Phew!
That was close, too close!
This time, Xia Mengxi managed to resolve Lin Xue’er’s desire to change locations and also calmed her emotions that were on the verge of exploding due to her ‘rebellious’ behavior.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Xia Mengxi couldn’t help but give herself a pat on the back for her cleverness.
It had to be said, the move she made to provoke Lin Xue’er in order to solve the problem was truly a risky one, but not only did she defuse the situation, she also seized the opportunity to get something she wanted-a hairpin.
“What a blessing in disguise this turned out to be!”
Looking at the hairpin in her hand, Xia Mengxi couldn’t help but sigh in admiration.
The hairpin Lin Xue’er had brought back from her last outing wasn’t the flashy kind, but a very simple one-so simple it was just a thin piece of metal bent at a 180-degree angle.
Of course, this was exactly what Xia Mengxi had requested from Lin Xue’er.
As for what she needed the hairpin for, it was naturally one of the steps in her new plan to turn the tables-opening the door to their residence.
After several days of observation and searching, Xia Mengxi had confirmed that Lin Xue’er didn’t have a spare key to this door on her person.
Even if she did, it wasn’t kept in their residence or anywhere else within the prison outside their living quarters.
Therefore, she needed to find another way to open the door, and that method involved using two slender, rigid objects to ‘pick the lock.’
Incidentally, the reason she wanted to try this approach was because the lock on their residence’s door was an old-fashioned padlock with a simple structure.
“Thank goodness I watched all those genuine instructional videos back in the day. Otherwise, even if this lock is ordinary, it wouldn’t be something an average person like me could open.”
Standing in front of the door to their residence, Xia Mengxi took a deep breath, then pressed her cheek against the iron door.
Holding the two broken halves of the hairpin in each hand, she began attempting to ‘pick the lock’ based on her vague memories.
“The sound… it feels like it’s lifting inside… phew…”
If the lock had been on the front, picking it would have been much easier.
But since it was on the outside, it posed a significant obstacle.
As a result, Xia Mengxi’s first attempt at picking the lock took nearly ten minutes—and even then, she failed.
“I’m exhausted! I need a break.”
Xia Mengxi had never expected to succeed on her first try.
Even if she had, she hadn’t planned to go outside immediately.
She intended to practice for several days to improve her proficiency, laying a solid foundation for future lock-picking attempts and saving unnecessary time.
After several failures, a satisfying click finally sounded, and Xia Mengxi’s face immediately lit up with a smile.
“Yes! Success!”
Looking at the padlock in her hand, Xia Mengxi marveled at how difficult it had been to open, but the result was undeniably satisfying.
“Great, my plan has taken another big step forward. Now, all I need is more practice and to memorize the route out of this underground prison, and then I can move on to the final stage of my plan.”
And So, Xia Mengxi’s plan progressed steadily.
Every day, she continued to maintain her good-girl persona in front of Lin Xue’er, and as soon as the other left, she would practice lock-picking or familiarize herself with the general layout of the underground prison.
Finally, the first opportunity for escape arrived as if right on schedule.
“Well then, I’m heading out, Xia Mengxi.”
“Alright! Have a safe trip!”
At this moment, Xia Mengxi was brimming with excitement.
It wasn’t until Lin Xue’er had been gone for a full ten minutes that she suddenly sprang up from the bed, bouncing around like a child whose parents had just left the house.
“Finally, finally, the day has come! Whew! Calm down, I need to calm down first.”
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale—these two simple breathing exercises cycled through several times until Xia Mengxi felt considerably calmer.
Once her emotions had stabilized, she walked to a corner of the room and retrieved a broken hairpin hidden in a crack in the wall.
With practiced ease, she used it to pick the padlock securing the door to her dwelling.
Click
In less than a minute, the mechanism of the padlock clicked open, and she removed it from the door handle.
“For my first outing, I definitely can’t go straight to Lin Xue’er’s house-there probably wouldn’t be enough time. But I can at least walk around the school grounds.”
Even though she could only wander within the school, Xia Mengxi was still overjoyed.
After all, this was her first glimpse of the outside world after who knows how long.
Almost there… she was almost at the entrance of the underground prison!
Familiar with the path leading to the prison’s exit, her heart raced faster with every step she took.
The quickening pulse unconsciously sped up her pace.
Take a right at the fork ahead, and she’d see it!
By now, Xia Mengxi was practically running.
When she rounded the final corner, she arrived before a heavy iron door.
This very door had divided her world in two.
But today, she would cross it for the second time—and it wouldn’t be the last.
“Oh, I almost forgot.”
As she reached the iron door, Xia Mengxi suddenly remembered something.
She turned and went down another passageway.
A few minutes later, she returned, this time holding a rusty key.
It was a spare key for the iron door, one she had fortuitously found in a storage room during her earlier explorations of the underground prison.
“The door… it’s going to open!”
With trembling hands, she inserted the rusty key into the lock of the heavy iron door.
A click sounded, and with a firm pull on the handle, the door emitted an ear-piercing screech as it swung open.
The door was open. Xia Mengxi’s gaze, fixed on the wooden cabin above, burned with an intense longing for freedom and light.
With each step up the stairs, her previously calmed heart began to race once more.
Finally, she ascended to a wooden cabin that felt both familiar and unfamiliar.
Sunlight streamed through the windows, piercing into the room.
The mere sight of this sunlight nearly brought Xia Mengxi to tears.
For someone who had been imprisoned underground for at least three or four months, the sky and sunlight were her deepest desires.
“Blue skies, white clouds, and the sun-here I come!”
With a look of pure delight, Xia Mengxi walked to the cabin’s exit and eagerly pushed the door open. In that instant, the intense sunlight struck her face, momentarily blinding her.
Forced to shut her eyes, she slowly reopened them only after a long while.
But the moment she opened her eyes, she was filled with regret.
The scene before her wasn’t the dawn of light she had hoped for, but rather a declaration that she was about to plunge into endless darkness.
“Heh, I wasn’t wrong. Xia Mengxi really would make her move today. It seems… we truly are good friends, connected heart to heart.”
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