During the autumn hunt, at the end of each day’s hunting, the Imperial Guards and the Garrison Command would each send someone to tally the number and types of game everyone had caught, in order to judge who had won that day.

By the end of the day, everyone’s catches were substantial.

Once the tally was finished, Xu Shenming and Jiang Sanlang took first place, while Xia Di and the Crown Prince were not far behind, tying for the next two spots.

Having heard Lin Xiao’s report, the Emperor was greatly pleased. He personally inspected the game the Crown Prince had caught, and listened with a smile as the assembled officials praised the Crown Prince one after another, before reluctantly giving the order to return to camp.

Once they reached the camp, no sooner had Lin Xiao swung down from his horse than he spotted Chang Rong and Wei Bo running toward him from a distance, their faces utterly drained of color, their expressions more panicked than he had ever seen.

Lin Xiao’s heart sank at once.

Chang Rong rushed up to Lin Xiao and dropped straight to his knees, his eyes red-rimmed, and said urgently, “Young Lord, this Chang Rong deserves death — I failed to protect the Young Lady. She, she may have fallen off the cliff!”

Every trace of color drained from Lin Xiao’s face. He froze for a moment, then strode forward and hauled Chang Rong up by the collar, saying word by word, “What did you say? Who fell off a cliff?”

Nearby, Xia Di heard this too and his expression changed at once. He hurried down from his horse and strode over, staring fixedly at Chang Rong as though hoping to hear a denial from his mouth.

The Emperor and his party had already been about to return to their tents, but seeing how wrong Lin Xiao’s expression looked, they paused and came this way as well. “What’s happened?”

Not daring to delay, Chang Rong quickly led Lin Xiao and the others to the cliff. The group moved swiftly, and since the cliff was not very far off, they soon arrived at the spot where Qin Yao had fallen.

Chang Rong climbed up to the clifftop and reported everything that had happened, his voice hoarse: “Wei Bo and I searched everywhere but couldn’t find the Young Lady. When Her Highness Consort Yi learned of it, she sent the soldiers who’d stayed behind at camp to help search. Later, on a section of the cliff, we found a shawl—”

Wei Bo hurriedly held out the shawl to Lin Xiao. He took it and saw it was a brand-new goose-yellow shawl, embroidered with large clusters of jade-hairpin flowers, the colors delicate and bright — it was exactly the one Qin Yao had worn the day she’d returned to her family home after the wedding.

It felt as though a sharp blade had cut straight through Lin Xiao’s heart. The hand gripping the shawl trembled uncontrollably.

At that moment, the palace attendants beside Consort Yi came hurrying over, with the weeping Cai Ping and another maid trailing behind them. The lead attendant rushed up and bowed. “Your Majesty, Young Lord — the Young Lady disappeared together with the young lady of the Marquis of Ningyuan’s household. This servant has already had the whole camp searched from end to end, but we could not find any trace of the Young Lady or Miss Chen.”

The Emperor looked stunned, anger creeping into his voice. “What in the world is going on? Why are you all just standing there? Send out more men at once to search everywhere — don’t limit it to the camp. Perhaps Weijin’s wife and Miss Chen simply wandered out past the perimeter while playing and got lost in the mountains, who knows.”

Lin Xiao stood at the cliff’s edge like a wooden statue, unmoving for a long while, his robes snapping in the strong wind. He stared blankly down into the gorge, where the darkness was so thick it seemed impossible to dispel, his heart gripped by a panic he had never felt before. If Qin Yao truly had fallen here, what hope could there be of her surviving?

With great effort he forced down the bitterness rising in his throat, struggling to calm himself. This was no time to lose his head. The whole affair was far too strange — a single piece of clothing was nowhere near enough proof that something terrible had befallen Qin Yao. Rather than waste time standing here, he should do everything in his power to find her as quickly as possible.

He turned and started down toward the base of the cliff, saying word by word, “Search every inch to the left and right. Don’t miss a single spot.”

Suddenly, a strange gust of wind came rolling up from the base of the cliff behind him. Chixiao at his waist seemed to sense something and began humming violently.

He stopped abruptly and turned to look behind him, alarmed and uncertain.

Qin Yao’s consciousness slowly returned bit by bit. She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt as though they were glued shut.

She tried to lift her head, but the moment she moved at all, a piercing pain shot through her shoulder — it must be torn sinew or broken bone.

After struggling for a moment, she sank back limply against the ground, closing her eyes again to take stock of her surroundings. Beneath her was hard, damp earth. When she reached out her fingers to feel around, her fingertips came away slick and sticky, as though coated in thick moss. A nauseatingly rank, rotten smell filled her nose, and beneath it she could faintly make out a demonic aura rising to the sky. She did not even need to open her eyes to know she had likely ended up in some evil creature’s lair.

Earlier, when she had been pushed off the clifftop, she had given up all hope, certain she would die at the bottom of the gorge that very night. But to her surprise, halfway down, a strange wind had suddenly swept out from the cliff face, wrapping around both her and Chen Yuqi together and yanking them forcefully into a cave.

The strange force had come too fast and too violently — as she’d tumbled into the cave, her head had struck the rock wall, and she had blacked out.

She had no idea how long she’d lain unconscious after that. At one point, while her mind was still hazy, she had sensed someone dragging her body along. She had fought desperately to regain awareness, but that strange force had clung to her the entire time, restraining her movements. She had tried to summon her inner energy without success, and by the time she woke again, she found herself in this enclosed cave.

She focused her hearing for a while longer and made out a faint breathing sound. Following it, she reached out and felt the Shu-brocade fabric of Chen Yuqi’s skirt, and let out a small sigh of relief — at least Chen Yuqi, like her, was unharmed and hadn’t fallen all the way to the bottom of the gorge to be smashed to pulp.

The compass tucked in her robes was still spinning without pause. She didn’t dare act rashly — judging by the compass’s reaction, even if the evil creature wasn’t right beside her, it surely wasn’t far off.

Worst of all, when she had fallen, the Soul-Devouring Bell had slipped from her grasp and flown off somewhere — she had no idea where it had landed now. Without the Soul-Devouring Bell at her side, given how violently the compass had just reacted, she absolutely did not dare to recklessly challenge whatever monster lurked at the bottom of this gorge.

She lay still a while longer, and once she felt a little strength return, she slowly opened her eyes. As she’d expected, what lay before her was indeed a low, cramped cave. Somewhere out of sight a light had been lit, and its glow filtered through, illuminating the cave a little.

A strange thought flickered through her mind — demonic creatures usually had the ability to see in the dark and could move about freely without light. Whatever monster lurked outside, why would it need a lamp lit to see by?

Just as she was about to quietly get up, the light filtering in suddenly flickered, and a moment later she heard the sound of a woman coughing.

Qin Yao’s scalp prickled — the sound startled her far more than any monstrous shriek would have. The cough was clear and short, with not the faintest trace of demonic energy to it. It was, without question, the sound of a living human being.

Could there be other women here too?

Holding her breath and making not a sound, she did her best to keep her clothing from rustling as she crept, very slowly, toward the light.

Suddenly there came a hissing sound — like some massive creature dragging itself across the ground, a coarse scraping noise — and then a woman burst into terrified sobs. “It’s fine, it’s fine, my wound has already healed, I beg you, please don’t apply any more medicine to it.”

There came another hiss, this one carrying even more menace than before, and someone else began to cry — a different woman’s voice this time. “Please, just give us a quick death! Kill us, eat us, do whatever you like — just stop tormenting us like this, day and night.”

By now Qin Yao had crawled along the light all the way to a cave entrance. Clutching a talisman in her hand, she held her breath and peered inside. Before her was a cave larger than the one she and Chen Yuqi had been in. A candle burned in the corner, its flame flickering ceaselessly, casting strangely shaped shadows across the cave floor from whatever it was lighting.

The crying and pleading confirmed that there really were people inside. She leaned forward as far as she dared to look, but could only make out a silhouette in duck-egg-blue clothing. Judging by the dress and figure, it looked to be a young woman in the prime of her youth, half-leaning against the cave wall with her legs curled up, trembling without pause.

She glanced silently at the compass in her robes — its needle was still spinning, but no more violently than before, which gave her a measure of confidence. Even if there was a demonic creature in this cave, it clearly wasn’t the source of the compass’s earlier violent reaction. That meant the great evil presence had not yet returned, and whatever creature was keeping watch in the cave probably wasn’t of very high cultivation.

Should she take this chance to scout things out?

She hesitated. All she had on her were the compass and some talismans. Even if she made a move now and managed to subdue the creature in front of her, what then? If the great evil presence returned in the middle of it, wouldn’t all her effort be wasted? And even if she could escape the cave, how would she ever make it back up to the clifftop?

Just as she was thinking this, the rank stench in the air suddenly thickened, and a dark shape lashed out toward her — the creature had clearly discovered her hiding spot. She quickly threw herself backward to dodge the blow, then flung out a talisman with her uninjured arm. A hissing sound followed, and the smell of scorched flesh immediately filled the cave.

She flung out another talisman, then rolled across the ground and burst through the cave entrance.

When she got a clear look at the creature before her, she sucked in a sharp breath.

It was a creature that looked almost like a python but wasn’t quite — a jet-black serpentine body, oddly fitted with four legs, a triangular snake’s head bearing a pair of horns. Its body was thick and extremely long, coiled in more than a dozen loops across the ground.

The talisman Qin Yao had just thrown had struck a patch of scales on its neck dead-on, burning a bowl-sized scar into it.

What stunned Qin Yao most was that hanging around the four-legged creature’s neck — of all things — was her own Soul-Devouring Bell.

When the Soul-Devouring Bell was separated from its master, it was no different from an ordinary trinket, utterly devoid of spiritual power. Could it be that whatever had abducted them here knew how formidable the bell truly was, and not daring to keep it on its own person, had instead left this strange creature here to guard it?

Seeing the creature swing its serpentine tail at her again, Qin Yao silently recited an incantation, calling for her fire dragons. But though she called once, the Soul-Devouring Bell hanging on the four-legged beast showed not the slightest response.

Qin Yao had no choice but to throw out another talisman to drive back the creature’s attack. Seeing that the bell would not obey her, fury rose in her at once. She quickly finished her incantation and snapped, “You stupid dragons, go ahead and play dumb all you like. If you don’t come out right now, this Daoist will lock you up in the storeroom of Qingyun Temple and you’ll never see daylight again.”

The threat proved extremely effective. Before she had even finished speaking, the bell around the creature’s neck blazed bright, and three fire dragons burst out of it in high spirits, coiling down around the four-legged beast. In no time at all, they had burned the enormous creature to ash.

Qin Yao let out a breath and said to the three fire dragons, “Good thing you finally got the message.”

She walked over to the fire dragons, bent down, and searched through the pile of ash until she found the Soul-Devouring Bell, then hung it triumphantly around her own neck.

She brushed the dust off herself, and as she turned around, she saw three women huddled together nearby, trembling as they stared at her, their faces full of terror.

She frowned and opened her Heavenly Eye to take a look, and saw that none of the three carried any trace of demonic energy. One of the women, a married lady, was extremely beautiful. A question suddenly surfaced in Qin Yao’s mind, and she was just about to ask it when the compass in her robes suddenly began spinning wildly again.

The women shrieked in terror, their faces turning even paler than before, as if they wished they could burrow straight into a crack in the cave floor. “That— that thing is back!”