Chapter 89: Wolf Fang

After a long while, Long Li let out a soft sigh. “Xianwang, I don’t distrust you.”

But that was all she said.

In the dim, cramped log cabin, it was hard to make out their faces. Each harbored her own unspoken thoughts. On the wooden bed lay a plastic bag bulging with a small mountain of blood-soaked cotton wadding. The metallic scent hung in the air like a sword piercing the water’s surface—sharp, fishy, and cold.

“I know.” Gu Xianwang stuffed the bag of bloody cotton into her backpack. Now that she’d made up her mind, her entire presence had subtly shifted, growing sharper and more aggressive. “Earlier, when I saw you patting your pockets, did you lose something?”

In the past, she wouldn’t have pried or gotten involved in such matters. Back in Guizhou, even when she had her own motives, she always put caution first. She never drew attention in a crowd, always coming across as mild and unassuming—a protective camouflage she’d developed subconsciously over the years. Within the limited radius of her life, she wove a sealed cocoon around herself, enclosing her in unchanging calm to secure a sense of safety.

That was why, in the first half of her life, she’d sought nothing beyond a stable existence. Amid the chaos and upheaval, she clung desperately to that tiny plank beneath her feet, refusing to sink—even if it meant cutting herself off from the world and sealing herself away.

Only this way could she suppress the beast roaring deep in her heart.

But now—with the mist closing in and their lives on the line—she’d changed her mind.

Suddenly, she wanted to fight for it.

She gazed at Long Li and swiftly gathered the clues at hand. “Do you still have your phone? When was the last time you used it?”

Long Li’s eyebrows rose slightly, as if she’d sensed the subtle shift in Gu Xianwang. “I did lose something—something extremely important to me. That’s why I have to enter the Mist Forest. It’s not a lack of trust in you, like you think.”

With that, she pulled out her dead phone and examined the traces on its screen protector using the faint light filtering through the window crack. “Someone used it to send you a message, didn’t they?”

Earlier, when Ye Chan had mentioned the coordinates from Third Sister, she’d grown suspicious. After arriving in Golden Hook Town, she’d communicated once with the local Rat-Walkers but hadn’t shared precise coordinates, using an anonymous code instead. This trip wasn’t truly a deal with the Rat-Walkers; it was just a quid pro quo with Third Sister Red. In simple terms, it was private work. Neither the Rat-Walkers nor the Organization’s informants would have any record of it.

It was one of her self-preservation methods.

“Yes.” Gu Xianwang nodded and showed her the chat log. “This was three hours before we got dragged into the Mist Mirage.”

Long Li zoomed in on the photo. “It looks like the cliff on the side of this cabin.”

In the hazy, cloud-shrouded shadows, the cliff—visible through the cabin’s carved lattice—resembled a pitch-black human face. From the angle of the shot, the person using her phone wasn’t tall, but: “Why this photo?”

“Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore.” Gu Xianwang said flatly.

From the Guizhou pamphlet to the mysterious note in Qinling Sheep Bend Gully, someone was clearly luring her deeper into a trap, each step drawing closer—like a ghost breathing down her neck from behind. She’d assumed the target was just her, but now it was clear that both she and Long Li had been under that ghost’s watchful gaze and grasping claws for some time, toyed with at its leisure.

Gu Xianwang rummaged in her bag and pulled out a spare set of rope. She looked up. “What does the thing you lost look like?”

…

“Hey, what are you scheming over there?”

Sister Gu and Sister Long had been inside the cabin for ages, and Ye Chan hadn’t dared eavesdrop. Instead, she’d been stuck watching Yang Baibai. But the guy had suddenly gone quiet—no more snide remarks. After collecting the red cords tied to the trees, he’d just squatted there staring at the mist, deep in thought for a solid ten minutes without budging.

It was driving Ye Chan up the wall. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore and teased him in his Minnan accent. But he didn’t even glance her way, sitting there like an old monk lost in meditation. While others might squat at a street corner slurping noodles and puffing on a smoke, he was hunkered down in the woods, twirling ropes around his fingers.

The Yang family were all loners, but Yang Baibai’s generation took the cake. Parents gone early, brothers drifted apart. Back when he first started training, he’d tried blending into crowds, but it hadn’t worked out. In the end, he’d chosen a path of utter independence. In his twenty-odd years, he’d crossed a thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers, his feet callused from endless roads. His master called him the most dedicated Yang clansman in a century, but no one else knew the truth: that dedication was just his cave to hide from the real world.

He simply refused to get tangled up with people for no reason.

Moreover, it was truly annoying.

Yang Baibai flipped the Taigong Rope between his fingers, sniffing its scent as he pondered. The Rat-Walkers only had a half-knowledge of the Yin Vortex. If he wanted to get out now, he’d have to search for countermeasures from the beginning. The fog here appeared chaotic at first glance, but if observed over a longer period with the aid of the Eye Technique, one could discern that every five minutes, the leading edge of the fog would shift direction, followed by the trailing edge flowing back to fill the resulting gap.

That Bailian had been right—this thing was alive.

It stirred every five minutes, he mused. The Mist Mirage surely wouldn’t open just one passage. To break free, he needed to seize the fleeting vacuum belt that formed the instant the fog’s leading edge turned, then follow it straight to the boundary of the Yin Vortex.

But what if he missed it? He’d inevitably get trapped back in the Mist Forest.

Tch. He was already stuck anyway. Might as well gamble his life on it.

Having made up his mind, he shot to his feet and nearly collided with Gu Xianwang as he spun around. He hastily stepped back, frowning. “Why are you standing silently behind me like that?”

Gu Xianwang stared at him in pure exasperation. “We’ve been talking with Ye Chan for ages. Were you deep in meditation or something?”

“Oh.” He scratched at his stubble. “Not used to having someone right there beside me.”

He noticed her holding a long rope, methodically straightening and measuring its length section by section. “What, you planning to use the rope to keep your bearings?”

Ye Chan counted off to two hundred thirty-two meters, then unwound two more strands from the spare coil and knotted them to the end of the first. “That should just about make three hundred fifty meters. Any thinner, and it’ll snap after a few scrapes against the trees.”

It was a good thing she’d learned her lesson from Guizhou last time. She’d stocked a universal survival backpack at the outdoor store beforehand. Combining her own ropes with Sister Gu’s kit—and a bit of creative splicing from here and there—she’d managed two long ones.

“Good,” Gu Xianwang acknowledged. She turned to Yang Baibai. “Five minutes. You should have it figured out by now, right?”

Yang Baibai hesitated. “…Yeah, I do. So?”

Gu Xianwang fastened the rope around her waist and flashed him a provocative smile. “I’ve got a half-baked idea. Care to make a wager?”

Yang Baibai eyed her strangely, then glanced at Bailian standing beside her. His gut told him these two had come back from that woodshed trip like they’d swapped souls. Still, he knew Gu Xianwang. Even as a kid, she’d worn two faces: quiet as a clam most days, but push her too far and she’d turn fiercer than a wild hillcat. They said you could see a person’s life at three years old, and that much surely hadn’t changed.

“A wager?”

“There’s an old rhyme: ‘Fluorescent Candle Fire chases the Yin Vortex; Bronze Drum Thunder, keep your eyes shut.’ Bailian says it’s the most detailed entry on Yin Vortices in the ancient books stashed by the Rat-Walkers. Her guess is that ‘Fluorescent Candle Fire’ means fireflies, and they might just repel the living fog.”

Gu Xianwang’s smile turned faint. “One dagger, one rope, three hundred meters, five minutes. You scout the path back the way we came; I’ll take the mountainside. Whoever finds more fireflies gets the Turtle Pearl.”

She said “gets,” but she left it vague as to which pearl exactly.

“If you lose, you do me one favor, no questions asked. Naturally, it’ll have limits—nothing outrageous. Deal?”

Yang Baibai froze for a beat. That bold flair of hers yanked him straight back to a childhood memory without warning.

It was the third lesson after she’d come to stay at the Yang family home. Inner and outer disciples all gathered in the schoolhouse, no different from the private tutors of old. The Yang ancestral estate sat deep in a secluded mountain village, where customs clung tight and insular. A newcomer like Gu Xianwang got bullied mercilessly at first. The ringleader was the late family head’s posthumous son—high status, doted on by the clan. Even Yang Baibai had no choice but to fall in line.

Gu Xianwang’s mother was a traitor to the Yang family. She’d not only stolen one of their vital Turtle Pearls but mastered the art of Treasure Spotting before defecting to Xiang Ling. When that fling fell through, she’d latched onto some government official, climbing the ladder with her vixen wiles and not a shred of shame.

The adults never said it outright, but the kids spread it far and wide. Now that Yang Liu was dead, they’d dumped her outside bastard back on the family doorstep. The Yangs weren’t about to go easy on her.

Back then, Yang Baibai had sized up Gu Xianwang and seen only a dull girl, nowhere near as bright or lively as the village kids. It only reinforced the wild-child rumors for him. Right at that age when he craved fitting in, he’d turned knife for Yang Baimo: bugs stirred into her meals, glue slathered on her seat. Everywhere she went, Yang Baimo’s pack of lackeys left their mark of chaos.

Looking back now, Gu Xianwang must have endured it for quite some time.

The Yang family’s major classes were divided into civil and martial tracks. The civil classes covered mountains and earth veins, which formed the foundation of the Treasure Spotting lineage—everyone had to study them. The martial classes trained fist and foot techniques along with stamina, and running, climbing, and jumping were practiced every single day. Mountain walking relied entirely on that footwork, and every major class included spot checks. If anyone failed, the entire group had to face punishment.

At that time, Gu Xianwang was frail and prone to illness, so she was always taking sick leave. Aside from getting bullied, she spent her days holed up in a dark room recuperating. The third class happened to be her very first martial session, and unluckily, she was one of those spot-checked.

Yang Baimo was also singled out for the check that day, and he immediately threw a fit. Gu Xianwang was bound to fail anyway, which meant everyone would get punished equally, so why should he waste his energy twice? “But this debt has to go on her tab—after class, I’ll get justice for my brothers,” he declared in front of everyone.

Yang Baibai felt back then that Gu Xianwang didn’t deserve such treatment, but he had never spoken up in defense of anyone before.

The test that day was a round trip up and down the wild hillside, with five people spot-checked and a fifteen-minute time limit.

In the end, the first one back was Gu Xianwang, her face covered in blood.

By the time the masters turned around to search for the others, they ran into Yang Baimo, who was being supported back by his four unlucky companions.

No one ever spoke again about exactly what happened on that wild hillside that day—the five of them kept it a deep, unspoken secret. But Yang Baimo’s injuries were far too obvious; they didn’t look like the work of human fists at all. At the very least, they weren’t the techniques their trained fighters would use. They were more like the savage strikes of a wild beast.

Yang Baibai would forever remember that midday moment: she was limping on one leg, with a finger bent at a full ninety degrees and its nail split wide open, yet she still crossed the finish line within the time limit.

She laughed with wild abandon, more vibrant than on any other day—like a little wolf that had just been weaned and was sinking its teeth into flesh for the first time, lapping up the blood.

“Stay away from me,” she said, parting her lips to reveal the bloody marks on her sharp teeth, a warning to every scheming Yang family member.