Outside the hunting shelter, firelight flickered as dark figures closed in. The leader’s shadow stretched across the ground like a drawn bow.
“They’re here,” the young man said quietly.
Jiang Wan was about to respond when the person beside her suddenly tensed.
The instant their eyes met, memories burst forth like floodwaters breaking through a dam.
A dark room.
Iron chains.
Someone calling out to him:
“Sheng’er.”
A woman’s voice, thick with tears.
Flashing blades.
Blood.
Figures collapsing to the ground.
Finally, the memory froze on a jade token beneath his hand. The writing on it was obscured by blood, revealing only half of the character “Sheng.”
His eyes flew open.
“Sheng.”
His voice was hoarse, like wind scraping over stone.
“There’s this character in my name.”
The firelight outside flickered.
Jiang Wan looked at the blood and mud mixed across his face. His eyes seemed much deeper than before.
“Then I’ll call you Zixu for now. Zixu—as in zixu wuyou, meaning something nonexistent. We’ll change it once you remember your full name.”
He neither agreed nor disagreed.
In fact, he could not quite understand why, at a critical moment like this, she still had the leisure to give him a name.
The moment a blade stabbed through the wooden wall, he grabbed her arm and pulled her behind him.
They narrowly avoided the attack.
The wooden boards shattered.
Torchlight flooded inside, painfully bright.
“Run!”
The two of them crashed out through the back of the hunting shelter and rolled across loose gravel and wet soil.
Jiang Wan’s knee struck the ground, but she had no time to care about the pain. He dragged her to her feet, and they charged forward.
“Chase them! Don’t let them get away!”
Twelve men in black.
As they ran, Jiang Wan’s mind-reading ability picked up the thoughts of the leader.
Not “Bring them back.”
But—
“Get rid of them.”
Sheng Zixu dragged her into a patch of thorny bushes. Branches sliced across her arms and face.
His right arm hung limply at his side, blood dripping from his fingertips.
The broken blade had been transferred to his left hand.
“This way!”
Jiang Wan pulled him in another direction, leading him into a narrow ravine.
Her mind-reading told her that the pursuers had set up an interception ahead. Only this ravine was temporarily unguarded.
But as they ran deeper, the passage grew narrower.
The stone walls on both sides were steep.
A dead end.
Sheng Zixu pushed her behind him, facing the entrance to the ravine with his blade held across his body.
“You go first.”
“Shut up.”
Jiang Wan stared at the ravine entrance, her mind racing.
There was no way out.
Just then, a piece of loose rock fell from above and landed at her feet.
She looked up.
A man was clinging to the edge of the cliff, awkwardly trying to climb down. His feet slipped against the protruding rocks, and he looked like he could fall at any moment.
His muffled curses drifted down.
“Fuck, I’m going to fall to my death…”
When he noticed people below, he froze.
Then his hand slipped.
His entire body came crashing down into a pile of loose stones.
He curled into a ball.
The man wore a tattered padded jacket and straw sandals. There was a scar on his face.
Jiang Wan looked directly at him and activated her mind-reading ability.
Iron gates.
Prison-like rooms.
People lining up for food.
Someone being dragged away in the middle of the night.
And people dressed in modern clothes crouching in a courtyard, washing clothes.
The pursuers’ voices came from the entrance to the ravine.
“They’re right ahead!”
“There’s a dead end in front of them! They can’t escape!”
The man crawled to his feet.
When he saw the torchlight at the entrance, his face turned white.
“They… they caught up?”
Sheng Zixu ignored him, keeping his eyes fixed on the ravine entrance.
Jiang Wan asked quickly, “Can you climb up?”
The man looked at the cliff.
His lips trembled.
“I don’t know… If I have enough time, I probably can…”
The first pursuer appeared at the entrance.
The torch illuminated the narrow ravine.
“No need to leave anyone alive!” the leader shouted from behind.
Sheng Zixu charged straight toward the firelight.
His broken blade collided with the first man’s weapon, sending sparks flying.
He sidestepped the second man’s thrust and struck the back of the attacker’s neck with the flat of his blade.
His right shoulder trembled every time he swung his weapon.
Blood ran down his entire arm.
Yet his grip on the blade never loosened.
A third man lunged at him.
Jiang Wan rammed into the attacker from the side.
The two of them fell into the gravel.
Her knee slammed into the ground.
Her old injury split open.
Her vision went dark.
She bit her lip, grabbed a handful of loose stones, and hurled them into the man’s face.
He screamed.
Jiang Wan seized the weapon he had dropped.
Sheng Zixu slammed a man in black against the stone wall with his left shoulder and held his blade against the man’s throat.
Two others were already lying on the ground.
The leader did not enter the ravine.
He stood at the entrance, holding something in his hand.
A black compass.
Its bronze base was carved with twisted symbols, and the needle spun continuously.
Jiang Wan’s mind-reading ability caught his thoughts:
Lord Guixu has changed the order to “retreat.”
The leader put away the compass and turned around.
He left.
His footsteps gradually faded into the distance.
The remaining pursuers carried away their injured companions and followed.
Inside the narrow ravine, Sheng Zixu released the man in black.
His body swayed.
He had to support himself with his blade to keep from collapsing to his knees.
Jiang Wan walked over and tore away the bandages on his shoulder. They were so soaked with blood that their original color was no longer visible.
She wrapped the wound again.
Blood was still pouring out.
She pressed down on it, and his entire body began trembling.
“Not dead yet,” he said.
The man who had been crouching beneath the cliff had not run away.
He remained there, hugging his knees as his eyes moved back and forth between Jiang Wan and the young man.
Only after the sounds of the pursuers had completely disappeared did he finally speak.
“You two… are you from there too?”
Jiang Wan glanced at him.
The man hesitated before forcing out a sentence.
“Holy shit, you guys transmigrated here too, right?”
Jiang Wan’s hands stopped moving.
Thinking she had not understood him, he added:
“Crazy, right? I got transmigrated here too.”
He looked around twenty-five or twenty-six.
He was so thin that his cheekbones protruded, and his eye sockets were deeply sunken. His clothes were so tattered that their original color could no longer be seen.
Only one of his straw sandals remained.
He crouched among the loose stones, trembling from head to toe.
But there was a faint glimmer in his eyes.
“How did you get here?” Jiang Wan asked warily.
“I was tricked. They said they’d provide food and accommodation. When I woke up, I was already here.”
“Where?”
“Locked inside that compound. We work, but they don’t pay us.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lin Yuan.”
Jiang Wan reached into his mind.
The fear was real.
The deep exhaustion was real.
Iron gates.
Dormitory cells.
People lining up for food.
What he was saying was only half true.
“That compound you mentioned—what direction is it?”
Lin Yuan turned and pointed beyond the mountain wall.
“Over there. Once you get over this mountain, you’ll reach it. I’ve been running for three days.”
Jiang Wan looked at Sheng Zixu.
He was leaning against the stone wall, his face as pale as paper.
Still forcing himself to remain upright, he gave a faint nod.
“Lead the way.”
Lin Yuan stared at them.
“To that compound? Are you crazy? Why would you go back there? Those people do nothing but exploit us!”
“You don’t need to worry about that. We have our own way.”
Lin Yuan shuddered.
In the end, he forced a single word through his teeth.
“Fine.”
Then he quickly added, “But I’m not going in with you.”
The three of them headed out of the ravine.
Sheng Zixu lagged behind.
Jiang Wan glanced back at him.
He was still forcing himself onward.
Lin Yuan walked in front, his steps hurried and uneven. His left foot had a slight limp—he had probably sprained it when he fell from the cliff.
Every now and then, he glanced back at Jiang Wan.
“Something you want to say?” she asked.
Lin Yuan clutched the hem of his clothes, his voice tight.
“Your friend… that man. Where did the jade token at his waist come from?”
Sheng Zixu’s hand moved to the hilt of his blade, but Jiang Wan raised a hand to stop him.
“You recognize it?” she asked tentatively.
Lin Yuan shook his head, then nodded.
“I don’t. But I heard people in that compound mention a character before—Sheng. It seemed like they were looking for someone with the surname Xiao.”
Sheng Zixu said nothing.
His hand moved away from the sword hilt and reached for the jade token at his waist.
The cord had broken, so he had kept the token close to his body. When he pulled it out, it still carried his body warmth.
Blood that had not been wiped clean stained the pale bluish-white jade. Half of the character “Sheng” had been dyed red.
Lin Yuan stared at the jade token and took a step back.
“They said… the owner of that jade token should already be dead.”
The young man tucked the jade token back into his clothes.
His movements were slow.
But the fingers clenched around it turned white at the knuckles.
“Let’s go.”
Lin Yuan did not dare ask anything else and immediately turned around.
The mountain path twisted and turned. Lin Yuan did not take the main road, but led them along a narrow animal trail trampled through the thorn bushes. It was so narrow that they could only pass through sideways.
Thorns scraped against their clothes with a harsh rustling sound.
Suddenly, Sheng Zixu lowered his voice.
“You believe him?”
Jiang Wan did not answer immediately.
After thinking for a moment, she said, “No. But the direction he’s leading us in is very likely the main base of the people who abducted you.”
The fog grew thicker and thicker.
At the end of the mountain path stood a gray-black compound hidden in the mist.
It looked like a beast crouching within the mountain hollow.
The surrounding walls were tall.
Torches burned along the top, and shadows moved back and forth.
Lin Yuan stopped in the trees outside the compound.
“This is it.”
His voice was no longer trembling.
Jiang Wan noticed that his expression had changed.
There was no longer fear in his eyes.
Instead, there was a strange sense of relief.
As soon as he finished speaking, the gates of the compound opened.
Both doors swung inward at the same time, as though pulled apart by invisible hands.
A figure wearing a black cloak stood inside.
The hood was pulled low, hiding the person’s face.
Broad-shouldered.
Standing perfectly straight.
Like a blade planted in the ground.
“Come in.”
The figure’s voice was neither loud nor soft, just loud enough for all three of them to hear.
But Jiang Wan suddenly realized something.
That voice—
was exactly the same as the voice of the Mirror System.
Completely devoid of emotion.
Jiang Wan did not move.
Neither did Sheng Zixu.
Lin Yuan had already stepped forward.
He took two steps, then stopped.
Turning back, he looked at Jiang Wan.
There was something strange about his expression.
His lips moved, but no sound came out.
Then he turned and walked toward the cloaked figure.
It was as though he were saying:
Good luck.
At that exact moment, Jiang Wan’s mind-reading ability collided with his consciousness.
This time, there was a barrier.
A bell.
A massive bell.
It rang again and again.
Like a funeral bell.
Like the Day of Judgment.
The compound gates slowly closed before her eyes.
Lin Yuan’s back disappeared through the gateway.
The cloaked figure was still standing there.
Sheng Zixu had already drawn his blade.
“Go.”
Jiang Wan grabbed his hand.
“What?”
“Go!”
Jiang Wan did not hesitate.
She grabbed his wrist, turned around, and ran straight down the mountain.
The sense of danger grew stronger and stronger.
A low laugh came from behind them.
It did not sound like laughter.
It sounded more like something had finished filling with water.
The sound of the bell continued to echo in her mind.
Jiang Wan ran down the mountain path, with Sheng Zixu stumbling behind as she dragged him along.
Her mind-reading ability was screaming warnings.
The will of the world pressed down on them from all directions—from the mountain walls, the trees, the fog.
It was like a giant, invisible hand slowly closing around them.
The fog on the mountain path grew thicker and thicker.
Soon, nothing could be seen ahead.
Behind them, orderly footsteps sounded from the direction of the compound.
Jiang Wan released his wrist and pushed him ahead.
“Run forward. Don’t look back.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be right behind you. Run.”
She did not know how long they ran through the fog.
Their footsteps grew heavier and heavier.
She did not know how far she had gone.
She did not know whether the people behind them were still following.
She only knew one thing.
Forward.
Forward.
Forward.
Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet vanished.
Her entire body fell downward.
A hand grabbed the back of her clothes from behind and yanked her back.
Sheng Zixu was breathing heavily, his hand still gripping her.
His knuckles had turned white.
There was no color left in his face.
His lips had turned bluish.
“Watch where you’re going.”
She looked down.
One more step forward, and she would have fallen off a cliff.
White mist surged upward from below, completely obscuring the bottom.
She turned around.
Behind them was nothing but fog.
The direction of the compound had completely disappeared from view.
Yet that feeling of being watched remained.
It was like a gigantic eye slowly opening behind the mist.
A voice came from within the fog.
It was not the sound of the pursuers’ footsteps.
It was a person whispering.
The voice seemed to come from somewhere far away, yet at the same time, it sounded directly beside her ear.
“Run all you want. This is my territory. I’d be more than happy to play a game of cat and mouse with you.”
It was the voice of the cloaked figure.
Jiang Wan gritted her teeth, grabbed the young man’s arm, and led him sideways along the edge of the cliff.
The fog grew thicker and thicker.
Their two figures were slowly swallowed by it.
Jiang Wan could feel that something was beginning to change within her body.