Alchemists and Cultivators III

A few moments later they saw on the path of white pebbles a pair of lanterns, and two guards carrying them while patrolling the warehouses.

Ren swallowed: they were less than ten meters away from them. Luckily, he and Fiamma hadn't lit a fire or a lantern, otherwise they definitely would have been discovered.

When they approached the warehouse under which they were hiding, the footsteps of the two men stopped.

Fiamma and Ren heard two voices. They couldn't distinguish the words, but the tone seemed inquisitive: had they been discovered for real?

"What happens?" Fiamma asked, her voice was nothing but a whisper.

"I don't speak Chinese." Ren replied. "They're coming this way!" He added and wrapped his hand around his friend's wrist.

Both of them moved backwards, slowly, in the opposite direction to where the guards were coming from.

The patrols seemed to have seen something that had made them suspicious, but evidently the two young alchemists had not yet been discovered.

Suddenly, while they were backing away like that, trying to remain as silent as possible, Ren quite clearly heard the sound of footsteps coming from above him, he instinctively raised his head and observed the wooden beams.

"There is someone inside the warehouse." He murmured.

He had just said the last word when a sudden burst broke the silence of the night: it was a sound they had heard only a few times, but Ren recognized it immediately. A firework had exploded at short distance.

The guards' voices became more agitated, and Ren and Fiamma managed to see them run away, in the direction from which the explosion had come.

"What's going on?" Fiamma asked, confused.

Ren shook his head, without taking his eyes off the wooden ceiling: it was quite low, a tall man would have had to bow his head to be able to pass under it, but their heights were still those of two young teens, so for them there was no problem standing beneath the warehouse.

Ren kept listening for other sounds, but the footsteps he had heard earlier had stopped. Everything was now silent.

While looking up he took a few steps, trying to prick his ears in search of a new sound that revealed the presence of someone else: he could hear nothing.

Fiamma was also vigilant, but she was checking at the path, fearing that the guards might return without being seen or heard, as they had just done.

Pitch hadn't really understood the situation well, being just a piece of coal, she wasn't able to see or hear, not in the way a human being could anyway, so she just floated between the two kids.

"How strange ..." Ren whispered "I just thought I heard..." He was just finishing speaking when he bumped his back against something hard that moved at his touch. Ren jumped in fright, but his trained reflexes prompted him to move before he emotionally understood what he had bumped into: instinctively he turned and reached out his hands, to prevent anything he hit from falling and revealing their position to the guards.

When he turned around, however, he realized that was not something, but someone. Someone who, like him, was proceeding backwards, following the sound of a couple of voices.

The impact took them both by such surprise that they staggered for a moment before finally realize the presence of the other.

He was a boy about their age, wearing a simple scarlet cotton robe, edged in sage green. Part of his hair was raised at the top of his head and collected in a bun by a metal hairpin, while the rest fell in locks from his shoulders down to his mid-back.

Ren looked at him for a moment: he was clearly a local, yet he seemed confused too, like he was hiding from the guards as well.

It was the stranger who spoke first: "Ni shì shéi?" He asked, speaking in Chinese.

"Huh?" Ren replied.

"Who are you?" The boy then asked, speaking without any accent.

Fiamma was too far away to see the scene, and it all happened in complete silence, so she didn't realize anything until she heard the voices.

"Ren!" She exclaimed running up to her friend, turned around a pile of crates and found herself less than two meters from the boy dressed in red, he stopped instantly: they had been discovered!

She almost started crying right there on the spot.

Fiamma was completely paralyzed, while Ren seemed rather curious: he was scrutinizing the boy's robes with an inquisitive gaze, as if he was seeing something that she was missing.

The stranger, on his behalf, did not gave a second look to either of them, his eyes were completely captured by Pitch, who floated an inch from his nose, intrigued by the newcomer.

"You are alchemists." The boy said, and it didn't sound like a question.

Seeing them accompanied by such an object could nothing but reveal their status.

"Indeed" Ren boasted, taking Fiamma by the shoulders to show themselves to the stranger. "Look, we really didn't have bad intentions, we are just two curious people. Listen, if you want us to, we can leave right now" Ren said.

"I don't care." The boy cut it short and started to turn his back on both of them, but at the same moment they heard the footsteps of the guards approaching.

"Oh no, they're coming back." Fiamma murmured.

The stranger glanced in that direction and then, after an elegant leap, disappeared.

"There is a trap door ... come Fiamma." Ren murmured, took her friend by the wrist and then followed the stranger boy upstairs to the warehouse.

They landed on the wooden planks just a moment before the guards reached the point where Fiamma had been on the lookout, then they heard one shouting towards the others, probably informing them that he hadn't found anything yet.

The stranger looked first at the two young alchemists, then at the trap door, and then again at the two alchemists: he had disappointment on his light-skinned face, evidently, he hadn't expected to be followed, nor would he have wanted to see them again.

Ren gave him a guilty smile: if he hadn't seen the boy disappear into the trap door, revealing that escape route, both Fiamma and him would have ended up in the guard's hands.

The guards meanwhile were setting up the lower floor.

All three were silent, waiting. Shortly after, the voice of a guard came louder, he shouted a phrase that, even without understanding the language, sounded like: "I found something".

The three kids, although strangers, looked at each other in alarm. The guard spoke again but this time neither Fiamma nor Ren was able to interpret what he had said.

The kid in red, on the other hand, understood perfectly, and threw toward Ren a look that could have meant anything besides friendliness. He was clenching his jaw, as if he wanted to hit both Ren and Fiamma right away.

Ren did not immediately understand that reaction, but suddenly realized: Pitch! The guards must had found her. Ren peeked through the trap door, but couldn't see anything, it was pitch dark below them.

The voices of the guards had gotten a little farther away, but just a few moments later the trio heard someone fumbling at the warehouse entrance, the guards were looking for the keys to go upstairs!

"We are screwed. There is no time to escape!" Fiamma cried.

Ren clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and looked at the boy's clothes again.

"No, we are not." He declared. "You're not from around here, are you?" He asked the stranger. Such a question took the boy by surprise, and for just a brief moment he seemed confused, but he immediately became serious and looked back at Ren with a threatening gaze.

But before he could do anything, Ren grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him violently in front of them, onto the warehouse's floor. In the heat of the gesture a green silk ribbon, which hemmed the boy's robe, tore and remained between Ren's fingers.

In that moment the guards finally opened the warehouse door and entered the room yelling out some threats in Chinese.