Ye Chan broke out in cold sweat down her neck: …We’re done for. The tentacle monster charged right at us!
“Urgh—”
Before she could make out what the damn thing was, another black shadow shot out from the exact same spot. It spun a full 360 degrees in midair before landing with deadly precision—though its feet were smeared with mud.
“Holy shit, you’re still alive!”
Yang Baibai held his crouched, hunched posture for four or five seconds before slowly straightening up. Only when he turned around did Ye Chan see the blood seeping from his lower abdomen, the rainbow of bruises on his cheeks and arms, and a face ashen with pain.
Injured though he was, that toothy, sloppy grin of his remained intact. She watched him storm toward Sister Long and rasp out a question: “A Yin Vortex can’t possibly be a real realm. The Old Yang Family has trekked mountains and crossed rivers for centuries, and we’ve never seen anything like this!”
Ye Chan blinked in shock, her heart pounding as she stole a glance at the shadow atop the pine branch—damn, it was gone.
“Wait… calm down. What exactly did you see?”
Yang Baibai scowled, forcing the words through gritted teeth: “Has anyone here ever seen a two-meter stick insect?”
“…Two meters?” Ye Chan felt like she’d been transported back to the Jurassic era. “Are you sure you saw it right? Maybe your eyes were playing tricks?”
Yang Baibai grew irritated. “Tch, I didn’t see its face, but the shadow looked just like that—a head taller than me.”
Ye Chan thought to herself, a head taller than you still isn’t two meters, big guy—you’re barely five-eight.
“Besides a stick insect, I can’t imagine what else could look like that.”
The creature had limbs of nearly equal length, with protruding joints like an arthropod. Its spine and belly were slender, its head almost triangular in shape. It clung to the tree in a posture identical to a spider crawling.
Yang Baibai had been following the vacuum belt back, covering about a hundred meters, when it happened. Truth be told, he’d been gunning straight for the Mist Mirage exit on this trip. The Rat-Walkers’ ancient books were reliable, sure, but pinpointing a handful of fireflies in this vast forest was a fool’s errand. Gu Xianwang’s messy vibes were locked down tight by her Master; she knew zilch about true Treasure Spotting, which made her so damn naive.
There was an old saying: Better to trust nothing than to blindly trust a book. It might as well have been written for Treasure Spotters.
But his chase from the mountain path had gone too smoothly at first, so he’d never suspected the Yin Vortex’s real danger wasn’t the living mist itself, but the traps lurking within it. This godforsaken place had definitely been inhabited once—the rust on those jagged iron clamps hidden under the grass piles was at least thirty or forty years old. It had nearly skewered his leg from foot to ankle. Tough going on the ground, so he climbed a tree. That was young master’s specialty, after all.
Who could’ve guessed that halfway up the trunk, some sticky goo on the bark glued his soles in place. He hated that slimy texture—utterly revolting. Before he could scrape it off, he sensed something wrong. The stuff burned like sulfuric acid, scorching his soles. And those were thick calluses—even walking the knife board at year’s end hadn’t pierced them. Yang Baibai’s gut twisted; he leaped down at once.
In that instant, a long claw like a withered branch lashed down from overhead, snagging the rope at his waist. He dangled limply in midair. Before he could draw his knife, slimy slurping sounds—like honey dripping—filled the air as globs of mucus rained from the treetop. In seconds, it ate through his rope.
The moment he hit the ground, his primal instincts screamed: this thing was a killer.
No sticking around to fight. He unleashed the Yang Family secret technique “Mimic Mountain Beast” and blew the Ape Whistle for all he was worth. The area was cut off from the world; in the Qinling Mountains, apes ought to be thick on the ground—at the very least, some Lushi monkeys to make up numbers. But after dodging for ages, a lone Black Chimpanzee finally lumbered in through the Mist Barrier. Borrowing its strength, Yang Baibai just barely made it back before the long tendril could twist around him.
He made no effort to hide his sorry state, recounting the whole ordeal in those few short minutes. Ye Chan listened, mouth agape, her mind flashing to the shadow that had vanished earlier. “So the thing that jumped out before… that was the Black Chimpanzee?”
Yang Baibai was a strange one. With people, he was either impatient or outright menacing, but mention mountain beasts or river creatures, and his whole demeanor shifted—softening noticeably. He exhaled faintly through his throat. “Yeah. A female, pretty old. Not native to these parts—old scars all over. Probably escaped from a zoo years back.”
He dropped his gaze then, his face unreadable, his voice dropping low. “These days, real mountain beasts are getting scarce.”
A two-meter-tall insect—Long Li had never seen anything like it. The tall, slender silhouette she’d glimpsed in the mist might have been related, but that hardly mattered now. Distinguishing illusion from reality wasn’t the priority. One thing was certain: in this place, death was undeniably real.
Ye Chan snapped out of her daze and glanced at Long Li with lingering fear. “Sister Gu still hasn’t come back…”
Long Li’s expression remained impassive, though a faint furrow creased her brow. Beneath the stiff collar of her jacket, the tendons in her neck bulged like honed blades. She tossed the leftover rope from her left hand carelessly to the ground, planting her feet as solidly as mountains, and said coolly, “She’ll come back. Just wait a little longer.”
Eleven seconds, she reckoned.
Wait eleven more seconds.
…
Just as Gu Xianwang was about to climb the tree, a child’s startled yelp rang out from five or six meters ahead to her right—like some kid scampering up the hillside who tripped over a dirt clod, hitting the ground with a thud before bursting into wails.
Another child.
She couldn’t help licking her upper lip, hefting the Dog Head Knife in her hand. Her torso dipped low, her toes rising catlike. Should she go take a look? She hunkered down in the densest fog, her eyes gleaming like an owl’s in the night, fixed burning on the sound’s origin. She was seventy percent sure it was a trap.
But what if it wasn’t?
Gu Xianwang glanced upward, locking onto the nearest, lowest branch, and vaulted three meters to grab it. It ought to hold her weight.
“If anything seems off,” she thought, palm pressing the rope at her waist, “I’ll swing out on the branch.”
She crouched and flickered forward in an instant step, ducking behind the tree facing that direction. Peeking out with half her face, she suddenly shouted, “Kid, where’d you come from?”
Her voice fell, and the crying in the mist cut off sharp. Her hackles rose—then the child started sniffling again, like it’d cried itself hoarse and choked on snot. In a stuffy, nasal whine, it answered, “Uh… my home’s in Sheep Bend Gully, waaah, Little Pear Blossom Village in Sheep Bend Gully, at… at the end of the village…”
“Sis, where are you? I can’t see a thing, waaah…”
Sheep Bend Gully? Gu Xianwang’s heart lurched. She hadn’t expected the place to be real—or inhabited. The kid’s details rang true, not like some hasty lie.
She pressed on. “So where’d you run in from?”
The child sniffed twice more. “The east. I… I chased a butterfly in.”
All normal enough. Gu Xianwang paused a beat, then stepped out from the tree. “Sit tight and don’t move, kid. I’ll come get you.”
Time was short. This first scout would end empty-handed. She’d escort the child out, then double back. Save who she could.
Her train of thought shattered. A muffled whoosh sliced the air. Gu Xianwang’s body moved before her eyes could focus; she dropped and rolled aside. Her shoulder stung as something grazed it, fiery pain blooming an instant later. No time to check—another hiss whipped from behind. In the rent fog from the first strike, a long lash flickered, and a spear-like shaft yanked back along its path.
Bamboo or wood, the shaft had iron blades socketed at both ends, no thicker than a finger in the middle. The moment Gu Xianwang spun around, she pieced together how Long Li had gotten hurt. Rage itched at her teeth. Ankles coiling tight, she exploded upward, whipping a midair spin kick. Her boot heel met the blade tip with a shrill whoosh; the spear veered a hair, accelerated, and lanced away like lightning.
Hate burned in her, but rashness was suicide. She dove back behind the tree for cover. In this Mist Mirage, foes she couldn’t see likely couldn’t spot her either. How many lurked out there, baiting with a child? More of those Yelang villagers, no doubt—ambush predators haunting the fog for kills?
She was exposed now. Another try would only ratchet the danger.
Time to roll the dice.
Her gaze sharpened like a blade. The Dog Head Knife poised to cleave the wind—then a wet plop hit her arm, sticky ooze. Peripheral glance up: from the treetop directly overhead, a branch bent down… a branch…
Stunned for seconds, she had no words. It was a desiccated Jorogumo: spindly body sprouting four jointed limbs, splayed like umbrella spokes in the thick mist. But dangling from its spine’s end was a bulbous, head-like sac—and if she wasn’t wrong, the slime dripped straight from it.
“Fuck.” The curse slipped from her lips as she bolted sideways.
A person? How the hell could that be a person?!
No matter what they were, she absolutely could not lead them back to the Log Cabin. But what was she supposed to do now? If she dragged things out any longer, she might lose her confidence in following the rope back. The only reason she believed she could find fireflies nearby was that the Log Cabin’s owner could freely enter and exit the Yin Vortex. She was certain there had to be something crucial for breaking the Mist Mirage in the vicinity. Once these things occupied and surrounded the area—even if they lurked hidden in the woods without giving chase—she wouldn’t be able to afford the delay.
No matter how she racked her brain, it all boiled down to a kill-or-be-killed standoff.
Gu Xianwang bared her teeth in a savage, cold grin. She reached back, sliced through the rope stretched to its limit, then leaped up in a flash to drape it over a branch.
~~~
Let’s see if she could make it back in the final minute.
She stopped moving stealthily. Instead, she deliberately rustled through the dense grass and leaves along her faint trail. Sure enough, attacks came from both flanks at once—two ranks of spears hurtling toward her in a pincer formation. This time, she got a good look: a single person could wield one, tethered by a slightly elastic cord, just like the most ancient spear-throwers—retractable at will. She recalled the museum placard; back in antiquity, these had even been used to hunt deer.
Two ranks of four. She was surrounded by at least four people.
Excellent. As long as they were living humans, things would be far simpler.
Gu Xianwang’s thoughts raced like lightning. She planned to sprint a hundred meters ahead, then loop back to pick them off one by one. But she’d barely accelerated for twenty or thirty meters when a vast expanse of fluorescent light burst forth without warning from the Mist Barrier ahead—swirls of green and purple glow, swaying in a dreamlike haze that was as otherworldly as it was profoundly eerie.
In that instant, the surroundings plunged into sudden silence, as if her foes were reevaluating the prey right in front of them.
She had just evaded those ambush spears and couldn’t afford to hesitate now. Since they seemed to fear whatever this was, she might as well seize the moment. With that in mind, she carefully used the flat of her blade to part the clustered vapors—
In all her years, she didn’t think she’d ever seen a true swarm of fireflies. These delicate creatures demanded pristine environments and had grown scarce in modern times. As a child, she’d heard Master tell the tale of rotting grass turning into fireflies. Legend said that if you were fortunate enough to encounter a river of glowing insects on an autumn night, it meant a departed loved one—sending them from the shadowy beyond out of longing—had dispatched them specially to reunite with you. It was a pity that after waiting all these years, she’d finally found them here, of all places, in the deadly heart of a Yin Vortex.
With a wry smile, she fished a compressed nylon bag from her pants pocket and shook it open gently. She hunkered down low, her body nearly parallel to the undergrowth. Her footsteps softened, her breaths shallowed—one step, then another—as she drew closer to the luminous mist…
