Chapter 35: Ambush

Since the marrow bees might be connected to the God Eye—either as its hatchers or its guardians—neither possibility spelled good news for Gu Xianwang.

Though she couldn’t be completely certain about the category of creature that had such a particular “fondness” for her, gu worms were the most likely culprits. As she questioned Long Li, her eyes were already scanning the edge of the Burnt Forest. There wasn’t a single clear firebreak from the Living Soil Forest all the way here, which meant the previous blaze had probably been deliberately extinguished.

Sure enough, Long Li thought for a moment and spat out two words: “More or less.”

Gu Xianwang chuckled inwardly.

She wasn’t sure of the distance needed to trigger a marrow bee’s self-explosion right now. It would have been great if she could sneak a homemade shotgun like Chak’s, but their only ranged weapon—bows and arrows—had been used up in the karst cave. Her best bet was probably to smack them with the flat of her waist knife, but she worried the bees might fly too close. They might not even need to land on her; exploding just an inch away would splatter her with bodily fluids, and that would be bad enough.

For a walking target like Gu Xianwang, she had plenty of experience predicting her own grisly ends. Seeing the swarm of marrow bees finally wheel around and lock onto their direction after hovering for a while, she tossed out a single instruction: “Run the opposite way from me.”

Then she shot toward the Living Soil Forest like a bullet.

She didn’t really have any elaborate plan, just the intention of using the earth threads in the Living Soil Forest to fight poison with poison. Since marrow bees were like drifting time bombs, why not just bury them in soil? After all, earth threads ate flesh, and so did the bees. At this thought, Gu Xianwang finally grasped the core principle behind gu refinement.

Putting related species from the same climate together—that was just a food chain.

Putting unrelated species from random climates together—that was gu refinement.

Maybe the Witch Clan’s ancient ancestors had come up with gu refinement simply as a primitive biological experiment?

From the ancient books Long Li had once pored over, marrow bees were a type of strange beast that liked to nest in human skulls and feed on brain marrow. The earliest records dated back to the Two Han Dynasties, in the Records of the Strange authored by Yan Xun, which described marrow bees as insects with extremely strong guarding instincts. In ancient times, they were often sought out to serve as tomb guardians.

Given those habits, perhaps she could try quietly shifting outside the bees’ guarding range.

Long Li truly hadn’t expected Gu Xianwang to move so quickly this time. Her hand was still being dragged by the groggy Ye Chan, and she watched as all five guardian bees from the bronze kettle chased after Gu Xianwang.

Logically speaking, among them, Ye Chan should have been the marrow bees’ primary target, followed by Sara, who was closest to the bronze kettle. Gu Xianwang had no real grudge with this hive; she’d only shown her face from a distance, yet it had drawn the entire swarm of guardians away from their nest to pursue her all the way to the Living Soil Forest. This only confirmed Long Li’s suspicions about the peculiarities of Gu Xianwang’s constitution.

In the blink of an eye, Gu Xianwang had plunged into the underbrush. Spotting a thick vine dangling down, she prepared to swing from it upside down, cupping soil in her hands to swat at the marrow bees behind her.

But before she could move, her ankle suddenly clenched tight, like the jaws of a beast trap snapping shut. A rough pain shot through her, accompanied by a whirl of dizziness. She flipped upside down into a blur of green, her mind blanking out for two seconds before she realized she’d triggered the same kind of rope snare as before.

This time, the hemp rope was strung high up, suspending her mid-tree trunk like a slab of cured meat. Her dangling hands couldn’t reach the ground below, nor could her upturned abdomen touch the branches above. Behind her, the buzzing grew louder and louder.

In those few short seconds, Gu Xianwang didn’t see her life flash before her eyes. Instead, hanging inverted like this, the blood rushing to her head felt utterly miserable, a bit like drowning. Her thoughts turned to congealed sludge; she’d even forgotten why she was here.

“Gu Xianwang!”

A sharp shout chased after her, followed by the whistle of a short knife slicing through the air. Gu Xianwang snapped alert and saw the dagger streak through a narrow gap in the trees, embedding straight into an old banyan not far away.

The dagger’s hilt was still quivering, but the bowman concealed behind the banyan tree didn’t lower her bow. She drew it to full crescent, the arrowhead locked dead on Gu Xianwang’s heart.

“Use your knife!”

Hearing Long Li’s reminder, Gu Xianwang finally reacted. As she reached back to draw her waist knife, her peripheral vision sized up the distant archer.

A young woman, her eyes bearing traces of the God Eye, dressed in coarse cloth garments similar to the previous bowman’s. Her long hair was wrapped in embroidered floral fabric, and she wore stacked gold rings around her wrists and ankles. Beneath her cloth shoes lay a mat woven from dry thatch into square blocks—stepping on it seemed to protect against the living soil’s earth threads.

It was such a simple solution. Why hadn’t they thought of it?

Aqiu never imagined that Gu Xianwang would still have the spare mental capacity to wonder how they had managed to move about beneath the sinkhole in a situation like this. According to the Grand Matriarch’s orders, they had to spare the girl who had dropped the God Eye and present her at the Sacrificial Altar—along with the woman who called herself one of the Long Family members, whom A Yan had mentioned.

She had no idea what had happened to A Yan. Last night, the female love toad in her hands had quietly lost its vital signs. Love toads came in mated pairs, male and female; if one died, the other wouldn’t survive for long. It was the most direct bond between lovers in these deep mountains.

A Yan had offered himself up to the God Lord. It was his honor. Anyone from outside who defiled the sacred ground of the god’s descent had to die.

The first one—would be her.

The bowstring groaned under the strain as it was drawn taut, the sharpened cold-iron arrowhead aimed straight at Gu Xianwang, who was pulling out her knife and trying to rise. Aqiu’s icy gaze held no trace of hatred, only resolute calm, as if she had already merged with the sinkhole itself.

Gu Xianwang hadn’t realized how hard it would be to flip over with just one leg hoisted up. She could feel that piercing stare boring into her like a spear. Beads of sweat dripped unbidden from her forehead. In that moment of paranoia where every blade of grass and tree seemed an enemy, she suddenly heard a clanging racket. Right after, she spotted that massive bronze kettle from before come rolling toward her like a runaway bowling ball.

She couldn’t tell if Long Li meant to save her or simply hasten her end with a quick death. The woman had even stomped through the original host’s neck bones with one foot, leaving only the nest of marrow bees behind. The sight gave Gu Xianwang a surge of strength from who-knows-where. In an instant, she twisted free, slashed the ropes binding her leg, swung from her arm on the branch—her waist no longer ached, her legs no longer hurt. She could do anything in that one breath.

Aqiu had never seen such a reckless maneuver. Startled by the sudden appearance of the bronze kettle, she loosed her arrow with a whoosh—and missed, grazing only the ends of Gu Xianwang’s hair as she swung away. Though the shot had failed, Aqiu showed no frustration or haste. Instead, she pulled a bamboo whistle from her chest pocket and blew into it at once.

The whistle’s shrill tone wasn’t particularly loud, carrying no farther than about a hundred meters.

Gu Xianwang had just clambered onto a high branch and was about to glance back to see how far the swarm of marrow bees had pursued them when she heard a rustling in the nearby thickets, like a pack of wolves silently closing in. Taking advantage of her elevated position, she scanned the area and immediately spotted at least seven or eight archers in coarse cloth garb who had revealed themselves, crouched amid the underbrush.

Her first thought wasn’t that she was trapped like dumplings in a wrapper, but why these people weren’t afraid of the marrow bees.

Even if living soil could mask human scent with special grass mats, what about the marrow bees?

Could it be like with the Cave Lord—that marrow bees wouldn’t attack people who had been implanted with a God Eye?

As Gu Xianwang pondered this, Alang had already climbed the old pine tree to one side. He pressed his back flat against the trunk, peeking out with just one eye. Once he’d gauged the angle, he shook a shortbow down from his shoulder. His strength didn’t match that of the grown men in the village, so he still used a child’s bamboo bow with a range of only ten meters.

But it was enough. He stealthily shifted his left hand, tilting the arrowhead accordingly. No one would suspect that such a tricky angle concealed a killing shot.

~~~

Gu Xianwang kept her eyes glued to the group of ambushers slowly advancing on the Hanging Corpse Forest. That female archer from earlier had vanished in the blink of an eye. The bronze kettle Long Li had hurled had been snagged midway by a vine root and tumbled into the grass with its momentum—likely into some burrow, as it vanished without a trace.

She was perched too high, with broad green leaves and flowering branches waving on either side, severely blocking her view. Her hearing wasn’t as sharp as her eyesight, either; she could hear the buzzing, but had no idea where the marrow bees had flown off to.

What now?

She was surrounded either way—pursuers ahead, corpse forest behind. Given how much Long Li feared the marrow bees, Gu Xianwang didn’t believe these mountain folk were truly immune to them. Better to seize the initiative than hesitate and lose it altogether. Time to take a gamble.

Maybe she could turn her bicycle into a motorcycle.

With that thought, Gu Xianwang moved like lightning, her eyes locked on a target. That man was isolated, with no backup on either flank. She was just about to leap down and catch him off guard when her ear twitched, as if brushed by a fly. But what flies were there in these deep woods?

Her throat bobbed as she stiffly tilted her head back—and saw the marrow bee land on her sleeve again, crawling along her shoulder toward her collarbone.

Gu Xianwang’s hairs stood on end in an instant. Then came a sharp twang, like a snapped cotton thread. She instinctively twisted away, and a bamboo arrow whistled past from the side, its razor-sharp head slicing across her jaw like a knife blade, nearly grazing her artery.

In that split second, her previously injured foot slipped. She tumbled from the branch, and in her peripheral vision, she saw the pine tree not far off erupt in flames with a whoosh. A fireball flickered at the treetop before plummeting down.

Gu Xianwang fell almost simultaneously with that fireball. She lost her balance, her back smashing through two short branches. She had no idea whether the marrow bee on her body had flown off or was still clinging to her. Fearing that she’d crush that deadly fire seed upon landing, she forcibly curled up her limbs and braced herself for the impact.

With a thud, fortunately, the ground beneath the tree was living soil, which provided a bit of cushioning instead. Gu Xianwang had never imagined she’d one day rely on an insect to save her life. The moment she hit the ground, her body sank an inch into it. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she quickly rolled two circles in the living soil, using the earth threads covering her head and body to drive away that marrow bee.

The hidden bowmen nearby were first startled by the fireball tumbling down from the pine tree. Gu Xianwang’s sliding kick had truly caught them off guard. She bent her knees and leaped forward, lunging straight into the leaf cluster. With her arms outstretched, she grabbed the waistband of the man she’d targeted earlier and swept him off the grass mat with a forceful twist.

She tossed aside the torn waistband and hurriedly shook off the earth threads and soil crumbs from her body. The man, flung hard by her, lost his grip on his bamboo bow. As he watched the living soil gnaw at his ankles, he scrambled on his belly and clutched the grass mat.

Gu Xianwang staggered slightly from his tug, but in her peripheral vision, she spotted that marrow bee flying back. This time, it wasn’t just after her—it had led three other marrow bees right along. Well played, you thick-browed, big-eyed little bee; you were clearly destined to be a spy.

Her eyes immediately darted to the man’s back. She bent down, twisted his arms behind his back, and yanked him upright. Fortunately, these mountain folk weren’t too tall, and their weight was manageable. The man saw the four marrow bees charging straight at him without deviation, and his body instantly went rigid. He didn’t so much as twitch, his breathing so faint it was barely audible.

Gu Xianwang had found his weak spot. She summoned her core strength to shove him forward a little more while planting herself steadily on the grass mat, forcing his toes to barely skim the grass edge. Aside from his arms, she kept her entire body huddled behind him. The buzzing hovered briefly in front of the man before quickly circling around.

She tilted her head and saw the red shadow seemingly drawn by the scent of the fresh blood trail on her neck, heading unhesitatingly toward her.

At the same time, three bowmen had already closed in three meters away, and the distant fireball seemed to have been extinguished as well.

Gu Xianwang curled her lips in a cold smirk, cursing inwardly: “Damn it.”