[Hello guys, I have completely corrected the previous Chapters and made huge changes. Please read again from Chapter 67 to get a better idea of the Chapters.]

Bai Li could feel the pressure of responsibility pressing against her even before she actually moved. It was not just about landing safely anymore. It was about making sure the person in her arms came down safely too.

She gritted her teeth and pulled on the rope again, then glanced downward.

The sight below made her expression tighten slightly.

From this height, the vehicles on the street looked like tiny toys. The zombies wandering around below looked even smaller, like black dots moving without purpose. But Bai Li knew they were not small. They were dangerous. Very dangerous. If she fell, even one second of hesitation would be enough to turn all that distance into something fatal.

She did not stand there any longer. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

The longer she waited, the more uncertain she would feel. That was the kind of thing she knew from experience. So instead of letting doubt settle in, Bai Li forced herself to move.

She turned around, faced the building, and grabbed the rope above more firmly. Then she started to descend.

At once, the wall became her guide.

Facing the building gave her something to brace against, which meant she could press her legs against the surface and use them to support part of her weight while her hands handled the rope. The movement was steady, controlled, and incredibly careful. One hand held the rope above. The other slowly released the rope around her waist little by little. Her legs pressed against the side of the building, then slid downward, then pressed again. It was a slow swing, but it was stable. That was what mattered.

The first few seconds were the most tense. Bai Li could feel the full weight of Yan Cijin against her body, could feel the ropes tightening under her palms, could feel the air moving around them as they lowered slightly from the roof edge. But as she found her rhythm, the strain eased a little. Her body adjusted quickly. The motion became smoother. The rope held strong. The wall stayed solid under her feet. And soon, the earlier uncertainty in her chest faded away completely.

When she had stood at the edge of the rooftop, she had felt a little uncertain. That was natural. Anyone would. But now, as she swung down little by little, Bai Li was completely calm. Her shoulders loosened. Her breathing evened out. The only discomfort she felt was the slight pain in her hands from gripping the rope too tightly for too long, but even that was manageable. Compared to the danger below, compared to the risk of falling, that pain was nothing.

She could feel Yan Cijin trembling in her arms.

At first Bai Li thought she was scared. That was the most obvious explanation. After all, this height would make most people panic. Even people who were brave on the ground would freeze once they were hanging this high in the air. So Bai Li kept one part of her attention on the descent and the other part on Yan Cijin, making sure she stayed still and did not move in a way that would interfere.

But what Bai Li did not know was that Yan Cijin was not trembling only out of fear.

There was a small thrill hidden under it, something she herself had not expected. This was the first time in this life she had ever experienced something like this. The sensation of being held so securely, of being carried down from such a height, of feeling Bai Li’s steady strength around her, made her heart beat in a completely different way. It was a little frightening, yes, but it was also strangely exciting. So instead of resisting, she stayed where she was, holding onto Bai Li exactly as she had been told, trying very hard not to laugh at how serious Bai Li looked while carrying her like this.

Yan Cijin’s eyes were half lowered, and even through the tension of the moment, a faint smile appeared on her lips.

Bai Li, on the other hand, felt that Yan Cijin trembling like this was actually quite understandable.

For an ordinary person, everything Yan Cijin had done today was already pretty good. She had saved Bai Li once on the stairs. She had helped her draw such an amazing card from the market. She had not shouted, had not screamed, had not caused any trouble even after seeing all the blood and all the zombies. Right now, even though she was clearly frightened by the height, she was still obediently staying in Bai Li’s arms, trembling only a little, but not moving in a way that would make things worse. That alone made Bai Li’s opinion of her improve even more.

A slight smile appeared on Bai Li’s lips before she could stop it.

Her tone softened a little as she continued moving down. "Don’t be afraid. We’ll be almost there."

The words came out naturally, almost like a quiet reassurance spoken without thinking too much about it.

She kept swinging downward with steady control, one step at a time, each motion measured and precise. The wall passed slowly behind her. The height below slowly shrank. And even though the distance was still terrifying, Bai Li’s hands never slipped. Her body remained firm. Her breathing stayed even. And Yan Cijin, held close in her arms, remained obedient and quiet, trusting her completely as they continued their descent together.

Bai Li continued lowering herself in steady, controlled motions, and the whole time she kept one part of her mind on the rope and the other on the person tied against her chest. Yan Cijin’s body was pressed close enough that Bai Li could feel every slight shift in her breathing, every tiny tremor that came from the wind and the height and the sheer strangeness of being carried like this down the side of a building. The rooftop scene from before still clung to the back of her mind, but right now she had to push everything else aside and focus only on the descent. The wind on the outer wall was stronger than it had seemed from above. Even in summer, up here, it came at her like a cool slap, brushing against her face and neck, sneaking under the edges of her clothes, and making the whole world feel sharper and more real. Bai Li could feel the rope digging into her palms with each careful shift of weight, and the skin that had already been worn raw earlier in the day sent out little stabs of pain whenever she tightened her grip. But she refused to let that pain show on her face. She had already gone through too much to make a fuss over that now. Her legs pressed against the building wall in a measured rhythm, one foot bracing, then the other, sliding just enough to keep her descent smooth while still controlling the motion. For the moment, she still had the rhythm under her control, and that was enough.

Yan Cijin, on the other hand, was feeling something entirely different. At first she had indeed been startled by the height, because anyone would be. Looking down from this far up was not the kind of thing that made people feel calm. The streets below looked small and distant, vehicles reduced to tiny shapes, and the zombies moving around below no longer looked like human-sized threats but like little broken figures scattered across a ruined board. Yet as Bai Li told her not to be afraid, the tightness in her chest loosened a little. Yan Cijin understood that Bai Li was trying to comfort her in the only way she knew how, plain and direct, with no soft words or unnecessary sweetness, and somehow that made it feel even more sincere. So Yan Cijin followed her instruction and closed her eyes for a moment. The cold air brushed across her cheeks, moving through her hair, slipping against the side of her face, and instead of making her nervous, it gave her an odd sense of being fully awake, fully alive. It was a rare feeling in this broken world, and it made the whole descent seem strangely exciting. Her arms stayed around Bai Li’s back exactly as she had been told, and though her heart was still beating hard, she let herself trust the motion and the hands holding her.

Bai Li kept descending at a constant pace, and after a while she reached the level of the twelfth floor. From there, the windows were close enough that she could glance sideways and judge the situation inside. The room on the twelfth floor was already crowded with zombies, more than thirty at a glance, maybe even more if the ones at the back were counted properly. It was less crowded than the thirteenth floor had been, where the room had practically been stuffed full, but there were still more than enough to be a problem. Some of them had already spotted her through the glass. Their faces were distorted, mouths open in ugly expressions, hands pressing against the windows like they were trying to force their way out. A few had even left smeared handprints on the inside of the glass, leaving streaks that caught the faint light. Bai Li didn’t waste time staring at them. She just tightened her hold on the rope and kept moving downward. At the same time, a sharper kind of fatigue began creeping over her body. It was not the heavy, sleepy sort of exhaustion that came from a bad night. It was the kind that settled into the muscles and bones after too much strain had already built up, only to be made worse by delayed recovery. The serum’s effect had not kicked in yet, so her body had not truly recovered from everything she had done. She could feel the old fatigue she had pushed aside during the fight and the rooftop struggle slowly crawling back to the surface now that there was no immediate enemy in front of her. Her palms were burning, and every time the rope shifted against them, warm liquid seemed to seep out a little more. She didn’t look at it, but she knew there was blood there. Her hands had already been rubbed raw, and the rope was not helping.

She continued downward to the eleventh floor, and by that point the motion had become almost automatic. She swung little by little, facing the wall, using it to brace herself whenever she needed to, letting the building itself do part of the work. Her legs pressed against the opposite wall in short controlled pushes, giving her leverage and keeping the descent from becoming too jerky. It was not graceful, exactly, but it was effective, and that was what mattered. When she reached the middle of the eleventh floor, she was close enough to the windows to see inside the rooms clearly. There were more than a dozen zombies in that section too, crowded around the corridor and the office spaces, drifting aimlessly but turning sharply whenever they sensed movement outside. Bai Li’s eyes narrowed slightly as she watched them. The closer she got to the source of the interdimensional market, the more the zombies seemed to gather, and that fit the pattern she had already begun to understand. The market’s presence was like a lure, and the closer something living came to it, the more the zombies were pulled in the same direction. She didn’t know if all of them had followed the rooftop attraction directly or if some had simply been wandering and got drawn in later, but the result was the same. More zombies meant more danger. Her plan had to change according to the crowd density, and there was no way she could simply force her way through a heavily packed room when there were easier options below. The rope itself only extended down to somewhere around the ninth floor, so the tenth floor was the safest place to try breaking in.

.

.

.

To be continued.