Someone had entered their room and rummaged through her luggage.
Ye Chan had sobered up a little, but her steps were still unsteady. She wobbled her way up to the top bunk and pulled a towel from her bag. “Sister, I’m going to fetch some water to wipe down. Want to join me?”
“No thanks. Be careful out there.”
Gu Xianwang sat at the foot of the bed and watched her leave. Then she unzipped her travel pack. The ropes, multi-tool pliers, folding shovel, combat knife, and portable water purifier were all still there. Her wallet and ID were always kept on her person—no losses.
She shoved the emergency rations aside and reached into the bag’s inner pocket, pinching out a folded sheet of printer paper between two fingers.
It was still there.
She unfolded the two sheets with care.
The paper bore an enlarged, blurry photo of carvings etched into a cave wall. The lines were crude and heavily scarred by water erosion, rendering the image nearly impossible to make out. It vaguely resembled a circle of people gathered around some beast, with a crooked pole jutting up from its center.
Had someone seen this image?
Her fingertip brushed lightly over the pattern as Gu Xianwang let out a slow breath. Regardless of whether it had been spotted, she could at least confirm one thing now: the wood carvings she’d glimpsed inside that Ancestral Tree’s hollow bore an uncanny resemblance to this picture. She’d originally guessed the upright shape at the center was some kind of banner. But now it looked more like a tree.
A tree in the midst of a ritual sacrifice.
An intense premonition stirred within her for no clear reason—Sara and Long Li had come here for that tree too. And whatever they were all after was close at hand.
Gu Xianwang refolded the printout and slipped it into her pocket. She retrieved her knife from the bag, tucked it into the small of her back, rezipped the pack, and set it at the foot of the bed. Then she lay back flat, using the bag as a pillow.
She opened her messaging app and navigated to Senior Brother Yao’s chat. She typed out a message:
Plan may have changed. Signal is weak in the mountains—if I go dark, hold position.
Also, run backgrounds on these two.
The signal icon spun for a few moments. A minute later, it showed as sent.
~~~
Ye Chan returned from washing up outside, a towel draped over the back of her neck. She hummed a tuneless little melody the whole way, clearly in high spirits.
Seeing that Gu Xianwang was still awake and scrolling on her phone, Ye Chan switched off her own phone’s flashlight and asked, “Sister, my battery’s almost dead. Mind if I borrow your power bank? Just for a quick top-up.”
Gu Xianwang’s phone was fully charged. She handed over the power bank. “Go ahead.”
Ye Chan snatched it with a sly grin. “Sister, confession—I snuck another piece of that snack just now. It was so sweet.” With that, she clambered onto her bunk, flopped down flat with a whoosh, and patted her belly. “Been on the road forever, and I finally got a proper full meal. Bliss!”
Hazy moonlight filtered through the half-open window, slipping past the gap in the curtains. Gu Xianwang stared up at the underside of the bunk above her, a faint curve touching her lips before it faded away. It had been a long time since she’d shared a room with anyone.
“Don’t overdo it, or you’ll end up with stomach trouble.”
She’d barely touched her food that night.
Her mind was too full.
“Hey, sister, how come you’re traveling solo? Where’s the boyfriend? Don’t tell me he ghosted you like my bestie.”
Gu Xianwang smiled quietly to herself, wondering if Senior Brother Yao was sneezing his head off right now thanks to her.
“I prefer traveling alone.”
“Whoa, that’s cool.” Ye Chan rolled onto her side. “Lemme guess—you’re from Suzhou and Hangzhou, right?”
A sharp guess. Gu Xianwang closed her eyes and murmured, “What makes you say that?”
“Suzhou and Hangzhou churn out beauties. You’re so poised and elegant, like a proper young lady from a fine family. Me? Total tomboy—treat everyone like one of the guys.”
Gu Xianwang’s voice came out sounding a touch heavier, perhaps from fatigue. “I’m not that pretty.”
Ye Chan let out a pfft of laughter. No way—was this a case of a beauty blind to her own looks?
She chuckled for a good while before blurting out of nowhere, “Sister, you’re an Aquarius, aren’t you?”
Gu Xianwang’s breathing had grown soft and even. “No.”
Ye Chan leaned over the edge of her bunk and listened to the rhythm of her breath. Probably asleep. She whispered a soft “good night,” rolled over, and was soon snoring lightly.
Gu Xianwang hadn’t slept. She opened her eyes slowly.
It wasn’t that she didn’t crave a moment’s rest. It was just that her thoughts were a tangled storm. The instant she closed her eyes, a torrent of images came galloping through her mind, leaving her breathless.
Master was surely furious with her by now. Furious that she’d slipped away without a word, leaving only a note. Or furious that she’d flouted the rules and used the Treasure Suppression Technique on her own.
But what choice did she have?
Her mother—demented, inching toward death. What options were left?
Master had always said that everyone had their own fate. She was still too young to grasp the truth of it. But was heaven truly set on shattering her family?
If it was heaven’s will, then why punish only Gu Xianwang? She bore all the suffering without resentment, but why did death’s hand reach out to those around her?
Her father, her mother, everyone close to her—if she kept clinging to this wretched life, who would be next?
She didn’t dare think about it. She didn’t dare guess.
Gu Xianwang unlocked her phone screen and turned the brightness down to minimum. She opened the post she had made half a month earlier.
Tieba new post: “Has anyone heard of the Forbidden Witch Bone?”
Her finger slid down, scrolling through reply after reply.
Some said the Forbidden Witch was just a fabrication from novels.
Others mentioned legends from fishing villages along the Hainan and Fujian coasts. They said the Forbidden Witch Bone came from a demon, carried a strange fragrance that could hypnotize people—but no one knew its true origins.
Her fingertip paused. Her gaze locked on a reply from an account called Mountain-Seeking Traveler.
“Does anyone around you sleep endlessly, or lie there like a vegetable with doctors unable to diagnose them?”
No matter how many times she reread it, the words still struck her heart like a tolling bell.
Mom.
Gu Xianwang had replied back then: Have you seen a Forbidden Witch?
Mountain-Seeking Traveler: Yes, on a ship.
Gu Xianwang: Are you serious?
Mountain-Seeking Traveler: Sichuan peppercorn and sandalwood.
It was impossible to describe what she’d felt—like lightning splitting her skull, or like a shipwrecked soul adrift in the open ocean, starved and parched, finally spying a distant sail on the waves. Terror and wild joy, all tangled together.
The world said the Forbidden Witch exuded a strange fragrance, but no one could pin down its scent. Only Gu Xianwang knew: it was the cold, herbal chill of mountain peppercorn mingled with woody sandalwood. Not sweet, not floral—just the sharp bite of wild greenery.
She’d private-messaged Mountain-Seeking Traveler right away: If someone’s afflicted by the Forbidden Witch Bone, is there a cure?
She’d sent it brimming with hope. But he vanished from the internet like a ghost. No replies for a full week.
Then, three days before she set off for Guizhou, in the dead of night, that photo landed in her inbox. Mountain-Seeking Traveler’s only words: What you’re looking for is here.
And then he was gone again.
One photo. One vague sentence. It was all the hope Gu Xianwang had left.
Ten years of waiting. Ten years of hollow yearning.
Her time was running out.
She refused to accept it. She would fight. She would wring answers from fate itself.
Even if it meant defying her Master’s strict ban on the Treasure-Hunting Craft. Even if it meant battling others for it. Even if it cost her life. It would be worth it.
~~~
This sleep was a chaotic haze, half dream, half nightmare.
She didn’t know the hour when the rattling of the iron bedframe jolted her awake.
Gu Xianwang blinked her eyes open in a daze. Ye Chan was scrambling down the ladder in a frantic rush.
“What’s wrong?”
“I… hiss, my stomach’s killing me. It’s fine, sis—go back to sleep. Been dealing with the runs since last night. Didn’t think it’d drag on till morning.”
Ye Chan took the ladder two rungs at a time, jammed her feet into her sneakers without bothering to lace them, and bolted for the door. But the moment she shoved it open, the Tour Guide stirred awake too, his face pale and twisted.
Gu Xianwang pushed herself up on one elbow. Outside, footsteps clattered in disorder. A bunch of people had stumbled out, all muttering and groaning about their guts.
She checked her watch: 2:06 a.m. Less than an hour of sleep.
Everyone with stomach trouble? Food poisoning?
A faint frown creased her brow. She pressed a hand to her own belly. Moments later, nausea roiled up her throat. Her stomach held little food—just emptiness—but as she hacked and coughed, something like a grain of rice twitched upward.
Alive?
Horror seized Gu Xianwang. She coughed harder, deeper, retching from the lungs. With a sharp ‘ka’, a grayish-white bean splattered onto the tissue in her hand.
Eyes wide, she prodded it gently with her thumb through the paper. It felt soft. Then the thin skin contracted, peeling back to reveal a tiny worm.
Goosebumps prickled across her skin.
The worm quivered on the tissue, wriggling feebly. Its body shifted from white to black, dissolving moments later into a smear of yellowish-brown slime.
Gu Xianwang’s fingers crushed the tissue into a ball. “Urk…” Dry heaves wracked her.
Where the hell had that come from? She racked her brain for everything she’d eaten that day. Then it hit her: the branded pot from dinner.
That Granny’s expression…
Had they all taken bites?
What about Long Li?
For some reason, the silent, cautious woman sprang to mind first.
Gu Xianwang flung the tissue aside and clutched her stomach as she staggered outside. A huddle of people was bent double in front of the yard’s outhouse.
The tour guide’s face flushed beet red as he clenched everything in, stomping the ground over and over. Finally, he couldn’t hold it any longer and turned to bolt out the door.
The little bro behind him saw him running and hurriedly called out, “Little Hei, where are you going?”
The tour guide yelled back, “I saw there’s an outhouse outside. I… I’m going out there to go.”
His words hung in the air for a split second before everyone exchanged bewildered glances. Then they all grabbed rolls of toilet paper and streamed out in a frantic line, like a dragon snaking toward the exit.
No one even noticed Gu Xianwang slip away.
The narrow hall was unlit, and the corridor stretched into endless gloom. Granny’s door remained firmly shut.
Should she confront her?
Gu Xianwang touched the knife tucked at her waist.
She hadn’t spotted Sara or Long Li amid the crowd. Had they stayed behind, or had they already left?
The room inside was eerily silent, as if utterly empty.
In the past, Gu Xianwang never would have stuck her neck out at a moment like this. But now, she had no more time to waste.
She quickly replayed the day’s events in her mind—from Basha Village, to the car crash, to this Paper Effigy Abandoned Village—and arrived at a single, chilling conclusion.
They had likely been poisoned with Gu.
The line between legend and reality blurred, leaving Gu Xianwang in a daze. She had no one to turn to now, and no clue what the Gu worms might do beyond the runs. Would there be worse to come?
She thought back to dinner, when the old woman had deliberately brought up those backpackers. The Miao didn’t call it Gu—they called it “Grass Ghost.” So when she’d mentioned the ancient stockade, Gu Xianwang hadn’t connected it to anything like that.
But looking back now, why had the old woman so abruptly steered the conversation to those long-ago backpackers, right after the driver mentioned the Ancestral Tree he’d seen back at Basha Village?
Did she know something?
Gu Xianwang steadied herself and moved lightly down the corridor toward its end.
Knock knock knock.
Creak—
The door cracked open, and amid the thick darkness, a wrinkled old face emerged.
“What’s the matter, outsider?”
Gu Xianwang had never heard a voice so raspy and grating.
The old woman’s clothes lay undisturbed, and her face showed no trace of suspicion. She hadn’t been asleep at all.
“Granny, we’re just passing through. If we’re bothering you, you could say so outright. No need to slip something into the food just to scare us.”
“Heh heh. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Granny’s door stood only half-open, the room inside swallowed in shadow. But Gu Xianwang’s eyes were keen; one glance took it all in. She lowered her voice. “Granny, leave some room for reconciliation—someday we might cross paths again. Your bugs aren’t sitting well with me. How about an antidote? No old grudges, no fresh beef. No reason to make enemies for life.”
She gripped the knife behind her back. The blade’s silvery gleam caught in her deep brown pupils. “Even if you aren’t scared, you ought to think of your ‘family’ first.”
It was partly a bluff, but Gu Xianwang kept her composure. The old woman noticed her piercing gaze fixed past her, on a pair of men’s cloth shoes peeking from under the wooden table. Her expression flickered. After a long pause, she relented. “Outsider, I truly have no idea what you mean. But it’s only natural our food doesn’t agree with you. I think there’s still some rice balls by the stove. Eating those might settle your stomachs.”
“Just leave first thing tomorrow morning, and nothing will come of it.”
Leave? So the old woman had no intention of killing them.
Gu Xianwang was about to hook her foot in the doorframe and press for more when Ye Chan’s scream pierced the air from far down the village path.
Her palm clenched, slick with sudden sweat.
“Where’s your man?” She was still fishing.
Granny let out a sinister chuckle. “No idea.”
Damn it.
Gu Xianwang swore under her breath and dashed out to the courtyard.
