Book 3 Chapter 1 – Xiao Hei’s Visit

　　

　　

　　"Ugh—" Li Yiming wanted to vomit. The world around him was first distorted and then shattered just like gla.s.s. Li Yiming felt like he was thrown into a washer, but when he tried throwing up, he could only produce a dry, choking sound.

　　"Car sickness?" The people in the front turned back and looked at him with disgust.

　　'This guy… the floor manager? And I…' Li Yiming looked around and found himself to be on a small bus. The floor manager looked at him despisingly. Liu Meng was still sound asleep, and the other pa.s.sengers were busy preparing themselves for the shooting. Bai Ze was right next to him, and she threw a frustrated look at him.

　　'This is the bus of the filming crew! We're back in Jing Prefecture, right before the start of the domain.' Li Yiming remembered.

　　"Alright everyone, we're here. Let's take a break, get your room cards, drop your luggage and we'll head to Ning Village in half an hour." The floor manager yelled through a megaphone. The members of the filming crew slowly disembarked.

　　Li Yiming stayed in his seat and looked at Bai Ze. "Well, we're done," said Bai Ze in an annoyed voice after only the two of them were left.

　　"But I wasn't brought back to the Tea Shop the last time." Li Yiming remembered that nothing had happened when the domain in Hang Zhou had concluded.

　　"Well, n.o.body ever said that you'd always stay where you are. This is a domain, there are a lot of things that you still don't know." Bai Ze ignored his question and resumed her game on the cell phone. "How are the rewards?"

　　"Uh… Domain failure… Zeroing of life marks." Li Yiming remembered what the voice said when he was about to exit the domain.

　　"What?" A flash of white light and Bai Ze vanished. A second flash a few moments later and she reappeared in front of Li Yiming. "What happened, your life marks are really gone. Didn't the phoenix get taken down the end?" Bai Ze asked in a confused voice.

　　Li Yiming did not understand his misfortune better than Bai Ze. He looked at Liu Meng, who seemed still asleep, and played around with his own fingers as he pondered about.

　　"Well, there are two possibilities," Bai Ze, true to her wisdom, interpreted the situation. "The first is that the domain's will was 'protection', so the goal was to protect Ning Village. Of course, with the entire village dead and even most of the Prefecture gone, Heaven's Laws has decided that you have failed your mission.

　　"What about the second possibility?"

　　"The second one…" Bai Ze seemed perplexed. "The second possibility is that that Big Bro of yours isn't a guardian. Although he subdued the phoenix and ended the domain, Heaven's Laws doesn't recognize it."

　　The two exchanged a glance that fermented more questions instead of producing an answer.

　　"Why aren't you off yet? You should get off the bus. I've heard that there are some complications for the filming, so the manager told us to go back to our rooms and rest," one of the extras came back for her umbrella.

　　"I'm coming," Li Yiming answered. "Hey, let's go down. Liu Meng, Liu Meng, wake up!" Li Yiming pushed on Liu Meng, but he froze in horror when he realized that she would not answer.

　　"Coma…" Bai Ze said as she put her hand on Liu Meng's forehead. "But this doesn't make sense. She should be back to normal now that the domain is over. In fact, the person in the domain, strictly speaking, isn't even 'her'."

　　"What do we do now?" Li Yiming was in a state of complete panic at the possibility that his best friend was going stay like this.

　　"What would you do if you found someone in a coma, usually?"

　　"I'd… call the ambulance?" Li Yiming stuttered.

　　"Then call an ambulance…" Bai Ze answered in an exhausted voice.

　　* * *

　　Right outside of a ward in the Prefectural Hospital, Li Yiming stared at his cell phone screen hesitantly. The manager for the filming crew was decent enough to have brought Liu Meng to the hospital after finding out about her condition and even agreed to pay the deposit for her entry into a ward. He stayed on his phone for the entire duration of the trip, very disappointed by the sudden turn of events. Although the money needed for Liu Meng's residency in the hospital was not a problem anymore, Li Yiming still faced the difficulty of finding enough money to feed himself. He used to leech off Liu Meng, but now he had to care for her, and it was not cheap at all in a hospital like this. 'They've written "Needs further observation", and G.o.d knows how much time that'll take. Seems like I really need to start planning for the bank robbery.'