The moment Gu Xianwang stepped away, Granny’s obstructed view gradually cleared. In an instant, the smug smile froze on her lips. The small storeroom directly across from her room—piled high with miscellaneous junk—had its door ajar, though she had no idea when it had been opened.
She was just about to investigate when the sound of a door opening echoed from next door.
Before she could even turn her head fully, two shadows—one tall, one short—were already upon her. She didn’t have time to react before her body went weightless. Someone had yanked her up like pulling green onions from dry soil and shoved her straight into the room.
Bang! The door slammed shut. A blinding beam from a flashlight stabbed right into her eyes. The old woman let out a sharp “Ah!”, her eyes burning with pain as tears welled up. She clapped her hands over them.
“Heh, no smoke without fire. I was wondering how a backwoods hag like you could be so generous—lending rooms, cooking meals. Turns out you’ve got a gut full of dirty tricks.”
Sara shoved the old woman toward the wooden bed with brutal force, then planted a foot on the mattress, pinning her down beneath her weight. Towering over her, Sara sneered.
The bed was big enough for two, complete with a pair of well-used pillows and blankets. A cabinet and table furnished the room—this had to be their everyday living space.
Sara scoffed. “One little hook and your fox tail comes slinking out in a panic. You really think outsiders are all clueless hicks who can’t spot your sleazy little scams? Those pathetic bugs you breed—think they can touch me? Spill it! Where’s your village, exactly?”
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about! Ouch, help! This is against the law!”
“You old Gu Witch have the nerve to talk laws with us? Don’t force our hand—we’ve had eyes on you for days. If you want your idiot son to keep breathing, tell us what we want to know. Now.”
The moment she realized they knew her secrets, the Gu Witch went limp. “You… you…”
Sara leaned in with a savage grin, whispering right in the Gu Witch’s ear. “No funny business. Know who she is?” She stepped aside, revealing Long Li.
“Who—who is it?”
Sara chuckled, enunciating each word like she was chewing gravel. “She… is… a Long… Family… member.”
The Gu Witch’s cloudy eyes bulged wide. Her wrinkled, dark skin quivered as her gaze locked onto the silent woman standing behind Sara.
“Long Family… Long Family member… You—”
Long Li regarded her with cool indifference, offering no denial or confirmation.
The Gu Witch’s trembling finger jabbed toward the door. “Did you take the God Eye? You—you can’t take it. Not even a Long Family member can withstand the God Eye! Give… give it back to me.”
“God Eye?”
Sara glanced back in confusion. Long Li seemed equally in the dark, merely giving a faint shake of her head.
~~~
Meanwhile, Gu Xianwang hurried out of the courtyard and reached the village’s main path in no time.
Right in front of the derelict house where they’d spotted the paper effigy earlier, bodies lay sprawled every which way.
“Ye Chan!”
Ye Chan was face-down on the ground in a spread-eagle sprawl, looking like she’d stopped breathing.
Gu Xianwang called out from a distance. With no response, anxiety knotted her gut, but she didn’t dare take a step closer.
Two rigid rows of figures stood stiffly between her and the fallen group, all shrouded head to toe in pure white cloaks. They stood zombie-still and silent, shoulders and hands linked like kids playing follow-the-leader.
But this was no game.
Ding-a-ling—
A copper bell tinkled sharply from somewhere in the gloomy, forsaken woods. At the sound, the white-clad figures twisted their necks in eerie unison.
Beneath the cloths, bulbous heads jerked side to side in unnatural spasms, like necks snapped clean off—motions no living human could match.
Gu Xianwang’s limbs went numb with cold, her temples pounding. Words failed her.
She’d imagined the perils of deep mountain treks—untamed wilderness, venomous critters, swarms of insects. But not this. Not horrors ripped straight from nightmare flicks: demons, ghosts, the walking dead.
Sure, she had some hand-to-hand skills and sharper-than-average senses. Fine against flesh-and-blood foes.
But zombies?
How the hell do you fight those!?
Cold sweat trickled down her temple.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Suddenly, the two rows hopped forward as one. Six pairs of feet slammed the earth like thunder drums, each impact heavy as an anvil.
One step. Two. Ten. They closed in fast. Then the bell shifted pitch. The zombies split, peeling left and right to encircle her.
Tactics, too?!
Gu Xianwang’s head rang. Her chest blazed, chilled skin prickling. She yanked the knife from her waistband, gripped it tight, and dragged in two ragged breaths.
Stay calm—on a narrow path, the bold prevail; the shod fear the barefoot, and the barefoot fear the desperate.
They were already here!
As the two packs of zombies hopped right up to her face, Gu Xianwang gritted her teeth. With a subtle twist of her wrists and ankles, her toes shot forward in an instant, launching her body into a soaring leap. She unleashed Phoenix Spreads Its Wings, her legs snapping out with two sharp cracks to send the two lead white zombies tumbling left and right.
Borrowing the force from her kicks, she twisted her waist midair and slashed diagonally forward with the tip of her blade. The knife cut cleanly, slicing a massive gash straight through the zombie’s neck and tearing open its white cloak.
The moment the cloak split, it revealed the shriveled, ashen body inside—like a desiccated sausage. Sure enough, these were zombies!
One had to strike while the iron was hot, before momentum waned. Though terrified, Gu Xianwang fixed her eyes ahead and ignored her pounding heart, treating the foes as nothing more than headless training dummies. She darted into the cluster of white zombies and unleashed a barrage of close-quarters strikes: knife hilt pounding like a fist to smash skulls, boot soles sweeping out like legs to topple them. In a flash, the zombie formation shattered, bodies sprawling to either side.
Catching her breath, she scanned the dry corpses protruding from beneath their cloaks. Amid the finer details, she spotted it—each one wrapped in countless transparent threads. The sticky filaments stirred at the slightest sound, each twitch dictating a jerky motion.
Puppets on strings? But there was no one else around. How could mere human hands be pulling them?
As she mulled it over, the copper bell in the woods chimed again, its rhythm turning frantic and urgent, like a dirge for the doomed. The zombies responded to the signal, their stiff joints creaking as they leaped fish-like from the dirt. Their sudden movements shook loose the clinging white cloaks, baring their true forms.
Gu Xianwang went numb all over. Atop each zombie’s skull gaped a massive cavity, crammed full of dense silk nests. Nestled in the center of each was a palm-sized black-furred spider—nothing like an ordinary arachnid, for it sprouted cicada-like wings. With a low buzz from those wings, it echoed the bell’s call.
“Fuck,” Gu Xianwang spat, the curse finally bursting free.
Before the word even faded, a sharp whoosh sliced the air at her side. Her instincts kicked in; she ground her heel into the earth and spun away, dodging by a hair.
The projectile missed and buried itself in the soil. Gu Xianwang whipped her head around—a long, slender needle, no doubt tipped with some numbing toxin.
Now she understood how the others had gone down.
She braced for a second shot, but after a tense wait, no more bells or needles came her way. The entire village plunged back into utter, deathly silence.
One minute. Two minutes. Staring down the six motionless dry corpses frozen in place, Gu Xianwang suddenly had no idea what to do next.
What now?
The enemy lurked in the shadows while she stood exposed. Lingering here would only put her at a disadvantage.
Decision made, she bolted past the zombies and straight to Ye Chan, sprawled on the ground. In that split-second distraction, Ye Chan had somehow rolled onto her back. Her eyelids drooped half-shut, exposing a sliver of white, and she flailed on the dirt like she was doing the backstroke.
Gu Xianwang cradled her head and patted her cheeks. “Ye Chan? Ye Chan, wake up.”
At the sound of her voice, Ye Chan stirred with vague awareness. Her eyes cracked open a bit wider, and upon seeing Gu Xianwang, she broke into a goofy, delighted grin. “Fairy Sister!”
Gu Xianwang pressed, “Snap out of it. Who attacked you? Did you see them?”
Ye Chan traced circles on her temple with one finger and mumbled, “Att… ack…”
“What?”
“…Courtly Jade Liquid Wine… a hundred-eighty a cup!”
Gu Xianwang was utterly speechless. But with no time to waste, she hoisted Ye Chan onto her back and trudged toward home.
As they passed the zombie pack, Ye Chan snapped out of whatever daze gripped her. With a sudden bellow—”Take that, you monster! Eat my leg!”—she lurched sideways and planted a kick square on one zombie’s rear, sending it sprawling face-first.
Gu Xianwang’s scalp prickled; her body went rigid. Only after a long moment, seeing the thing stay put without twitching, did she exhale in relief and hurry away as fast as she could carry the load.
~~~
Back in the courtyard at last, the fire pit’s coals had burned cold, and not a soul stirred anywhere.
Gu Xianwang gently clamped a hand over Ye Chan’s mouth, eased aside the door curtain, and peered into the empty hallway. She settled Ye Chan back in bed and coaxed a couple sips of water down her throat. The moment her head hit the pillow, Ye Chan conked out again.
Gu Xianwang wiped the sweat from her brow. She was bone-tired—no way she had the stamina to haul everyone back. Besides, those beans of gu poison might still be festering in their guts. Without an antidote, they’d remain a hazard.
To catch a thief, first catch the king. She had to go nab that Gu Witch.
After steadying her breath, Gu Xianwang slipped from the room on silent feet.
The whole house lay in hushed stillness, without a single gleam of light. In her eyes, everything resolved into stark, heavy outlines, as if she were creeping through the frame of a black-and-white photograph.
She slowly approached Long Li’s room, only to find the Gu Witch’s door cracked open just a sliver—too narrow to glimpse anything inside. Sidling up to Long Li’s door, she gripped their doorknob with one hand while raising the knife in the other. Using the blade’s tip, she nudged the Gu Witch’s door inward bit by bit—
Suddenly, a rustle echoed from the utility room beside her. Gu Xianwang hadn’t anticipated any activity from that supposedly empty space. She jolted in surprise and whipped her head around, only to see a tall figure standing silently right behind her.
“Who’s there?!” Gu Xianwang spun around, knife already raised protectively to her chest.
“Miss Gu.” The voice was deep and masculine.
Once she made out the intruder’s face, she lowered her weapon, puzzled. “Master Driver, what are you doing here?”
Her brows remained furrowed as a sudden realization struck her:
That’s right—why was he here?
Suspicion flared, and her body tensed instinctively. Before she could react further, a sharp crackle of electricity erupted from the Master Driver’s hand. His stun gun was mere inches from touching her.
In that split second, a searing pain exploded at the nape of Gu Xianwang’s neck. Her vision blackened, and consciousness slipped away in an instant.
Long Li swiftly looped an arm around her waist, catching her limp form securely against her chest.
Even unconscious, Gu Xianwang’s fingers still clenched the knife. Long Li gently pinched the fleshy base of her thumb, forcing her grip to loosen. With a deft twist, she transferred the blade to her own hand and slid it smoothly back into the sheath at Gu Xianwang’s waist.
Inside the room, Sara lounged with her legs crossed. She watched impassively as Long Li carried the woman in and laid her on the bed. “Tsk tsk tsk,” Sara drawled without a hint of warmth. “We’ve known each other so long, and I never pegged you for the chivalrous type, Long—going all soft on a pretty face.”
The Master Driver pocketed his stun gun and trailed silently into the room, taking up position by the door to observe.
Long Li murmured softly, “It’s just a lifeless tool, without weight or consequence. But since our paths crossed by chance, best not to complicate things and derail the real mission.”
“Tch.” Sara snorted in disdain. “Those B Team buffoons—task them with a simple act, and they bungle it so badly they trap themselves. All they do is eat, eat, eat, stuffing their faces like starving pigs. What a sorry sight.”
“Anyway, we’re wrapped up here. Old Dog, signal Chak to bring the car around. The Old Gu Witch and her dimwitted son are all trussed up—we can head out straightaway.”
Old Dog asked, “What about B Team?”
Sara replied, “Leave them a vehicle and let them scram. I don’t need dead weight tagging along.”
Old Dog nodded, then glanced toward Gu Xianwang. “And these two women and the tour guide?”
Sara shot Long Li a sidelong glare, her tone sharp with irritation. “Dump ’em here. If she has any sense of self-preservation, she won’t come chasing after us.”
