Shen Gun felt bewildered, but gradually this bewilderment became tinged with unease.

He licked his lips and questioned Yanluo: “What does this mean? If you have something to say, just write it down.”

Jiang Lian reminded him: “This person may not know how to write. Take it slowly.”

Shen Gun’s temples throbbed chaotically. How could he “take it slowly” with such an urgent matter? He had countless questions surging in his throat, unable to decide which to ask first.

Jiang Lian helped him ask: “You’re not Yanluo, are you?”

However, Yanluo acted as if he hadn’t heard, not even glancing at him or Meng Qianzi, completely ignoring their existence. He only observed Shen Gun with great interest. The more anxious Shen Gun became, the more satisfied he looked—that kind of satisfaction when everything is under control, watching others being toyed with and running in circles.

Meng Qianzi suddenly raised her voice: “We’ve been asking him about the box all along, so he drew a box. What’s so strange about that? This person is Yanluo, deliberately playing tricks to fool you. Don’t be deceived.”

Shen Gun was startled, then quickly understood Meng Qianzi’s intention: they couldn’t use the same approach with this person as they had with Yanluo. She was trying to provoke him into revealing more information.

So he pretended to suddenly realize: “I was wondering—I have absolutely no impression of him, yet he claims to have met me. Thanks to Miss Meng’s reminder, or I would have been fooled.”

Yanluo just chuckled, seemingly unaffected by this provocation. Not wanting Shen Gun to feel smug, he picked up the pen again.

Jiang Lian watched closely from the side. This time, the drawing was completely incomprehensible—like an almost straightened “S” shape, with only the two ends retaining slight curves. Meng Qianzi was equally baffled, but Shen Gun grew increasingly alarmed as he looked at it. By the end, his face was as white as paper. Suddenly, he grabbed Yanluo’s collar and shouted: “Who are you? How do you know? How do you know this?”

The man was shaken back and forth but maintained his smile. Seeing Shen Gun’s abnormal behavior, Jiang Lian quickly intervened, pulling him away while saying softly: “Calm down.”

The man still wore that eerie smile. He reached out and patted Shen Gun’s shoulder as if to comfort him, then grabbed the pen and bent toward the paper again.

Meng Qianzi secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Regardless of how obscure the situation was, it was good that this person was willing to “speak”…

Just then, something unexpected happened: the man suddenly reversed the pen and, using all his strength, drove the pen tip directly into his head.

Originally, Jiang Lian had stood close to Yanluo to prevent self-harm, but as the “fair trade” progressed and the conversation deepened, he had lowered his guard. Moreover, when pulling Shen Gun away, he had unconsciously retreated two steps, while Meng Qianzi stood even further away. The sudden action left no time for rescue.

Shen Gun was caught off guard and let out a loud cry. Jiang Lian’s mind buzzed. Meng Qianzi remained outwardly composed as usual, but her heart sank like a stone into icy water.

That wasn’t all. Yanluo’s body twitched, his head suddenly jerking back, making guttural sounds while desperately flailing and struggling. Jiang Lian saw that the pen had entered through the right eye socket, the entire shaft now embedded, clearly piercing the brain, beyond saving.

But this struggling Yanluo had reverted to the original one. With a face full of despair, he frantically clawed at his eye socket. Blood streamed down from the socket over his chin, smeared by his grabbing. He didn’t struggle long before his breath weakened. At the end, he grabbed Meng Qianzi’s ankle, his remaining eye filled with resentment, while his other hand trembledly pointed at her.

Meng Qianzi knew he resented her for not keeping her promise. She had offered him deals—one year, then adding half a year—but in reality, he had written so much yet hadn’t earned even a quarter of an hour.

Meng Qianzi’s lips were dry, but she remembered there was still a crucial question to ask: “Where is the box? Where in the Kunlun Mountains?”

It was too late. Yanluo’s lone eye stared at her, the light in his pupil gradually dimming.

He was dead.

The cave was deathly silent.

Noisy, jubilant voices faintly transmitted from the passage above—Lu Sanming, Pixiu, and the others, bored while waiting, were playing finger-guessing games for amusement.

Shen Gun looked at Yanluo’s motionless corpse, and his legs weakened, causing him to collapse onto his buttocks.

Meng Qianzi moved her ankle, trying to shake off Yanluo’s hand, but he had gripped so tightly before death that she couldn’t free herself after several attempts. Eventually, she gave up: she felt she was going mad. All the secrets had been within reach—both Yanluo and the false Yanluo possessed so many secrets. In just an instant, everything had slipped away, and she had watched helplessly as those truths flitted past, unable to grasp any of them.

After a while, Jiang Lian chuckled softly.

He said: “What’s wrong? Where has all your energy gone?”

He walked over and crouched down, first helping Meng Qianzi pry away Yanluo’s tightly gripping hand. Meng Qianzi looked down at him, suddenly feeling irritated: “Aren’t you anxious? Just as we were about to…”

She was too choked with frustration to continue.

Jiang Lian said: “The path forward always has twists and reversals. Two hours ago, you told me ‘it’s good enough that the person is safe, the rest doesn’t matter, we can take it slowly.’ From another perspective, we’ve only returned to where we were two hours ago—no, we’ve gained more…”

He picked up the torn paper from the ground and shook it: “We have additional information.”

Can a person console themselves to this extent? Meng Qianzi was so irritated that she didn’t want to look at him.

Her reaction was within Jiang Lian’s expectations. He looked at Meng Qianzi, then glanced at Shen Gun, sighed, and suddenly smiled.

He said: “In terms of qualifications, neither of you has the right to look distressed in front of me.”

Then he pointed at Shen Gun: “You’re trying to solve a puzzle that troubles you, plus helping some friends burdened with ominous writings, hoping to alleviate their condition.”

Then he pointed at Meng Qianzi: “You primarily want to clarify the cause of your Grandma Duan’s death and the secrets from those years—forgive me for saying this, but Grandma Duan has been dead for decades. The truth has already been delayed this long; what difference does a little more time make?”

“But what about me? I’m fighting for Meiying’s life. She only has a year or two left. Watching the answer vanish before my eyes, shouldn’t I be the one rolling on the ground, wailing loudly?”

At this point, he pinched the front of his shirt and fanned it: “The person with a heart like dead ashes is right here. Can someone come console me? Otherwise, I’ll find a rope and hang myself.”

As he spoke, he pretended to reach for the rope that had been used to bind Yanluo.

Meng Qianzi felt both irritated and amused, but Jiang Lian made sense. Though he didn’t show it much, with Yanluo’s thread cut, he must be the most anxious.

She crouched beside Jiang Lian and patted his back. Jiang Lian nodded seriously: “I feel much better now.”

They both looked at Shen Gun.

Shen Gun looked back at them. After Jiang Lian’s consolation, though not as disheartened as before, he was far from encouraged.

Jiang Lian asked him: “If possible, could you explain what that shape the person drew represents? Why did you react so abnormally when you saw it?”

Shen Gun hesitated, then sighed deeply and slowly rolled up the bottom hem of his shirt.

As the hem rolled up, Jiang Lian saw a long, narrow, dark brown birthmark on his abdomen, extending from his solar plexus to his navel. Its shape closely resembled an elongated, modified “S” and, at first glance, looked like the fierce scar from being disemboweled.

After the two had seen it clearly, Shen Gun awkwardly lowered his shirt.

Meng Qianzi asked curiously: “Have you had this birthmark since childhood?”

She remembered that Shen Gun had been found at the entrance of the so-called Small Village. Honestly, ordinary people, due to superstitions, wouldn’t adopt a child with such a strange birthmark.

Shen Gun shook his head: “I didn’t have it as a child. It started growing in adulthood. Initially, there was just a red dot at my solar plexus, then it grew longer and longer. For the past two years, it has remained fixed in this shape. I secretly consulted doctors, but they couldn’t explain what it was. Since there don’t seem to be any side effects, I’ve just let it be. It’s too strange, unsightly, so I keep it covered when possible.”

But how did the false Yanluo know about it?

Shen Gun couldn’t figure it out: “What did that person mean by drawing that picture? I’ve never seen him, much less touched that box.”

Meng Qianzi replied: “That’s not necessarily true. When you saw the mountain gall, didn’t you have a vision of putting it into the box, with someone beside you chanting ‘one mountain gall’?”

Shen Gun stomped his foot anxiously: “How could that be me? The mountain gall had been suspended in your mountain forest for thousands of years. Putting it into the box must have happened before that, when dragons still existed in the sky. At most, I momentarily connected with that ancient person—our brain waves synchronized, allowing me to see his experience.”

But that didn’t explain why the false Yanluo claimed to know him…

Shen Gun was truly vexed, repeatedly pounding the ground with his fist: “It’s all my fault. If I had been quicker and stopped him from committing suicide, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Jiang Lian said, “Look at it differently. Yanluo’s death was inevitable; no amount of prevention could have stopped it. Haven’t you realized that person was preventing Yanluo from telling us the truth? He didn’t even care about sacrificing his life. Thinking about it now, Yanluo’s tongue was cut out by that person.”

Whenever discussing problems, Shen Gun would invariably become energized. He nodded continuously: “After Yanluo’s rebirthed, transforming from elderly to prime age, he must have been pleased, thinking he could make his mark again and achieve something in the new era. But he quickly discovered he had a problem.”

Jiang Lian continued: “After falling asleep, his body would be controlled by another person. I assume that person would go out, touch things, and even cause trouble. When there was a significant disturbance, Yanluo would wake up. In other words, he frequently woke up to find himself not in bed but in strange places doing bizarre things, perhaps even being chased. All sorts of inexplicable situations.”

Meng Qianzi muttered, “Why didn’t that person just remain hidden? Why expose himself to Yanluo? He seemed much more calculating than Yanluo…”

Jiang Lian paused as a flash of insight crossed his mind.

He said, “Wait, what did you just say? Repeat it.”

Meng Qianzi was puzzled: “I said… why didn’t he remain hidden? Being in the shadows always makes things easier. If he hadn’t exposed himself, Yanluo wouldn’t have needed iron frames and electric bells while sleeping.”

Exactly. From Yanluo’s arrangements, it seemed this person wasn’t dominant and could only appear when Yanluo was asleep and his willpower weakened. If he had been careful in his actions, Yanluo would have had difficulty discovering him, at most thinking he was sleepwalking.

Shen Gun suddenly blurted out: “What if he didn’t know? What if he didn’t know there was a Yanluo in this body?”

Holy crap, could it be?

Jiang Lian felt overwhelmed: “You mean two people sharing one body, each unaware of the other’s existence, going about their own business? After some time, both realized something was wrong, and Yanluo’s process of discovering that person was also that person’s process of trying to discover Yanluo?”

The problem had become complex.

Meng Qianzi found it troublesome: “Actually, two people can live in one house; even more would work. These two just didn’t find a way to coexist peacefully.”

Couldn’t they just negotiate? You take the daytime, I take the night. Each protects the body and properly hands over during transition at dawn and dusk.

Jiang Lian slowly shook his head: “No, they had a fundamental conflict. That person harbored secrets, and Yanluo might have known these secrets. So, after discovering each other, Yanluo was still fine, but that person immediately felt threatened. The first thing he did was probably cut out Yanluo’s tongue to prevent him from talking. Then, today, to protect this secret, he was willing to kill Yanluo.”

This secret must be extremely crucial because when Yanluo was conscious, that person couldn’t emerge. But in an emergency, seeing imminent failure, that person likely used all his strength to momentarily seize control of the body. But knowing he couldn’t maintain it for long and that Yanluo would reappear, only killing him could provide a permanent solution.

At this point, Jiang Lian suddenly remembered something: “Do you recall Ding Panling? I find it strange that there was only one person in the camp, yet there were signs of multiple people fighting. In the end, he committed suicide by stabbing his throat with a knife. His situation was very similar to Yanluo’s. Could it be that what appeared to be suicide was murder? Was there another person in his body, preventing him from communicating information outward?”

Meng Qianzi felt a tightness in her heart.

Not just similar—it was exactly the same. When Ding Panling died, like Yanluo, he was also writing something, but didn’t finish. He wrote “Find Mountain Ghost Hel,” only completing the upper part of the “Help” character.

She murmured: “If that’s the case, then this secret doesn’t belong to just one person.”

Jiang Lian nodded: “This secret must be of great significance. The false Yanluo was willing to sacrifice his life, clearly not to protect himself. Also, do you remember the Cave God of Bai Shuixiao? Before being killed by the mountain gall, it was willing to sacrifice Bai Shuixiao—we speculated at the time that it was also trying to transmit information outward.”

“Looking at all events together, the Cave God, the false Yanluo, and the person who killed Ding Panling are on the same chain of interests, guarding the same secret.”

“This secret may relate to an important person, or even a group of people, which is why the false Yanluo and others were willing to sacrifice themselves. Generally, such actions only occur when protecting a more important individual or group.”

Meng Qianzi’s thoughts suddenly drifted away.

Jiang Lian continued: “As for this secret…”

He looked at the unfinished line Yanluo had written:

—I ate deer…

What exactly did he eat?

Shen Gun was also pondering this question. Characters with the “deer” radical typically have a top-bottom structure, like “shè” (musk deer) or “mí” (elk). Left-right structures, especially with the radical on the right, are very rare…

As he was thinking, Jiang Lian had already spoken: “Could it be ‘qílín’ (unicorn/kirin)? We have Dragon-Subduing Mountain, Phoenix Mountain, dragon bones—dragons and phoenixes are present, and there’s a pixiu guarding outside. Having a qilin wouldn’t be strange. Although a qilin is quite large, could Yanluo eat a whole one? Eating a piece of qilin meat seems more plausible.”

Great, another ancient mythical beast. The “Book of Rites” refers to “qilin, phoenix, tortoise, and dragon” as the “Four Spirits.” The qilin’s status is comparable to dragons and phoenixes. It’s just unclear why today, turtles remain common while the qilin, phoenix, and dragon have all vanished without a trace.

Shen Gun murmured: “Qilin, yes, it’s the qilin.”

Jiang Lian found it strange. His mention of qilin was mere conjecture, but Shen Gun treated it as a fact: “Why?”

Shen Gun swallowed: “Little Lian Lian, when you think of qilin, what comes to mind?”

What else could come to mind? Auspiciousness, sacred beasts.

But just as he was about to speak, another thought flashed by, and Jiang Lian blurted out: “Qilin delivering children.”

Shen Gun nodded: “Earlier, you asked Yanluo how he managed to shed his old form and live another life. He answered that he had eaten something. Based on the character shape, we guessed it’s related to qilin, and in Chinese folklore, there has always been the saying of qilin delivering children.”

“Don’t you find it strange? Is the qilin particularly fertile? How did it become a symbol of childbirth?”

“Could it be that in ancient mythological times, the qilin was genuinely related to a form of reproduction—specifically… self-reproduction?”

“The box is now in the Kunlun Mountains. Yanluo likely gained the ability for ‘Yanluo to give birth to Yanluo’ after going there, meaning the qilin-related thing he consumed is also in that area.”

He was getting excited and was about to declare that a journey to Kunlun seemed inevitable when the previously silent Meng Qianzi suddenly interjected: “They.”

Shen Gun was confused: “What ‘they’?”

Meng Qianzi said, “As Jiang Lian mentioned, the false Yanluo, the Cave God, and the person who killed Ding Panling are on one chain of interests. They’re willing to sacrifice their lives to guard a secret because this secret might relate to a large group of people.”

“This large group of people is ‘they’—the ‘they’ in ‘They are coming.'”

(End of Volume Six)