Yan Tuo was still conscious, but everything kept distorting. Sounds fluctuated between loud and soft, his vision constantly warped, and worst of all was the discomfort within his body: coming in waves, not fatal, but attacking different areas—sometimes his chest, sometimes his stomach—as if an invisible hand wandered through his body, treating his organs like toys to squeeze at will.

His memory was hazy. One moment he was in the car, the next being supported while walking, then doused with alcohol. He heard an unfamiliar male voice say this would make it more convincing and less conspicuous.

The next second, his back met soft cushioning, too comfortable, his whole body feeling like a thousand-pound weight sinking deeper into the softness.

Then suddenly, his body turned cold, the kind of chill that enveloped from all sides. Sharp scissor sounds approached his throat, snip after snip.

Yan Tuo’s eyes flew open, his hand grabbing something.

He was in a hotel room.

The windows were wide open, night wind howled continuously. If that wasn’t enough, though it was the season when air conditioners usually blew hot air, this room’s unit was set to cold, with the vent adjusted to blow directly at him.

He lay on the sofa with a large bath towel spread beneath him, presumably to protect the sofa from blood stains.

What he had grabbed was Nie Jiuluo’s hand, holding scissors.

Nie Jiuluo looked down at him: “What? These ruined clothes of yours still worth keeping?”

Yan Tuo slowly released his grip, his palm and fingertips still tingling from the softness of her skin.

Strange—as the temperature dropped, he felt somewhat better, though his body still felt waves of heaviness. His hands and feet could move slightly, but nothing too vigorous—after forcefully gripping her hand, his arm now felt soft and sore, like noodles.

Nie Jiuluo stopped looking at him, focusing on cutting away the shredded clothes piece by piece and throwing them into the garbage bin beside the sofa.

After finishing with his shirt, she asked: “What about your legs, any scratches? Your back?”

Yan Tuo wanted to say “no,” but couldn’t quite remember—sometimes in urgent situations, people don’t even notice their injuries.

Seeing his expression, Nie Jiuluo knew better than to rely on his answer.

She carefully examined his pants, cutting away the right front thigh section, where she found scratch marks.

Then she had him turn over—his back was fine. After being knocked down by the grasshopper, he had fallen face-up, so the grasshopper had mainly attacked his front.

After this, she walked to the door and brought over a bag of items she’d had delivery services buy and bring. After sorting through it, she first took out a large pack of medical alcohol wipes, pulled out three thick sheets, and moved to clean his collarbone wound.

The sensation of alcohol wipes on torn, bloody flesh was intensely sharp. Yan Tuo sucked in a cold breath, the flesh around the wound twitching, instinctively trying to pull away.

Nie Jiuluo paused: “You’d better cooperate. I have no obligation to do this.”

Yan Tuo remained silent, but when she resumed cleaning, he held still despite occasional nervous twitches—natural reactions he couldn’t control.

By the time she finished cleaning, the garbage bin was half full of bloody papers. She sprinkled some hemostatic and anti-inflammatory powder on his deeper wounds, then wiped her hands and went to the bathroom.

Yan Tuo lay still, listening to the shower head’s spray.

When she emerged, Nie Jiuluo was wringing out a large bath towel. She walked to Yan Tuo, shook it out forcefully, and draped it over him.

Yan Tuo shivered—the towel had been soaked in cold water, and it was freezing.

But cold was better than hot. He remembered how awful his whole body had felt earlier when running intensely with accelerated blood flow.

He lay quietly, even slowing his breathing. Through the towel, the light became a hazy yellow glow, occasionally showing Nie Jiuluo’s silhouette—she had changed into hotel slippers, and with the carpeted floor, her movements were almost soundless.

After a while, she sat on the bed diagonal to the sofa, looking down at her phone.

Yan Tuo heard her say: “You’re quite lucky; tomorrow’s sunny. If it snowed or rained, we wouldn’t know where to get heaven-born fire.”

For someone important, she might drop everything and accompany them to buy a plane ticket to somewhere sunny.

Heaven-born fire?

Her previous words immediately came to Yan Tuo’s mind.

—Usually within twenty-four hours of injury, using ‘heaven-born fire’—the fire was taken from the sun using a lens, or in ancient times, a bronze mirror—to repeatedly cauterize the wound.

—If a red line appears crossing the pupil, that person is basically beyond help.

Twenty-four hours—that was manageable. It had been at most two hours since his injury.

“That… thing, was that a ground owl?”

Nie Jiuluo: “Yes, now you understand why I said ground owls are beasts, not humans, right?”

“You keep ground owls?”

Since he’d encountered one up close, there was no point denying it. Nie Jiuluo corrected him: “Not ‘we,’ don’t include me. It’s ‘they.’ At the end of ’91, Board Teeth’s people started walking the Green Soil, and after that, they went every three to five years. But only the ’91 trip yielded anything—they brought back the grasshopper.”

Her thoughts drifted at this point: Yes, only the ’91 trip had results. Later, during the 2000 trip, her mother Pei Ke was dragged away. The Green Soil walks were suspended for a while. Jiang Baichuan learned from this lesson and began transforming their available manpower following ancient customs into three branches: Blade, Dog, and Whip.

Yan Tuo hadn’t expected the thing to have a name—”grasshopper,” fitting since it looked like a locust. Even now, thinking of that face made him nauseous.

However, his attention immediately focused on the timeline.

End of ’91.

—Lin Xirou, or Aunt Lin, first appeared before his father Yan Haishan on September 16, 1992.

—The only yield from walking the Green Soil was the “grasshopper.”

—After interrogating Crippled Dad, Xiong Hei had asked Aunt Lin: “Did that old man reveal anything about your son?”

Could a simple inference be drawn: The grasshopper was Aunt Lin’s son, “hunted” by Board Teeth’s people in late ’91, and Lin came looking for her son, eventually infiltrating Yan Haishan’s coal mine tunnels after searching for a while?

No, no, no, this was too absurd. Yan Tuo immediately killed this nonsensical speculation in its infancy: Setting aside everything else, just considering the physical aspects, the grasshopper and Aunt Lin were far too different.

He collected himself: “That grasshopper… can it speak?”

Speak?

Nie Jiuluo thought for a moment: “No, it must have been a doll voice box. When walking among people, it needs good disguise—clothes, shoes, mask, and when necessary, it needs to make sounds.”

Yan Tuo closed his eyes tiredly. No wonder he had thought those two “uncle” calls had unchanging tone and inflection, like recordings.

The towel had warmed from his body heat. Nie Jiuluo came over to lift it: “My coat was ruined by your blood. You’ll have to replace it.”

Helping Yan Tuo had started with an inexplicable impulse at the scene. She didn’t want him thinking this created any bond between them—better to keep everything separate, her aid and his compensation, clearly itemized, making it easy to calculate and settle accounts.

Yan Tuo said: “Alright.”

As Nie Jiuluo took the towel to the bathroom to re-soak and wring out, she suddenly felt her nose tickle and turned aside to sneeze.

She had gotten cold, which was natural: In this cold weather, with windows wide open and cold air conditioning blowing, it was bearable for a short while, but as time passed, the chill penetrated skin and bone.

Yan Tuo thought of this too: “Maybe you should close the windows and turn off the air conditioning. I’m feeling better now.”

Nie Jiuluo made a sound of agreement: “I’ll close them before sleeping. You feel better now because the cooling is working temporarily, but after a while longer, even cooling won’t help much. Before the fire cauterization, you’ll have to endure.”

So there were some urgent matters to clarify while Yan Tuo was still lucid.

She changed the subject: “Someone called Xiong Hei kept calling your phone. Who is that?”

Yan Tuo hesitated: “The person who was with me today.”

Nie Jiuluo: “The one who beat someone half to death?”

Yan Tuo’s scalp tingled, afraid she would direct her anger at him too, but he couldn’t deny it: “Yes.”

Nie Jiuluo: “Why did he leave you behind?”

Yan Tuo explained: “Actually, I left first. He thought I was in the way, so before he started fighting, he dropped me off and told me to leave first.”

Nie Jiuluo didn’t understand: “Then why didn’t you leave?”

Yan Tuo had to tell the truth: “I’m always like this—agreeing on the surface, but secretly…”

He tried to find a more respectable word.

Nie Jiuluo: “Peeping, right?”

More or less. Yan Tuo vaguely acknowledged it.

“Then why did he suddenly leave when he had the advantage, without hurting the other person?”

Theoretically, good deeds should be done anonymously, but this was a point in his favor—saying it might improve their relationship: “I called and sent him away.”

Nie Jiuluo: “Why did you send him away?”

Yan Tuo smiled bitterly. Lying to Nie Jiuluo would be difficult; she was the type to dig to the bottom of things.

“I always thought there was a child inside. One person was already seriously injured, the other couldn’t fight back, and there was a child, so… I thought we should let it go.”

Nie Jiuluo: “What excuse did you use to send him away?”

“I said I’d fallen into an ambush, got into trouble on the east side.”

The answer checked out—when Xiong Hei called, he had indeed said: “Where are you? I’ve searched the whole east side.”

“Is Xiong Hei also a ghost-servant?”

“No. I once saw him lose three fingers to a bite, but later they all grew back, not one missing. He’s like Dog Teeth, a ground owl. Or more precisely, a variant of ground owl.”

Ground owl?

Nie Jiuluo remained silent for a while. Her facial expression stayed controlled, but her heart was racing wildly. Her tone remained calm, as if completely unconcerned: “But there was a Dog Family member in the car who told me they hadn’t smelled anything unusual.”

“The musty smell?” Yan Tuo remembered something. “I once overheard them talking—they don’t have any smell.”

No smell…

Nie Jiuluo’s throat went dry. She licked her lips slightly, trying to confirm further: “Xiong Hei is like Dog Teeth, but while Dog Teeth has a smell, he doesn’t?”

Yan Tuo said: “Dog Teeth seems to be an exception. I heard them mention once that if Dog Teeth wasn’t an ‘omnivore,’ he shouldn’t have had a smell—though I didn’t understand.”

What a terrifying exception when you think about it: one exception had led to such grave misunderstandings.

“How many people like Dog Teeth or Xiong Hei are around you?”

His answer made her scalp tingle: “I don’t know. The earliest one was already with my family before I was born.”

After these words, the room fell unnaturally quiet, with only the sounds of wind—from the window and the air conditioning vent.

After a while, Nie Jiuluo stood up: “I’m going to shower. You rest for now.”

She took her phone into the bathroom.

Inside the shower stall, Nie Jiuluo first turned on the shower head, letting hot water pour over her for more than twenty seconds.

Yan Tuo’s words rang true.

Beings like Dog Teeth and Xiong Hei were vastly different from traditional ground owls, their appearance completely indistinguishable from humans. It made sense that their “owl scent” would disappear accordingly.

No wonder the three-person team that entered South Ba Monkey Head lost contact so suddenly. The Dog Family members’ noses had become useless, unable to detect approaching ground owls.

No wonder the grasshopper was reluctant to attack Xiong Hei—it followed beast nature: they don’t kill their kind unless necessary. Small beasts naturally fear larger ones.

Dog Teeth was detected by scent because he was an “omnivore”—did that refer to devouring that woman from Xingba Village? What was his “main food” supposed to be?

More terrifying was how long they had been around—”The earliest one was already with my family before I was born.”

Yan Tuo’s father had made his fortune in one generation. Those who got rich in that era often straddled the line between legal and illegal. If ground owls had already infiltrated his family then, after so many years of development…

Before them, Board Teeth’s group was merely an amateur militia.

…

The eighth was when they were supposed to go to South Ba Monkey Head to get Cripple.

Tomorrow was the eighth—could they still go?

Nie Jiuluo abruptly stopped the shower, stepped out still wet, casually wrapped a towel around herself, and grabbed her phone.

She needed to warn Jiang Baichuan.

Opening the app, there was already a message from “that side.”

—Second Nie, with recent incidents, to be cautious, let’s postpone the eighth’s appointment. We’ll wait and see for a few days.

Nie Jiuluo’s fingers trembled. Never mind the appointment—the most important information needed to be passed on.

After brief consideration, she quickly typed:

—When I left today, I saw Yan Tuo being rescued by his companion.

—Followed for a while, lost them. But heard some things.

—The one who seriously injured Lao Dao was a ground owl.

No need to be too explicit; Jiang Baichuan would understand the implications “thoroughly.”

The message showed “unread.” With tonight’s chaos and Lao Dao being hospitalized, they must be busy.

At least the most crucial information had been delivered. Nie Jiuluo let out a long breath.

Before sleeping, Nie Jiuluo closed the window and turned off the air conditioning—she was freezing.

That wasn’t enough. She dug out wide tape from her bag, found the end, and pulled with a ripping sound: she needed to tie up Yan Tuo in case he went berserk during the night.

Seeing the long strip of tape, Yan Tuo guessed its purpose. He remained silent as she bound him. Before taping his mouth, Nie Jiuluo asked: “Want some water?”

Yan Tuo shook his head.

No water—he remembered the symptom was called “taking root and sprouting,” and he didn’t want to provide water for these roots. Besides, if he drank water, what if he needed to use the bathroom?

Before the lights went out, he saw Nie Jiuluo leaning against the headboard, using a hotel magazine as a writing surface to write something on a pale gold paper strip. After writing, she folded it into a star and tossed it toward her open suitcase.

Almost simultaneously, the lights went out. The star traced a faint, luminous arc through the air, like a shooting star.

Yan Tuo closed his eyes and made a wish.

He wished tomorrow’s heaven-born fire would go smoothly, and that no roots or sprouts would wreak havoc in his body.

Nie Jiuluo was right—the cooling effect was temporary. Before the fire cauterization, there was still suffering to endure.

After lying down, that feeling returned. It felt like a furnace deep in his body slowly heating his blood. At first, it was bearable, just uncomfortable, but later his blood grew hotter and hotter, his whole body sweating like rain. When he closed his eyes, instead of darkness, he saw scalding crimson, with boiling bubbles constantly rising within the red.

Yan Tuo tried hard to endure. He knew Nie Jiuluo didn’t particularly like him—being saved by her was already lucky, and tomorrow he would depend on her for the heaven-born fire. He didn’t want to disturb her sleep and provoke her anger.

As his temperature continued rising, hallucinations began.

He saw scenes of humans brutally slaughtering humans, surely from ancient times, as the people wore animal skins and vine leaves, with disheveled hair, tearing with teeth and mouth, smashing with stones and spears, blood and flesh flying, guts spilling—those wounds felt like they were on his own body. His body convulsed repeatedly, then forcibly suppressed itself. With his mouth sealed and unable to help him breathe, his eyes became bloodshot, almost bulging.

Then he saw the sun, an enormous sun, dripping blood-red, covering nearly half the sky, then rolling like a wheel gradually into darkness. All around were wails of despair and desolation.

Then it went dark—the sun died, leaving darkness so complete you couldn’t see your hand before your face. Gradually, pairs of eyes appeared in the darkness, countless of them, approaching him in succession. Yan Tuo desperately retreated, cold sweat pouring, panicking.

There was a scraping sound—he had knocked the coffee table out of position.

The sound startled him into a cold sweat, briefly bringing him back to clarity: the coffee table was some distance from the sofa—how much had he thrashed about to move it?

Sounds of fumbling came from the bed, then the bedside lamp turned on. Nie Jiuluo got up with a yawn, slipped on her shoes, and went to the bathroom.

Presumably to use the toilet.

Passing by the sofa, she paused.

Yan Tuo kept his eyes closed, playing dead, completely motionless as if sleeping peacefully: the earlier sounds were all in your imagination, there was no movement, and the coffee table was always positioned there.

Nie Jiuluo entered the bathroom.

He heard the toilet flush, and tap water running, and then she came out again.

Yan Tuo kept his eyes closed, almost believing himself that he was sound asleep.

Suddenly, a coolness draped over him—a large bath towel, freshly soaked and wrung out, had been placed on his body.

Before he could react, the light went out again. Nie Jiuluo got into bed, the covers rustled, the mattress squeaked a few times, and then all was quiet again.

Yan Tuo didn’t move.

He felt that lying there just like this was very, very good.