Tan Xiao hacked a few more times, cutting through that section of vine entirely, and exposed the person inside.

It was a young man — pale blond hair, fair and lean, the type that looked like the delicate, pretty-faced lead of a period drama.

Tan Xiao leaned in, sword still in hand, and wondered if this person might be one of Villard’s subjects.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

A furious shout rang out from a distance.

Tan Xiao startled. He looked up to find the man in the cap back with the rest of the group — and every one of them was agitated and indignant, staring at him as though he were a killer.

Tan Xiao quickly said, “Hey! This has nothing to do with me! I was just looking for a sword — how was I supposed to know he was inside?!”

“Maybe you were the one who pushed him in!” Curly charged toward him, eyes blazing. “I’m warning you — stay away from our people! Don’t think that game rules mean no one can touch you!”

“Forget about him, let’s get this person out first!” the man in the cap cut in.

They worked together to drag the pale young man out from the vines. The body had been tightly bound, and it took considerable hacking and chopping before they managed it. In the process, Curly was pricked by a thorn.

“You all right?” the man in the cap asked.

Curly shook out his hand, wincing as he looked at the wound. “Nothing serious. Just a scratch on the back of my hand.”

“Still, be careful. There’s something wrong with these vines,” the man in the cap said.

Curly nodded, feeling a knot of anxiety tighten in his chest. His body felt fine for now, but they were in a game, and they had just found a teammate trapped inside a plant — it was hard not to feel unsettled.

“He’s warm. He probably hasn’t been dead long.” One of the braver individuals began checking the body. “…Strange. There’s no obvious wound. How did he die?”

“Could he have been smothered?” Curly said. “We didn’t hear any cries for help. I’d say odds are the vines coiled around him and he suffocated.”

Tan Xiao cut in immediately to clarify: “See — nothing to do with me!”

But no one acknowledged him.

The man in the cap stared down at the pale young man, brow deeply creased. “Is he actually dead? Take a closer look.”

The person crouching beside the body heard this and reflexively reached out to check for breath under the young man’s nose. Their expression shifted with sudden surprise. They pressed their ear to his chest and listened — and grew even more astonished.

“…He’s not dead. He’s alive!”

“Alive? Are you serious?”

Everyone stared in disbelief.

Several more people crowded in to listen to his heartbeat, and they all murmured in wonder: “He really is alive! There’s a heartbeat!”

“Wake him up!” Curly said urgently. “If he’s awake we can ask him what happened — why was he caught in the vines? Are these plants poisonous?”

He was worried about the scratch on the back of his own hand, and desperate for answers.

But no matter what they tried, the young man wouldn’t wake. They even produced water and attempted to get him to drink — useless. The water wouldn’t go in.

“Could he be poisoned? Is that why he can’t be roused?” someone asked.

The man in the cap looked at Curly. “How are you feeling right now?”

Curly blinked and raised his hand to look at the back of it.

The scratch had already scabbed over. There was barely any blood, and it didn’t hurt.

“I… for now, I don’t feel… anything different…”

The man in the cap said, “These vines are very strange. Everyone stay as far away from them as you can — especially be careful not to get pricked by the thorns.”

“But we still have to find the sword…” someone pointed out. “A lot of the paths and corridors are sealed off by these vines. There’s no way to search without cutting through them.”

“What if we use fire?” someone else suggested.

“Are you out of your mind? This whole place is covered in vines. If it actually caught fire, we’d all be roasted alive!”

Tan Xiao crouched nearby, listening. This group had no shortage of ideas, and he himself had no particular plan — he would keep following them for now and figure it out as he went.

The man in the cap said, “Here’s what we’ll do. There are plenty of soldiers around. Everyone find a weapon first. Then we’ll think about how to explore this place.”

—