Yuki was starting to feel a little concerned because, for some reason, the trap she set off kept shooting arrows in every direction right above her head. To make matters worse, she was lying on top of Chi, and if she raised her head even the slightest bit, she would get hit by an arrow. But the most awkward thing was that the two were stuck in such an intimate position, with their faces only centimeters apart. Yuki could see that Chi was very embarrassed right now with how red her face was. As a girl herself, she knew Chi was not feeling comfortable at all. “Sorry Chi, I know this is uncomfortable…”

“It-It’s fine. I know you can’t move.” Chi replied. Her heart was beating so fast right now. Not just from being so close to Ryu but because she could see the thousands of arrows flying overhead non-stop. She knew if Ryu had not protected her, she would have already been turned into a porcupine. Just thinking of how Ryu did not hesitate to protect her made Chi feel warmth in her heart. She gazed at the handsome face that was only centimeters away, her eyes scanning each curve of his face. In a way, it was slightly feminine but still had a manly appeal to it. She gazed into his brown eyes and then down his nose to his lips. The more she stared, the more Ryu’s face began to overlap with someone else’s. That someone else was her real-life friend Yuki. She did not know why but Ryu’s face seemed to resemble Yuki’s in a big way.

“Chi, it’s stopped.” Yuki suddenly spoke, snapping Chi out of her trance. She watched as the face she was intensely staring at suddenly pulled away from her as Yuki got up.

“It’s over?” Chi’s voice sounded slightly depressed. But this was only because she felt like she was about to figure something out. She did not understand why Ryu’s face and Yuki’s face would overlap like that in her mind. One was male, one was female! “I must be crazy…”

“Chi, are you okay?” Yuki asked out of concern. Chi was not getting up off the ground, so she thought that maybe she was hurt.

“Yes!” Chi suddenly shouted, her voice squeaking in the process. She quickly got up and dusted herself off. “Let’s continue.”

“Yeah… ” Yuki scratched her head and turned around to check her surroundings. She hoped she could go a little longer without triggering a trap.

In the palace at the mountain peak, Fu Shi sat there looking at the pool of water tapping her fingers on the pool’s stone edge. “This one is quite dense… But the way he reacted was good. He put her safety first.” She looked at the old scroll in her hand and smiled. “Let’s hope you are worthy of this heavenly treasure. Out of everything I have to offer, this here is something from beyond the skies. Now then… back to getting these two closer together.”

After almost five hours of traversing the maze in game time, Yuki was really wondering what the hell was going on. She could not even count the number of times she has had to pin Chi to the floor due to arrows or how many times she has had to hold Chi in her embrace to bypass certain areas. It was as if the whole place wanted the two of them to be stuck together. Even if the two jumped down to the floor at the same time, the arrows would divert from flying overhead to flying straight at her, causing her to have to roll her body over to Chi until she was lying on top of her yet again, and only then would the arrows stop targeting her. At first, it was really awkward for the both of them, but after the one hundredth time, it just became routine.

As for the culprit who was causing these ‘lucky’ incidents to happen, she was starting to get bored. “Even the little girl is no longer blushing. But at least the two hugging each other is now natural. They seem fine with being extremely close to each other. I guess it is time for the next phase of the trial.”

Yuki and Chi were currently in a large room leaning against a wall resting. The room was completely empty of any and all things. “This is the last room. There are no more exits… Did we take a wrong turn?”

“I do not think so… We marked all our paths, and we have not come across any of our marks.” The maze was made up of many paths and rooms at each end of the path. In order to mark their progress, Yuki would leave a notch in each entry to a room and exit as they left to make sure they were not going in circles. So far, this has worked out well, and even if they came to a dead end, they never took the same path twice. But now, they were in an empty room with no exit, which confused both Yuki and Chi.

But as the two were lost in thought, trying to decide what to do next, a familiar figure appeared in front of them. “You two have done well.” Fu Shi said with a smile. “But this is just the start of this trial.”

With a snap of her fingers, the door that led out was blocked by a large stone, and the floor under Yuki and Chi began to rumble. “The trial of trust is to see just how much you trust each other. So far, you showed good results, but it is far from enough. The floor under you will begin to collapse if you step on the wrong tile. Any adjacent tiles next to it will also fall, even those which would normally not fall. Now, this trial would be too easy to do if you were to do it normally, so we will spice it up a bit. Lad, you did well protecting your little wife here. But how much do you trust her? This room will be your way of proving just how much you trust her. I will put a blinding spell on you. It will cause you to lose all your senses except the sense of touch. This young lady will then lead you across the room. The spell on your body can only be removed in two ways: crossing the room and stepping into the array or dying. I wish you good luck!”

With another snap of her fingers, Yuki suddenly lost her vision, taste, hearing, and sense of smell. Fu Shi smiled at Yuki and then turned to Chi. “As long as you keep his hand in yours, the path will open up to you.”

After saying these confusing words to Chi, Fu Shi once again disappeared. Chi quickly grabbed hold of Yuki’s hand and looked around the room nervously. Yuki felt Chi grabbing her hand and felt her body trembling and knew Chi was very nervous. “Chi, trust in yourself. Even if we fail, it will be fine. No matter what happens, at least we tried and did our best.”

Yuki gripped Chi’s hand, trying to reassure her. It felt strange not being able to see or hear. She couldn’t even hear her own voice. She was only trying to say what she was thinking and hoped it was coming out of her mouth. Chi, on the other hand, looked at Ryu in surprise. She almost just jumped out of her skin just now because Ryu yelled all of a sudden. But his words did make her feel better. She gripped his hand tighter so he would know she understood and finally stepped forward. As she did, the floor around her suddenly collapsed, revealing a fiery pit underneath. There was now only a single straight path ahead of her. The path was only about 30 centimeters by 30 centimeters. Just barely enough room for a person to keep both feet on.

Chi gulped seeing this. She looked across the skinny path and saw the small 1 meter by 1 meter area by the far wall she had to get to, with the room being almost 30 meters wide. This was going to take some time. Chi turned around and bent over, and adjusted Ryu’s feet. Due to Fu Shi’s words, she did not dare to let go of Ryu’s hand. So she could only balance herself as she squatted down, shifting herself backward, and with each step, she would tap Ryu’s feet so that he would step forward. While his foot was in the air, she would adjust it so they would not step off the path.

Fu Shi, who was watching this, was quite surprised at the trust this young man had for the girl. “No hesitation at all, following her lead like it was natural. It’s too bad my time has long passed, or I might have been tempted to steal this young man even if I had to bed him and make him take responsibility for me. But even more surprising is how this little girl is going about it. Out of the two, she is in the most danger because, one wrong move on her part and she would fall into the fiery pit below. But she is firmly holding the young man’s hand and slowly backing up while making sure the young man does not step off the path. If they make it to the end, I will have no choice but to say they passed this trial.”

Back in the room on the path, the two had already made it to the middle of the room. Only halfway to go left to allow them to pass this part of the trial. Chi had just settled Ryu’s feet onto the tile and began to back up, she scooted back, but miss stepped, causing her to lose her balance and begin to fall. Her free arm rotated in the air as she tried to keep her balance, but it did not help in the slightest as she slipped off the edge and began to fall towards the fiery pit below. She hastily tried to let go of Ryu’s hand, but Ryu only tightened his grip, even adjusting it, so he was now holding her wrist. Chi was now dangling right above the fire below. She could feel the hairs on her fluffy tail beginning to singe.

“Chi!” Yuki’ yelled out. She felt Chi was losing her balance and reacted quickly when Chi had tried to let go of her hand. She quickly reached back out and grabbed her wrist. She fell to her knee in the process but still held on to Chi. Mustering up her strength Yuki stood up and pulled hard, pulling Chi up into the air and into her embrace. Chi was once again in Yuki’s arms in a princess carry.

Everything happened so fast that Chi did not even have a chance to react. She looked up at Ryu who was still visibly blind but had a determined expression on his face. She did not know if he saved her because they would fail the trial or because he did not want her to get hurt but she knew her heart was racing for him right now.