My wife is a witch princess

Chapter 51 Xia Li's only fear is not being able to find Song Che

The maze lights were dimly lit.

A cloaked skeleton model suddenly jumped out from around the corner, its joints cracking, its red eyes flashing, accompanied by a strange "wahahaha" sound from the speakers.

Xia Li stopped and looked up at it.

The skeleton monster awaited the expected scream or retreat.

"Hello," Xia Li said, "Have you seen Song Che?"

The skeleton monster visibly froze, even forgetting to flash its red light. "...Waaaaah, I'm a skeleton, I'm going to eat you!"

It quickly waved the plastic axe in its hand, trying to bring the atmosphere back on track.

Using the dim light from the corner lamp, Xia Li lowered her gaze and landed on the skeleton's bare feet.

"You're not wearing shoes." Her tone was questioning. "Aren't you cold?"

"...It's a bit cold," he added, following up on the conversation.

"Then you should go find a pair of shoes to wear before you try to scare me," Xia Li suggested earnestly.

"Okay, thank you..." The skeleton monster nodded subconsciously, then suddenly realized, "Wait, that's not right! I'm a scary skeleton, and I'm not supposed to have shoes."

"Oh." Xia Li nodded, indicating she understood, but the questions weren't over yet. "Did you see a boy walk by just now? He was probably taller than me, wearing pajamas, and there seemed to be a girl and a boy next to him..."

"Girl!" The skeleton monster was both amused and exasperated, its plastic chin trembling. "I'm an NPC, here to scare people. Say another word and I'll dock your pay!"

This was the first time he had encountered a customer who had turned a terrifying atmosphere into asking for directions.

"I'll find them myself, so as not to keep you from putting on your shoes." Xia Li didn't say anything more and turned to leave.

"Don't let her leave." The supervisor's smiling voice came through the earpiece. "One more chat and you'll lose 100. Scare her, follow procedure!"

Left with no other option, the skeleton monster let out an exaggerated scream and charged at Xia Li with its plastic axe—as designed, the tourists would be so frightened that they would step back and land on the soft cushions behind them.

boom!

Xia Li didn't even turn her head. As the wind whipped up by the axe reached her, she naturally took a half-step to the side. The skeleton monster, unable to stop its momentum, crashed straight into the half-open door behind her. The mechanism inside the door sensed the weight and sprang up a rope, suspending him firmly upside down in mid-air.

Xia Li then turned around and glanced back.

The upside-down skeleton weakly shook its axe at her: "...Wow, were you startled just now...Can you put me down?"

She ignored it and pushed open the next door, which the skeleton felt insulted.

Behind the door was an even deeper darkness.

Without hesitation, she went inside, her figure quickly swallowed by the darkness.

In the maze monitoring room, the supervisor stared at Xia Li's silhouette on the screen, somewhat surprised.

Unlike others who wander aimlessly or fearfully in the dark, she knew her routes perfectly well. Whenever she encountered a dead end, she could immediately return to the previous fork in the road, never repeating the same path. Her sense of direction, patience, and especially her ability to memorize routes in the dark, were extraordinary.

Inside the passage, Xia Li mentally counted the forks in the road and the doors she pushed open. The witch's memory was precise; every path she had taken was automatically memorized. Dead ends were marked in red, and new routes extended from the doors that led through them.

Soon, there were only a few routes left that hadn't been tried.

She stopped in front of a door that looked no different from the others and took a moment to catch her breath.

After walking for so long and pushing so many doors, I've definitely used up some of my energy.

Even a body without magical enhancements will get tired.

She raised her hand, pressed it against the door, and forcefully pushed away the last possibility.

……

"Finally out! It was so dark there I couldn't see anything, and I got so dizzy from all the spinning around."

Jiang Shuo rubbed his temples as he appeared in another softly lit rest room with Song Che and Zhang Hanyu.

Seeing Song Che's calm expression and even breathing, he found it strange: "Brother Che, how come you're not flustered at all? It's like you have a map in your head."

"I was lucky." Song Che smiled and didn't say anything more.

The deadly mazes in other worlds, created using illusion magic and spatial manipulation, are far more complex than the tricks in this amusement park.

His gaze swept across the room, searching for that familiar silver-haired figure.

The large screen in the middle of the room was lit up, displaying the final rule for not being afraid of challenges: "Everyone find the exit."

Below is a line of smaller text: "Note: There is no direct exit in single-player mode; you need to complete NPC quests to get hints."

"Damn it, no exit for single occupants? This is a rip-off!" Jiang Shuo exclaimed as soon as he saw it. "Xia Li didn't know that!"

Zhang Hanyu frowned as well: "Isn't this design too unfriendly to people going in alone?"

Song Che stopped Jiang Shuo, who was about to go find a staff member: "There's an exit. The rules say there's no direct exit in single-player mode. That means Xia Li either has to go back to where multiplayer mode is triggered, or..."

He pointed to another small screen that was split off from the big screen, "Finish that NPC's quest."

In the picture, a skeleton monster is hanging upside down in mid-air by a rope, swaying slightly, which looks a bit comical.

Jiang Shuo and Zhang Hanyu stared at the small screen and remained silent for two seconds.

"...Sister-in-law, you're pretty strong," Zhang Hanyu said dryly.

"That makes sense," Jiang Shuo scratched his head, "but without the hints, who would think of specifically looking for NPCs? Xia Li is a girl, in that dark, winding place... she'd be scared, wouldn't she?"

"She won't be afraid," Song Che said with certainty.

He understood her. Darkness and getting lost—these things easily frighten people and are unlikely to move a witch from another world. He was just unsure whether Xia Li could reverse the situation and deduce the hidden rule, finding the right exit.

"But Che-ge..." Jiang Shuo's voice suddenly changed. He pointed at the screen, "Xia Li... seems to be calling your name..."

……

The door opened.

It was a short, narrow corridor, at the end of which was another cold wall.

Xia Li stood at the doorway, her steps halting.

This is the last possible route I found by eliminating possibilities based on a map I looked up from memory.

She wouldn't forget which choice she made at each fork in the road.

But now, this last path has unsurprisingly also led to a dead end.

Did you miss counting once before?

Probably not, witches' memories never go wrong.

So, what's the problem?

She walked into the dead end, leaned against the wall, and slowly sat down.

My breathing was noticeably faster than usual, and I had a light sweat on my forehead and the back of my neck.

She sat quietly, reflecting on all the paths she had walked.

no problem.

She pushed open every door she could.

She went to every possible path.

The remaining choice is zero.

The chilling conclusion came to mind: she was trapped, trapped in a loop with no predetermined exit.

It's not scary. A maze is just a series of walls and paths, and darkness is simply the absence of light.

They themselves cannot harm her.

but……

A strange tightness rose from her chest. Since coming into this world, she had been experiencing more and more strange sensations. Xia Li silently felt it, unable to understand what kind of emotion this tightness was.

It wasn't physical pain, nor did she feel any danger; it was a kind of...empty, bewildered feeling, as if the solid ground beneath her feet had suddenly turned into quicksand, and she couldn't hold on or stand steadily. She was certain she was calm; she just didn't want to talk or walk at all. She just wanted to go out immediately, eat the fish that Song Che had made, and then go to sleep.

Where is Song Che?

She couldn't find him.

"Song Che..."

She called out softly.

The sound bounced off the wall in the narrow corridor, sounding particularly lonely.

There was no response, only the sound of her own calm breathing.

Song Che said it was just a game, and that the Witch Princess was not afraid of war, let alone games. But she looked at her childish hands and wondered how she could push open the dark maze.

She discovered... she had something she was afraid of.

Xia Li leaned against the corner of the wall, like a wounded little animal; this was not how His Highness should behave.

"Song Che," she called again, her voice a little louder, "Where are you? I can't find you."

She stood up, leaning against the wall, her blue eyes searching around.

Her usually straight back had relaxed at some point, and her shoulders unconsciously tucked in. She subconsciously hugged her arm with one hand, while the other hand reached forward in the darkness, her fingertips touching the wall in front of her, then curling back as if burned.

"Song Che..." she called him in the syllables that belonged to the contract, "I can't find you, can you come out?"

Unbeknownst to her, at this moment, she was hunched over, her hands clasped helplessly in front of her, turning her gaze futilely in the darkness. Every movement revealed a different kind of bewilderment than when she was exploring before.

The word "fear" didn't exist in Xia Li's mind. But her actions and increasingly hushed calls pieced together a clear meaning—

She is afraid.

On the screen, the certainty on Song Che's face gradually disappeared completely.

He stared at the figure on the screen, gently calling his name over and over again, and realized that he might never have truly understood her.

"Brother Che, how could a girl really not be afraid of the dark?" Jiang Shuo said from the side, sounding puzzled. "Zhang Hanyu was so scared when she went in just now that she kept pinching my arm, wasn't she?"

Zhang Hanyu, unusually, didn't refute, nodding and looking at the screen with concern: "Yeah, brother. It must be very stressful for a girl to navigate a maze like this alone. Xia Li is definitely lost; she's a bit panicked."

Song Che's gaze never left the screen.

On the screen, Xia Li was no longer looking for a new door. She just stood against the wall, head down, chanting a transcendental spell. She wanted to blow up the maze, but she had lost her magic, like a lion without its fangs.

"She's not afraid of the dark, nor is she afraid of getting lost," Song Che said in a low voice.

"Then what is she afraid of?" Jiang Shuo pressed.

Song Che didn't answer, but turned to the staff member who had just come in and said, "I give up on this. Please bring my girlfriend out. She's scared to be alone."