Chak’s eyes bulged with fury. After years prowling the jianghu, he’d never dreamed of capsizing in some filthy gutter—and all because of this frail, willowy slip of a woman, who turned out to be one tough customer.
He barked a harsh laugh and suddenly broke into a sprint. The sudden motion threw Gu Xianwang off balance, her wrist caught completely off guard in Chak’s vise-like grip. His enormous palm clamped around her slender bones like an iron mallet, making her entire frame look heartbreakingly fragile by comparison.
Chak charged ahead before screeching to a halt, using the brutal momentum to yank Gu Xianwang right off him. He immediately drove his knee upward, the bony cap aimed squarely at her temple. A full-force strike like that would drop even the burliest man.
Old Dog clamped down on his leg just in time. “Don’t kill her.”
Back at the company, Chak didn’t give a damn about anyone—except Old Dog. The man had saved his life once.
Chak smacked his lips. “What, you got the hots for this crazy bitch?”
Old Dog had sharp, deeply etched features, his thick brows knitting into a deep, brooding scowl when he frowned. Never one for smooth talk, he scrambled for an excuse and settled on a lie. “Nah. Captain Long gave orders earlier.”
“Long Li?”
Chak arched a skeptical brow, clearly unconvinced. He started to glance back to see where she’d gone when he spotted hordes of Marrow Bees surging after them like a river flooding into the sea.
He shot a look at Gu Xianwang’s cold smirk, then at the deadly swarm, and it clicked. “Fuck, you set this up?”
Gu Xianwang ignored the accusation. Intentional might be a stretch; the Marrow Bees just loved her that much, so she was merely doubling down on her insurance. “What, scared now?”
Chak whipped his head toward Old Dog, his glare screaming: You really wanna protect this one?
He swung his leg up to stomp her gut.
Gu Xianwang had used the brief lull to catch her breath and gather her strength, ready to sweep his supporting leg out from under him. Each harbored their own scheme as they lunged—but midway, the ground suddenly tilted. Flat terrain turned into a steep slope without warning. Caught flat-footed, they all tumbled down in a heap.
Chak was a ruthless bastard; even as he rolled, he never let go. His slab of corded muscle absorbed the impacts with ease, but Gu Xianwang wasn’t so lucky. With her left wrist locked in his grip, her movements were severely restricted. All she could do was shield her head.
They careened to the bottom of the slope, only to find empty air beneath them—a deep pit, choked with scattered bones and writhing bugs, looking for all the world like a steaming bowl of mud eels.
Chak was heavier and hit first, yanking Gu Xianwang into an inverted freefall. Her left arm wrenched to its absolute limit, and she clearly heard the sickening pop of her shoulder dislocating.
Just a meter below lay the Leech Pit. The creatures looked starved, pale and scrawny. Gu Xianwang strained her eyelids upward toward the top of the slope, spotting a few shadowy silhouettes—whether shoved down or charging on their own, she couldn’t tell. The blinding daylight stabbed at her eyes, turning the backlit figures into vague blurs that seemed to reach out toward her.
She wondered if anyone had ever run an experiment: how long did it take for the leeches to drain a person dry?
With a series of wet splashes, Gu Xianwang plummeted like chum tossed to the fish, sending up sprays of viscous muck. Her warm skin met the cold, slimy bodies, and she was instantly submerged.
One arm hung useless at her side. There was no solid footing amid the churning mass of leeches. The pit was vast and deep—larger than the most pristine pool in the city center. Darkness closed in, and soon she couldn’t breathe.
She clamped her mouth shut, nostrils flaring desperately. Amid the choking stench, an unexpected whiff of woody incense wafted over her. Gu Xianwang craned her neck, then felt a powerful arm snake around her waist. They were moving—she could sense it—but her eyes refused to open. The darkness swirled with static snow, like a TV with no signal.
Moments later, she was shoved into a narrow crevice. A firm hand pushed at her back, and she slid down a tight Tomb Robber’s Tunnel. Someone below grabbed her ankle and hauled her the rest of the way in.
It was hard to believe a secret passage—like a classic tomb robber’s hole—could exist in that hellish Leech Pit. Barely wide enough for one person, it plunged straight down before opening into this small underground Rock Cave.
Gu Xianwang cracked one eye open. The torchlight blurred her vision slightly. Tense, she clutched her shoulder and took a step back.
“Xianwang, it’s me.”
It was Senior Brother’s voice.
Gu Xianwang froze for a moment before someone suddenly yanked her to the side. Now she could see clearly. Senior Brother was covered head to toe in grime, as if he had rolled through the Black Mud Pool himself. Fortunately, there were few signs of serious injury on his skin. Standing with him was a short woman whose face bore massive burn scars that looked utterly grotesque up close.
The woman didn’t seem to mind the scrutiny. She casually lifted Gu Xianwang’s elbow and, with a sharp jerk, reset the dislocated joint.
“Hiss.” Gu Xianwang let out a sharp cry of pain, her legs nearly giving way as she stumbled back against the rock wall.
Yao Cuo rushed forward to steady her, but the woman grabbed his arm. “What’s the hurry? She’s not dead yet.”
“Senior Brother, how did you—” Before Gu Xianwang could finish asking why he was here, the woman sprang up the tomb passageway. Bracing her feet against the cave walls, she hauled down another person in just a few swift moves.
Gu Xianwang stared blankly at Sara, who was crawling with leeches. It suddenly hit her that she herself had tumbled through the Leech Pit several times. She hurriedly glanced down at her exposed arms and legs.
Nothing. Not a single leech clung to her skin.
What was going on?
Yao Cuo clutched a rope in his hand and turned to her. “Xianwang, should we tie her up?”
Gu Xianwang snapped out of her daze. She figured Sara must have been there when Senior Brother got nabbed by Chak and the others. But tying her up? That was a tough call. Sara had thrown plenty of obstacles in their path, but they weren’t exactly sworn enemies.
“Burn the leeches off her first.”
Taking the hint, Yao Cuo looped the rope around his own wrist—meaning hold off for now—and crouched down. He flicked on his lighter and methodically singed each bloated, blood-engorged worm.
Sara was down, but where was Ye Chan?
And who had pulled them out of the Leech Pit? Long Li…?
Gu Xianwang frowned, her gaze fixed upward on the mouth of the passageway without realizing it. Moments later, a woman’s voice called down: “Hey, rope ready? The two guys are coming.”
The “hey” was for Yao Cuo, and he moved in perfect sync with the woman, clearing space at the base of the passageway. She dropped down, immediately catching the legs of the next person above. As soon as they hit the ground, she bound their hands and feet—first Old Dog, then Chak.
Both men were a writhing mass of bugs.
Gu Xianwang eyed the two unconscious, insect-riddled figures and swallowed hard. She stepped closer to the woman. “Anyone else… up top?”
The woman shot her a look. “No kidding. You think this is a sewer?”
Gu Xianwang was filthy and drained, in no mood for a spat. Still, her heart dangled in limbo, fluttering wildly like a gust before the rain.
After a tense pause, a shadow danced across the cave wall. Then a figure like a white crane floated down gracefully. Her voice remained soft. She straightened, revealing fresh fine tears in her clothes but no bugs on her body. Spotting Gu Xianwang, her eyes crinkled into a brilliant smile, sparkling like night pearls breaking through the mist.
This must be what they meant by surviving a calamity.
The mirth in Long Li’s eyes skimmed the surface like a dragonfly on water before sinking back into profound depths. “I didn’t find Ye Chan,” she said.
Gu Xianwang blinked in shock, still processing, when Yao Cuo called, “Xianwang, lend a hand.”
The binding rope was rough hemp, the kind common in these mountains—not their climbing gear, nor anything Long Li’s group had brought. Yao Cuo tied three solid knots around Chak’s wrists before turning his attention to torching the leeches off Old Dog.
Gu Xianwang’s thoughts churned in chaos. She dropped into a crouch on instinct. Things were even more tangled now than before. The Tour Guide and Ye Chan were missing. They’d lucked into capturing Chak, Old Dog, and Sara alive. Yet here was Long Li, their captain, standing right among them unscathed. The one silver lining was Senior Brother’s safety. But this enigmatic woman who’d shown up with him? She was probably the one who’d dumped them in the karst cave and ambushed Sara’s crew.
As Gu Xianwang burned leeches off Sara with the lighter, she stole glances at Long Li. The woman’s face betrayed no emotion. Gu Xianwang wondered what she intended now that her entire team was in dire straits.
After finishing with Long Li, Gu Xianwang shifted her gaze once more to scrutinize the short woman whose face had been ruined. Her features were so badly distorted that it was impossible to discern her appearance or age, but from the condition of the skin exposed at her neck, she seemed to be roughly the same age as Gu Xianwang herself. The woman wore a typical county-town getup—an outdated floral print T-shirt paired with plain athletic pants. She had no jewelry or any other items that might identify her.
Gu Xianwang thought for a moment, then asked softly, “Senior Brother, how did you manage to get out?”
Yao Cuo’s expression was complicated, a turbulent mix of anger, resentment, lingering fear, and bewilderment. He glanced at Chak before settling his gaze on Old Dog. “He basically cut me some slack.”
No sooner had he spoken than Long Li leaped upward again, returning to the tomb passageway. As Gu Xianwang looked up, her eyes met the woman’s. The woman said flatly, “She’s off trying to fish out the gear.”
Gu Xianwang: …
It was only then that she realized neither Chak’s crew nor their own group had brought any backpacks.
They were parched and starving.
Yao Cuo flicked a glance toward the cave mouth, as if suddenly easing up a little. His shoulders slumped, and he asked rapidly, “Xianwang, how bad are your injuries? Why’s your back covered in blood? Don’t tell me that woman—”
Gu Xianwang blinked in surprise at the question, craning her neck to peer at her own back. “Blood? Where’d that come from?”
Sure enough, a patch of dried blood was smeared across the back of her clothes, as if someone had wiped a bloody hand right across it. She glanced at the bodies sprawled on the ground—none of them had a gash that big on their hands.
Thinking back further, the only ones who’d gotten close to her besides those bowmen had been…
Long Li.
Long Li? Gu Xianwang frowned. Did she have a cut on her hand? It had all happened so fast that she hadn’t noticed, and the woman had recovered with such speed that any wound might already have healed by now.
If it really had been her, though, why would she have secretly smeared her own blood on Gu Xianwang’s back?
Gu Xianwang suddenly recalled the two times Long Li had been injured. Once against the fly gu worms in the water dungeon, and once when she’d been rescued from the White Mushroom Cave Lord. Gu Xianwang had been present both times but hadn’t taken part in the key moments—how exactly had Long Li dealt with those threats?
If—she was just hypothesizing here—if Long Li’s blood had some special property, what then?
This time in Hanging Head Forest, why hadn’t the marrow bees gone after her?
And after dropping into the Leech Pit, why had she come out without a scratch?
“Xianwang?”
Gu Xianwang blinked and said quickly, “No, it’s got nothing to do with Long Li. We ran into all sorts of… dangers. What happened with you? Did Old Dog let you go? Then you and this…”
“Call me Yuzi,” the woman said with a shrug.
Yao Cuo continued, “Truth is, we never took off first from the cliff. This foreigner had already spotted a narrow side passage back in the karst cave. Those paths honeycomb the mountain like worm tunnels. He climbed down from outside to the cave mouth, then burrowed back into the rock from there, all the way to the bottom of the sinkhole.”
“You didn’t leave?”
“Yeah, they gagged me so I couldn’t make a sound. While you were rappelling down the other side, they found that Granny who’d tumbled off the cliff. She was still alive but had a few bones busted up. The foreigner figured she might come in handy, so he told… Old Dog to tie her up and carry her on his back.”
Yao Cuo paused there for a beat, scrubbing at the flaking dried mud on his face. “I reckon the foreigner did it on purpose. He was furious that Old Dog ditched the gear but couldn’t lash out for whatever reason, so he made Old Dog haul her through the woods instead.”
Gu Xianwang was taken aback. Surviving a fall from that height—the Gu Witch’s vitality was something else. “So how’d you end up getting ahead of us later? And how’d that Gu Witch die?”
Yao Cuo looked just as baffled at the question, furrowing his brow in confusion. “We didn’t get ahead of you. We were trailing you the whole way.”
Trailing them? That couldn’t be.
Gu Xianwang said in astonishment, “But that gunshot at dawn—”
Yao Cuo froze. “Wasn’t that you?”
