17 Lambs to the Slaughter

Everyone followed Host and Gao Shunyuan to another room. Xiang Tingfeng looked back at Ye Delun. Who had a small frown on his face while looking at Xue Peng's corpse.

"He'll be fine. Why do you need to look at him like that?" Kang Maixiu said beside him. Xiang Tingfeng looked down at him with a worried look. "It's just that... It doesn't seem right leaving them here. I feel like I'm not doing anything to help."

Kang Maixiu only rolled his eyes. "Do you think we're just going to sit and eat from the meat and cheese tray? We're going to do something of course." Xiang Tingfeng looked surprised. Kang Maixiu raised a thin eyebrow and didn't seem amused. "What? Did you think that you would be useful to them and help search through a dead body? You'd pass out halfway."

The tips of Xiang Tingfeng's ear turned pink but he didn't say that Kang Maixiu was wrong. Because he wasn't. Just at the thought of putting his hands in something that used to be alive made his legs tremble and his face go pale. "Ye Delun must be super brave then..." He said. "Yin Meng and Shen Lin too. They're super cool..." He wished he could be like them. Brave like a hero and calm like a savior. But Xiang Tingefeng wasn't fit for that job, no matter how much he wanted it.

"It doesn't matter anyway. We have our stuff to search." Kang Maixiu peaked over at Host and Gao Shunyuan at the front, where they turned a random corner and reveal another large room. "These fucking jokers." He mumbled to himself. "There's no way this house isn't fucking messed up. That room wasn't there before." Although he was bad at directions, he wasn't dumb enough to think that two large rooms would be so close to each other. "This was where the hallways to our rooms were supposed to be, can they even try to hide it?"

Xiang Tingfeng heard his foul muttering and advised him carefully, "Maixiu, be careful. They'll hear you."

Kang Maixiu scowed at Host as he passed him through the doorway. He spoke to Xiang TIngfeng when they were out of ear range. "Whether they hear me or not, we're still being lead to our deaths like lambs to the slaughter." His delicate eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. He didn't want to be here. Who would?

During the day, after he had woken up, he thought that perhaps it was all a dream. That was until when he saw Xiang Tingfeng, who ran up to meet him as soon as he could. "I just wanted to make sure you were still alive." He had told him. His big brown eyes were welded up with unfallen tears and his large form trembled like a misbehaving dog. "I was scared you were going to die... I thought I was going to see you dead... "He whimpered as he held in a sob. The big baby had held onto his pants and cried, he got snot all over them.

At that moment, Kang Maixiu realized that it was real. That dream of his. Where he and Xiang Tingfeng were transported into a strange place and told that they were going to be a victim of murder whether they liked it or not.

Kang Maixiu was in no way a hero. And in some ways, he couldn't even be considered a good guy. He didn't go to medical school to help people, he did it for his own wants. He didn't think much of it. In the medical world, he's seen students just like him. In it for the money. He took pride in how he wasn't the worst out there.

He wasn't thinking about saving everyone in that house. He was only thinking about himself and Xiang Tingfeng. He had asked Xiang Tingfeng back in his room, "Did you do what I asked?"

The calmed down Xiang Tingfeng answered back, "Yeah. And you were right. The windows were locked."

"And?"

"And they wouldn't break." He looked down at his fist. "I hit it as hard as I could several times. And yet only ended up hurting myself." He looked back up at Kang Maixiu. "I don't think they were made out of glass."

Back in the room, Kang Maixiu watched the large windows on the wall. A replica of the afternoon sky was on the other sky. 'None of this is real.' He said in his mind. 'Yet there's no telling what would happen if you died.' They had seen Xue Peng's dead body back in the main room, but as Host had said, they weren't really here. It's just that their 'souls' were connected.

Duan Li sat on a sofa that the room provided. "Finally out of that room. The smell of blood was giving me a headache."

Kang Maixiu felt Xiang Tingfeng react to her words. He knew that Xiang Tingfeng felt uncomfortable around her. She was blunt and rude, a woman who seemed to have gotten what she wanted for too long and it had gone straight to her head. Kang Maixiu admired her slightly. She had just seen a dead body and thought about nothing else but the smell. To be so ignorant and yet aware at the same time. He thought it was a strange talent.

"Yes, Yes." Host continued to play advocate. Kang Maixiu wondered if the guy was having a blast or mocking them under that mask. Either way, he must have enjoyed playing with fools. "Now sit back and relax. Discuss amongst yourselves, try and solve the mystery behind the author of the letter, eat! It doesn't matter, just enjoy yourself in this room." He enunciated his last couple of words. This room. He wanted them to stay here.

"I have some quick work I have to check on, and then I'll gather the rest of you. Then you can talk amongst yourselves and then finally be sent to bed. In the meantime, please enjoy the goods Gao Shunyuan will prepare." Gao Shunyuan stepped from the back and placed the meat and cheese tray he was holding onto the coffee table.

Li Yusheng didn't cast the tray a glance from his spot on his chair. He continued to frown while looking at the walls. It was unknown what he was thinking.

Host left the room with a smile on his face. Kang Maixiu's eyes followed him until the door closed behind him. Almost immediately he turned to the white-haired boy standing to the side.

"Excuse me," He said. "My head has been pounding ever since I saw that body." He paused and rubbed his eyes with his fingers as if he was stressed. "Usually I would make myself a cup of chamomile tea, could you perhaps make me some?"

Duan Lu spoke up from her seat, "Do me a favor and make me a cup of ginger tea as well."

"Honey-lemon." Was all Li Yusheng said as he continued to stare absentmindedly at the wall.

Yang Lan shyly put in her own request, "If you're making some, I would like some chamomile tea as well."

Gao Shunyuan looked expecting at Xiang Tingfeng, who only waved his arms and studdered. "I-It's alright. I don't need anything."

The white-haired boy nodded his head, "Alright, I shall go to prepare some. Please wait patiently." He turned and left the room.

Xiang Tingfeng whispered to his ears, "Maixiu, your head is hurting? Are you alright?"

Kang Maixiu stood up from his seat, "I'm fine. Let's go." He grabbed at the big man's arm and pulled him up.

"Huh? Wait, what?"

Kang Maixiu turned and looked towards the man he's known for a long time. "Didn't I say we were going to do our own searching? Let's go."

And so both Kang Maixiu and Xiang Tingfeng left the room.