Chapter Twelve: Night Devourer

The battered wooden door of the menial workers’ dormitory, kicked askew, creaked as it swayed, slicing the heavy twilight and churning mist outside into fractured shadows. The footsteps of Zhao Qing and his companions, carried away on the wind alongside Steward Wang’s sycophantic apologies, vanished swiftly into the dense fog, like stones cast into a deep pool, leaving behind a deeper silence. The oppressive hum from the forbidden grounds behind the mountain gradually subsided, as if some great beast had sunk back into the abyss. The faint azure glow of the mountain-protecting array faded entirely, and the dormitory was once again filled with a thick, muddled air—tinged with blood, herbs, and sweat.

In the deathly quiet, only Lin Mo’s labored, suppressed breaths remained, rasping like a broken bellows barely clinging to life. The wound on his back, taut with tension, burned anew like an awakened serpent gnawing at his nerves. The cold "stone" in his chest beat with a steadier rhythm, its heavy sluggishness like invisible shackles, each heartbeat echoing dully.

Zhou Xiaoxiao stood near the communal bedding, his back to the fragmented light at the doorway, his figure especially silent in the dimness. The usual slickness and fear that marked his expression were gone, replaced by a calm as deep as a dark pond. When Zhao Qing’s fingers had nearly touched Lin Mo’s blood-caked wound, Zhou’s fingers twitched along his trouser leg with spectral speed, as though he’d exhausted some hidden reserve of pretense. Now, he stood quietly, his gaze fixed on Lin Mo’s ravaged back, his eyes deep as a well, betraying no ripple.

A long while passed—so long that Lin Mo’s ragged breathing carried a deathly hoarseness—before Zhou Xiaoxiao finally moved. He did not immediately tend to the wound. Instead, he bent with great care, avoiding the mangled flesh, and gently stripped away Lin Mo’s sweat- and blood-soaked shirt, its original color lost.

The chill air struck Lin Mo’s skin, making him shudder.

Zhou Xiaoxiao’s eyes, precise as a sculptor’s blade, swept inch by inch across Lin Mo’s exposed, gaunt back. The wound, smeared with hemostatic vine powder, was the focal point, yet Zhou’s gaze did not linger there. His eyes, sharp and cold, nearly penetrated as if in scrutiny, tracing the jagged lines of shoulder blades, the taut muscles alongside his spine, and over skin scarred by years of toil, mottled with bruises and thick calluses... Finally, they settled below the left shoulder blade, near the heart.

There, beneath the grimy skin, seemed to be a faint, irregular dark mark. Its shape was ill-defined, its edges blurred—a remnant of an old bruise, perhaps, or a birthmark, lost among the scrapes and signs of labor, utterly unremarkable. If Zhou’s gaze hadn’t been so intensely focused, it would have gone unnoticed.

His pupils contracted imperceptibly in the dim light. In the depths of his eyes, the tumultuous shock was instantly replaced by a steely, icy clarity—as if confirming some world-shattering suspicion. He jerked his head up, his gaze like an ice pick piercing the broken roof, locking onto the fog-shrouded forbidden grounds behind the mountain. This time, beyond doubt, there was a weight to his gaze, heavy and unyielding, as if he’d glimpsed a horror capable of overturning everything.

He quickly looked away, as if nothing had happened. His face resumed the weary, anxious expression of a menial worker, and his movements became brisk. From his pocket, he produced a smaller oiled paper packet, its contents a dark brown powder with a sharper, more acrid scent—far stronger than the vine powder.

“Brace yourself! This ‘Black Jade Restorative Powder’ is my best stash—it’s potent!” Zhou’s voice returned to its usual sly tone, though if one listened closely, it was lower and hoarser, tinged with a barely perceptible tension. He grabbed the powder and pressed it without hesitation onto Lin Mo’s mangled flesh.

Lin Mo’s body jerked upright, a guttural, agonized scream bursting from his throat—far more harrowing than before. The moment the powder touched the wound, it was like molten lava mixed with red-hot iron sand pouring over him. The intense burning and bone-deep corrosion drowned his senses. Darkness and pain consumed his vision.

His last sensation before consciousness slipped was Zhou Xiaoxiao’s hands pressing firmly on his shoulders, steady and irresistible, pinning him to the grass mat. Those hands were rough and strong, with purple marks from the cold.

—

Darkness. Cold. Agony.

His consciousness drifted in a boundless sea of torment. The cold "stone" in his chest pulsed ever more clearly, each beat like a heavy hammer, grinding down the lingering chill of the mountain-protecting array, gradually dispelling it. The oppressive heaviness, like a thick layer of ice, began to melt and shift—not yet cleared, but no longer suffocating.

He did not know how much time passed before a faint, refreshing sensation—like a single ray of light in the darkness—pierced his pain, seeping in from the wound beneath the powerful powder. It was weak, yet like the first drop of rain on parched earth, it drew all his remaining awareness.

He struggled to lift his heavy eyelids. The dormitory was pitch black, save for a sliver of wan moonlight through the broken window, casting cold silver stripes on the floor. The other workers were curled up in the corners, fast asleep, their snoring rising and falling.

The burning pain in his back was replaced by deep numbness; the Black Jade Restorative seemed to have worked. But the strangest sensation came from within. The "stone" in his chest... its rhythm had changed.

No longer merely cold and heavy—within the slow, steady pulse, there was a subtle... pull? Like the unconscious breathing of a sleeping beast.

The pull was almost imperceptible, but real. It was not directed outward, but toward the dormitory floor, toward the musty, sweat-soaked grass mat, toward the dormant... lives within the room.

Lin Mo’s mind was still muddled, unable to grasp this feeling. He simply, instinctively, passively sensed the strange pulse and pull from the "stone" in his chest.

Then—

A small clump of dry grass beneath his mat trembled ever so slightly. Next, a wisp of faint, smoke-like green vapor, nearly invisible, was forcibly drawn from the lifeless grass. This breath carried the withered essence of plants, mingled with the last vestige of vitality. Drawn by an invisible magnet, it silently seeped through the mat and thin clothes, into Lin Mo’s back, merging with the slow pulse of the cold "stone."

The process was soundless and without spectacle—only Lin Mo, with senses sharpened by pain, could detect it.

As the faint green, withered plant essence was absorbed, the cold "stone" in his chest seemed to... ease ever so slightly. The heaviness felt as though a drop of lubricant had been added—still burdensome, but the pulse now faintly smoother.

Lin Mo’s heart skipped. An indescribable horror gripped him.

This thing... was absorbing the essence of plants!

Though extremely weak, and though the dried grass held only the barest trace of life, the process itself sent a chill through him. What had lodged in his body was not merely a foreign object, but something alive—a monster that needed to “feed.”

He instinctively tried to resist, to halt the bizarre process. But as soon as the thought formed, the "stone" in his chest sank heavily, a stronger sluggishness clamping his throat, halting his breath, stars exploding behind his eyes. The faint pull did not stop; instead, it strengthened slightly in response to his resistance.

No good—he had no control at all.

Lin Mo could only lie helpless, feeling the cold pulse and faint pull, like a spectator watching himself become a vessel and conduit for something unnatural.

This was more terrifying than Zhao Qing’s whipping or the crushing force of the mountain-protecting array—a negation and transformation of his very existence.

Time slipped by in the darkness. The faint pull intermittently drew out the last remnants of life from the mat’s grass, turning it to dead powder. Unsatisfied, it began—tentatively, faintly—to reach further, seeking traces of life in every corner of the dormitory: perhaps moss in the cracks, perhaps a wilted leaf by a worker’s pillow...

Then—

A faint, yet vibrant breath, bright as a lone lamp in the darkness, appeared at the edge of Lin Mo’s awareness. It was richer, purer than the dried grass, carrying a familiar, spicy warmth.

It was... Red Sun Grass!

Lin Mo suddenly remembered—Zhou Xiaoxiao had tossed the leftover roots from boiling Red Sun Grass into a pile of dry grass in the corner.

The cold "stone" in his chest seemed to notice this more “delicious” breath, its pulse quickening, the pull like a shark scenting blood, abandoning the thin grass essence and greedily, silently extending toward the corner.

Lin Mo’s heart leapt into his throat. No! He must not let it feed!

Driven by instinct, he summoned his last reserves of strength and rolled violently toward the corner.

Thud!

His body slammed onto the hard wooden floor, the wound on his back splitting with pain so fierce he nearly fainted. Yet the abrupt movement broke the pull’s trajectory.

The "stone" in his chest seemed infuriated by the interruption, shuddering violently, a cold heaviness pounding his chest.

He curled up in agony, blood rising in his throat.

In the corner, the Red Sun Grass roots remained unaware, their fresh, faint life undisturbed.

The dormitory was as silent as a grave. Only a few workers, disturbed by Lin Mo’s movement, muttered in their sleep, then settled again.

Lin Mo, curled on the cold floor, shivered uncontrollably from pain and terror. Cold sweat soaked his thin body. He bit down hard, stifling any sound, his gaze wild and fearful as he swept the sleeping workers, the dry grass hiding the Red Sun Grass, and finally, his own chest.

There, the cold pulse persisted. The faint pull, after a moment of fury, fell silent again, like a lurking serpent—not gone, merely... waiting.

His fingertips dug into the cracks between the boards, sharp splinters biting his flesh, bringing a pain that kept him lucid, reminded him he was alive. But to live meant to stay ever vigilant against the monster within, ready at any moment to awaken and devour life.

The night was far from over. Outside, the thick fog rolled silently, like a giant maw waiting to consume.