The Witch in the Cat Cafe (11)

The light in the coffee forest was even dimmer.

Overhead, the branches and leaves intertwined, blocking out most of the moonlight.

Cen Yao cast a Night-Vision Spell on herself, and her surroundings finally became much clearer.

She spotted a narrow drainage ditch up ahead. It wasn't deep, but it ran right across the middle of the path.

Cen Yao looked down at the wheelchair, then back at the drainage ditch.

As if sensing something, Pei Tinglan looked up at her with a freezing gaze.

“Don't you dare.”

Cen Yao said sincerely, “I'm doing this to save our lives.”

The next second, she cast a Lightweight Spell on the wheelchair as well.

Then, she pushed the wheelchair and charged straight ahead.

The moment the wheelchair went airborne, Pei Tinglan's expression finally changed. Although it was only for a split second, Cen Yao saw it.

She even had the mind to marvel internally.

The wheelchair slammed heavily back onto the ground.

Fortunately, the Lightweight Spell cushioned the impact, preventing him from being thrown out entirely.

But the jolt was still quite considerable.

Pei Tinglan kept his eyes lowered, only speaking slowly after two seconds had passed.

“You had better pray I never stand up again in this lifetime.”

Cen Yao continued to sprint while pushing the wheelchair.

“Look at what you're saying. I'm not the dungeon designer, and I wasn't the one who ruined your legs.”

In that instant, Pei Tinglan's expression turned completely cold.

Cen Yao realized something was wrong.

Her mouth had been faster than her brain; the words were already out.

In the night wind, the man in the wheelchair spoke no more.

All his sharp sarcasm and mean comebacks seemed to have been instantly muted by a certain word.

Cen Yao pursed her lips.

She suddenly realized that this sentence might have crossed his line.

Pei Tinglan hated it when others mentioned his legs. He hated it extremely.

No matter how toxic his tongue had been just now, it was directed at her.

But her words felt like she had accidentally poked a wound that shouldn't be touched.

Cen Yao frowned.

The cat-headed employees behind had caught up again, leaving her no time to overthink.

She said in a low voice, “Sorry.”

Pei Tinglan didn't respond, nor did he scold her again.

This actually made her feel more uncomfortable than if he had continued his sarcasm.

The slight satisfaction of getting revenge faded a bit in Cen Yao's heart.

But she wasn't the type of person to get bogged down in regrets while running for her life.

She pushed the wheelchair and kept charging forward.

This sprint lasted for nearly half an hour.

At first, Cen Yao was calculating the distance in her head.

Having cast both the Lightweight Spell and the Strength Spell on herself, and with several wisps of gentle breeze wrapped around her, she was running at a speed that barely seemed human.

Without exaggeration, even if she couldn't match an actual car, she had definitely surpassed the limits of what a normal human could achieve on two legs.

Logically speaking, no matter how large this Cat Cafe was, running like this for half an hour should have brought her to its edge, right?

Even if she hadn't escaped, she should at least see a perimeter wall, fences, a warehouse, or some kind of architectural silhouette.

But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The surroundings were still the same pitch-black coffee forest.

Intertwining branches and leaves hung clusters of coffee cherries in the darkness—red like semi-coagulated blood droplets, black like pupils devoid of whites.

When the wind blew, the cherries gently collided, making faint, dense sounds.

It sounded like something was hiding behind the leaves, whispering.

The further Cen Yao ran, the tighter her brow furrowed.

How strange.

Was she running in circles?

Or was there something wrong with this coffee forest itself?

The group of cat-headed employees behind was still chasing.

Surprisingly, their speed hadn't slowed down at all. Their sharp, shrill cries echoed intermittently from behind, like malice clinging to their shadows.

“Catch the kitten!”

“Naughty kittens must be chopped up!”

“The manager wants them fresh!”

Listening to this, Cen Yao felt her temper gradually rising.

Maybe she should just stop running and simply hack those damn things behind her to pieces.

Just as this thought crossed her mind, a blurry figure suddenly appeared in the darkness ahead.

Cen Yao's pupils contracted.

Her first reaction was that it was a cat-headed employee. She even thought she had looped back to the starting point.

Her body moved faster than her brain, and her magic had already condensed into an attack that she flung forward.

A sharp wind blade tore through the night, slicing toward the figure ahead.

But as the distance rapidly closed, Cen Yao finally made out the silhouette of that person.

Cat ears. A cat tail. It wasn't a cat-headed employee—it was a player!

What's more, that person was walking sluggishly in the exact opposite direction.

It seemed she had no idea a horde of ghosts was behind her, nor did she realize a wind blade was already flying toward her from the front.

Cen Yao: “!!!”

Oh no! Friendly fire! Crap, crap, crap!

In her panic, Cen Yao instinctively reached out to grab the person.

She was moving too fast, and with several spells buffing her, she practically swept through like the wind.

She scooped the person up by the waist and pulled them into her embrace, narrowly dodging the wind blade.

The wind blade grazed the spot where the person had just been standing, slicing down two coffee trees behind them.

The branches and leaves crashed to the ground.

But in her haste, Cen Yao had overlooked another matter.

Pei Tinglan's wheelchair had reached its absolute limit.

After all, it was just a wheelchair, not a chariot.

Having been pushed by Cen Yao as she flew wildly over uneven mud, tree roots, and gravel, occasionally going airborne, it was a miracle of build quality that it had even held together this long.

At this moment, Cen Yao made a sudden turn and abruptly freed one hand to scoop up the other player.

The wheelchair finally collapsed under the strain.

With a sharp, heartbreaking sound, the wheelchair fell apart.

Pei Tinglan flew out. He literally flew.

He was thrown clear of the wheelchair, rolling five or six times on the ground due to inertia. His dark clothes were covered in mud and fallen leaves, and even the pair of civet cat ears on his head was coated in a layer of dust.

Finally, he collided with a tree root lying across the ground before coming to a stop.

In the System Space, the orb covered its eyes, unable to bear the sight.

It peeked quietly through its fingers.

Pei Tinglan lay face down on the ground, completely motionless.

It was hard to tell if he was paralyzed by anger or the fall.

The orb then looked at its Host.

Excellent.

Cen Yao was still spinning around while holding the beauty she had just saved.

Because her speed had been too fast, Cen Yao had to hold the person and spin several times to dissipate the momentum before stopping.

To an outsider, this would look like the filming set of some romantic hero-saves-beauty drama.

Except the background was a horror coffee forest.

The soundtrack was the howling of ghosts.

And lying nearby was a former idol who had just been ejected from his wheelchair.

Before Cen Yao could even get a clear look at the person in her arms, she caught a whiff of a fragrance.