It was still early, so the two returned to their positions. Gu Xianwang splashed some stream water on her face. The chill perked her up a little.
At first she alternated between standing and sitting, flexing her legs and feet to stay awake. She gazed at the distant altar and mulled over the baffling mysteries that offered no clues. Her mind had spun non-stop for days and finally gave out. Mist settled down from the treetops as the shadows of the leaves crept lazily along in the dim light of time, unhurried and indolent, taking ages to shift even a fraction.
“Until the moon wheels around a bit more…” The thought bubbled up out of nowhere in Gu Xianwang’s mind. The next instant, she propped her chin on her hand and dozed off.
No one could have anticipated how deeply everyone slept that night. Exhaustion wove through them like thread on a spinning wheel, stretching their nerves thin and frayed. Even Long Li seemed to have plunged into a pitch-black slumber, bereft of all vigilance.
Not far off, a cloth shoe stepped lightly over bush branches and landed without a sound on the mossy ground.
Aqiu clutched the hilt of her waist knife in one hand and the end of the hemp rope in the other, a bloodthirsty red glint flickering in her eyes.
Ye Chan trailed obediently in her wake, dragged along by the rope. Her mouth was stuffed tight, her jaw throbbing with pain. All the way, she’d been slurping up the saliva dribbling out without her noticing. She had no idea why this sister had secretly tied her up and snuck her out—they’d spent nearly the whole journey crawling through tunnels, leaving her lightheaded and short of breath.
As a prisoner, though, Ye Chan had no say in the matter. To prove herself a model hostage and buy a few more moments of survival, she walked when told, ran when told, without a peep of protest.
“Mm?”
Fine, even tying her to a tree right now… she could go along with that.
Aqiu stared coldly at Ye Chan’s face, her gaze shifting from the double pupils in her eyes to her throat. She made a silencing gesture, then mimed slitting it.
Ye Chan blinked, swallowed hard with an awkward grin, and nodded frantically to show she got it—shut up or end up kicking her legs in the air. Crystal!
Aqiu averted her eyes in disgust and ducked into the waist-high grass.
The smell lingered in the air: charred wood… and that faint, cold fragrance. She remembered it well.
Aqiu gripped a woven grass grasshopper in her palm so fiercely it was nearly crushed flat, but she paid it no mind. Holding her breath, heedless of the arrow wound in her leg, she crawled swiftly toward her true target.
She knew it, she just knew it!
They wouldn’t die so easily!
Alang, A yan—all the great loves of her life were lost. Tonight, whatever the price, she would take vengeance with her own hands.
The stream’s murmur grew nearer. Excitement tugged at her lips; her teeth ground together, veins bulging on the back of her hand. Through the gaps in the pampas grass blades, she spotted her quarry: that woman.
Just one strike. Just… five—no, three seconds.
Aqiu’s chest barely rose and fell. She sank into a deep crouch, muscles coiled for the pounce—
Flutter!
The moment she sprang into the air, a rotund shadow burst from the grass opposite—like a shaggy balloon—and smacked squarely into Aqiu’s face with a thud.
Gu Xianwang jolted awake at the noise, only to see a gleaming blade flashing toward her. She twisted aside and dodged by a hair’s breadth. Luckily, her attacker had taken the fat bird to the face first and lost her balance.
Gu Xianwang wasted no words. She lashed out with a kick to the intruder’s soft ribs. A muffled grunt escaped as the figure doubled over, collapsing to the ground and curling into a shrimp-like ball, wracked with pain.
The commotion roused Yao Cuo. Long Li hurried over, a lingering haze of sleep in her eyes. She shook her head. “How strange. I slept so soundly tonight I sensed nothing at all.”
Gu Xianwang kicked the knife from the woman’s grasp first. Judging by her build that it was a woman, she kept Yao Cuo back and wrenched the intruder’s arms behind her back, pinning them tight.
Even then, they still hadn’t gotten a clear look at her face.
No mystery there—the fat bird was perched squarely on her head, nesting contentedly.
Yao Cuo scratched his head in confusion. “Uh, did this woman bring the chicken…?”
“No, this chicken—” Gu Xianwang hadn’t finished before the fat bird, as if understanding, flapped its wings in indignation and let out a chirp. “Ahem, bird. It’s a bird.”
Long Li leaned down and scooped up the fat bird, revealing half the woman’s face at last. “Someone we know.”
“That female bowman?” Gu Xianwang tensed, scanning the surroundings, and hissed, “Get low. There might be an ambush.”
Long Li shook her head. “Probably not.”
Now that she was fully awake, she wouldn’t miss something so obvious.
“Did you come here on your own?” Gu Xianwang was even more baffled. She turned to the woman. “Do you even speak Mandarin?”
Aqiu grimaced and twisted her shoulder. She shot a sideways glare at Gu Xianwang behind her, sparks of fury practically shooting from her eyes as she bellowed in her incomprehensible local dialect: “I’ll kill you! You’ll pay for my little brother’s life! Give Alang back to me!”
Yao Cuo winced and squatted down, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “She’s screaming her lungs out. Sounds like she wants to fight you to the death, Xianwang. You cross paths with her before or something?”
Gu Xianwang did recall the figure who’d been attacked by the Marrow Bee up in the tree. “Possibly.”
Though from her perspective, that incident hardly counted as her doing.
“Villain! Black Sheep! You evil, hateful outsiders!” Aqiu raged on. “You desecrated the Altar and disturbed the God Lord! You greedy wretches will face retribution for sure!”
Yao Cuo backed up a step, overwhelmed by the noise. “So what now? Tie her up? She’s yelling loud enough to summon her whole village.”
Long Li set the Fat Bird aside and nimbly plucked the mangled Woven Grasshopper from Aqiu’s grip. She pondered aloud, “Why would she sneak here alone in the dead of night? Even if the mountain folk guessed we survived, finding their way from Leech Pit straight to the Altar at the bottom of this cave would be impossible.”
She toyed with the shriveled woven grass toy, her gaze darkening. “Unless someone left her a message.”
Gu Xianwang froze, a name flashing instantly into her mind. Long Li met her eyes at the exact same moment.
“Most of the mountain folk around here don’t speak a lick of Chinese—except maybe those lookouts posted outside.”
Long Li paused in thought before adding, “But judging by how the forest array was set up back then, this woman’s no ordinary villager. She might not speak fluent Chinese, but she could recognize a few individual words.”
Gu Xianwang nodded in understanding. She waited for a lull in the woman’s frenzy and tested her carefully: “God Eye. Woman. Grass Ghost Witch. Altar. Yuzi.”
She pronounced each word clearly, one by one. Long Li watched Aqiu’s face intently. The woman’s eyelids twitched at “God Eye,” her lips pressed tight at “woman,” and she glowered sullenly through the rest—until “Yuzi.” At that, she froze for a split second.
Aqiu couldn’t make heads or tails of what these hated enemies were muttering, but she caught those last few words. A Yan had taught her about them once: the God Eye woman, Sister Yuzi. What did that mean…? No way.
She bellowed in fury, “You captured Sister Yuzi too? Where is she? You want to trade her for that thief who stole the God Eye?”
Long Li’s sharp ears picked up on one key word—its sound close enough to Chinese, and matching the distinctive lilt the Gu Witch had used for the same name back in the Karst Cave. She repeated it deliberately: “Yuzi.”
That confirmed it!
Aqiu was certain now—they were talking about Sister Yuzi. She must have been caught, tortured until she spilled all their secrets.
No one else knew—not the other villagers, not even A Yan. They had no idea Yuzi was still alive, or that she and Aqiu had stayed in secret contact all along.
Back then, Yuzi had broken clan rules and been sentenced to the ultimate punishment. Everyone thought she was done for when she tumbled into Leech Pit. No one could have imagined she’d claw her way back to life. Then, half a year later, one of these exact Woven Grasshoppers had appeared out of nowhere on the table in Aqiu’s home.
It was their private signal, one of a kind. As the Grand Matriarch’s granddaughter, Aqiu had always been the perfect, obedient girl—never once stepping out of line against her grandmother’s wishes. Yuzi might have held a lower status, but she was freer, happier, full of life.
Long before either of them had the God Eye implanted, Yuzi had already roamed every nearby peak. She picked up skills in a flash, generous and clever as could be—like a joyful little bird. Aqiu always figured that someday, Sister Yuzi would sprout wings of her own and soar off to some distant, lofty place.
This cave and its forest had been Yuzi’s discovery—a secret reached by a twisting, treacherous path that took half a day at best to descend. Back then, there was no tunnel yet, no need to hide in the shadows. That little woodland had been their secret base, the heart of their carefree girlhood days.
Sister Yuzi was a good person. It was she who had brought her and A Yan together, and without her help, she never could have lived such joyful days. So even if Sister Yuzi had made a mistake, it was the fault of those outsiders—they had deceived her. Every last one of them was hateful!
When they had tumbled into the Leech Pit, Aqiu had dimly suspected they might not be dead. But Sister Yuzi had said the secret passage there was long sealed off, so it was only a guess. Still, she had followed the others in carrying Alang’s body back to the village. She had been utterly heartbroken, feeling as if she had lost everything. Yet the Grand Matriarch had declared they should not execute the captured woman—not yet.
Why?!
On what grounds?!
Just because she had dropped the God Eye? But it was stolen!
For the first time, Aqiu realized how ruthless and unreasonable the tribe’s rules truly were. No matter who it was, planting the God Eye granted them extra privileges.
Even if she was an outsider. Even if her brother and her lover had died because of their arrival.
For the first time, Aqiu felt a burning urge to rebel.
She wanted to settle the matter her own way.
“Release Sister Yuzi! I’ve brought the person you want. We can make an exchange. I challenge you to a one-on-one duel! Just me! By myself! Fight me fair and square—with knives, with skill! I’m Aqiu. Let me be your enemy!”
Gu Xianwang could not understand the words, but from the girl’s tone, she sensed the shift in her emotions—from seething rage to bewilderment, then grievance and unwillingness, and finally a spark of heroic spirit, as if she had cast aside all restraint and reclaimed her own boldness.
“Bind her first.”
