Chapter 84: Bewildering Tracks

The fuel tank was only half full, and there was no time to turn back for more. Ye Chan dashed to the shop next door, grabbed a few meat-stuffed flatbreads to go, and jumped back in the car. Gu Xianwang slammed her foot on the accelerator, pushing it to the speed limit, and raced straight for the highway entrance. Fortunately, she’d made a trip back to Suzhou earlier and had all her documents with her. Right before they left, she called Nanny Chen and simply said she’d return to the nursing home to look after things for a while. The theater troupe would handle her leave—she didn’t dare go into details and quickly hung up.

Ye Chan fiddled with the car’s navigation system from the passenger seat for a good while, but the coordinates Long Li had sent couldn’t be pinpointed exactly on the map. The closest match was a place called Huima Ridge.

Sipping her iced drink, she leaned over and whispered to Gu Xianwang, “Still no reply from Sister Long?”

“Nothing.” Gu Xianwang’s face was frosty as ice. She’d left her phone right there on the center console so she wouldn’t miss a thing, with the volume and vibration cranked to maximum. “The more I think about it, the more I suspect she didn’t send that message herself.”

An inexplicable shiver ran down Ye Chan’s spine. “Why do you say that?”

Gu Xianwang replied, “If she’d wanted to share her location, she wouldn’t have turned off her phone earlier.”

“But what if she only got a signal now? Or maybe she ran into some unavoidable trouble before and just now got it sorted out?”

Gu Xianwang hated to admit the possibility, but if that were true… “She still wouldn’t have sent it to me.”

Those words made the cold knot in her chest swell even tighter, until she couldn’t help grinding her teeth against the discomfort. “She had her phone with her when she left, but she didn’t tell me her plans back then. A full day passes, and suddenly she sends coordinates. If some ‘unavoidable force’ had held her up, think about it—what kind of situation would force her hand like that?”

Before Ye Chan could respond, Gu Xianwang answered her own question. “A place of extreme danger. With her personality, why would she send it out and drag others into the risk?” Even if it was a cry for help, she probably wouldn’t have chosen her anyway.

They’d set out with half a tank, planning to top up at a highway service area. But the only gas station there was out of service for repairs. Once they exited onto the national highway and started up the winding mountain roads, there was nothing but desolate wilderness. It was the dead of night, and with the fuel warning light blinking red, Gu Xianwang rolled down the window, killed the AC, and stopped flooring it. They nursed the car along at a miserly pace for over an hour before finally limping into a twenty-four-hour gas station.

Yang Baibai had conked out in the back seat right from the start, sleeping like a rock with impressive discipline. He didn’t budge for a full three hours. When he finally cracked his eyes open, the car had come to a stop.

He peered out the window, scowled, and rasped in a gravelly voice, “Where the hell are you two driving to?”

The tone made it sound like they’d kidnapped him. Ye Chan twisted around in her seat. “Golden Hook Town, duh. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Bullshit,” Yang Baibai snapped, in no mood for games. “Wrong direction entirely. Did you change the destination, or did you just get lost?”

The dashboard clock read 2:48 a.m. Outside stretched a narrow mountain lane flanked by looming jungle shadows. Sister Gu had stepped out to pay at the booth, leaving just the two of them in the car. His sharp tone gave Ye Chan a flicker of unease.

According to their earlier plan, Sister Long’s situation was too sensitive to share with him yet. If push came to shove, they’d say it was on her master’s orders to pick someone up nearby.

“It’s right,” Ye Chan said, playing dumb and shoving the map his way. “See? Golden Hook Town’s right there. The overall direction’s spot on. Ninth Master asked us to swing by a nearby spot and pick someone up.”

“Who?”

“Why are you being so pushy? It’s our rental—we can drive wherever we damn well please. Why do we owe you an explanation?” Ye Chan was backed into a corner and jumped to her feet in a huff. “And you’re such a total freeloader! Hitch a free ride, sleep the whole way through, leave Sister Gu to drive solo. Are you even a man?”

Caught off guard by her sudden burst of Minnan accent, Yang Baibai blinked in surprise. After a long pause, he grumbled, “I don’t drive.”

That deflated his attitude nicely. Ye Chan was gearing up to press her advantage when the door swung open. Gu Xianwang slid back into the driver’s seat, the chill road wind clinging to her. “What’s going on? I could hear you two yelling all the way from the pay booth.”

“He—”

“Your route’s off,” Yang Baibai cut in from the back, knees drawn up to his chest. The stab wound on his gut clearly hadn’t fully healed, but his eyes bored straight out the window.

Gu Xianwang flicked a glance at the rearview mirror. “No issue. We’re just making a quick stop at another spot to pick someone up first.”

She topped off the fuel tank, rolled up all the windows, cranked the AC, and flicked on the radio. A screech of static burst from the speakers, and Gu Xianwang winced, killing it instantly. Even Ye Chan, whose heart was as vast as a washbasin, picked up on how wrong the mountain fog felt. Moments ago it had been a mere veil drifting through the trees; now it was already creeping under the car.

One of the red tubes in the gas station’s billboard was busted, strobing with a rhythmic click-click. Peering out now, the pay supermarket and pumps alike were swathed in a dreamy haze.

“What, playing dumb?” Yang Baibai shot her a sidelong glare, his voice gravelly and subdued. “The qi here’s all wrong. Don’t tell me you can’t spot it. Nothing on the Long Family’s map is for the faint of heart. True dragons rise from the Cangming Sea—mortals survive only by tracing their scales. It’s past midnight; not playtime for the living.”

By the time he finished, fog had swallowed the roadside hills and wilds entirely. The headlights barely pierced three meters ahead on the ground, reducing the station itself to smeared halos of light.

Gu Xianwang pressed her lips thin and hit the defroster, saying nothing.

Back when they’d pulled in, the attendant had grilled her on their destination. No driving this road at night, he’d insisted—turn around, head back to town, try again at dawn.

Ten klicks up ahead lay the infamous Fallen Soul Ground.

Fallen Soul? Folks wander in, their heads go screwy—spotting things invisible by daylight, or losing all sense of direction. Ghost-hitting-wall illusions in untended graveyards were textbook cases. Sichuan boasted Soul-Confusing Pool, China’s own Bermuda Triangle, where an entire platoon of Japanese soldiers had vanished. Fallen Soul Grounds, every one.

Bored stiff on these godforsaken mountain shifts, the two station hands had spun the tale with relish, claiming their patch in the Qinling Mountains stood apart—with real history.

Word was, back in the Ming Dynasty, a battle-hardened general lay buried nearby. His end was fishy as hell: fresh off a smashing victory, en route to the capital, his army vanished into these woods for days. The yamen sent search parties; march-trails crisscrossed the forest, but no troops. Grand historian Liu Ji ran his calculations and declared the general summoned to the underworld on urgent orders. In his honor, they raised a cenotaph here fit for nobility.

“But get this,” Little Bro had leaned in, all gossip. “Underworld summons? Nah—the guy’s glories spooked the emperor. Liu Bowen cooked up that yarn. Whole army got butchered in the deep woods and dumped right there.”

“Ever since, these hills stay socked in clouds and mist year-round, yin thick as tar. Locals blame the general’s restless grudge. Old-timers running trucks this route swore that in the Ghost Forest’s heaviest fog, you’d hear thundering hooves, battle cries echoing. And check the nearby peak: Huima Ridge. It’s warning you—turn tail, don’t bother; go in, you don’t come out.”

Gu Xianwang twisted around, dead serious. “Golden Hook Town’s forty kilometers off. Fog like this? Get out here—the station’s got crash pads. If we make it in time, we’ll loop back for you. If not, wait for dawn fog-burnoff and hoof it over.”

“Station guys said it rolls in at dusk, lingers till morning—gone by eight or nine if sunny, noon otherwise. But Treasure Spotting adepts conquer the world on Zhaozi footwork. This? Peanuts.”

“And you, Ye Chan—”

“I’m not bailing.” Ye Chan jumped in.

“Tch.” Yang Baibai raked a hand over his buzzcut. “You get you’re gambling your lives driving out now?”

Gu Xianwang just smiled. “Told you—gotta pick someone up.”

Yang Baibai eyed her a long beat, then scrubbed his forehead in frustration. “All you women this bullheaded?”

Dawn was hours off—why rush to die?

Gu Xianwang shrugged, noncommittal. “In or out? Clock’s ticking.”

“Hand over the Turtle Pearl. Now.”

“Dream on.”

“Pfft. Then quit yapping. Drive.” He rolled his eyes and slumped sideways, zipping it.

…

The Wrangler barreled through a vast sea of white fog, the edges of the road lost in the haze. Gu Xianwang gripped the steering wheel, struggling to keep it straight. Ye Chan hunched over the center console, her eyes glued to the car’s navigation screen, beads of sweat gathering on her forehead. She glanced at her watch and muttered, “Everything’s gone haywire. It’s not just the GPS acting up—my watch is off too.”

Gu Xianwang shot a look at the fuel gauge. Since leaving the gas station, it had dropped a full three bars, yet the digital clock showed only five minutes and three seconds elapsed, while her mechanical watch read exactly thirteen minutes. At their speed, they had to have covered at least seventy or eighty kilometers by now. Under normal circumstances, they would have blown past Huima Ridge and reached the next county seat.

But beyond the windows, nothing had changed: endless white fog, twisting mountain road, fleeting patches of dark shadow.

What was the first sign something was wrong? Gu Xianwang pondered silently. Shortly after pulling out of the gas station, the car’s AC had failed, forcing her to crack the windows for air. Then the navigation glitched— the whole vehicle’s network signal crapped out for a minute or two before snapping back to “normal.” But the updated map no longer showed Golden Hook Town or Huima Ridge. The only nearby landmark marked was Sheep Bend Gully.

That Sheep Bend Gully was just a lone dot on the blank white grid—no mountains, no rivers, no roads. It hovered there like some invisible netherworld spot, unleashed in a glitch of electromagnetic static.

Ye Chan swallowed hard. “Should… should we turn around and head back to that gas station?”

“Idiot,” Yang Baibai scoffed.

Ye Chan whipped around, glaring. “What’s your problem? Can’t you talk without being a jerk?”

“She already turned around,” Yang Baibai said. “You blind or what?”

“You’re the blind one!” Ye Chan snapped, then froze as his words sank in. “…Huh? What did you say?”

“Ghost-Hitting Wall,” Yang Baibai drawled wearily. “There are two kinds. The basic one fools regular folks’ eyes—like a cheap magic trick. Either someone sets it up on purpose, or the weather lines up just right for a patch of visual distortion. Close your eyes and walk straight to break it. But the nasty kind—like this hellhole—messes with the whole magnetic field. It screws your senses, electronics, compass, everything.”

“From the gas station till now, I counted five thousand three hundred twelve beats,” he went on. “You’ve been driving a solid hour and a half.” He twisted around to eye the Fat Bird snoozing on its back in the cage, then popped open the door. “Isn’t this chicken for testing cave air? No time like the present—tie it up and toss it out. If it makes ten meters without croaking, we ditch the car.”

Ye Chan: …

Gu Xianwang: “…That’s a bird. Put it down.”

An hour and a half—that lined up with Gu Xianwang’s own mental tally. She’d definitely looped back, probably high-speed yo-yoing over forty kilometers on the same stretch. If the gas station was still roadside, they would’ve spotted it by now.

So either it had vanished into thin air, or they’d veered onto a different road without realizing.

“You—” Yang Baibai scooped the Fat Bird to his chest, ready to school Gu Xianwang on the finer points of birds versus chickens. But as his gaze flicked to the windshield, he froze, words dying in his throat.

Gu Xianwang slammed on the brakes. Tires shrieked as the three of them lurched forward. She killed the headlights, plunging them into darkness. Ye Chan’s lips trembled as she pointed at the mass of black shadows ahead, her breath coming in shallow gasps, no air going in.

She was genuinely terrified, on the verge of tears.

If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, Gu Xianwang never would have believed that Yin Soldiers Borrowing the Path existed in their world. The spectral army marched silently across their path in two orderly columns, shrouded in fog like a white veil. They looked like shadow puppets cast by candlelight—horses towering over two meters tall, armored spearmen even taller, veritable giants.

The thud of hooves on stone, the clink of armor, even human sighs—all rang crystal clear in their ears, as if the car’s steel shell were no thicker than paper. A bone-deep unease seeped into them, yet the engine’s roar blared absurdly loud, like they were perched on some rattling old tractor staring down an ancient phantom legion.

“Get! Down!” The hoarse command tore from Gu Xianwang’s clenched teeth.

Gu Xianwang hunched her back slightly, pressing her body low to the seat. She held her breath, eyes fixed on the shadows ahead as they nearly passed. Whether they were mere illusions or real ghosts, the moment they were gone, she would slam her foot on the accelerator—

“Chirp!!!”

Out of nowhere, the Golden Crow in the back seat lost its mind. It smashed its head into Yang Baibai’s chin with a fierce butt. The moment he lost his grip, it flapped its wings and lunged onto the steering wheel. Its tiny claws danced across it as it let out a piercing chirp aimed straight at the burly mounted figure bringing up the rear of the ghost soldier procession.

A horse’s shrill neigh rang out immediately after. The thunderous hoofbeats halted in an instant. Even through the hazy darkness, Gu Xianwang could sense countless heads swiveling toward them all at once.

Ye Chan snatched the Golden Crow down in one yank. “…If I roll down the window right now and say sorry, think they’ll act like they didn’t hear it?”

“Fuck, back the car up already! You wanna die?!”

Gu Xianwang threw it into reverse without hesitation. Tires screeched against the dirt in a harsh grind as the Wrangler rocketed backward. The murky elongated shadows faded from view, but none of the three dared relax for a second. She gripped the wheel tight, eyes glued to the rearview mirror. Reverse speed climbed to forty kilometers per hour—it looked like they’d finally put some distance between them and the ghost soldiers.

Right then, as she eased off the pedal to slow down, a dark silhouette of men and horses materialized abruptly behind them, sprawled across the path. The shock hit her like a jolt. The wheel jerked out of control. The rear wheels crunched off the road with a bone-rattling bang. The undercarriage scraped the ground in a grating cacophony. The vehicle teetered on the brink of flipping, drifting precariously at the roadside.

The engine sputtered.

And died.