18. Room of horror
Everything around him was dark. Gradually, the white peacock came to himself and managed to blink a little. At first, he only recognized slightly blurred outlines. He could hardly see anything. Only the very faint, pale glow of a lantern lit the room. Shen groaned and tried to move his body, but he felt like he was stuck in iron. He turned his head slightly to the right and the left just to get a clear head again. Slowly, he remembered what had happened before someone hit him so brutally on the head and he had passed out. Where was he? What happened? What was…?
It was neither Gongmen City, nor was it Yin Yan City...
The peacock closed his eyes and tried to remember.
Wasn't there a journey...?
"Mendong City," he muttered. Yes, that was the name of the city. Then there was the panda... and... Shenmi... "Shenmi."
"Nice to see you waking up again," another voice whispered next to him.
Shen screwed up his eyes. He knew that voice... Wasn't that...
All of a sudden Shen was wide awake. He widened his eyes and saw the dark blue shape of a peacock not far away from him to the left.
"YOU!"
Shen tried to pounce on him, but then he felt that he was tied with ropes.
Forgetting his anger for a moment, Shen tore at the ropes. His wings were tied backwards, holding his back against a thin pillar. His legs were also tied together. In addition, his long neck was attached to the pillar with ropes, which did not allow him to move his upper body.
"How dare you?!" he yelled at Xiang as he continued to pull the ropes. "Where is my daughter?! And where is my wife?! Do you have them on your conscience?! I'LL KILL YOU!"
"Hey!" Xiang interrupted him. He also sounded a bit exhausted. "I do not know either! Are you blind, or can't you see that I'm stuck here, too?!"
Shen paused. Only now he noticed that the blue peacock was tied up in the same way as he was and was also sitting on a pillar.
That shook everything up in Shen's head again. Or was this peacock just trying to trick him? He narrowed his eyes and looked at Xiang angrily. It amazed him that his plumage had grown back completely. He would never have expected that. But if he wasn't responsible for Yin-Yu and Shenmi's disappearance...
"Then who was it?" Shen inquired sternly, lifting his bounded feet.
Xiang bowed his head. "I'm not exactly sure," he muttered sheepishly.
Shen looked at him suspiciously. Did his rival have a premonition or something?
The white peacock averted his gaze from Xiang and took the opportunity to look around. The room was completely in the semi-darkness. Only a lantern burned over their heads on the ceiling, covered by a cold white-gray cardboard, which also gave the room an eerie atmosphere. But it wasn't a basement or anything like Shen had initially suspected. On the contrary, the walls were partially decorated with golden frames and the floor was covered with beautiful smooth marble slabs. The next thing he recognized in the twilight was furniture, such as cupboards and chests of drawers, all of which were beautifully decorated and quite expensive. A silk scarf hung here and there from the ceiling as a decoration, and on the other side of the room stood a bed. It seemed to be unused. The blanket was completely free of wrinkles and smoothed out.
"Where are we?" Shen asked the matter-of-factly.
Xiang swallowed as if he was afraid to put the answer in his mouth. Finally, he moved his beak and breathed a few hoarse words.
"In... my... children's room..."
"You recognized that correctly."
Xiang caught his breath when a woman's voice cut him off. Shen also listened. They weren't alone in this room. Only the lord didn't know what to think of this unusual greeting. But when he glanced over at Xiang, he seemed to be frozen.
Shen hated it to sit in the dark, literally and figuratively, and wanted plain text. Why was the person hiding from them?
"Who are you? Show yourself!" He demanded.
For a few seconds everything was silent. But then there were steps behind them. Shen listened intently. It was bare feet on hard ground. The person was not wearing shoes. Moreover, the gait was accompanied by a slight sound of claws. It had to be a bird's feet moving disturbingly slowly across the ground. In addition, the grinding of fabric could be heard. Shen tried to turn his head back, but he couldn't.
The footsteps were almost beside them now. Suddenly they stopped. For a few seconds there was absolute silence. The two peacocks couldn't hear anything but their own breath.
"Long time no see," the woman's voice began with a mocking undertone. "My dear Xiang."
In the next moment a figure stepped into the faint, pale lantern light. Shen winced, but then he shook his head immediately again. At least as far as he could. No, it was a peahen, no doubt, but it wasn't Yin-Yu. Definitely not. This one was very different from her. Her long, bushy head feathers were held together by extremely long hairpins that were as long as chopsticks. Her feathers were dark in color. Shen could not see more precisely in the weak light, but she must have a lot of black in her plumage. The next noticeable thing was her extremely long black coat. It was almost as long as a peacock's tail feathers and frayed at the ends with long strips of fabric that she pulled behind.
Shen narrowed his eyes. He had seen this peahen before somewhere.
She leaned down to Xiang. He looked up at her in disbelief. She smiled at him. But it was an extremely sneaky, cold smile.
"Why are you looking like that?" she asked lovingly. "Are you so surprised to see me, or do you no longer recognize your own aunt?"
Shen listened. Was that...
Then he remembered the painting and what Huan had said.
"This is Xiang's mother with her sister Chiwa. A nice lady. Like her sister. The two sisters have always been inseparable and have done a lot together. But she has not shown up here since Xiang's mother disappeared."
"So you're Chiwa, aren't you?" Shen inquired grimly.
The peahen turned to face him. Then she gave him a smile, too. "Oh well, what do you say, the boy was paying attention. How…"
"What do you want from us?" Shen interrupted her gruffly.
There was a brief flash in the peahen's eyes. "You are pretty cheeky for a - colorless - peacock."
She accentuated the word "colorless" in such a derogatory tone, as if it was something indecent. Shen tried to ignore the insult and repeated his request.
"You didn't answer my question...!"
"You only talk when I ask you," Chiwa said harshly. "Or am I not allowed to talk to my nephew? It's rude to interrupt someone in the middle of a conversation. Boys shouldn't act like that, and certainly not impetuously, that's really not the right thing to do."
When she turned back to her nephew, Shen saw Xiang begin to tremble. He looked at the peahen in horror, as if a monster were standing in front of him.
The peahen seemed to like his fear and leaned further down to the blue, tied peacock.
"My dear little nephew," she whispered motherly. "How long haven't we seen each other?"
The blue peacock swallowed hard. "No-t lo-ong enough," he stuttered, which surprised Shen a little.
The peahen grinned and stroked the blue peacock's forehead before patting his cheek. "Did you really think you could escape me forever?"
Xiang avoided her touch in disgust, but his aunt didn't mind. Instead, she straightened up and hid her wings under her robe.
"When you were still living here, you refused me entry forever," the peahen continued, feeling offended. "And it wasn't easy to find you. I had to literally torture the information out of your ex-wife so that she could talk."
Shen jerked his peacock comb up. "Where is my wife?! What have you done to her?!"
Chiwa turned to him. When their eyes met, she raised her eyebrows. Shen looked at her aggressively, as if trying to tear her apart in midair. But these cutting visual gestures could not impress the peahen.
"Oh, you want to see your wife?" Impassive, she stroked her chin as if she was thinking. "Well, I think that can be done." She clapped the wings lightly for a moment. "Tongfu."
In the next moment, several glowing eyes appeared in the dark. Shortly afterwards, many small figures stepped into the sparse light. Shen eyed them suspiciously. They were geckos, almost ten of them, dressed in black trousers. Their red eyes with black pupils gave them a worrying look. But Shen was so angry that even the worst demon could not have intimidated him. One of the small reptiles stepped out and his piercing gaze caught on the white peacock. They were half as large as the peafowls.
Chiwa giggled at the eye skirmish. "You already had the pleasure together."
The little gecko, who she probably called Tongfu, growled peevishly. "Yes, we have."
He pointed to another gecko in the background with a bandage on his arm. It was probably the one who Shen had struck with his sword while fighting.
Chiwa smiled, but then she got back to the subject. "Please, do me the favor and get him what he wants."
The gecko gave Shen a quick hiss before bowing. "As you wish."
They briefly disappeared from view into the darkness. Then, a large door was opened, which led to another room. Shen screwed up his eyes. In the faint moonlight that shone through the cracks in the nailed planks on the window, he saw an even larger bed. The geckos crawled on the floor and dragged something out from under the bed. Then they dragged a bundle behind them back into the so-called children's room and threw it in front of the tied feet of the white peacock.
The being whimpered softly. Then it stirred and weakly it lifted its head. Shen recognized Yin-Yu's silver eyes looking exhausted at him.
Shen's heart leapt with relief. She was tied up, but she seemed to be unharmed. At least Shen couldn't find any wounds. Shen tried to nudge her with his tied legs, but he couldn't reach her.
Yin-Yu moved her lips, but she couldn't utter a word. She was completely exhausted, which made Shen furious.
"What have you done to her?!" he yelled at Chiwa.
But the black peahen only raised her head in reproach. "Such a naughty boy. He is more brazen than you…" She meant Xiang, who was still sitting there staring with fear. "If only you could show any backbone at all..."
"Where's my daughter?!" Shen asked next.
Yin-Yu jerked her head up weakly. But not Shenmi, she hoped.
Chiwa smiled. "Oh, you mean that pale little thing that my nephew took with him?"
Shen's withering look hit Xiang with such force that the blue peacock almost buckled. But Chiwa ignored the private argument between the two peacocks and turned back to Tongfu.
"Oh, Tongfu, have I missed something or do you have something to tell me that I don't know yet?"
The gecko stepped up next to her. "No, the white shuttlecock is gone somewhere. Shall we fetch it, too?"
The peahen waved it off. "No, it is not necessary." Her gaze wandered to Xiang. "It was all about him for me."
A nasty grin slipped over the corners of her beak as the blue peacock collapsed inside and hung his head in resignation.
"And besides," she continued. "For a peahen, she is ugly enough anyway. But an ugly peacock…" She returned her attention to Shen. "That is rare."
Shen's eyelids tensed. He hated it when someone joked about his color. His gaze wandered to Yin-Yu, who was now also tied to a pillar to his right.
After the geckos had finished their bondage art, they left off Yin-Yu and the black peahen approached her. Yin-Yu's intimidated eyes went up to her. Chiwa looked down at her.
"I'm surprised you exchanged it for someone like that," she remarked pointedly. "Outwardly, my nephew had more to offer."
Shen's posture tightened. This nasty woman didn't know that Yin-Yu was color blind. But he gritted his teeth and refrained from saying an insult. The situation was tense enough. Still, he didn't know what this peahen was planning. But the fact was that it wasn't something good.
"Oh yes," Chiwa continued wistfully. "He always stood out with his beauty... which was a thorn in my sister's side."
Yin-Yu took a deep breath before she managed to move her beak.
"Why all this?" she asked weakly.
Chiwa smiled at her. "You have asked me that before, during our conversation..."
Shen's comb feathers trembled with anger. He didn't want to imagine how this so-called "conversation" had gone. He wondered if Yin-Yu had even been given anything to eat for the days.
"But if you want an answer," Chiwa continued calmly. "Maybe my nephew should give it to you."
Xiang winced when Chiwa turned to him and gave him a challenging look.
"Well, don't you want to tell her?"
The blue peacock turned his head to the side and pressed his beak lips together, which Chiwa interpreted as a clear refusal. Then she giggled.
"Well, he doesn't want to say that he murdered my sister..."
"She wanted to kill me!" Xiang shouted. "She planned that! The whole time! You both planned it...!"
The slap in the face from his aunt was violent. Xiang's eyes welled up. He gave the tears free rein without hesitation.
In the meantime, Chiwa had composed herself to the point where she briefly interrupted her verbal reprimand and attacked him with words again.
"Obedience is really a weak point of yours," she snarled angrily. She looked into his eyes so deeply that Xiang shivered even more under the veil of tears.
But then a nasty grin slipped over Chiwa. She let her wing wander to the back of her nephew's head and dug through his feathers with the tips of her fingertips.
"You know that I have to punish you for that..."
"Hey!" Shen cut in, pulling on his bonds. "Your family affairs are none of our business. Let us go!"
The peahen left Xiang and turned to the white lord. She looked at him so maliciously that Shen wanted nothing more than to stab her with his sword.
Chiwa put the feather tips of her wings together and walked slowly towards the shackled peacock. "Unfortunately, I have to disappoint you. Once a peacock is in our clutches, and by that, I mean myself and my sister, no one will be able to enjoy its splendor anymore."
Shen's stomach cramped. There was something so diabolical about this peahen that even surpassed his malevolence from back then.
Chiwa feasted on Shen's confusion and leaned down to him. Then she cupped the white peacock's face and stroked his head.
"You could still be of use to me," she whispered to him. "You peacocks think you are so beautiful, which is more than you can say for you..."
In a flash she reached into his feather comb and tore out one of the long feathers.
"Ouch!"
Angry, Shen pushed her away with his tied legs. But Chiwa only giggled and looked contemptuously at the white feather torn out with the red and black pattern.
"Extremely primitive," she said disparagingly, and let the feather fall to the floor. Then her despicable gaze wandered over to Yin-Yu.
"With your wife, however, I could be persuaded to release her." She went to the younger peahen, who was watching her uncertainly. Chiwa had such a sanctimonious look on her face. Her fears seemed to be confirmed when Chiwa put her feather fingers under her chin and tilted her head back. Then she gave her a little squeeze on the throat.
"As soon as I gave her an ugly operation," Chiwa completed her execution with a devious grin. "She seems to be a little too pretty to me." She stroked Yin-Yu's trembling face with the other wing. "Otherwise, that would tarnish my ideal of beauty."
Shen was watching her with anger. If she even touched her...
"Do you think you look better after that?!" he snapped at her.
In the next second, only Xiang's choked breath could be heard. The blue peacock ducked his head so extremely that he almost sank into his bonds.
Chiwa seemed to be frozen for a moment. Then she very slowly released her wings from Yin-Yu and straightened up. The corner of her eye met Shen as ice.
Then she turned away from the silver-eyed peahen and walked with a stony face towards the white peacock tied to the pillar. She came extremely close to him again until she leaned forward slightly in front of him and looked him in the eyes.
Shen thought he would freeze to ice at her gaze, so cold was the face that she gave to him. Then she lifted a wing and pressed her feather fingers to the tip of his beak. Then she thrust her head towards him.
"I see you like to talk, don't you?" she whispered in his ear.
Then, she pulled one of her hairpins out of her head feathers, which was the length of a finger feather. She held the sharp thing threateningly in front of Shen's face. In the cold lantern light, the lord particularly noticed the dagger-like end of the needle. But he didn't get to examine them more closely. Because in the next moment the hair ornament disappeared from his field of vision and Chiwa put a wing on his neck.
"Then I'll have to distract you," she whispered to him. "So that you don't talk so much."
Suddenly, she pressed her wing onto his beak. Shen's eyes widened as a moment later a sharp stab of pain penetrated his belly. He wanted to scream, but she pressed her wing so hard on his mouth that he could only struggle for air through his nose. He tried to fight his way free. But the peahen held him tightly. She seemed to be enjoying the peacock struggling beneath her.
Yin-Yu let out a choked cry of fear when Chiwa stabbed the needle in the peacock's abdomen.
"No! Stop it!"
In the next moment, the black peahen let go of him again. The sting disappeared, but the terrible pain afterwards worsened in a flash. Yin-Yu watched in disbelief as Shen gasped for breath and writhed in pain.
Chiwa didn't care about the suffering of her prisoner and calmly ran her feather fingertips over the needle on which Shen's fresh blood was still stuck.
"This will keep you busy for a while," she said mockingly. Then she turned away from the heavy breathing peacock and looked over at her nephew.
"Now to you…"
Yin-Yu no longer paid any attention to her. Her desperate gaze was only on Shen, who sat panting by the pillar and struggled with the pain. The white lord pressed his eyelids together and just thought at that moment: where was this panda when you needed him?!
"Where should we look?" Po asked more to himself than anyone else. "They could be anywhere. In any room."
At the thought, Po got weak on his knees.
Huan nodded understandingly. "That should be difficult. We have already systematically searched every room, except two."
Po looked at him in surprise. "Which two rooms are you talking about?"
"Well, only those that are extremely locked. After Yin-Yu disappeared, we only checked the doors. They weren't touched. That's why we didn't break them."
Po frowned. "But if there are these secret passages... Couldn't it be possible that someone came inside in this way?"
The old bull wrinkled his nose. "Possible…"
"Could it be the prohibited zone?" Liu wanted to know what was the next question mark in Po's head.
"Huh, prohibited zone?"
"Xiang talked about it," the peahen explained. "It's the room that no one is allowed to enter."
King Wang wasn't so sure about that. "But they might as well be somewhere in the passages…"
"Oh, nah," Po intervened quickly. "Let's just take a look. Come on. In any case, better than rummaging through everything again."
Xiang pressed himself tighter against the pillar while Chiwa came menacingly towards him.
"It's been a long time since I taught you a lesson," the peahen said unapologetically. "Your upbringing has slacked off a bit. It's time we did it again... and hopefully for the last time."
Her gaze wandered across the room from the horror-filled peacock. "It's great that you left everything as it was in your mother's time," his aunt praised hypocritically. "She would certainly have loved to watch it."
She looked over at the bed. Then she snapped her feather fingers briefly.
"Put him down there and tie him there."
When her wing pointed to the bed, Xiang panicked. But he couldn't prevent the geckos from obeying their orders immediately, untying him from the pillar and then dragging him over to the bed.
"NO!" Xiang yelled, desperately resisting them. "Let go of me!"
"Don't be so shy now!" Tongfu scolded angrily.
Maybe Xiang could have torn himself away from the gang if he moved both legs. But in his semi-paralyzed state, his attempts to escape were in vain. As soon as they reached the bed, the geckos forced him onto the blanket. Chiwa watched calmly as they pushed the wriggling peacock onto the bed. Then they quickly tied a rope to each wing and leg before releasing him again. Xiang fought back with all his might, but he could not prevent the skillful reptiles from stretching his limbs. One of them jumped on his stomach and Xiang landed on his back on the mattress. The geckos took advantage of this moment and tied the ropes to the bedposts.
Xiang writhed in his new captured position. But his aunt didn't sympathize with him and stepped next to him by the right side of the bed.
"Release his right leg," she ordered. One of the geckos released the paralyzed leg and walked away.
Satisfied, Chiwa looked at her tethered victim, who looked up at her fearfully.
"I asked Dunoa not to take you too hard," Chiwa said in passing, and Xiang realized why this female bear in the cure residence seemed so strange to him. "It had not been easy to convince her to do this job and get you out of your humble prison."
Her wing brushed his numb leg. The blue peacock tried to turn to the side, but Chiwa held his leg and lifted it up a little.
"Maybe we should start by releasing you from your unnecessary burden."
Xiang's eyes widened in shock while his aunt made cutting movements on his foot with the tip of a feather fingertip that made her wander upward with each grinding of her imagination, as if she were slicing something.
"How about if I cut off your foot piece by piece? You don't feel anything in it anyway."
The blue peacock clenched his feathered fists and wished it was all a nightmare. But it was pure reality.
In the meantime, Shen made every effort to somehow tear himself away from the pillar. Of course, his feather knives were no longer in his wings, so he had no way of cutting the bonds. He gasped. The pain in his stomach grew and he was beginning to doubt that they would be found here before they were all dead. Maybe except for Yin-Yu. His shaky gaze traveled to her. She still looked at him helplessly. Finally, the white peacock threw his head back and gave a peacock cry as loud as he could. Somebody had to hear them. Then he screamed again and again. His call echoed across the room.
Annoyed, Chiwa turned to him.
"My goodness! Tongfu, do something about it."
The gecko rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Fine. I'm already doing something."
Before Shen could continue to utter his peacock-typical cry for help, Tongfu stuffed a rag into his mouth, which he tied around his beak.
"Problem solved," the gecko commented with satisfaction, which only partially satisfied Chiwa. "I'll give you a talking-to later," she resolved gloomily. "But your turn comes first."
She picked up Xiang's paralyzed leg again. The blue peacock tried somehow to gain access to his numb limb and tensed all muscles in vain. Chiwa grinned. She seemed to be delighted that he couldn't pull his paralyzed foot away.
"Well then." With that, she took a dagger-like knife from under her black robe.
Xiang's beak began to shake. "No! No! NO!"
In a flash, she pressed her wing onto his beak. "Sssh! We're not alone in these walls," she hissed at him. "You don't want us to be discovered, do you?"
But this time, Xiang did not let himself be immobilized and never stopped whimpering and fidgeting.
With an angry hiss, Chiwa looked around. "Oh, Tongfu!"
"Are you okay today?!" the gecko complained indignantly. "That might be a tiresome job here."
But then he complied with her request and gagged the other peacock as well. When that was done, Chiwa picked up where she had left off.
"So let's get it over with quickly."
She yanked Xiang's leg up and made sawing motions on his toe with the knife. Xiang screamed.
Panting, Po and the others came running around the corner.
"It must be here! - Ouch! Hey, what's that?"
The panda had almost tripped into a bucket that was on the wall with other cleaning equipment.
"The cleaning people left it here," Huan explained breathlessly. "Just in case, if we have the leisure to clean the room. At the moment we left it, you never know why you lock a room."
Po rubbed his sore toe and ran to the double doors. It was really extremely well barricaded. It was almost completely boarded up and secured with several padlocks. The other double doors, a little further away, were locked in the same way.
"Is daddy in there?" Shenmi asked cautiously, who was still in Po's arms.
Po shrugged. "No idea. Let's find out."
He pressed his ear to the wood and listened. At first, he didn't hear anything. But then dull noises got through to him.
"There's someone in there," he announced, partly relieved. "We have to get the door open as soon as possible."
Huan came up to him. "It could take a long time to get these doors open."
"Then we just have to kick in it," Po suggested.
"We tried that at the beginning," the bull remarked. "It didn't work."
Po narrowed his eyes. "But you didn't have a Dragon Warrior."
He turned to the king of the Huns.
"Wang, would you have the honor of running down a door with me?"
The ox raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"Do you seriously mean it?"
Po lifted his chin resolutely. "I mean it very seriously."
His gaze fell on Shenmi and then to Liu.
"Hold her tight," Po ordered and thrust the little girl into the peahen's wings. "And don't let her out of your sight anymore."
Then he turned to Wang. "Let's go!"
Both positioned themselves well away from the double doors to take a run-up.
"Okay, on the count of three," Po began resolutely. Wang nodded. He was ready anytime.
Po narrowed his eyes. "One – two – three! Attention! DRAGON POWER!"
This chapter was translated from German into English by me and corrected by Starless echoes.