Chapter Fourteen: Traces of the Hidden Hand

The Back Mountain.

Those words seared into Lin Mo’s clouded consciousness like a branding iron, burning and unrelenting. A cold, heavy sense of fatal guidance, reeking of death, clung to him like maggots to bone, deeply rooted in his perception. The summons from the Abyss of Buried Immortals was not a sound, but a pull from his very blood and marrow, tugging at the “stone” throbbing in his chest and at the shreds of his consciousness.

Don’t go... That’s a deathtrap...

His remaining reason screamed in protest, yet deep within his body, that icy pulse throbbed with an undeniable force. With every beat, as if echoing the abyss’s call, the oppressive heaviness pulsed with something almost... a yearning?

Lin Mo lay sprawled on the cold wooden boards, like a fish dragged ashore, left only with labored, heavy breaths. The numb, burning pain in his back, the dull, uneasy throbbing in his chest, and the soul-wearying exhaustion from the forced “feeding” of earthy, impure energy all tangled together, pulling him to the brink of collapse. Outside, the thick darkness pressed against the window like ink, smothering all light.

Just as his mind was about to sink completely into this icy blackness, the crooked wooden door of the dorm creaked—ever so slightly, almost lost beneath the snores.

Someone was coming in.

Not the heavy steps of Steward Wang, nor the clumsy shuffles of other half-asleep laborers. The footsteps were so light, like a lynx treading fallen leaves, deliberate and... wary.

Lin Mo’s heart seized. Every muscle went taut, the wounds on his back flaring with fresh pain. He squeezed his eyes shut, burrowed his face deeper into the foul, blood-stained straw mat, and slowed his breathing to a whisper, body stiff as a corpse.

In the darkness, the footsteps paused, as if orienting. Then they moved—straight toward the corner where Lin Mo lay.

Each step pressed down on his nerves. Who? Zhao Qing, come back? Or someone else aware of something amiss?

A chill crept up his spine, freezing him to the marrow. The “stone” in his chest seemed to sense the threat, its pulse quickening, an icy vigilance rising from the oppressive weight.

The footsteps stopped before the bed. A faint scent, mingling night dew and the sharp tang of herbs, drifted in, cutting through the room’s blood and sweat.

Lin Mo’s heart plummeted. That scent—he knew it.

Zhou Xiaoxiao.

Why had he returned now? What did he want?

Lin Mo held his breath, rigid as iron, not daring even to flutter an eyelash. He felt a gaze settle upon him—cold, sharp, penetrating, as though it sought to peel away his skin and see what monster lurked within.

Time seemed to congeal. In the dark, only the rise and fall of snores and Zhou Xiaoxiao’s nearly inaudible breathing filled the silence.

After a few breaths, Zhou Xiaoxiao moved.

He made no sound, did not touch Lin Mo. Only the faintest rustle—fabric brushing—reached Lin Mo’s ears. Then a stronger, pungent herbal scent filled the air—Black Jade Wound Powder.

Zhou Xiaoxiao was tending his wounds again.

His movements were gentle, a deliberate caution utterly unlike his usual glibness. Lin Mo felt the cool powder sprinkled on his burning, numb wounds, sharp pain flaring anew, but Zhou Xiaoxiao’s hands remained steady, unhesitating. He seemed to be cleaning the torn edges, reapplying the medicine, then wrapping them with fresh, relatively clean cloth.

The whole process was silent, save for the faint hiss of powder on flesh and the soft friction of the cloth. Now and again, Zhou Xiaoxiao’s fingers brushed intact skin—cool with night dew, carrying a subtle, inexplicable steadiness, so different from his usual playful manner.

Lin Mo’s heart lodged in his throat, his body stone-stiff. He dared not move, dared not react, forced to endure this probing “treatment,” a torment worse than Zhao Qing’s whip. Just how much did Zhou Xiaoxiao know? Had he discovered the secret of the Void Heaven Scripture?

As the wrapping reached beneath Lin Mo’s left scapula, Zhou Xiaoxiao’s fingers seemed to pause—just for a split second.

That spot.

Lin Mo’s heart clenched as if in an icy grip. Close to his heart—where the Void Heaven Scripture’s fragment resided, where the protective array’s power had nearly torn him apart, where Zhou Xiaoxiao’s gaze had lingered earlier, perhaps spotting that faint, dark mark.

But the fingers moved on smoothly, as if nothing had happened, still steady—yet in that instant Lin Mo’s nerves were stretched to the breaking point, cold sweat soaking the new bandages.

When Zhou Xiaoxiao finished, he seemed to exhale softly, the breath tinged with exhaustion. He did not leave immediately, but stood in silence by the bed.

In the darkness, Lin Mo felt that gaze upon him again—like an icy awl, piercing, dissecting. It lingered on the newly bandaged wound, hovered over his stiff neck, finally seeming to fix again on the spot beneath his left scapula.

Time passed, each second an agony.

At last, the gaze withdrew. Zhou Xiaoxiao’s footsteps sounded—still light—heading for the door. The door creaked softly as it closed, the steps fading into the thick darkness beyond.

Only after Zhou Xiaoxiao had truly gone did Lin Mo, as if collapsing, let his body go limp, gasping for breath. Each inhalation tore at his chest, heavy and raw. Cold sweat ran in rivulets from his brow, soaking the straw mat.

He struggled to roll onto his side, probing the new bandages in the dark. Zhou Xiaoxiao’s work was expert, the cloth tight and firm, binding both the wound and Lin Mo’s surging fear. Yet his fingers, trembling, strayed to the spot beneath his left scapula, near his heart.

The skin there was rough, cold, gritty with powdered medicine. Beneath it, he could feel the “stone” in his chest pulsing, alive.

Zhou Xiaoxiao—he must have noticed something!

That realization coiled around Lin Mo’s heart like a venomous snake. The sharpness beneath Zhou Xiaoxiao’s slick facade, the deliberate probing, the brief pause—everything pointed to the same answer. He might not know of the “Void Heaven Scripture,” but he had surely sensed Lin Mo’s abnormality—the presence of the “stone.”

Fear, cold as a tidal wave, engulfed him again. To the inner disciples like Zhao Qing, he was just an ant to be trampled. But in Zhou Xiaoxiao’s eyes, this seemingly harmless “servant” harbored a curiosity, a need for surveillance—he had become an “anomaly.”

Haunted by the abyss’s call before and Zhou Xiaoxiao’s cold scrutiny behind, he was like a moth caught in a spider’s web, the invisible threads tightening inexorably.

He struggled upright, the wound on his back screaming. Outside, the darkness pressed like congealed ink. He groped in the bedding for the roots of Red Sun Grass that Zhou Xiaoxiao had earlier tucked away.

The roots were cold, earthy, tinged with a faint, spicy vitality.

At their scent, the “stone” in his chest seemed to throb faster, a faint, greedy pull awakening.

Lin Mo’s eyes darkened with something close to self-destructive resolve. He shoved a root into his mouth and chewed hard.

The coarse, bitter grass juice filled his mouth, a weak warmth slipping down his throat. It was a feeble spark, struggling against the cold and heaviness within him.

He had to survive. At least now, he needed that flicker of warmth to face the deeper darkness yet to come.

He leaned against the cold wall, gaze piercing the cracked window toward the back mountain, now swallowed by dense fog. In the dark, it felt as if countless invisible eyes watched him from the depths.

He did not sleep that night.

Dawn was barely a rumor, the fog still pressing heavily on the mountain. Gray-white mist drifted among the trees, carrying a bone-deep chill.

When Steward Wang’s raucous voice jolted Lin Mo awake, his body felt filled with cold lead—heavy, sluggish, every movement tugging pain from his back and a throb from his chest. The Black Jade Wound Powder Zhou Xiaoxiao had used was potent—the surface of his wounds forced closed, but the deeper tissue still felt pierced by countless hot needles. Worse was the mental exhaustion, as if he’d spent the night walking a tightrope.

“Lin Mo! If you’re not dead yet, get up!” Steward Wang stood in the doorway, arms akimbo, impatience in his eyes with a hint of hidden wariness. “The herb garden’s short-handed, Old Li’s twisted his ankle again! You go take over! Don’t let me see you dawdling about!” He raised his voice, as if distancing himself from something.

The herb garden—again? On the edge of the forbidden back mountain?

Lin Mo’s heart sank. Coincidence? Or... was someone arranging this? Instinctively, he glanced at Zhou Xiaoxiao’s bedding—the man was already gone.

“What are you waiting for? Want me to carry you out in a sedan chair?” barked Steward Wang, sharper now.

Lin Mo said nothing, gritting his teeth against the pain as he climbed down. Each step sent knives through his back and a dull throb through his chest. He grabbed the battered old hoe and broken basket by the door and trudged into the cold, deathly back mountain path.

The fog was thicker than before, people vanishing a few steps away. Slick stone steps, tangled roots, the earthy rot mingling with the scent of unknown plants—everything was as oppressive as before.

But Lin Mo’s senses had changed utterly.

The “stone” in his chest, upon setting foot in the back mountain, began to throb more clearly—vividly, eagerly. The heaviness remained, but each beat now carried a strange resonance, as if some slumbering beast had returned to its lair, breathing low and content.

The cold, heavy guidance from the Abyss of Buried Immortals was starkly clear, like a ghostly lantern blazing in the fog, pointing him onward. The summons was no longer just a perception but a soul-deep tug, a longing from his very blood.

Lin Mo’s grip on the hoe trembled. He forced down the fear and unnatural craving, keeping his head low, body hunched, as he made his way to the sunlit slope where the herb garden lay.

The garden was still encircled with a crude bamboo fence, the Red Sun Grass drooping, cold dew beading on their leaves. The air was so damp it could be wrung out.

Lin Mo set down his basket, leaning on the hoe, not immediately beginning the day’s work. His gaze, beyond his control, drifted past the sparse fence toward the rolling, impenetrable fog beyond.

That was the direction of the Abyss of Buried Immortals.

The mist churned silently, like a vast, icy shroud. Yet to Lin Mo’s sharpened senses, something seemed to stir deep within—not a living thing, but a presence... cold, ancient, enormous, silent for eons—an intent, awakening beneath the concealment of fog, like a leviathan opening invisible eyes beneath the sea.

It was cold, heavy, stinking of death and decay, yet it exuded an ineffable, primal majesty that sent the heart racing. It resonated with the “stone” in his chest; each pulse deepened the connection.

Lin Mo’s heart pounded, palms clammy with sweat. He wrenched his gaze away, not daring to look longer. His back ached with tension. Forcing himself to bend over, he began mechanically clearing weeds along the edge of the garden.

His movements were slow, every bend tugging at his wounds. The cold mist clung to his skin, biting deep. Yet the “stone” in his chest seemed oddly “content” in this environment, the heaviness loosening slightly, a faint warmth at its core pulsing just a bit more strongly.

As he uprooted a stubborn weed, about to straighten for a breath—

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught something by the gap in the fence, in the muddy soil.

There, where he’d been trampled during the stone-scaled worm-lizard attack days ago, the earth was still churned and slick. And at the edge of those chaotic footprints, a hint of something—dull gold, almost hidden by mud.

Lin Mo froze. His heart clenched in icy terror.

Holding his breath, he slowly bent closer.

The mud and rotten leaves were a mess, but at the edge of the upturned earth, a few tiny flecks of dark gold—smaller than grains of rice—lay half-buried in the muck. The color was coldly metallic, yet glimmered with a strange, unearthly luster.

Lin Mo’s pupils shrank to pinpoints.

That color... that texture...

It was identical to the black fragment he’d found on the back mountain—the one that had merged into his body.

A fragment of the Void Heaven Scripture?

How had it ended up at the edge of the herb garden?

Had it fallen here that night, or... had something brought it?

A surge of terror seized him. He instinctively reached out, hand trembling, to touch those dark gold flecks.

Just as his fingers hovered above the mud—

A piercing chill, sharp as an ice needle, stabbed through the fog, driving straight into Lin Mo’s back—an overwhelming sense of being watched.

So familiar. So cold.

Lin Mo’s body locked rigid, blood turning to ice. He jerked his head up, following the sensation.

Across the fog-shrouded garden, at the base of a steep cliff in deep shadow, a faint, blurred pink silhouette had appeared—so insubstantial it seemed woven from mist, yet carrying an iciness that pierced to the bone.

Her.

Su Li? Hadn’t she left?

Lin Mo’s fingers hovered above the muck, barely an inch from the flecks of gold. The chilling gaze fastened on him, relentless. The “stone” in his chest seemed to sense this powerful, hostile scrutiny, its pulse faltering, then surging with sullen defiance.

The fog flowed like icy curtains. The flecks of gold glimmered faintly in the mire. Beneath the cliff’s shadow, the pink silhouette stood motionless, as if sculpted from fog and frost.

Lin Mo remained frozen, fingers suspended, as if held by invisible ice. Before him, a deadly secret; behind him, a gaze as cold as death. One false step—and he would fall into an abyss.