile, “sometimes, I’d rather sacrifice some chances of leaving… just to hold her hand.”
It was obvious to everyone that they were a couple. Lu Mingfei suddenly thought of Ye Sheng and Aki, buried in the Bronze City.
“Am I really that lonely?” Lu Mingfei said, sitting amid the mountain of chips.
The other three nodded with a mixture of envy and sympathy.
“Three of a kind.” Gao Mi turned over his two hidden cards and took three face-up cards from the pile, making three Queens.
He had won again, and each of them—the dealer, Lu Mingfei, Zhao Menghua, and Wan Boqian—had to pay him fifty dark gold chips.