Qingtie’s smile flashed and vanished like light skimming over water. The instant it passed, he straightened his lips again, apparently finding the expression rather foolish. A’Lin, meanwhile, leaned exhausted against the stone wall and used that brief laughter to release the lingering terror of having escaped death.
Going in and out of the gates of hell was altogether too stimulating. If possible, he never wanted to experience it again in this lifetime.
It took him quite a while to calm down and gather himself. Once he was finally somewhere safe, the natural liveliness in his temperament gradually began to reemerge.
He looked curiously at the young assassin. Qingtie was using the fire starter to light one of the torches prepared inside the tunnel. It was almost as though he had eyes on the back of his head; he was extremely sensitive to other people’s attention and asked without looking up, “What is it?”
Only after asking did he remember that the boy was mute, so he turned around. A’Lin tried to gesture in sign language: What is your name? Qingtie failed to understand and tilted his head. “What?”
After thinking for a moment, he picked up a small stone and handed it to A’Lin. “Can you write?”
A’Lin: “…”
He had been imprisoned at the main altar so long that his brain was nearly rusted through. Had Qingtie not mentioned it, he almost would have forgotten that writing remained an option.
He wrote the character “name” on the ground. His handwriting was smooth and beautiful. Qingtie’s brow rose almost imperceptibly. “You’re asking my name?”
A’Lin nodded vigorously and looked at him expectantly.
“My name is Xie Ying.” Qingtie paused almost too briefly to notice. “Ying as in firefly.”
A’Lin wrote: Many thanks.
“No need.” Xie Ying studied his handwriting with interest, then asked with apparent casualness, “Is A’Lin really your name? Where are you from?”
“Jiang… He? No. That character is Guan?”
A’Lin wrote quickly. Xie Ying leaned closer with the torch and bent down to decipher the characters. “Your name is Jiang Guan, and you’re from Xiling?”
Jiang Guan erased the character “Jiang,” replaced it with “Xiao,” then drew a line underneath to show the two characters belonged together.
Only then did Xie Ying understand. “You want me to call you Xiao Guan?”
Jiang Guan’s eyes curved with satisfaction as he nodded. In his own mind, meanwhile, he quietly changed the way he referred to Xie Ying as well—to A’Ying.
There was no reason to tell Xie Ying, though. Jiang Guan could not speak, and when writing one did not need to address the other person before every sentence.
Xie Ying likewise did not use any particular form of address. He was unaccustomed to calling people so intimately, and there were only the two of them in the tunnel anyway. Whenever he spoke, the words were naturally directed at Jiang Guan. “How did you end up in the Ten Aspects Sect’s hands?”
Perhaps this was retribution for poking another person’s sore spot. Before his words had even faded, a deep rumbling suddenly came from within the mountain. The trembling they had felt earlier upon the platform returned with even greater force. Dirt and gravel immediately began raining down around them like hail.
Both nearly lost their footing. Xie Ying caught Jiang Guan, who had been crouching beside him, with one arm, lifted the torch, and glanced back toward the entrance. After judging the difficulty of climbing the slope again, he immediately turned the other way. “Something’s wrong. Move!”
Jiang Guan had barely enjoyed a moment’s rest before being dragged into a sprint toward the far end of the passage. The flame of the torch leapt wildly before them. Blurred surroundings flashed past and were swallowed almost immediately by the darkness behind.
Fate was like a sword suspended over their heads by a spider’s thread. The only thing Jiang Guan could hold on to was Xie Ying’s hand.
Small stones struck their faces and bodies painfully. Several times Jiang Guan heard the whistling rush of larger rocks passing dangerously close. The ground shook more violently by the moment. They were like ants fleeing a flood, racing through the groaning mountain. Any hesitation could see them swallowed by the surging disaster.
After rounding a sharp bend, the torchlight suddenly spread outward. The marks of human excavation ended, revealing a vast natural cavern ahead.
Xie Ying stopped and scanned their surroundings warily. Even in these circumstances, he thought dryly that at least they were unlikely to become trapped in the tunnel this time. Suddenly, a force struck him from behind. Jiang Guan threw himself forward and knocked Xie Ying aside. The two rolled together across the ground as an enormous rock crashed down exactly where they had been standing, barely missing their feet.
It seemed to be an omen. The cavern began collapsing uncontrollably. Xie Ying had no time to thank him or feel the delayed fear. He grabbed the coughing Jiang Guan and ran. “Don’t stop! This place is about to collapse!”
The muffled rumble-rumble-rumble continued without end. Sharp fragments of stone sliced thin cuts across Xie Ying’s face, but he was too focused to notice. His eyes tracked the storm of falling rocks while his feet moved to the rhythm of the collapsing ground. He threaded through the unstable cavern with almost impossible precision, then shoved Jiang Guan into another natural cave connected to it.
Boom—!
Amid the violent shaking, Xie Ying caught Jiang Guan in one arm and turned his back toward the opening, pressing him into the narrow corner.
In the next instant, the cavern behind them collapsed completely. In darkness so deep they could not see their own hands, the violent tremors and roaring sounded like echoes from hell overturning itself. Every sense was overwhelmed by this disaster beyond human control. Xie Ying could not see or hear clearly, could not feel his own breathing or heartbeat, and could no longer tell whether he stood in place or was still falling.
Perhaps his body had already been torn apart together with the earth beneath his feet, leaving only a drifting soul still carrying the obsessions of life, forever trapped beneath the sunless ground.
Darkness stretched perception until it became endless. It felt like an entire lifetime before the surrounding commotion finally subsided, as though some enormous maddened beast deep beneath the earth had temporarily fallen dormant.
Jiang Guan moved slightly and only then realized that he was clutching Xie Ying in an embrace of absolute life-and-death desperation.
Dust still filled the air, and a shrill ringing remained in their ears.
But they were alive.
Xie Ying’s fingers had sunk hard into Jiang Guan’s shoulder, yet Jiang Guan felt no pain. He merely shifted his shoulder slightly to indicate that Xie Ying could let go.
That movement was like the first crack appearing in the ice of a thawing river—faint, but infinitely precious. Xie Ying gradually relaxed his hold. Perhaps it was only an illusion, but he seemed to hesitate briefly before pulling out the fire starter and lighting it. When he finally spoke, his voice had not quite recovered. “There’s no going back. We’ll keep moving forward. Watch your step.”
Without thinking, Jiang Guan reached over and took his hand.
They felt their way deeper into the cavern, traveling in the only remaining direction.
Under circumstances like these, even clinging tightly to another person left no room for stray thoughts, much less embarrassment. Both of them wanted only to survive, praying that they could hold out until they reached real safety and that nothing else would collapse.
The natural cave was far more uneven and treacherous than the man-made passage. Fortunately, their frantic escape had accelerated the circulation of blood and qi, helping the antidote fully take effect. Jiang Guan’s limbs had returned to normal and he was no longer a burden.
Supporting one another, they walked for roughly the time it took an incense stick to burn. Suddenly they felt the faint brush of a breeze against their faces. The darkness ahead seemed thinner, and a weak glimmer of light appeared.
At last, a sliver of hope after absolute despair. They both quickened their steps toward it.
Before they could completely relax, however, Xie Ying stepped onto a loose stone.
Crack!
The ground beneath them broke like brittle ice.
His footing vanished, and because he was holding Jiang Guan, the movement dragged Jiang Guan forward as well. Both lost balance and fell.
No wonder the Ten Aspects Sect had never used this natural cave as part of its secret tunnel. The far end of the cursed cavern opened into an enormous chasm inside the mountain.
Jiang Guan barely had time to gasp before a powerful grip seized his wrist and abruptly stopped his fall.
Perhaps the previous collapse had loosened the rock above. Faint daylight entered through narrow cracks in the distant ceiling. As Jiang Guan’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could just make out Xie Ying’s silhouette. One hand gripped a protruding rock while the other held Jiang Guan tightly. The two hung there like caterpillars suspended from a spring poplar branch, or the final leaf of winter clinging to a sheer wall above a bottomless abyss.
“It’s all right. Don’t panic.”
Xie Ying’s breathing was growing heavier. His voice was hoarse, yet he immediately tried to calm him. “There’s still a way back up. Look around and see whether there’s somewhere you can place your feet…”
A warm, sticky stream ran from the back of Xie Ying’s hand down his arm.
The metallic scent of blood followed.
Jiang Guan froze.
Only then did he understand.
Xie Ying was injured.
When the previous cavern collapsed, Xie Ying had used his own body to shield Jiang Guan from the falling debris. Something had struck him in the back, yet he had endured it silently and concealed the injury so as not to destroy Jiang Guan’s determination.
And now, with those serious injuries, he was supporting the weight of both of them.
How much longer could he hold on?
Jiang Guan’s throat tightened painfully. Never in his life had he wanted so desperately to scream, to rage, to tear something apart—or even to rip open his own chest and release the chaotic emotions battering against it.
If not for saving him, Xie Ying would already have escaped Luoling with his companion, carrying Helan Zhenjia’s head. He would never have been trapped underground, much less fallen into such a desperate life-or-death situation.
There were barriers in life that could not be crossed. When death truly arrived, one could not escape. Jiang Guan had refused to accept his own fate and had sought shelter from another person, only to drag his lifesaver down with him.
It had to end here.
He could not make the same mistake again.
He looked upward at Xie Ying, but in the dimness no detail was clear enough to convey his expression. He had countless things he wanted to say, but no voice with which to say them. All his gratitude and guilt could only become silence carved into the bone, falling with him into the abyss.
Jiang Guan raised his free hand and began forcibly prying open Xie Ying’s iron grip.
“What are you doing?!”
Xie Ying sensed his intention and immediately shouted in anger. “Don’t be stupid! I know you’re moved, but there’s no need to repay me this way! Stop it! Jiang Guan!”
Only his voice echoed through the darkness, striking the stone walls and breaking into fragmented reverberations.
“Jiang Guan, are you insane?! Stop prying at my hand! We’ve come this far and you still want to die? Then everything I did before was completely wasted!”
“Xiao Guan, don’t do this. Stay still… I’m really fine. Just hold on a little longer…”
But the stubborn mute seemed to have gone deaf as well. No matter whether Xie Ying coaxed him, reassured him, or threatened him, he ignored everything and concentrated solely on forcing his fingers apart.
The wound on Xie Ying’s shoulder had begun to hurt so badly that it was turning numb—an ominous sign. The arm gripping the rock trembled uncontrollably, the muscles spasming. Then came a sudden rustling overhead. Gravel and dirt rained down like scattered beads. The mountain, which had only just become still, began shaking violently again.
Xie Ying almost laughed bitterly. After wandering the martial world all these years, he finally understood what it meant for a cat to toy with a mouse. No matter how far they ran, when the claws of fate finally came down, all their previous effort could be wiped away, leaving them helpless beneath its teeth.
His sweat-slick palm was slowly slipping, like tightly joined mortise and tenon being wrenched apart by overwhelming force.
Suddenly—
The wind roared. Xie Ying snapped his head upward just as a black shadow the size of a millstone came crashing down amid a storm of smaller stones.
Jiang Guan rarely cursed anyone, but at that moment he and Xie Ying were in perfect agreement, one aloud and one in his heart:
“Damn it! Again?!”
The invisible spider thread of fate finally snapped. For one instant, there seemed to be an almost soundless break in the void, yet it struck the heart like thunder.
Xie Ying’s palm emptied. Jiang Guan tore free of his hand. Their fingertips barely brushed in midair, like one final, resolute farewell. That figure burned itself into Xie Ying’s sight for a fleeting instant, then fell lightly into the open jaws of the abyss.
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