The next day, Shen Zhuxi brought Li Kun to the clan chief’s house once again.

Faced with her repeated visits, the Rong tribespeople were no longer surprised, and at most would glance at her before turning back to their own affairs.

Li Kun seemed to come and go from the clan chief’s house frequently, wandering about as if it were his own home. With no one to attend to him, he walked quite naturally to the wooden rack in the corner, picked up a jar of honey, and without asking anyone, began scooping it out with his hand and eating it.

“Diao’er…” Taking without asking was stealing. Seeing this, Shen Zhuxi couldn’t help but speak up.

“…Hm?” Li Kun lifted his honey-glazed chin without any urgency and pointed at the female clan chief sitting on the stone bed, saying, “All can eat, eat anything… she said so.”

The female clan chief indeed had no objection whatsoever to his behavior and tacitly permitted his conduct.

“You two… have made up your minds?” Dong Miji looked suspiciously at Shen Zhuxi, who had arrived at the clan chief’s house earlier than expected.

“We have.” Shen Zhuxi said, “Although we can’t bear to leave him behind, if we give up this opportunity and let him remain muddled by our side for the rest of his life… that too would be a kind of selfishness. We can keep him here, but only on the condition that you are able to cure his condition.”

Dong Miji relayed the parts he understood to the female clan chief.

The female clan chief had originally been sitting cross-legged on the stone bed, one well-muscled right leg raised and resting against the hand that held a stone knife, as if the two of them didn’t exist at all, quietly grinding a small piece of ivory in her hand.

Upon hearing Dong Miji’s translation, she finally lifted her tranquil, unruffled eyes and looked toward them.

“Peluni.” She spoke, and as she did, she lowered her raised right leg, rose from the bed, and walked toward Shen Zhuxi.

“Follow me.” Dong Miji quickly said, and was the first to fall in behind the female clan chief’s steps.

Shen Zhuxi grabbed the entranced, honey-eating Li Kun, and did her best to keep up with the long-striding female clan chief.

Their party walked out of the clan chief’s house and, led by the female clan chief, headed toward the area behind the clan chief’s house that they had never set foot in before. The wooden huts they saw along the way grew increasingly sparse, until at last only various peculiar stone carvings stood scattered haphazardly across the land. Countless wooden stakes were driven into the earth at angles, their sharpened ends covered in dried blood, piercing through yellowed skulls. Shen Zhuxi walked beneath the hollow-socketed gaze of countless skulls, barely managing to maintain a composed expression on her face, though cold sweat of fear had long since seeped through the back of her clothes.

Li Kun, by contrast, seemed to regard those human skulls as no different from the pig heads and ox heads at a marketplace. Not only could he ignore the gazes of the skulls, he could hold up his jar of honey and take large gulps directly from it. Such composure of spirit was something Shen Zhuxi, even if she trained for another hundred years, would never possess.

The ordeal of a journey that had been particularly torturous for Shen Zhuxi finally ended before a wide, smooth cliff face. The back of this cliff was covered with dense forest, and its jagged peaks pointed sharply toward the sky, but its front face was utterly barren — smooth as a block of tofu cut with a knife — and a pitch-black cave opening appeared abruptly in the center of the cliff, several zhang above the ground.

Familiar grey dust-mist drifted out from the cave opening. Shen Zhuxi was shocked to discover that the appearance and nature of that mist was identical in every way to the miasma that occupied the Swallowing Heaven Cave!

The female clan chief stopped some distance from the cliff face, placed her index finger and thumb in her mouth, and produced a whistle of an unusual pitch.

After a moment, the dust-mist gradually dissipated before Shen Zhuxi’s eyes.

A vine-woven rope ladder was thrown down from the cave opening.

The female clan chief was the first to grip the rope ladder and climbed up with swift agility. Next came Dong Miji, and finally Shen Zhuxi and Li Kun. Shen Zhuxi was staring at the rope ladder — which looked none too reliable — with apprehension, when Li Kun bent down and, to the accompaniment of her startled cry, hoisted her onto his shoulder.

“Hold honey tight, you, sit steady.” He stuffed the honey jar into her arms and spoke in his low, muffled voice.

Shen Zhuxi instinctively complied and gripped the collar of his clothing with both hands.

“Perhaps I should still climb on my own…”

Before Shen Zhuxi could finish speaking, Li Kun had already grabbed the rope ladder and was rapidly climbing upward.

Shen Zhuxi didn’t dare speak further and distract him; all her fear was channeled into her grip on Li Kun’s clothing.

Fortunately, Li Kun climbed the entire rope ladder in just a few moves. After he pulled himself up to the cave opening, he crouched on the ground and let Shen Zhuxi climb down herself. The female clan chief had already walked ahead into the cave opening where torches hung on the walls, leaving Dong Miji alone to wait at the entrance.

Shen Zhuxi caught a faint scent of medicinal herbs in the air. She guessed this was the antidote to counter the miasma, allowing friendly visitors to pass safely through the cave.

Under Dong Miji’s guidance, Shen Zhuxi and Li Kun stepped into the dimly lit cave opening.

The cave was full of branching passages. The air was damp and eerie, and a rustling sound came from some unknown place, sending chills down Shen Zhuxi’s spine and involuntarily tensing every muscle in her body.

At last, they came upon the female clan chief standing motionless at the entrance to a stone chamber. A silver-haired old woman stood barefoot beside her, her body, which wore not a stitch of clothing, adorned from head to toe with ivory ornaments. Upon seeing her, Dong Miji’s expression became respectful, and he said quietly to Shen Zhuxi, “Shaman-healer, we — able to cure illness.”

When the old woman saw Li Kun, she tottered toward him. The ornaments covering her body jingled with her every movement, the sound reverberating endlessly through the vast emptiness of the cave.

She extended her wrinkled hand and stopped it in midair before Li Kun. Shen Zhuxi came to her senses and quickly pulled Li Kun’s tall frame down, allowing the old woman’s claw-like hand to reach his head.

The old woman chanted softly in a melody Shen Zhuxi couldn’t understand, while inch by inch she felt across the entirety of Li Kun’s skull. Shen Zhuxi watched her movements with bated breath and didn’t dare exhale even once.

After a moment, the old woman’s hand stopped at a spot on Li Kun’s head. Her fingers repeatedly rubbed that place, while her mouth murmured continuously.

Dong Miji explained: “Shaman-healer says, evil spirit entered, from here.”

Li Kun uncomfortably tilted his head, wanting to escape from beneath the old woman’s fingers, and grumbled unhappily: “What are you doing touching me like that… Big Brother said… can’t let people touch us men casually…”

Shen Zhuxi cared about only one question: “Can the shaman-healer treat it?”

Dong Miji exchanged a few words with the old woman, then turned to Shen Zhuxi and nodded confidently: “Shaman-healer says, expel evil blood, can treat.”

“How is it treated?” Shen Zhuxi pressed further, “Is there any danger?”

Dong Miji couldn’t give a clear explanation, and only repeatedly explained that “it would be cured once the evil blood is sucked out.” Shen Zhuxi had no other options and could only take a chance and trust this shaman-healer once.

At the shaman-healer’s request, Shen Zhuxi had Li Kun lie down on the stone bed inside the chamber, while the old woman went out for a moment. When she returned, lying in her palm was a fat, moist worm. The creature looked extremely strange — Shen Zhuxi had never seen anything like it. Its head was almost entirely a large round mouth, and that mouth opened and closed ceaselessly, sucking in unknown herbs from beside it into its body.

There had been a time when touching a rat’s tail had made Shen Zhuxi cry and vomit for an entire night. Yet now she could force herself to suppress her nausea and remain standing in place, brow tightly furrowed, neither flinching nor retreating.

The old woman walked to the front of the stone bed. Her cloudy eyes swept across Shen Zhuxi and Li Kun’s faces, then she said something in a raspy voice.

“Shaman-healer says, will suck out the evil blood.” Dong Miji explained.

“Will there be any danger?” Shen Zhuxi looked at the hideous-looking worm and felt increasingly uneasy.

“Won’t be, don’t worry.” Dong Miji was very confident.

The old woman used one hand to part Li Kun’s hair, exposing a jagged scar at the place she had earlier repeatedly rubbed. The moment she placed the worm onto it, Li Kun suddenly struggled.

He slapped away the old woman’s hand, causing the worm in the old woman’s hand to fall to the ground as well. Li Kun sat up from the stone bed and said angrily, “What are you doing!”

“Diao’er, don’t move. This is the healer treating your illness…” Shen Zhuxi quickly placed her hand on Li Kun’s shoulder and tried to calm him.

“I’m not sick!” Li Kun said heatedly. “She’s using a worm to bite me!”

“That worm can treat…” Shen Zhuxi paused, then said, “It can make you smarter. Doesn’t Diao’er want to be as smart as Big Brother?”

Upon hearing these words, Li Kun’s expression softened somewhat, and he asked suspiciously, “One bite, and I can be as smart as Big Brother?”

“That’s possible.” Shen Zhuxi said gently in a coaxing tone. “Would Diao’er like to try?”

“…How smart?” Li Kun’s expression shifted subtly.

“You’ll be as smart as you used to be.”

“Before? Me? Smart?” Li Kun looked puzzled.

“The Diao’er of before was even smarter than Big Brother.” Shen Zhuxi recalled the words Li Wu had occasionally let slip to her, piecing together from them a completely different image of Li Kun, and slowly said, “Not only were you of incomparable strength, you also knew how to plan carefully before acting. Your temperament was steady and calm, never flustered. When someone was kind to you, you always kept it in your heart; when someone treated you badly, you always let it go with a smile. You were generous, kind, and brave. Whenever something happened, you were always the first to step forward and protect the younger brothers and sisters who were weaker than you…”

As Shen Zhuxi spoke, tears began to shimmer in her eyes. She held back the tears and smiled:

“You also had great aspirations… You wanted to pass the military examination and become a top martial scholar. I believe that with your abilities, you would certainly have achieved your wish. Once you passed the military examination and became a great general, you could return home in glory and grandeur to welcome Little Rui into marriage with all due honor…”

For some inexplicable reason, Li Kun grew agitated. He threw off his shoulder and, nearly furious, glared fiercely at Shen Zhuxi and roared: “No! I won’t!”

“Diao’er…” Shen Zhuxi was startled and frightened by this side of him she had never seen before.

“No! I won’t! I won’t!” Li Kun roared as he leapt down from the stone bed, shoved aside the old woman who was trying to pick up the worm, and before anyone could react, brought his foot down hard and crushed the fat worm.

A viscous liquid, bright red mixed with dark green, splattered in all directions beneath Li Kun’s foot. The old woman let out a shrill wail and threw herself before the worm, now reduced to a pulp, crying out in anguish without stop.

The female clan chief frowned as she watched Li Kun. Dong Miji wore an expression of shock and helplessness. Li Kun stood trembling, his furious gaze fixed on Shen Zhuxi, who stood frozen in place — his expression was one of anger and hurt.

“Diao’er…” Shen Zhuxi felt bewildered and uneasy, not knowing what she had said wrong.

She cautiously took a step toward Li Kun. Li Kun immediately took a step back.

“No! I won’t!”

He roared once more, then turned and charged out of the stone chamber without looking back.

“Diao’er!”

Shen Zhuxi called out and ran after him. After a few turns, she lost sight of the fleeing figure.

Dong Miji caught up not long after, pulling back Shen Zhuxi who still wanted to give chase, and said, “Careful, get lost, poisonous creatures, will die!”

“Then what about Li Kun?!” Shen Zhuxi said.

“I’ll find him!” Dong Miji said straightaway, “I find, you not worry!”

“We’ll go together!” Shen Zhuxi said immediately.

Seeing her determined attitude, Dong Miji had no choice but to agree.