Stuck in a Chinese novel

"Where… are we?" Xia Lu asked as she had trouble adjusting to the darkness of the cramped space.

"We\'re safe, wherever we are," Wei Jun didn\'t want to worry her for no reason. For all he knew she could be claustrophobic and that would be bad for them in their current condition.

"Are we?" she asked as she still felt very disoriented after waking up. Wei Jun wanted to put her back to sleep but not only were his hands busy supporting his body, he wasn\'t sure it would be a good idea in the current situation.

"Yes, we are," Wei Jun replied before he focused on the time left for the pill duration to run out. There was another worry that plagued his mind but he wasn\'t focusing on it right now because it was bearable.

"Hmm… That\'s good," I had a dream where the house was coming down and I was almost buried underneath," Xia Lu spoke, her eyes still unfocused, a sign of her dizziness.

Wei Jun awkwardly smiled but his worry turned out to be true. Xia Lu wasn\'t getting enough oxygen. It wasn\'t difficult for him but for some reason, Xia Lu couldn\'t make any sense of her surroundings because of the lack of oxygen.

\'Is there anything in the shop?\' Wei Jun worriedly asked.

[Yes]

[Give me a moment]

[Oxygen mask]

[Tier: E]

[A mask that supplies pure oxygen to the wearer]

[Possible side effects after use include shortness of breath, and shrinking of lungs]

[Prolong usage isn\'t advised]

[Cost: 100 coins]

Wei Jun hurriedly bought it and a small canister appeared in his inventory. He willed it to appear in his hands and when it did, he tightly clutched it because he was still supporting himself on the ground.

His hands still weren\'t free so he had to instruct Xia Lu to put it on herself.

"Xia Lu, can you hear me?" Wei Jun asked.

"Hmm? Is it morning already? No~ It\'s still dark outside," Xia Lu said.

"Xia Lu, I need you to pick that thing up," Wei Jun said but Xia Lu didn\'t respond for a while but then asked, "What thing?"

"That." Wei Jun tried to touch it with his face but it was a little far away. Xia Lu turned her face to the right and saw the canister clutched in Wei Jun\'s hand.

"This?" Xia Lu asked.

"Yes, that," Wei Jun said.

"Okay," Xia Lu said but she didn\'t put it on. Instead, she went lethargic and dropped her hands.

"Fuck!" Wei Jun said as he had no choice but to put more pressure on his back and stirred some of the rubble but Wei Jun still managed to free one of his hands for just a few seconds which was enough to put on the mask of the canister on Xia Lu\'s mouth.

He turned it on before he hurriedly returned to his position because it was getting very hard for him to bear the burden of the rubble.

Fortunately, the damage wasn\'t too much but the rubble had come down by a bit when his back couldn\'t bear it and it had now settled in that position meaning Wei Jun was just inches above Xia Lu.

However, Wei Jun sighed in relief when Xia Lu opened her eyes after a few moments, clarity evident in her eyes.

She looked around and was about to panic when Wei Jun said, "It\'s all right! We\'re all right."

She looked at him but didn\'t open her mouth because of the mask on her face. She looked at it and was about to take it off when Wei Jun once again exclaimed, "Don\'t take it off!"

She was startled by his response, but she did what he said and didn\'t take it off.

Wei Jun sighed and said, "We\'re trapped underneath the villa. We will need to stay here for a while."

Xia Lu looked at her questioningly but didn\'t say anything once again. "Just bear it. We will soon be out," Wei Jun said. There was still some time before the cooldown on the pill ran out but Wei Jun was sure they would be able to make it until then.

Now that he had the oxygen canisters, he didn\'t need to worry about anything urgent. Except for the rubble on his back that was getting increasingly harder to bear.

Just when Wei Jun thought there was nothing to worry about, Xia Lu once again began to lose consciousness.

"What\'s happening?" Wei Jun asked.

[Her lungs cannot handle such pure oxygen]

[In the first place the item was for cultivators who could purify their lungs]

[A mortal who has lived in the modern polluted world without cleansing wouldn\'t be able to bear something so pure]

Wei Jun didn\'t focus on such a lengthy explanation and just heard the first part. He once took his hand off but this time without preparation so the backlash was very strong.

Still, he managed to take it off her face and threw it away where it began to leak oxygen in small amounts. Wei Jun couldn\'t do anything about that so he just let it be instead, he hurriedly supported himself again because his body was almost touching Xia Lu\'s and the rubble had become ten times heavy.

"Just hold on a little longer," Wei Jun said.

He tried very hard to stabilize himself and in the end, he managed to do so but his position was greatly misaligned, unlike the beginning.

Fortunately, Xia Lu came to after a while, her breathing a little constrained but not like before when she couldn\'t either breathe or there was too much to breathe.

Wei Jun sighed in relief when Xia Lu looked at him, deep into his eyes. That gaze made him a bit comfortable since it was his fault she was in that predicament.

"Why didn\'t you just leave me and run away?" Xia Lu softly asked.

Wei Jun couldn\'t help but chuckle. Was that what she was worried about than their current situation?

"I didn\'t. No reason." Wei Jun lied. There was a reason, he just couldn\'t remember what.

"You\'re lying," Xia Lu said. Wei Jun chuckled but he didn\'t say anything in response. Instead, he said, "I did what I wanted. You can sue me about it later on."

She looked at him deeply before she said, "I\'m thirsty."

"Haha," Wei Jun again chuckled. She was terrible at changing the topic.

Where was he going to get water in that situation after all? But Xia Lu didn\'t know he had a magical thing called the inventory. Although Wei Jun only used weapons and explosives in there, for long cultivation sessions, he also stored food and water in there.

He once again willed a water bottle to appear in his hand and said, "There it is. Drink up."

Although it was an attempt to change the topic, Wei Jun still did it anyway even when Xia Lu wasn\'t expecting him to.

She took the water bottle from under his hand, although a little difficult, but she managed to do it and opened the top. She drank a few sips and then saw Wei Jun wasn\'t getting any.

"I\'m fine," Wei Jun said.

She nodded and just drank a few more sips but saved the water, not knowing how long they would be down there.

Wei Jun could read her intention but he knew that they would soon be out. His Qi would soon be replenished and he would be able to make it out.

[…]

\'What?\' Wei Jun asked.

[What about her?]

\'What about her?\' Wei Jun asked as he didn\'t understand.

[You will soon understand]

Wei Jun didn\'t understand what that meant but he didn\'t focus on it. The cooldown soon came to an end and Wei Jun hurriedly consumed a pill from his inventory.

[You have consumed a Qi replenishing pill]

[Qi has been fully restored]

[You cannot take another pill for an hour]

Wei Jun felt full of power and the first thing he did was activate the Qi empowerment skill. He didn\'t bother with the Qi armament because the rubble wasn\'t that dangerous to him anyway.

When he felt power coursing through his veins, Wei Jun began to rise up slowly, the rubble of course reacted along with his movement.

And that was when Wei Jun realized what the system meant. The rubble was coming down and it would soon overwhelm him. Overwhelm them. because of his power, he would be able to make it out but Xia Lu wouldn\'t.

\'Tch.\' Wei Jun tutted inwardly and stopped just as he had risen a few inches. At least he was back to his comfortable position of perfect balance but other than that, he found out that he wouldn\'t be able to make it out of there.

\'I guess we will have to wait for those on the outside to do something.\' Wei Jun thought inwardly as he looked at Xia Lu who had panicked slightly when the rubble moved but now that it settled down again, she heaved a sigh of relief.