Chapter 55: Outbreak

Darkness enveloped them on all sides. Gu Xianwang’s sudden collapse to her knees caught everyone off guard. The Golden Crow nestled in her arms flapped its wings twice before tumbling to the ground. It craned its neck to peer around, letting out a series of chirp chirp chirps.

Yao Cuo was closest to her and caught her arm almost instantly. Gu Xianwang knelt fully, her body bowed forward, shoulders trembling faintly. The sight drenched him in cold sweat.

“What’s wrong, Xianwang?!”

Fortunately, the surge of blood came and went as quickly as it had arrived. After dripping a small puddle, it finally stopped. Gu Xianwang shook her head and gently pushed Yao Cuo away. She turned aside and glanced at her blood-soaked hand. Amid the vivid crimson staining her palm were delicate white filaments, strikingly similar to the mycelium in the karst cave.

Had those spores from earlier finally taken root inside her?

Gu Xianwang pursed her lips and swiftly wiped away the traces.

“It’s nothing—just a nosebleed.” She masked her earlier panic with calm indifference. “I’ve probably overexerted myself these past few days. My body’s just protesting.”

The dim light worked in her favor; no one could see clearly and had no choice but to accept her explanation. Putting on a convincing show, Gu Xianwang refused assistance from Senior Brother and Ye Chan. She summoned her strength and rose to her feet alone, acting as if nothing had happened.

She reached down to scoop up the Golden Crow again, but the little creature suddenly acted possessed. Her hand barely extended before it scampered away, kicking its tiny claws in retreat.

Awkward. Gu Xianwang glanced at the bloodstains lingering between her fingers and clenched her fist tight.

As she stood, her peripheral vision brushed against Long Li’s gaze. For reasons she couldn’t fathom, Gu Xianwang had locked eyes with her countless times in the enveloping darkness. Each encounter left her feeling as though Long Li had pierced straight through her secrets.

Yet Long Li merely watched her, saying nothing.

Sara asked, “Long, how many flashlights do you have left?”

“Two.” Long Li slung off her backpack, flicked one on, and tossed the other to Sara.

Bolstered by the beams of the two powerful flashlights, the group finally took notice of the colossal stone tree looming before them and gasped in collective awe.

Ye Chan stammered for what felt like ages, jabbing her index finger. “Th-this… this, this! This tree—this stone tree—could it be Fusang wood?”

She was utterly entranced. “No, no, no, impossible. It can’t be naturally formed, but… but it can’t be man-made carving either. Oh my god, the bronze tree unearthed at Guanghan Sanxingdui in 1986 already stunned the academic world. This one… it’s an absolute landmark in archaeological history. So magnificent—a miracle on par with the pyramids.”

Sara gave the surroundings a general once-over but spotted no obvious spot where the target item might be stored. Her eyes gleamed mischievously as she prodded Ye Chan. “How’d you peg this as Fusang wood? It doesn’t even have leaves carved on it. You figured it out just from the stone branches?”

Ye Chan rolled her eyes—she couldn’t stand anyone questioning her expertise—and launched into an animated explanation, gesturing wildly. “How could it not be obvious? The Records of the Ten Continents and the Classic of Mountains and Seas both describe Fusang wood in detail: ‘The tree stands two thousand zhang tall, with a girth of over two thousand. They grow in pairs from the same root, leaning upon each other, and are thus called Fusang.’ Just look at this trunk—isn’t that clear enough?”

“And the Classic of Mountains and Seas states, ‘In the Valley of Soup stands Fusang, where the ten suns bathe, dwelling amid the waters.’ Fusang wood is also known as the God Tree that Pierces the Heavens, home to ten suns.” She bounded forward and jabbed at a wall painting. “Open your eyes and look: this bird with three legs is a Golden Crow. The Golden Crow carries the sun, perfectly matching Fusang wood.”

The chubby little puffball in question tilted its head: Chirp?

Ye Chan choked, waving it off in distaste. “Ahem, not you. This Golden Crow isn’t that Golden Crow! Myths always involve some exaggeration, after all.”

Sara listened with appreciative tsks, then swung her flashlight beam toward the bronze cone cages dangling from the stone tree’s upper branches. “Does that thing tie into the Golden Crow carrying the sun you mentioned? It looks just like the birdcage we saw back in the Basha Village.”

“That… hard to say right now. It’s too far—we can’t make out the details.”

Ye Chan excelled at reciting textual lore, but anything beyond the written records left her floundering. Sara’s bronze cone cage was a complete unknown to her. From their vantage point, they could discern only its rough shape; the decorative patterns and verdigris were entirely obscured.

You could call it a birdcage, sure—but there were far more than ten of them, which didn’t line up with the ten suns at all.

Gu Xianwang listened while sizing up Sara. She hadn’t shown the slightest interest in any history along the entire journey, yet now that they’d reached the altar, she was suddenly acting like an explorer?

Now the dagger was revealed from beneath the fish diagram. This place was undoubtedly their final destination. Whatever Sara sought, whatever Long Li wanted, and whatever she herself was after—all of it was here.

Yet the cavern was vast and shrouded in darkness, with no shelves or storage spots in sight. If it had followed standard tomb layouts—a series of chambers, coffins neatly placed—one glance would reveal everything. Even if it employed the intricate yellow-heart inscription method, there would at least be records to consult. But in this ancient altar of an unknown foreign tribe, aside from the terrifyingly massive stone tree, they hadn’t even bothered to construct a proper sacrificial platform.

Gu Xianwang’s steps were still unsteady. The bleeding had stopped, but waves of weakness still washed through her limbs. She couldn’t afford to waste time now. She and Sara each harbored their own schemes, yet in this moment, she held a unique advantage: only she could see everything clearly.

Foregoing her flashlight, she walked alone toward the edge of the stone wall. Circling past the bronze candlestick, she reached a smooth expanse of crystalline ground. This crystalline patch felt as polished as glass underfoot, slick and even. It wasn’t visible from beneath the tree, but up close, she spotted fine gaps between the crystal and the mountain body itself.

The whole mountain felt like an enormous hollow shell turned upside down, its circular crystalline base supporting the central Fusang Stone Tree like a prized exhibit beneath a glass dome.

But that was impossible. No one could truly move mountains or fill seas—that was why mortals worshiped illusory gods.

She turned to the narrative carvings on the mountain wall, tracing the story’s progression step by step. The style here differed utterly from the karst cave’s etchings. Though no expert, she could tell at a glance that these were far more magnificent. The cave drawings resembled crude stick figures, while the altar’s evoked the splendor of Dunhuang wall paintings.

In other words, the people who designed and built this altar already grasped the concept of beauty.

The long scroll at the very bottom appeared to chronicle the Witch Clan people’s migration to this land, their defeat of the native Yelang people, their subsequent rule over them, and the forced construction of this very altar.

Sudden understanding dawned on Gu Xianwang. Here, the truly exalted were the Witch Clan people, with the Yelang people coming second. Among the Yelang clans existed slaves rooted in their own traditions, identities passed down through generations—slaves forever slaves, while Yelang folk earned the right to serve as divine attendants through the so-called God Eye.

If that was the case, then the God Eye was likely a tool of domination devised by the Witch Clan themselves, much like the Three Corpses Brain God Pill wielded by Invincible East in The Smiling, Proud Wanderer.

“Hey, what do you see up there?” Ye Chan called from nearby.

Gu Xianwang followed the beam of her pointing finger. The spot was at the waist of the massive figure carved beside the God Tree, where the shape of the sword’s ornate guard at her hip stood out clearly. The sword was rendered with exquisite detail—guard, fittings, tassel, all captured perfectly. The tassel in particular looked so lifelike, as if still swaying gently in the breeze.

…Wait. It really was swaying.

Gu Xianwang narrowed her eyes, focusing intently on that height. She realized it wasn’t just a carving. A small ledge of crushed stone jutted from a crevice in the rock wall, thin ropes dangling from it to suspend a skeleton. The motion had come from a massive centipede crawling across, dragging the leg bone in its path.

She opened her mouth to speak, only to see Sara approach, shaking her head and muttering, “What the hell? I just looked up for a moment, and now my vision’s all fuzzy.”

Ye Chan rubbed her brow. “That’s weird. Yours makes sense ’cause you’re getting on, but I’m young—how come I’m having the same problem? Don’t tell me it’s from skipping phone time these past few days. My nearsightedness must be worsening.”

“Hey, who’re you calling old, you little brat?”

Yao Cuo sidled up unexpectedly, whispering in Gu Xianwang’s ear, “Something’s not right, Xianwang. How are you holding up? My vision’s 1.2, but even looking up now, everything’s getting blurry.”

Gu Xianwang frowned. “I can see fine. What does the blur feel like, exactly?”

Long Li abruptly swung the flashlight beam from the stone wall to their feet. The white light pierced the crystal like spotlights in a diamond shop, illuminating its translucent, radiant luster in exquisite detail.

She said, “This must be a symbiotic fluorite deposit.”

Gu Xianwang latched onto the key word with perfect timing. “Symbiotic?”

“Mm.” Long Li crouched down, her two fingers brushing over a piece of pale purple fluorite. She then tapped at a tumor-like black stone orb embedded within it. The orb wasn’t large and, at first glance, looked like an impurity in the crystal ore. “Do you remember the thing in the tunnel that made us hallucinate?”

Gu Xianwang got it. She meant their vision starting to blur was probably due to exposure to that same hallucinogen again.

Ye Chan had never crawled through the tunnel, but the moment she heard “hallucinate,” her mind raced with wild thoughts. “Holy crap, this ore doesn’t have radiation, does it?”

Anything else supernatural, and Yao Cuo could accept it calmly by now. But suddenly hitting him with physics and science—and escalating straight to radiation—numbed him on the spot. “No way, right? This… this ore’s been around for years. Can it still be radioactive?”

As he spoke, he swallowed hard. “What are the symptoms of radiation exposure? Does it affect the eyes first?”

Long Li shook her head and gently pressed her palm to the surface of the crystal, as if sensing something.

“It’s probably not radiation,” she said carefully, “but this might be a fragment of a meteorite.”

Sara, standing beside her, raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Her expression clearly read, You can even guess that?

Ye Chan was baffled. “A meteorite? No kidding? So this sinkhole really was made by a meteor crash? And then the Witch Clan members dug it up and put it to use?”

By that logic—leaving aside whether it caused hallucinations or not—this thing was connected to the Witch Clan and involved a meteorite. It sounded pretty valuable. Sara’s eyes gleamed as an idea struck her.

Long Li stood and scanned their surroundings. Under the diffused white light, she spotted many more black stone chunks of varying sizes scattered through the translucent fluorite layers, all similar in appearance.

In such quantities, if these were truly fragments of a meteorite, the original stone must have been at least as big as a watermelon.

But right now, they lacked enough clues to determine the exact effects these stones had on people. They’d been excavated and buried here with the fluorite ore—what was the purpose?

As she pondered, there came a sharp clang. Sara had jammed her dagger into the fluorite, twisted and pried, and forcibly broken off a large chunk.

“What’s the point of wondering? Just dig it out and see.”

Ye Chan’s eyes bulged. What barbarity! What recklessness!

“You—you—you know this is a relic of ancient civilization! A treasure of world history! It—”

“Is jack squat.” Sara rolled her eyes at her. “What if this stuff is the hallucinogen? We’d drop dead without knowing why. Kid, get lost—you don’t know shit.”

“I—”

“Shh!” Long Li’s gaze suddenly sharpened toward the distant stone wall.

There was a sound.

Faint, almost slimy.

Gu Xianwang looked that way, and goosebumps erupted across her skin in an instant.

“…Fuck.”