Chapter Eighty-Eight: The White Jade Hairpin Proves Its Worth

An unimaginable hunger rose from the depths of Fang Mu’s heart.

The feeling came abruptly, out of nowhere, as though it had no source at all.

Clutching his abdomen, Fang Mu lifted his gaze ahead.

Hee-hee-hee... hee-hee-hee...

A burst of women’s laughter drifted over, like a beguiling enchantment that could seize the soul and stir the blood.

The darkness before him was lit by some inexplicable radiance, and in the very center of that illuminated space there appeared a square pool.

On either side of the pool stood several women scarcely clothed. Each held a jade flask and laughed at Fang Mu in voices like ringing bells.

Along the rim of the pool, all manner of delicacies and rare dishes were laid out in abundance.

The women cast him a coquettish glance, then splashed into the pool one after another, pouring the contents of their flasks into the water.

The fragrance of fine wine rose from the pool, mingling with the sumptuous feast at its edge, making one’s appetite surge wildly.

Fang Mu’s tongue twitched. The scent that had first drifted into his nose suddenly flooded his senses, and his consciousness grew faintly confused.

Beside the pool, apart from the delicacies, lay more than a dozen corpses scattered about at random.

Each corpse was desiccated from head to toe, its mouth gaping open. Inside the empty mouth there was nothing at all, and its tongue was gone without a trace.

Come... come...

The women drenched themselves with the pool water, their movements enough to make the pulse race, and slowly beckoned toward Fang Mu.

His mind grew increasingly hazy. It was not because of the women, but because of hunger.

Hunger was a most subtle thing. When a person starves to the extreme, he loses the reason that matters most, and Fang Mu was no different now.

All of it happened in the blink of an eye. In Fang Mu’s eyes, there was now only the pool and the delicacies beside it.

Come... come...

That soul-luring voice continued to drift over. As though under some dark compulsion, Fang Mu walked toward the pool.

One step... two steps...

As he drew nearer, the teasing amusement in the women’s eyes grew all the more intense.

When Fang Mu reached the poolside, his face showed a conflicted expression.

The women in the pool exchanged a glance, scooped up a flaskful of water, and held it out toward him...

Eat... hee... eat...

The woman covered her mouth with her hand and let out a soul-stealing laugh.

Fang Mu stared at her blankly and accepted the jade flask.

Eat... the woman repeated once more.

Fang Mu answered woodenly, Eat...

The hand holding the jade flask lifted, bringing it closer and closer to his mouth...

Watching this, the smile at the corner of the woman’s lips deepened.

Just as the flask was about to reach Fang Mu’s lips, his movement suddenly stopped.

The woman froze, then quickly recovered and continued murmuring, Eat... eat...

"Oh." Fang Mu glanced at her, then flung the contents of the flask into her face and said coolly, "You try eating it first."

"Aaaah!"

The woman let out a shrill scream, and her exquisite features instantly decayed into rotting flesh and exposed bone.

The delicacies beside the pool also transformed in an instant into putrid, stinking carrion, and even the clear water of the pool turned blood-red.

Fang Mu reached out and seized one of the women by the hair, his brow faintly furrowed.

As expected, corpse-touching still did not trigger.

"Aaaah!"

The screams never ceased. The moment Fang Mu grabbed the woman’s hair, all the other women, including the one in his grasp, turned into wisps of blue smoke and vanished.

The pool, the delicacies, and those tongueless corpses all disappeared without a trace.

Fang Mu lowered his hand and touched the white jade hairpin atop his topknot, letting out a quiet breath of relief.

At the crucial moment just now, a cool sensation had come from the jade hairpin on his head, instantly restoring his consciousness.

It turned out the hairpin had been taken from the corpse of the woman in green. It could send a cool sensation through his mind whenever his awareness grew dangerously dim.

When he first caught the fragrance, he had only felt dazed. Just now, however, he had nearly fallen into the trap. Fortunately, the hairpin had worked.

"Hm?"

After everything before his eyes vanished, Fang Mu realized something was wrong with the scene around him. He spun around abruptly and looked behind himself.

Standing there behind him was Yan Xie, neatly dressed, an immense saber hanging at his waist, eyes tightly shut, motionless as a stump.

Fang Mu drew out his slaughtering knife, but Yan Xie showed no reaction at all.

At that moment, Yan Xie was like a wooden post, completely unaware that Fang Mu stood beside him, his eyes still shut tight.

Fang Mu lifted his hand and slapped Yan Xie on the shoulder.

An invisible barrier appeared over Yan Xie’s body and rebounded Fang Mu’s hand.

After deflecting Fang Mu’s touch, Yan Xie’s face grew slightly pale.

"What is going on?"

Yan Xie was perfectly normal now; on the surface, there seemed to be nothing unusual about him.

Fang Mu temporarily abandoned the thought of ending Yan Xie with one stroke and turned his attention elsewhere.

The surroundings were still shrouded in darkness. Fang Mu raised his head and looked up into the sky.

Along the upper sides of the canyon walls above, jagged rocks protruded everywhere.

As he studied those rocks, the suspicion in Fang Mu’s eyes deepened.

It was not for any other reason. He simply felt that the rocks above were strangely familiar, as if he had seen them before.

A thought came to Fang Mu. He looked back.

Behind him were two lines of footprints. Because the canyon floor was damp, the prints stood out clearly. They were his and Yan Xie’s footprints.

Fang Mu stroked his chin and then looked again at the road ahead.

Ahead, the damp ground was smooth and bare, with no footprints and no sign that anyone had walked there at all.

"Footprints..." Fang Mu rubbed his chin and thought, This seems to be the same road as before. Could it be that I never moved at all?

In that instant, a strange notion rose in Fang Mu’s heart: if I never moved, does that mean everything I experienced at the beginning was false?

Just as this thought surfaced, Yan Xie, who had been standing motionless beside him, finally moved.

His eyes remained tightly shut, but he reached out, grasped the hilt of the enormous saber, and drew it free.

The blade’s keen edge cut a wound across Yan Xie’s wrist, and blood gushed forth.

Yet after the blood emerged, it did not run down along his wrist. Instead, it rose into the air, transforming into streams of blood vapor.

The blood vapor circled around Yan Xie and gradually merged into his body.

Once all of it had been absorbed, Yan Xie coughed up a mouthful of blood and suddenly opened his tightly shut eyes.

Fang Mu tightened his grip on the slaughtering knife, his brow furrowed.

"Brother Fang..." Yan Xie’s voice was somewhat weak, as though releasing that blood vapor had drained his strength. In a faint tone he said, "This is an illusion. I have read parts of the Heavenly Surveillance Bureau’s archives, and I know what caused it."

Fang Mu frowned. "An illusion? What cause?"

Yan Xie took a long breath and looked toward the dark gorge in the distance, then slowly explained what he knew...

"If we are speaking of illusions, then they are all false. And the things we have experienced can be divided into five kinds. Then one must mention a certain matter. Brother Fang, have you ever heard of a person..."