Because of the way humans are built, when you need to protect something, your chest is way better than your back. Our senses and limbs all agree: everything behind that line from the top of your head down to your lower back is a mystery zone—hard to reach, hard to see. Plus, if you’re running for your life, strapping something to your chest makes it way easier to change direction fast.
So, The Fool instinctively went for the most stable pose: arms looping around Princess Embroidered Jade’s neck and shoulders, legs clamped tight around her waist, and off he dashed through the cave like a maniac.
He didn’t have a single stray thought. Elasticity, size, shape, feel—sure, we can imagine all sorts of things, but honestly, none of that crossed his mind.
He simply didn’t have the energy to think about any of that.
In this complicated, pitch-black world, charging ahead like a bull is even wilder than a roller coaster ride. At least roller coasters have seatbelts. Here, sprinting like this is basically flirting with death.
Anything could be lurking in that wall of darkness. Nobody knows if, in the next step, their face or nose will smash into solid rock. A knee-high stone could snap your joints and send you tumbling, blood spraying everywhere.
So Princess Embroidered Jade’s heart leapt into her throat.
But The Fool’s breathing stayed steady. His heartbeat sped up, sure, but it wasn’t panicked—it was pounding like an engine revved to the max, blasting out a heroic rhythm.
He looked kind of weird—short steps, all choppy and uneven. Both hands out in front, one guarding his face and neck, the other at diaphragm level, protecting his chest and belly—which, right now, meant Princess Embroidered Jade’s lower chest and upper waist. Then he took a deep breath, puffed up his cheeks, and suddenly roared: "Zha!"
His roar echoed madly through the cave, bouncing off every wall. The Fool listened to the echoes, then spun on his heel and changed direction.
"Hehe, so that's where you are! Big sis is coming to get you~" The voice echoed from deep in the cave—it was Lady Simone. Her voice floated around, ghostly and unpredictable. Embroidered Jade tensed up and whispered, "Why are you yelling?"
"If I don't yell, I can't figure out the environment or direction." The Fool's steps were short but fast—he was running so quickly the wind whistled around them. He shouted a few more times, each in a different pitch, like a singer warming up: "Mi, Yi, Ma, Ah, Mi," cycling through all sorts of frequencies from low to high. Embroidered Jade couldn't make heads or tails of it, just heard a rumbling wave of sound. But The Fool was listening closely, picking out which frequencies got swallowed up by the rocks and dirt, and which ones bounced back clear.
With his Insight Technique getting sharper, The Fool had gotten the hang of syncing all five senses. He'd never tried this before, but it only took him a moment to figure it out. Like a submarine's sonar, he kept letting out short, sharp shouts in a steady rhythm. These sounds were super brief, like popping sparks—almost too short for a regular human voice.
But The Fool could do it—and he had to. The shorter the sound, the better. His ears weren't high-tech gadgets, so only with super-short sounds could he tell which was his voice and which was the echo. That was how he mapped out the cave.
You know that American movie, Daredevil? The blind guy who uses sound to sense the world? Well, it's nothing like seeing with your eyes. Using sound to figure out the terrain has two big limits—let's skip the far-off stuff, but close-up is actually way harder. Sound travels so fast that echoes bounce right back, and your ears can't always tell the shout from the echo. In the world of sound, that's a total blind spot. The shorter the sound, the less overlap, and the more precise the mapping. Smaller blind spot, better results.
Even though The Fool had pushed his sounds to the human limit, there was still a blind spot. And when you're sprinting in the dark, that blind spot could get you killed.
Luckily, The Fool didn't just rely on sound.
As they raced ahead, The Fool tugged Embroidered Jade toward what he hoped was the path. But suddenly, his slightly bent fingers ran smack into something hard and icy—a rock!
If a regular person ran full speed and poked their fingers into something, well, that's a one-way ticket to Finger Hospital.
But in that split-second, The Fool's fingers did something wild. Time seemed to slow down, and his fingers turned into super-bouncy springs, bending to absorb the shock. Then his palm hit the rock, and a jolt sent ripples through the stone.
Vibrations travel way faster through solid rock than through air. In a split second, all that info rushed back, and The Fool's super-sensitive nerves picked up every detail.
With his elbow bent and legs tucked in, The Fool suddenly sprang sideways. In real time, it looked like he just bounced off to the side—but he scuttled along the cave wall like a giant spider. Embroidered Jade could feel the cold, hard surface just inches from her back, but somehow they zipped by without a scratch, dodging every jagged edge perfectly.
Embroidered Jade didn't say anything—she was so shocked she couldn't even find words. Even if her internal energy was at full blast, she doubted she could keep up with The Fool in this wacky cave.
But Lady Simone was another story. When it came to sound, The Fool was impressive, but Lady Simone was the real pro. She broke barriers and reached the top with her Sound Skill. The world of sound was her kingdom, and in this kingdom, The Fool's short, sharp shouts were like blinking lights—no way Lady Simone couldn't track him.
The Fool knew it too, so he quickly came up with a plan. Between shouts, he started yelling in random directions. Embroidered Jade thought it was weird—her ears picked up way less volume, but right next to her, his chest and vocal cords were working just as hard as ever.
Actually, The Fool had tweaked the Heavenly Dragon Way Sound technique a bit. Normally, sound spreads out in a ring—you can hear it in front and behind, just at different strengths. But The Fool changed it so his shouts shot out in a focused cone, like cannonballs blasting down a tunnel. The echoes bounced off distant walls, making it sound like someone was yelling from way over there.
That's what you'd call a Fog Bomb in the world of sound! (A sound-based decoy that throws off your enemy's sense of location.)
The Fool zipped along the cave ceiling and walls, firing off Fog Bombs in every direction, making it impossible to pin down where he really was. Embroidered Jade, sharp as ever, quickly figured it out. She realized she was witnessing a duel so wild and unheard-of that even the martial arts world would be blown away—a full-on war of sound, fought in pitch-black tunnels, in ways no normal person could ever imagine.
Only thing was, in this war, they were walking a tightrope—one wrong move and they'd be toast.
Just then, The Fool suddenly stopped shouting, but he didn't slow down, still weaving through the caves at top speed. "What's up?" Forgetting all embarrassment, Embroidered Jade leaned in and whispered in his ear, "Is something wrong?"
"I've memorized the route. No more shouting needed," The Fool whispered back, head to head with her. The way they were tangled up, getting their ears close was no problem at all.
"Memorized it?" Embroidered Jade was floored. In a cave this complicated, in total darkness, no sense of direction, and this guy could remember the way? "Wait, are you saying you've mapped the whole cave?"
"Not the whole thing, but enough to get us through." The Fool's pores tightened, and even the wind from his movements got quieter. "She's still searching behind us, so as long as we dodge her, we're golden—it's hide and seek time." Embroidered Jade caught a flash of memory and saw The Fool's lips curl into a grin. "Turns out, I'm actually pretty good at hide and seek in the dark."
Embroidered Jade didn't say anything, but a wave of reassurance washed over her. It was like riding a roller coaster at the amusement park—if you just close your eyes and let go, you realize that safety harness holding you tight is actually the best feeling in the world.
Maybe—just maybe—they could win this war of sound!