Cries for help

The hall they were in was a spacious one but it was difficult to see without spirit lights and the dense fog that still hung around them. Yuan Xuelan only knew where they were from vague imprints in his memory. It told him that this used to be one of those halls where they would hold classes.

But that mattered little right now. Three sets of eyes shared a look of dread.

"J-Jipei, oh no. What happened to him? I'm so scared. Did they eat him?" Nan Chang's voice trembled with her entire body. Never in her whole life had she been so terrified. She'd lived her life on the cusps and survived days, weeks even months with only crumbs. She had begged on the streets without shame and sold her body to men with hearts blacker than coal. And Nan Chang had thought herself a woman with a steel-like soul.