Chapter 27: Yao Xing Academy 27 Part 2

He tugged on the Safety Rope to ensure one end was firmly secured to the steel guardrail, then crouched slightly, focusing on the rhythm of the elevator’s sway.

The other three finally realized what he planned and showed expressions of horror.

“Young Master Xun, you don’t mean to jump… to…”

Before Yan Qian finished, the elevator swung to its closest point to the wall. Almost simultaneously, Xun Ji took a running start, kicked off hard with his legs, and leaped!

A golden afterimage flashed through the air.

“Xun Ji!” All color drained from Lu Zhou’s face. Ignoring everything, he scrambled up and lunged forward two steps to grab him, but missed.

He collapsed at the elevator’s edge and barely hooked his foot on the cabin to avoid falling. Ignoring the cries behind him, Lu Zhou fixed his eyes on the golden-haired figure just meters away, his heart pounding as if it would burst from his chest.

Xun Ji crashed awkwardly onto a gear, clinging desperately to its edge with both arms.

The Safety Rope at his waist pulled the elevator toward the wall with his movement, but the rebounding force soon yanked mercilessly to tear him from the gear.

Lu Zhou quickly stood, stumbled over, and unlocked the Safety Rope from the elevator. Xun Ji finally got some relief. He pushed up with his hands and stood steady in the gear’s recess.

Chunks of crushed stone and dust rained down from the wall where the elevator had collided. The brake wheel’s grinding scrape grew louder and closer, like a death knell.

Xun Ji secured himself firmly in a recess of the gear, then extended a hand to Lu Zhou, who had been watching him intently.

“Lu Zhou, come here.”

Lu Zhou didn’t hesitate for a second. He wrapped the Safety Rope around his wrist a few times, backed up nimbly, took a running start, and leaped.

Their hands clasped; Xun Ji caught him.

“They’re all crazy…” Yu Fangbai muttered, his body trembling uncontrollably.

Xun Ji helped Lu Zhou stand on the adjacent gear segment and wrapped the Safety Rope once around his waist, then tossed the lock end back to the elevator.

Luo Xunan instinctively caught the thrown lock and asked blankly, “This doesn’t mean you want us to jump over too, right?”

“That’s exactly what it means.” Yan Qian gave a miserable laugh, too drained even to cry.

A faint whir of helicopter blades echoed from the sky. Yu Fangbai’s eyes lit up with joy as he looked up.

“It’s a helicopter! Rescue is here!”

Yan Qian and Luo Xunan rejoiced and stood to peer upward. But Xun Ji and Lu Zhou, off to their side, saw clearly: the main brake wheel on the elevator’s back suddenly convulsed violently, horrific cracks spiderwebbing outward!

“No time!” Lu Zhou barked. “Luo Xunan, jump over!”

Joy froze on Luo Xunan’s face as realization dawned, but his body reacted too slowly.

“Yan Qian! Yu Fangbai! Hold onto him!” Xun Ji’s voice reached Yan Qian’s ears. His mind was a blank whirl, but he obeyed instinctively.

The moment his arms wrapped around Luo Xunan’s waist, something behind the elevator shattered explosively. Sharp metal shards flew, slicing his forearm.

Before he could cry out in pain, the floor vanished beneath him, and he plummeted into freefall!

“Crash—!!!“

The Mechanical Elevator, like a thousand-holed dying behemoth, could no longer hold. It flipped and tumbled downward. Metal grated against the wall, sparking a trail of blazing fire, its piercing screech like the beast’s final death cry.

“Aaah!!”

Luo Xunan wailed as he dangled in midair, clutching the Safety Rope’s lock desperately, swinging wildly like an out-of-control pendulum.

Two others hung from him.

“You damn Yu Fangbai! My leg’s about to be yanked off!” Luo Xunan howled in agony.

Yu Fangbai ignored him. In that hair-raising moment, he had grabbed Luo Xunan’s leg as he was flung from the cabin, narrowly escaping the plunge with the elevator.

Yan Qian’s arms locked vise-like around Luo Xunan’s waist, choking him red-faced.

“Luo Xunan, stop swinging!” he shrieked, trying to vent his terror.

“You think I want to?!” Luo Xunan broke down. “You two up top, do something!”

At the other end of the Safety Rope, Xun Ji and Lu Zhou said nothing—not from unwillingness, but from sheer exhaustion.

They no longer stood stably on the gear but hung solely from the Safety Rope around their waists, one hand gripping the rope and the other the gear’s edge, straining with their body weight to support the three below.

Worse still, the gear segment couldn’t bear five people’s weight; the screws anchoring it to the wall began loosening dangerously.

“This is bad—the gear up top can’t hold much longer!” Yan Qian wailed through tears.

Luo Xunan glanced up, then at the two hanging from him, and muttered, “Too heavy… this won’t work…”

Fresh blood trickled down the gear’s edge. Lu Zhou’s eyes sharpened as he gritted his teeth. “This won’t work!”

The elevator’s fall had been perilously close; though prepared mentally, they couldn’t resist the downward pull of the other three and were yanked from the gear. Xun Ji’s calf was gashed by the gear’s edge, opening a long wound.

Xun Ji eyed the trembling gear segment, then the helicopter—now only fist-sized in the sky—and said helplessly, “No other choice now. We can only pray this gear holds until the helicopter arrives.”

The massive projected Phoenix seemed bored with the scene and gracefully departed, folding its wings to return to its perch. Only the howling wind remained on the Bell Tower’s exterior.

“There’s a way.” Lu Zhou’s dark eyes fixed on him intently, word by word: “As long as there’s one less person, you’ll be safe.”