[Open Sesame]

(A new week—an extra chapter for the rankings.)

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Chapter Thirty-Five: [Open Sesame]

When Du Wei woke up, he felt that his head was resting on something soft. His whole body ached, as though some force had torn him apart; every muscle and joint throbbed faintly.

Du Wei painfully opened his eyes.

The first thing that made him breathe a sigh of relief was that his two female companions were still beside him.

Du Wei's head was resting on Joanna's lap, while Vivian was lying sprawled across his chest, the top of her head tucked beneath his chin.

As Du Wei awoke, the two women also groggily opened their eyes.

"Where are we... Were we swallowed by that monster?" Joanna vigorously rubbed her head, then immediately noticed Du Wei lying on her lap. She instantly shrieked, "What are you doing! Get off!"

With that, Joanna rolled over hard, and Du Wei immediately tumbled away.

It took Du Wei a good while to get back to his feet. He rubbed his leg muscles, which hurt as though they had been ripped apart... The feeling was truly awful, like a severe muscle strain.

"Why are you so worked up? It wasn't like I did it on purpose." Du Wei glanced at Joanna. The woman sat up, ignored him, and instead pulled Vivian to her feet first.

Poor little Vivian still looked rather dazed.

All three of them were soaked through, their hair clumped into wet strands. Du Wei was doing all right, but the two girls looked rather bedraggled.

Joanna was the lucky one. She wore that hollowed-out, magically enhanced suit of armor. Poor little Vivian was the unfortunate one. Her outer mage's robe had already been torn to tatters during those days on the deserted island, and Du Wei had later simply ripped it into strips to use as rope for the raft. At the moment, little Vivian wore only a close-fitting undergarment.

Ordinarily, there would have been nothing wrong with that garment, but after being soaked in seawater, it revealed several rather inappropriate details.

Clearly, the garment was far too thin... And even more fatally, women in this world seemed to be missing one very important thing compared to the women of Du Wei's previous life.

A bra.

After being soaked by the sea, the thin clothing clung to Vivian's body, easily outlining her budding figure in full... especially the upper half of the female mage's body...

Du Wei only took one glance before he could not help drifting off in thought.

Clearly, while this female mage's manner was excessively innocent and somewhat like that of a childish little girl... her body already possessed quite a bit of feminine charm. Her modestly developed chest, the shapes of the buds beneath her clothes clearly visible—and even more fatally, Vivian's clothing was light-colored... If Du Wei stared for another few moments, he might even be able to vaguely see the two protruding points*.

Though they were in danger, Du Wei still could not help entertaining a few wayward thoughts. Looking at Vivian's bewildered little face, he sighed: Ah... what a pity...

"What are you staring at!" Being older than Vivian, Joanna cautiously caught the direction of Du Wei's gaze. She snorted heavily, pulled her sister over, then shot Du Wei a vicious glare. "Lecherous little noble! Look again, and I'll gouge out your eyes!"

Du Wei did not argue with her. Instead, he turned around and carefully surveyed their surroundings.

This was clearly a cave.

Just two steps away from where they had awakened lay seawater... From that alone, Du Wei believed they were most likely inside an underwater cave. Due to the unusual terrain, there was no seawater within the cave itself.

A faint glow seemed to flicker from the cave walls, allowing Du Wei and the others to make out their surroundings.

Du Wei reached out and touched the wall, feeling a patch of rough, uneven granules. Among them were tiny, sand-like particles that faintly emitted light on their own.

"Luminous pearls? No, they're too small. They should be called luminous sand." Du Wei withdrew his hand.

The common sense from Du Wei's previous life told him that such self-luminous crystals and ores were actually harmful radiation. They were no benefit to humans at all.

"What are you poking around at?" Joanna asked from behind him.

"Examining the terrain," Du Wei replied. "We should count ourselves lucky not to be dead. We must have been attacked by that monster just now... But I can't understand how we ended up here."

"I-I-I think I might know a little." Vivian timidly spoke up. A shy blush seemed to color the foolish girl's face, and she did not dare look Du Wei in the eye... Perhaps, despite her innocence, she was still a teenage girl and could more or less understand the look Du Wei had just given her chest.

The moment Du Wei looked toward Vivian, Joanna immediately coughed loudly. Before Du Wei could speak, she asked first, "What do you know?"

"A-a whirlpool." Vivian gestured repeatedly as she spoke. "J-just now, I-I think I felt that w-we were swept in here by an under-underwater whirlpool."

Du Wei frowned. "Could it really be such a coincidence? A whirlpool just happened to catch us—not send us somewhere else, but deliver us so precisely into this cave without drowning us?" His expression grew complicated. "I don't believe this is a coincidence..."

The cave was neither particularly large nor particularly small. It resembled an upside-down bowl, and the surrounding walls had no entrances or exits at all. It was completely sealed. The only entrance or exit was probably the seawater passage beside them.

"I think that if we want to get out, we can only jump into that passage first and swim out along with the seawater," Du Wei concluded.

"We should've stayed on the island!" After looking around, Joanna reached the same conclusion as Du Wei and could not help getting angry. "At least there was water to drink and tree roots to eat on the island. What's here? Nothing but rocks!"

"Not necessarily. At least there's oxygen here. We haven't suffocated to death, which means there's still an opening leading outside—we just haven't found it yet." Du Wei shook his head.

"Oxygen? What's oxygen?" Joanna frowned.

Du Wei was left speechless. Explaining the chemical principles of oxygen to people in this magical world was simply far too difficult. After brushing it off with a few vague words, Du Wei immediately changed the subject. "We need to think of something... Can you use your magic?"

Both female mages shook their heads, extinguishing Du Wei's last shred of hope.

"What do we do now?"

Joanna was the one who asked.

As if unconsciously, after several days on the island, both women had come to regard Du Wei, the youngest among them, as the leader of the three. Even Joanna could not help developing a sense of reliance on this young boy. After all, Du Wei had always been the calmest one among them. He had made their escape plans, searched for food and fresh water, handled all the important matters, and consciously or unconsciously taken care of the two women.

What could they do?

Du Wei truly had no solution.

He wasn't a god! Trapped in a place where calling to heaven brought no answer and crying to earth brought no response, what could he possibly do?

Du Wei felt that he could barely even manage a bitter smile anymore. He wanted to shout a few times to vent his feelings. After all, his heart was stifled too.

But with both women looking at him, especially Vivian with her eyes wide and that inexplicable trust in them... Du Wei let out a sigh.

Forcing a smile, Du Wei did his best to comfort them with reassuring words. "Don't worry... Since Heaven didn't let us die and brought us to a place like this, then I suppose our lives aren't fated to end here. There'll always be a way!"

Du Wei sighed inwardly and walked over to the cave wall, lightly touching it. Smiling, he said, "First, we need to rest and recover some strength. Then..." At this point, Du Wei stumbled over his words. "...Then, there'll always be a way... Hey, does anyone want to hear a story?"

Joanna curled her lips. She was not as innocent as Vivian; she could see that, in such desperate circumstances, Du Wei was probably out of ideas. But seeing Vivian trembling faintly beside her, Joanna sighed and said nothing.

If they truly had to die here... then let them die! That obsession she had carried for far too long had weighed on her for long enough. Perhaps this would be a kind of release...

Joanna remained silent, lost in her thoughts, while Vivian quietly stepped away from her and took two steps forward. She looked at Du Wei with hope filling her eyes. "Wh-what story?"

"A story..." Du Wei smiled faintly. "I... once heard a story about a bandit and a treasure. Legend says there was a young man named Ali Baba..."

Du Wei slowly recounted the famous tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves from his previous life. At the end, he smiled and pointed at the cave wall before them. "See? Maybe the gods will grant us a miracle too! Maybe if you touch it and shout 'Open Sesame,' a door will appear in this wall and let us out!"

Vivian lowered her head and thought for a while. She said nothing. When she raised her head again, tears were already streaming from the young sorceress's eyes. In a low voice, she asked, "Du Wei, you're... comforting me, aren't you?"

Du Wei said nothing. In a moment like this, all he could do was gently stroke Vivian's hair without a word.

Vivian suddenly lifted her face in a smile. She was trying very hard to smile as she stammered, "Du Wei says there's a way... so there m-must be a way! W-we can try them one by one! We'll surely find a way eventually! So... so let's start with this 'Open Sesame'!"

An adorable smile appeared on the little foolish girl's face, though her eyes were full of tears. Then she truly raised her hand and lightly knocked on the wall a few times before carefully reciting in her sweet, clear voice:

"Open... Se-sesame..."

Du Wei suddenly felt a pang of sorrow as well... Such a lovely little girl—was she going to die here too?

But... it seemed Heaven was determined to keep playing with him!

Just before Du Wei's tears could fall...

Just as Vivian finished speaking the words "Open Sesame"...

The cave wall before them suddenly rippled faintly... Yes, the hard stone wall abruptly undulated like waves on water!

A withered, skinny hand suddenly stretched out from within the cave wall, appearing before Du Wei and the others! Just as all three of them nearly stared their eyes out, an aged, weak voice—so feeble it seemed on the verge of drawing its last breath—came from inside the wall:

"At last... visitors have come... Please, come in..."