I Have Yet to Become a Doll Today

“Yu Yaqing?”

After a moment of silence, Su Man called out to her from below.

“Yu Yaqing, are you okay?”

Finally coming back to her senses, she wanted to speak, but found her throat was dry and hoarse.

Yu Yaqing closed her eyes to recuperate a moment before replying, “I’m okay…”

“What’s up there? Is it safe?” Su Man asked again.

Yu Yaqing exhaled slowly, composed herself, and opened her eyes again

“Up here… it’s a large room, very dark, lit by a few fire pits, but the fire inside seems to be dying out… There are… seven torture racks spread around, but no sign of Bluebeard.”

She crawled out a bit further, lifting herself up to afford a wider view.

That’s when she noticed a pale figure lying on the floor in front of her. Her body froze instantly.

“Don’t come up yet.” Yu Yaqing commanded with a serious expression, staring at the figure before her. “There’s someone up here, it might be Zhao Lanfen. Let me check it out first, then you can come up if it’s safe.”

Down below, Su Man fell silent for two seconds before replying, “Be careful.”

She couldn’t simply go and help because at the bottom of the passage, there were other companions waiting for her to bring back news.

Yu Yaqing cautiously exited the passage, slowly stood up and began to walk step by step towards the figure.

As she got closer, she realized it wasn’t Zhao Lanfen, but a man.

A man laying there unconscious.

He was dressed in a medieval classic white shirt with broad sleeves shaped like lanterns and an elaborately frilled collar — grandiose yet beautifully flamboyant.

The man looked frail, his skin was pale, his breathing faint.

Yu Yaqing finally let out a sigh of relief.

Despite her bravery, even surpassing that of a typical man, her subconscious still dreaded facing scenes of brutality or bloodshed.

Yu Yaqing returned to the entrance of the passage and informed those below, “There’s an unconscious man here. He doesn’t seem to be dangerous. You can come up now.”

At her words, Su Man began to climb up.

The moment she climbed up, she was rooted to the spot by what she saw. Goosebumps erupted all over her body as she exclaimed disgustingly, “…How perverted!”

Looking at the torture devices, even Yu Yaqing was at a loss for words, “Unexpected, isn’t it? Men and women are just people… yet they can make devices like this… as if they derive pleasure out of torturing females. Tell me, why did these men think it? Were they not born to mothers?”

“You can’t say that…” Su Man frowned, surveying the torture devices. “These are relics from medieval Europe, a dark period full of pillage and slaughter, devoid of law and order. People back then were more barbaric and cruel. Such things wouldn’t exist today!”

Yu Yaqing smiled wryly, uttering in a low voice, “Only because you haven’t encountered them. To free ourselves from the yoke of men, we have to be stronger.”

Su Man didn’t want to discuss gender issues at such a time. She furrowed her brows and looked around, asking, “Is this the third floor? How did we miss such a huge room before?”

“The door is here.” Yu Yaqing located the door, grabbed the handle and pulled it open

Behind the door was a wall.

She was taken aback. She pushed the wall and found that it was movable, able to rotate a full 180 degrees!

“So the mechanism is here.” Su Man was also amazed.

The two women shifted the stone wall 90 degrees together, forming two exits. Outside was the corridor of the third floor!

Then it dawned on Yu Yaqing, “If we can’t open the door from inside, even if we found traces of a mechanism on the third floor, we wouldn’t be able to get in. Only when the door on the inside is opened, is there enough space for the stone wall to rotate.”

Su Man stepped out, took a look at the corridors on both sides, and said, “I will go down and inform them.”