This was the best plan she and Long Li had come up with after careful discussion.
In the current Mist Forest, only she and Yang Baibai had the ability to discern the trajectories of the living mist using the Eye Technique without any lights. Long Li had mentioned that in her dazed state, she had glimpsed a figure over three meters tall, slender like bamboo stalks, and even heard the laughter of children at play. In other words, what Gu Xianwang had seen in the woods back then was no illusion.
But could anything truly alive dwell in this eerie Yin Vortex?
Even if the children were real, was that three-meter shadow—like a mantis turned spirit—that Long Li had spotted also alive?
Gu Xianwang didn’t believe so.
She laid out the knives she had brought in a neat row on the ground. “You pick first.”
Yang Baibai snorted. “Haven’t messed with these in ages.”
He lifted his T-shirt to reveal a leather holster strapped across his chest—a custom half-shoulder lining of fine cowhide that hugged the body, with flask-sized pockets at chest level. From one pocket, he pulled a folded burlap cloth and shook it open, revealing two rows of razor-sharp blades that resembled makeup brushes.
“I’ve got my own.”
Ye Chan gaped in astonishment. “You carry weapons on you like that? They look just like a set of surgical scalpels. How did airport security miss them?”
Yang Baibai arched an eyebrow with smug pride but said nothing. Was this little secret something he could just share with outsiders?
Weapons were weapons; Gu Xianwang didn’t care where they came from. She selected a flat-bladed dagger and strapped it to her upper arm, slung the Dog Head Knife at her waist, and tied a rope around it as well—one whose usable length exceeded three hundred meters after trimming the ends. This would be their lifeline.
Long Li was clad in her black-and-gold tactical jacket. Gu Xianwang started to offer her something else but held her back instead. As they pressed close for a moment, Gu Xianwang caught a stronger whiff of blood on her. “Keep it on. Don’t take it off.”
Even a body forged of iron held only ten pounds of blood, and Long Li bore an unhealing puncture in her vital organs, steadily leaking every second. Gu Xianwang forced the thought from her mind, clinging to calm to seize every precious moment.
No dawdling. She couldn’t waste a single instant.
Water, food, painkillers, anti-inflammatories—she had personally watched Long Li consume them all.
And so, after five minutes, she stared at the dark fringe of the forest, drawing a deep breath. She had to bring them out safely.
Yang Baibai kicked off his flip-flops into the underbrush, bouncing on his toes a few times to loosen his limbs. He and Gu Xianwang had already compared notes on the situation within the Mist Mirage: the children, the monstrous shadows, the living mist. Hmph. Man, ghost, demon, or monster—whatever dared enter these woods, the Yang Family feared nothing.
Strands of chill wind whispered through the gaps in the trees, light enough to tease at loose hairs. The fog, thick as layered veils, seemed to itch under the breeze, swaying restlessly with a ghostly undulation.
It was coming!
Yang Baibai’s eyes sharpened. He whipped his head around and shouted, “Hey, don’t get yourself killed! Bring back the Turtle Pearl alive!”
“Heh.” The corner of Gu Xianwang’s mouth quirked upward. Without looking back, she crouched and launched herself into the pitch-black fog like an arrow loosed from the string.
Water vapor was undoubtedly the Eye Technique’s greatest foe.
Fog shrouded everything like a barrier. The mist itself was colorless, a blank canvas smeared by light into milky white. At the forest’s edge, faint gradations of gray had still been visible, but now the Leaf Crown sealed the sky overhead, leaving only dense, ink-like gloom twisting through the air.
Every scrap of ambient light in the night seemed devoured by the ethereal vapor. Her mind had to focus utterly, teasing out faint motes amid the chaos. Gu Xianwang’s temples throbbed, her pupils aching and swelling from the strain as she glided unhurriedly along the shifting vacuum lanes carved by the living mist—like a dancer in motion.
They hadn’t realized it before: the living mist’s paths weren’t uniform. The forest resembled some virtual construct, its every element pieced together from code. The mist followed rigid programs, yet each segment obeyed entirely different rules.
The five-minute cycle Gu Xianwang had observed applied only to the first thirty meters. Only after painstakingly threading deeper along that narrow, jagged vacuum path did she freeze in realization. The mist ahead reversed course entirely, drifting in the opposite direction—as if two pots of ink at different concentrations had been poured simultaneously into a clear pool. How could she possibly spot the untainted stream amid that churning tangle?
She had pushed her sensory acuity to its absolute limit, every pore in her skin prickling with the oppressive chill. The damp mist caressed her body like a multitude of hands, patting and probing. With someone nearby earlier, she hadn’t noticed how unnervingly silent the Ghost Forest was. But now, utterly alone, she suddenly understood the terror of deep-sea phobia or megalophobia. Humans were so insignificant against the vast unknown—who could resist the primal fear wired into their very genes?
Gu Xianwang instinctively touched the long rope coiled at her waist. It had to stay perfectly taut to keep the living mist from warping its position as she moved. Every three meters, she left a mark, using tree trunks as pivot points. By sheer coincidence, the climbing rope she’d grabbed at random was a vivid vermilion. Glancing back, it resembled a fragile red thread vanishing into the eerie gloom—her lifeline, entrusted to another’s hands. The instant her palm made contact, the rope seemed to quiver faintly, as if resonating with a distant heartbeat pulsing through the crimson line.
Two hundred twenty-six, two hundred twenty-seven… Gu Xianwang drew a deep breath and lifted her gaze. She couldn’t afford to linger in one spot for long. The mist hung heavy and low; on this level, even the Eye Technique could no longer pierce to the boundary. She had to climb higher, using the towering pines to breach the Mist Barrier ahead.
~~~
Ye Chan clutched the end of the rope with white-knuckled desperation, yanked this way and that like a tug-of-war contestant—leaning back one moment, hopping in place the next—sweat pouring down her face. She wasn’t even the one inside the forest, but holding the rope made her feel far too involved. Her mind raced with scenes from The Mist: she was the unlucky supermarket clerk, tethered to an even more doomed cannon fodder who’d plunged alone into the fog to scout a path. Then the rope would jerk violently—
Snap!
With a whoosh, Ye Chan nearly pitched forward. Something had happened on Yang Baibai’s end—he’d bolted ahead several meters in a flash. She couldn’t feed out the rope fast enough, her palms scorching from the friction. Luckily, the pull was manageable; she dropped her weight backward, regaining her balance in short order before loosening her grip. The long rope whipped into the mist.
But that brutal yank had terrified her. Ye Chan’s heart hammered relentlessly. In the movie, this was the point where a colossal, octopus-like tentacle beast emerged. When they reeled the cannon fodder back from the other end, only half a body remained, entrails spilling in a bloody mess…
Goosebumps erupted across her skin. Swallowing hard, Ye Chan turned to Sister Long. “Sister Long… you don’t think there’s anything in this mist, right? Hiss—th-there shouldn’t be, yeah?”
Long Li’s eyes were dark pools. Her long hair draped over her shoulders, jacket zipped to the chin. She’d been statue-still since entering the forest. Only now, at the sound of Ye Chan’s voice, did her eyelids flicker. Her tone was cool as a mountain spring: “Of course there is.”
Her voice was soft, and they stood too far apart for Ye Chan to catch it clearly. “Huh? What’d you say?”
Long Li’s brows knitted tight. She snapped alert, scanning the surroundings for any sign of trouble, but found none. Shaking her head, she glanced sideways. “Nothing. We don’t know what’s lurking in the Mist Forest yet. Keep a firm hold on that rope. If worst comes to worst—”
Her words cut off as Ye Chan’s wrist shot forward with the rope. Her body launched airborne like she’d been hitched to a speeding car, only to slam face-first into the dirt, choking on grass and mud. The drag hauled her nearly two meters, churning up the soil beneath her.
“Grip the ground!” Long Li barked. A short dart materialized in her palm from nowhere; she whipped her wrist, sending it hurtling into the mist.
Ye Chan splayed out flat in a human starfish to maximize friction. The frog sprawl held for barely two seconds before the tugging ceased. She scrambled upright, scooting backward on her butt with kicking legs. She didn’t dare stand, inching rearward while hauling the rope, convinced Yang Baibai had been snatched by some beast.
Thankfully, the pulling stopped during those moments, the rope going slack. But it was still baffling—what could make someone surge forward and back like that over five or six meters?
“You alright?”
Ye Chan spat out a mouthful of dirt. “Holy shit, that nearly broke my damn neck. My hip’s killing me.”
If she could crack jokes, she was fine. Long Li peered intently toward the rope’s vanishing point into the fog. Spotting something off, she shouted again: “Pull it back!”
The surroundings were deathly still. Long Li’s shout rang out like thunder shattering the heavens. Ye Chan jolted in shock and instinctively leaped to her feet, yanking viciously on the long rope to reel it back. At first, the rope hung limp and slack, contracting with every pull. What had been just a few loose coils on the ground now lay in a tangled mess around her feet. She didn’t dare examine it too closely for stains or smears—she just wanted to haul that unlucky cannon fodder Yang Baibai back to safety.
“Damn it, something’s wrong.” The more Ye Chan pulled, the more her heart raced with panic. Moments ago, the rope had floated loosely in the air, but now it dragged limply across the ground. Clearly, there was nothing attached to the other end anymore. “Wait—no, Sister Long… Yang Baibai… he seems… he seems to be gone!”
The rope’s leading end slapped against the earth, suggesting whatever had happened was very close by. Long Li didn’t budge from her spot, her right arm still clenched tight around the Red Cord. She thrust out her left hand. “The rope. Give it to me.”
Ye Chan didn’t hesitate for a second. The moment the rope touched Long Li’s palm, she channeled her strength and whipped her arm in a powerful arc, using the momentum like a cracking lash to rip the remaining length free from the thick fog. What had once been the rope’s end was now just a frayed tuft of fibers, as if gnawed clean through by some rodent’s teeth.
Long Li twisted her forearm with practiced force, and the long rope obediently coiled around her elbow. The ragged end dangled from her grip in an instant. Ye Chan leaned in for a closer look and asked in astonishment, “Why does this look like it’s coated in… some kind of slime?”
The slime had the texture of melted peach resin. In the dim light, it appeared almost transparent at first glance, speckled with fine particles—perhaps wood shavings. Ye Chan reached out to touch it, but Long Li slapped her hand away. “Don’t touch it.”
Ye Chan’s shoulders twitched. She stared at her hand in confusion. “I-I think I smelled something. This resin has a weird scent. It’s just like that smell I caught in the woods earlier.”
That smell… Long Li was just leaning in to sniff it herself when a rustling scrape echoed from the nearest ancient pine. Suddenly, a black shadow exploded through the Mist Barrier with a resounding boom. Slender limbs stretched wide above and below as it unleashed a bizarre, piercing screech. With a single swing, it vanished back into the fog—but not before a hazy, tower-like silhouette settled vaguely atop the pine’s upright crown.
