Deep within the dense forest of the Enchantment Maze.
Sunlight filtered through the interwoven branches, scattering dappled shadows across Pei Su’s neatly pressed robes.
After the chime that signaled the forced execution of the trial, the array remained eerily still. The woods were so quiet it felt unnatural. A mountain sparrow darted past the treetops, startling a few leaves into drifting down.
At the sound, Pei Su lifted his gaze, eyes piercing through layers of shadow toward the northwest. By his reckoning, had he not entered the Enchantment Maze, he should already have reached Mount Bujun near Luoyang. Just the day before he was trapped here, he had received a message from Bujun Mountain. It reported that another disciple had died suddenly. The second in recent days.
Pei Su stood with arms folded, recalling the chain of events. A month earlier, his revered master had passed away. That very night, the disciple who usually attended to his daily needs dressed the body in burial robes, washed and arranged everything properly, then returned to his own quarters to rest. He had seemed perfectly fine. But at midnight, the fellow disciple sharing his courtyard heard a grotesque creaking, as though bones were twisting unnaturally. Looking toward the window, he saw the shadow of that disciple strangling himself, the silhouette cast starkly against the paper screen.
The scene was chilling beyond belief. By the time others rushed inside, the disciple had already collapsed lifelessly to the floor. From the state of the body, it was clear he had been tainted by some malignant spirit, his mind overtaken until he took his own life. In common words—he had been possessed. Yet Bujun Mountain was steeped in spiritual energy year-round, a place where evil entities rarely dared approach. The disciples were of simple origins, their lives orderly and disciplined. No strangers had entered the sect recently. No one could fathom where such a spirit had come from.
All they knew was that this entity was viciously poisonous. If it was not found and destroyed soon, others might fall victim to its touch. After that incident, the disciples of the mountain destroyed every object the deceased had touched in life, along with his body, and carried out thorough rites of exorcism across the sect grounds. Once these measures were taken, the mountain grew quiet again, and no further possessions occurred. Thus, Luo Xuan finally sent out invitations to the memorial service for their late master, addressed to the various sects.
Everything seemed back to normal. Just as everyone believed the matter of the malignant spirit had passed, a second disciple suddenly died from possession.
According to Luo Xuan’s letter, this second victim had shown no unusual signs. He was an ordinary disciple of the mountain, who had neither contact with outsiders nor any deviation from his routine—simply cultivating, meditating, and tending to chores as usual. On the surface, the two victims had nothing in common beyond belonging to the same sect.
With no other recourse, Luo Xuan repeated the earlier measures: destroying the belongings and body of the second disciple, filling the mountain with incense meant to drive out evil, hoping to purge the spirit completely.
The memorial service was imminent, and disciples from many sects were already on their way. Yet Luo Xuan’s heart was heavy with unease. Unsure whether the matter had truly been resolved, he wrote to Pei Su, urging him to come quickly and help uncover the truth.
After reading the letter, Pei Su felt the affair was deeply suspicious. But with only the letter’s words, he could not grasp the full picture. After some thought, he replied that he would set out for Luoyang at once.
However, before he could reach Luoyang, he was ensnared within the Enchantment Maze. Though it was not his intention, he had, in the end, broken his promise.
Thinking of this matter, Pei Su’s expression grew slightly grave. During the days he had been trapped within the array, he had turned over every possible explanation in his mind—hoping it would not prove to be the worst of them.
The forest’s climate shifted endlessly. At first unnoticed, the sunlight gradually faded, and the sky grew less bright than before. The air grew heavy and damp, as though a storm was about to break.
Pei Su’s gaze, at some point, shifted from the distant horizon to the nearby thicket. Beneath the heavy shadows of the trees moved the figure of Madam Xu. Encountering her in the forest was nothing unusual for him—he saw her several times a day.
Shen Xiyin also noticed him. In that brief instant when their eyes met, both silently turned away. A sheen of sweat glistened on her brow, and the faint trace of teeth still marked her lips. She parted them as if to speak, hesitated, then pressed them together and walked off without a word.
Pei Su watched her stumbling retreat, doubt stirring in his mind.
What had she wanted to say?
Shen Xiyin first realized something was wrong with her body after the restless heat of the previous night had subsided. When she emerged from the icy stream, moonlight like flowing silk, she noticed the droplets sliding down her skin—and at her left ankle, a small red spot. It was tiny, with a faint blush spreading around it, like the mark of an insect bite. She touched it lightly with her fingertip: no pain, no itch. At first she thought nothing of it. The forest was full of mosquitoes; she must have been bitten without noticing. But soon she sensed something amiss. The blush around the spot spread like cinnabar dissolving in water. What began no larger than a fingernail grew to the size of a coin, expanding across her pale skin like dusk swallowing the last light of day. Along with it came discomfort—tightness in her chest, shortness of breath, a swelling heat that made her feel she could not draw air. She could not tell whether it was the same fever rising again, or the mark itself that caused it. By morning, the red stain had already crept from her ankle to her knee, with a faint tendency to spread further up her thigh.
Uneasy, Shen Xiyin dragged her heavy, fevered body into the mountains, hoping to find herbs to ease the swelling and purge the poison. There, as if inevitably, she encountered Pei Su. Lost in the wilderness, helpless and afraid, she almost instinctively wanted to seek help from the only person she could find. Yet when she opened her mouth, she faltered. How could she describe the marks on her skin to a strange man? How could she confess the unbearable torment she felt? All the more so when that man despised her, avoiding her at every turn. Her pride and sense of shame bound her tongue, leaving her unable to speak.
Shen Xiyin turned away, but had not gone far before she met him again by an ancient tree. Such was the nature of the Enchantment Maze—the more one wished to avoid, the more it forced encounters. Clutching her chest, swollen and tight with breathless heat, she struggled to move past him. Her body, heavy and faint, refused to obey; after only a few steps she lost all strength and collapsed straight before him.
Pei Su watched her falling toward him, stepped back to avoid her, and then heard the dull thud of her body striking the soft earth. “Madam Xu,” he called, testing her name.
But she did not answer. Her eyes were closed, lashes damp with sweat rolling down from her brow, her breathing ragged—her condition clearly abnormal.
He was accustomed to seeing her busy in the forest, ceaselessly at work; never had he seen her so weak, so drained of life.
After a moment’s silence, he stepped closer. Almost at once he sensed her lifeblood ebbing rapidly, and from beneath her skirts came the unmistakable aura of a curse. There was no doubt—she had been struck by an evil spell, one that was gnawing away at her very vitality.
Pei Su let out a cold laugh. The method to break such a curse was at once simple, and impossibly difficult. Only now did he realize: the maze’s forced trials had never ceased, but pressed upon him in unexpected forms, driving him toward submission.
Well-versed in arcane texts, Pei Su could not fail to recognize the spell afflicting Madam Xu. It was the Jieyang Curse—a rare and insidious charm of passion. Its victims were most often women. The curse spread across the body from a single point and could only be dispelled by a man’s careful touch, pressing and kneading the marks where the spell had taken hold. The curse thrived by consuming a person’s vital essence. Once it spread through the body, the afflicted would surely perish.
The Jieyang Curse was a perilous spell, mingling danger with desire. It was often twisted into a form of illicit bedroom amusement, indulging those with peculiar cravings for extreme experience.
Pei Su knew he could save her—but only by touching her body, and he had to act quickly. The longer he delayed, the further the curse would spread. It began at her ankle, then crept up her thigh, waist, and chest. Once it reached her neck, not even the highest immortals could reverse it.
Lowering his gaze, Pei Su silently watched as the malignant spell consumed Shen Xiyin beneath her skirts. The curse was already climbing toward her abdomen. At that moment, the Enchantment Maze seemed to confront him: Do you wish to save her? Will your adherence to propriety forbid you from laying hands upon another man’s wife, even if righteousness demands you act? Will you yield?
Each word was both interrogation and torment.
The forest was still, the air heavy and suffocating. Breath dragged at his lungs. The sky dimmed to a sickly yellow, thunder rolled after flashes of lightning, and rain tore open the heavens, pelting down in relentless sheets.
It was then, beneath the falling rain, that Pei Su made his choice. Though he knew she could not hear, he solemnly murmured an apology: “Forgive my discourtesy.”
He lifted the unconscious Shen Xiyin and carried her beneath the shelter of an ancient tree, laying her against its trunk. Rain pattered irritably on the leaves overhead. His hand hovered at the knot of her gown, unwilling to move closer.
Propriety told him he must not. Duty told him he must. This was not desire—it was salvation. There was no time left. Delay would only force him to touch more.
A clap of thunder stirred her back to awareness. Her eyelids fluttered open, and through the narrow slit she glimpsed his face—handsome, solemn, and so near she could feel his breath. His fingers loosened the ties of her gown. The tug of fabric against her skin sent shivers through her body. She tried to resist, but weakness left her powerless. Such an act was unthinkable for him. She thought despairingly: I must be dreaming. But when a raindrop slipped through the canopy and traced a ticklish path across her cheek, she realized— This was no dream. He truly meant to violate her.