Chapter 109: The Image Within the Other

Su Fei gripped Zhang Qinglin by the throat, raising his sharp knife to plunge it into his chest. Chi Tan rushed forward to pull Su Fei away but was slashed in the process.

Seeing this, Zhu Sha scrambled to his feet, stumbling and throwing his entire body against a section of the cave wall covered in thick, black fur. With a twisted, ferocious expression, he charged wildly at Su Fei.

When Zhang Qinglin saw Zhu Sha covered in those dark, crawling things as he lurched toward them, he seized the moment Su Fei turned his head to deliver a powerful kick. Breaking free, he grabbed Chi Tan from the ground and ducked to the side.

Zhu Sha’s face was covered in hair that looked like strands of coarse fiber. With his face distorted and deformed, he held Su Fei in a tight, grim embrace, then tossed out a bronze key. "If you see Cai Mei, tell her I’m sorry. You must go now!"

A moment later, Zhu Sha’s voice was swallowed by a mass of eerie, black hair; those dark strands were continuously crawling into his mouth. Simultaneously, a layer of black fur instantly bloomed over Su Fei’s body, and the two rolled onto the ground.

The commotion startled the glowing fireflies on the cave walls. Attracted by the fur, the fireflies dove fiercely into the mass. They ignited instantly. Though Zhang Qinglin watched in terror, he did not hesitate to snatch the key from the ground.

Seeing the black hair moving toward them, Zhang Qinglin hurriedly dragged Chi Tan toward the dark opening of a side tunnel. Once they escaped the Heavenly Gate Cave following the route Zhu Sha had described, the cool, refreshing air brought him a sense of relief.

Zhang Qinglin walked to the cliff’s edge, gazing at the quiet village in the valley below, and took a deep breath. Looking back at the slope nearby, he realized it was the mountain road.

"That was terrifying, Brother Xiaolin! What on earth was that thing? How did it grow so large?" Chi Tan bent down, pulled a clump of stiff, coarse hair from the wounded area on his chest, and held it up in shock.

Zhang Qinglin turned and was immediately horrified. He knocked the hair from Chi Tan’s hand and smashed it with a stone from the ground. In an instant, the stone was stained red. Zhang Qinglin pulled open Chi Tan’s clothes to inspect him thoroughly and asked, "Where else do you feel pain?"

Chi Tan stared, stiff-faced, at the blood-stained stone. After a long silence, he patted his body all over and let out a sigh of relief. "No, nothing else. Brother Xiaolin, what exactly was that? It actually drank my blood. How terrifying!"

"It looked like a harvestman, but harvestmen don't crave blood. Come on, dawn is breaking. We need to leave."

In Zhang Qinglin’s memory, he had seen these arthropods as a child on the stone platform by the large puddle in his front yard. The platform had been covered in a dense layer of them. Out of curiosity, he had grabbed a handful, only for his grandfather to catch him, immediately burn them with fire, and scrub his hands clean with water.

When he asked his grandfather what they were, he was told they were harvestmen. Harvestmen were not spiders; they did not spin webs, they were non-venomous, and they were generally herbivorous. However, they carried many parasites, so one was warned never to touch them.

But the harvestman that had swelled on Chi Tan was clearly mutated—likely another blood-thirsty arthropod that had lived in the damp depths of the cave for years.

Zhang Qinglin stepped onto the mountain road. The sky was beginning to brighten. He looked left and right at the long, silent path. Although they were out of the Heavenly Gate Cave, the terrain below was different from what he had expected.

Zhang Qinglin ran anxiously to the opposite side and looked down the cliff. He could not see where their vehicle had crashed, nor did he know how far they were from the site. He was even more worried about Cheng Che and Wanqing. Both were injured; if they were discovered by the orangutans or poisonous snakes, it would be a disaster.

As various doubts and worries flooded his mind, a surge of heat rushed to his head. His chest tightened, and he spat out a mouthful of fresh blood. He felt the world spinning, his vision blurring. He felt as though he were about to fall off the cliff, his body growing lighter and lighter. In his final moments, he only heard Chi Tan calling out behind him.

Zhang Qinglin felt a ray of light flash before his closed eyelids. He slowly opened them to find total darkness, as if he had returned to the cave beneath the stone altar where the Mountain God was worshipped, or perhaps he was in an abyss—empty and void.

Gusts of hot wind blew over his head. He looked up, his gaze fixed on a giant, luminous circle flickering above him. Suddenly, pain struck his chest. He clutched it, collapsing onto a flat surface. Abruptly, he saw an image appear within that circle.

A thin layer of yellow silk slid downward, revealing blinding light, green pine trees, and the face of an unfamiliar man wearing a cylindrical cap. He was handsome and dashing, his bright, spirited eyes looking upward.

"Fu Hao, you have worked hard. You have performed a great service in pacifying the Guifang. This is for you."

Suddenly, the voice faded into the distance, and the face of a woman appeared in the image. She was beautiful, possessing an imposing, heroic aura. Clad in heavy armor, she looked all the more valiant. A slight curve touched her lips as she said, "This is only my duty. For the stability of the Great Shang, it is worth it. My King, do you truly wish to entrust this to me?"

"I trust that you are capable of the task."

"By the way, my King, I have another surprise for you," the woman said joyfully.

"Oh? What surprise makes you so happy?"

"I have carried a child in my womb for several years."

"Truly? Ha, good, excellent..."

Zhang Qinglin stared at the image in astonishment, then it flickered and turned gray.

He opened his eyes and looked around again. The temperature was very low, yet he felt no cold, only a dull ache in his chest. Bronze candlesticks, tables, vessels, and a dim room filled with magnificent decorations—it resembled a palace.

"In this campaign, I will certainly not disappoint your expectations, my King."

"This time, I shall go with you and fight side by side," the man replied.

"Report! My King, something terrible has happened! Fire has fallen from the heavens, and the granaries are ablaze!"

"How could there be fire from the heavens? What is the status of the granaries now?" the woman asked sternly.

"I do not know, my lady. We are doing everything we can to extinguish it."

The light flickered, and the scene shifted again, showing many objects. Zhang Qinglin took a few steps forward and saw clearly that they were tortoise shells and animal bones.

He watched as Fu Hao scorched the tortoise bones over a fire. As the bone fragments met the heat, cracks appeared on their surfaces, emitting a faint sound. Fu Hao seemed to be listening to the response of the gods, then recorded them onto the oracle bones.

As Zhang Qinglin watched intently, the image suddenly turned into a sea of red. Everything vanished. The red light grew larger and larger. Feeling his face scorching under the glow, he quickly shielded it with his arm.

After a few seconds, the searing red light faded, and everything fell into silence once more.