“We?” Gu Xianwang thought. Where on earth had they gotten a gun?
Just then, a rustling sound echoed from the tomb passageway. Two black backpacks were tossed down, with Long Li following close behind.
The moment Yao Cuo saw her return, he immediately clammed up. He coughed twice and dropped the subject. Only then did Gu Xianwang suddenly catch on from his expression—Senior Brother had been on guard against Long Li from the very beginning.
Given Long Li’s sharp instincts, how could she not have noticed?
Had her earlier exit been deliberate, not just to scavenge gear, but to give them space to talk freely?
Gu Xianwang pursed her lips and turned her head away, avoiding Long Li’s gaze. An inexplicable pang of guilt twisted in her chest.
What was this feeling? Judging a noble heart with a petty mind?
But if Senior Brother distrusted her, he must have his reasons.
One was her sect brother and childhood companion; the other, a foe born of circumstance. So why had the scales in her heart tipped so unevenly all of a sudden?
A zipper rasped from across the cave, and Long Li called out, “Miss Gu.”
Gu Xianwang turned back just as a fresh bottle of mineral water sailed her way. “Here, have some water.”
“Oh.” Gu Xianwang clutched the plastic bottle, the plastic crunching under her grip.
She realized almost immediately that she was squeezing too hard—not just the bottle, but her whole response had come out too sharp. Why?
She mulled it over: Had Long Li always called her “Miss Gu”? She remembered other nicknames. Long Li had started using her given name casually, so why draw this line now?
Was it because she had linked up with Senior Brother—and because they had her people tied up?
If she wanted distance, then why share the water? Those backpacks were clearly not theirs; they matched the standard-issue gear Old Dog had left behind. She could have kept the water and food for herself. And with Long Li’s skills, she and Senior Brother together were no match. If Long Li demanded her people back, could they really refuse?
For all her brooding, Gu Xianwang’s body betrayed her. She twisted off the cap and chugged—carelessly downing nearly half the bottle in greedy gulps. Tilting it back, the remaining water sloshed gently. She glanced at it, cheeks heating with embarrassment, and felt Senior Brother’s sidelong glance lingering on the bottle. She had no habit of sharing drinking water. With a cough, she started to look up, only to shrink back, guilt gnawing at her.
Long Li approached at the perfect moment, pressing a compressed biscuit into her hand. She then offered a half-empty bottle to Yao Cuo. “This is what you had left over. Those two don’t have anything contagious, so it should be fine. Make do.”
“And you?” Gu Xianwang asked.
Long Li shook her head. “Just one bottle remaining. Save it for your three.”
Two and a half bottles total, and she and Senior Brother had claimed one and a half. Suddenly, the plastic in Gu Xianwang’s hand burned like fire. What was left would quench one person’s thirst just fine. She wavered, fingers clenching and unclenching around it, but in the end, she couldn’t bring herself to offer it up.
Yao Cuo turned to Yuzi. “You want some?”
Yuzi didn’t seem to regard the supplies as treasures. “Drink it yourself. I’m not thirsty.”
With the items distributed, Long Li eyed her three teammates’ chests. Shallow breaths rose and fell—they’d live a while longer. Her face betrayed nothing, but Gu Xianwang could sense her exhaustion. She had no idea how Long Li had burst from the bowmen’s encirclement in the woods, then dragged these people out of the Leech Pit.
Seeing Long Li skip food and water, Gu Xianwang considered splitting her biscuit. But the thing was hard as stone; she couldn’t even crack it. Her mind flashed to the half-eaten chocolate bar back in the Karst Cave—something she’d actually tasted—and irritation flared. Why hadn’t she pocketed a Snickers back then?
Lost in thought, she felt a drawstring pouch pressed into her palm, the kind used for kitchen snacks, soft to the touch. Gu Xianwang glanced down and realized Long Li had angled it to block Yuzi’s line of sight. She offered no words, no gesture, simply brushing past.
Gu Xianwang caught on instantly—this must be the Gu Poison Long Li had promised to return. Palming it swiftly, she stuffed it into her pocket without Yao Cuo noticing a thing.
Long Li made her way to the cave wall and settled against it, one leg bent, the other stretched out, her right wrist resting lightly on her knee. She looked up and asked, “So, who are you?”
Gu Xianwang had long wanted to ask this question, so she also averted her gaze. In a moment of carelessness, she accidentally singed Sara’s hair. She hurriedly patted it a few times, but she must have used too much force because she actually patted the person awake.
Most of the leeches on Sara’s body had been burned off by Gu Xianwang and stomped to death. Her body was covered in large and small specks of blood, making her look like she had just rolled across a bed of nails—utterly horrifying. In reality, it was just equivalent to losing a unit’s worth of blood from a blood donation.
She opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was Chak’s blond hair. Her temper flared up instantly, and she lifted her leg to kick him. “Fuck you, you old bastard, you sneaky piece of shit! If you wanna die, go die by yourself—how dare you drag your old lady down with you!?”
Yao Cuo reached out and blocked her midway. He still didn’t want Chak to wake up yet—and that’s exactly what he did. He had cleaned all the leeches off Old Dog, while Chak had been drained of blood for at least ten minutes.
Sara was still a bit drained. She lifted her neck, but it quickly fell back down. Lying on her back and panting for breath, she asked, “Long, what’s going on?”
Long Li shook her head, still staring at Yuzi. Yuzi met her gaze without a trace of fear. After a moment, she shrugged and smiled. “I told you, my name is Yuzi. I used to belong to this village.”
For some unknown reason, Gu Xianwang found these words very strange. The way she phrased it—”belonged to this village”—made it sound like a person was just an object, which instinctively made her uncomfortable.
Hearing Yuzi’s somewhat hoarse voice, Sara whipped her head around and recognized her. “Holy shit, aren’t you the one who was ambushing by the Cave Lord’s side? Long, it’s her—it’s her who suddenly popped out and caught us off guard!”
Yuzi found it quite amusing. “As if you guys are the ones who belong here? The pot calling the kettle black?”
Gu Xianwang actually still remembered how Yuzi had dragged her through the bamboo grove, but for now, she didn’t want to tip her hand too early. So she asked, “Since you’re from the village, why did you save us?”
Yuzi tilted her head and said with perfect sincerity, “This goddamn village ruined me, so of course I want to ruin it too. Since you’re intruders, why wouldn’t I save you?”
“More strength means more possibilities.”
It… actually made a lot of sense. Gu Xianwang pursed her lips.
Sara lay flat on her back, glaring at the rock ceiling above. Hearing this, she sneered. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend? That’s a real convincing reason. Do you think we’re all fresh-faced kids who just graduated from elementary school?”
Gu Xianwang: …
Yuzi said, “Then do you think I have any reason to deceive you? Being tricked requires value. If I hadn’t opened that tunnel entrance just now, you’d already be a dried-up corpse.”
Sara, who had nearly become a dried-up corpse: “…Tch, I’ve got plenty of value. Maybe you did all this precisely because you value whatever’s behind us, trying to win our trust.”
Yuzi burst out laughing. That misaligned face of hers looked utterly grotesque in the firelight, but her eyes held a hint of clarity as she said, “Maybe so. But the valuable one among you definitely isn’t you.”
Long Li also smiled. “What do you want?”
Yuzi seemed tired of standing and sat down cross-legged, speaking leisurely. “No rush. To show my sincerity, I can tell you some of what I know first—of course, just a part. I can’t lay all my cards on the table right away; that’d be too stupid.”
“In short, you take a little, then decide whether to cooperate with me.”
Sara drawled mockingly, “Fine, then start by telling us why the village ruined you.”
That was direct enough. Gu Xianwang saw Yuzi’s expression darken slightly before quickly returning to normal. She said, “I can’t tell you that yet. That one’s expensive—we’ll need some trust first before I share it.”
She was really treating it like a market bargain. Gu Xianwang probed, “Then do you know why that Gu Witch chose to inflict gu on us?”
Yuzi thought for a moment, then exclaimed in sudden realization, “Oh, you mean Ying Po? Earlier, I dragged you out from Uncle Jiake’s place and saw that two of you had Fly Gu Worms and a God Eye on you. So I knew you’d definitely been to Valang Village.”
Uncle Jiake? Was that Old Stick’s real name?
Two of them? That meant the gu worm on her was already gone? Gu Xianwang subtly touched her pocket and listened quietly as Yuzi continued.
Sara asked, “Which one’s Valang Village? The abandoned one in the valley?”
“Mm.” Yuzi nodded. “Did you see a bunch of paper effigies in that village too?”
Gu Xianwang let out an “Mm.”
Yuzi squinted with a smile and said, rather impolitely, “No wonder you captured A Yan and Ying Po. The fact that they’re still alive proves you have some real skill.” She pointed at Sara, who resembled a rat in some ways.
Sara replied, “Tch, enough with the riddles. What’s really going on?”
Yuzi explained, “A Yan was already a formidable Yelang Hunter when he was a boy. His father was incredibly powerful too. As for Ying Po, I had no idea she’d been sent to Valang Village. That place used to be part of our village long ago—the white part of it.”
Yao Cuo frowned in confusion. “White?”
“Yes. Don’t the Miao people distinguish between raw and cooked Miao? Our village makes the same distinction. The white ones are those who deal with outsiders. The village usually selects them from the slave households.”
This time, Yuzi didn’t wait for questions and volunteered the explanation. “Slave households are what you outsiders call slaves. To the people of our village, we are all subjects of the God Lord. Those chosen by the God Lord to receive the God Eye become his servants. Beneath them are his slaves, whose children remain slaves for generation after generation.”
“Because they can’t receive the God Eye, they aren’t allowed into the altar or to worship the God Lord. Their souls are thus impure, doomed to suffer eternally in the cycle of reincarnation.”
Gu Xianwang was astonished. “But the A Yan you mentioned—he must have a God Eye. Isn’t he Ying Po’s son?”
“How could he be?” Yuzi chuckled. “A Yan was surely assigned to keep watch over Ying Po. I’ve heard she’s quite the figure. To earn the right to receive a God Eye, she sacrificed three of her children as human sacs. I suspect the elder matriarch rewarded her with a God Eye gu egg for it.”
Gu Xianwang fell silent…
Yes, she had received one. Not only that, but Ye Chan had inexplicably devoured it. No wonder the Gu Witch flew into a rage the moment she laid eyes on Ye Chan.
“The human sacs you mentioned—are those the things up there—”
Yuzi nodded. “Exactly. The Old Mountain Branches in Ya’er Forest.”
Gu Xianwang rubbed her arms, a chill creeping over her for no reason. The Ya’er Forest Yuzi referred to was almost certainly the Hanging Head Forest they had seen earlier. Those so-called Old Mountain Branches were desiccated corpse sacs that they had mistaken for part of the mountain itself.
Long Li’s earlier guess had been spot on. The people encased in bronze kettles and hung up as nests for the Marrow Bees were all slaves. The Gu Witch had been one of them. For the sake of a God Eye, she had even sacrificed the lives of three children. What sort of benighted, primal mindset drove such horrors?
At that moment, Long Li suddenly asked, “What about those paper effigies? What purpose do they serve?”
Yuzi turned to her, her eyes narrowing. “The paper effigies? That’s a tale in itself. They’re fashioned in the likeness of the fearsome invaders from our village legends.”
“According to the stories, those people have been scheming to breach our altar for a thousand years. Their most recent attempt was just decades ago. They wore robes and long braids, moved with ghostly agility that no blade could touch, and proved immune to every poison. Our gu worms were utterly useless against them.”
“We abandoned Valang Village and stationed paper effigies modeled on them inside the houses to draw out any enemies lurking in the shadows.”
Yao Cuo found it all as absurd as something out of a novel. “What kind of people would keep trying to invade your altar relentlessly for millennia? Their descendants must be impossibly devoted.”
Yuzi shrugged. “Like I said, you wouldn’t know. The ones we’ve been waiting for all this time are the Long Family Members.”
