Chapter Three: The Fragmented Scripture

The coolness of the black jade ointment seeped into his flesh, like countless tiny ice needles piercing deep into his wounds. In the latter half of the night, Lin Mo endured waves of spasmodic, dull pain and bone-chilling cold. When dawn barely broke, he managed to haul himself up from the communal bedding almost by instinct alone. The wound on his back felt as though it had been scraped raw with coarse sandpaper, each movement tugging at it until blackness swam before his eyes.

He fumbled into his tattered coarse jacket, the rough fabric scraping against the bandaged wound, sending a fresh surge of searing pain through him. At the other end of the sleeping platform, Zhou Xiaoxiao’s snoring thundered, deep and oblivious. Lin Mo didn’t disturb him. He staggered unsteadily to the water vat in the corner, scooped up half a dipper of icy, leftover water, and splashed it over his face. The biting cold made him shudder, but at least it cleared the fog from his mind a little.

Outside in the courtyard, shadows were already flitting about, preparing for the day’s labor. The steward Wang’s raspy voice hadn’t yet sounded, but already the air was thick with an unspoken urgency. Lin Mo walked to the wall corner, habit drawing him toward the pair of nightsoil buckets reeking with the sour stench of yesterday. The moment he moved his shoulder, the muscles in his back spasmed violently, making him suck in a sharp breath, his arm frozen mid-air.

“All right, enough! Look at you, half dead—don’t go tipping the bucket over yourself!” Wang had appeared at the gate without warning, frowning, eyeing Lin Mo up and down with undisguised distaste, as if appraising a tool on the verge of breaking. “No need to empty the nightsoil today.”

Lin Mo blinked, looking at the steward.

Wang waved impatiently. “The herb garden behind the mountain’s short-handed. Old Li twisted his ankle again yesterday; you fill in for a couple of days! Take stock of the Red Sun Grass, pull some weeds, and keep an eye out so the wild animals don’t ruin things! Just don’t get in the way here!” He paused, his gaze sweeping over Lin Mo’s pale face and stiff posture, then added, “Do some lighter work! Don’t go dying there, it’s bad luck!”

The rear mountain herb garden? Lin Mo’s heart sank. That place lay at the edge of the forbidden zone, right beside the treacherous medicinal picking area that had swallowed seven laborers. Mist shrouded it year-round, damp and cold. So-called “light work” was merely a pretext to get him out of sight, exiling him to a lonelier and more dangerous place.

He said nothing, just nodded quietly. At least this kept him away from Zhao Qing’s crowd and spared him from the training grounds for a while—a small mercy.

“Here, catch!” Something warm wrapped in oiled paper was thrust into his hands. Zhou Xiaoxiao, awake now and sporting a wild nest of hair, ambled over yawning, his face already sporting his usual guileless grin. “Snuck into the kitchen last night while the old cook nodded off, lifted two still-warm cornbreads. Eat up—the back mountain’s a dreary haunt!”

Inside the wrapper were two fist-sized, dark-colored coarse grain buns, exuding the rough aroma of whole grain. Lin Mo gripped the parcel, feeling the faint warmth on his fingertips, but said nothing.

“What’re you looking at? I just don’t want you passing out from hunger and making me haul you back!” Zhou Xiaoxiao scoffed, giving him a push. “Get going! Don’t slow me down from making a good impression with the nightsoil!”

Lin Mo tucked the buns away, collected a battered hoe and an old, worn-out basket from the storeroom, and, dragging his numb right leg, made his way slowly toward the back mountain.

The further he went, the heavier the chill and dampness became. Towering ancient trees blotted out the sky, their gnarled roots sprawling over the slippery path, moss filling the cracks in the stone steps. Mist, thick as milk, drifted from the heart of the forest and the sheer cliffs, winding about his cuffs and hair, carrying the mingled scents of earth, rot, and some nameless plant. The silence was oppressive; only his own heavy breathing, the crunch of his feet on wet leaves, and the distant, indistinct sounds—wind or perhaps the low howl of some beast—broke the stillness.

The herb garden lay on a relatively gentle, sun-facing slope, fenced in by crude bamboo. A few sparse beds of Red Sun Grass drooped listlessly, their dark red leaves beaded with fine droplets. The air was so damp it seemed it could be wrung out, and Lin Mo’s wound crawled with pain and itching in this clammy environment, as though a thousand ants were gnawing at it.

He set down the basket, leaned on the hoe, and circled the garden once. In several places, the fence had been breached by wild animals; on the ground, chewed stems of Red Sun Grass lay scattered. He quietly blocked the gaps with dead branches, then began to count the wilted herbs in one corner, each bend of his back tugging painfully at his injury.

Time crept by in the cold, wet fog. Only the occasional scrape of his hoe against stone and the unsettling rustle from deep in the mountains broke the silence. Mechanically, Lin Mo took stock and weeded, his mind as heavy and congested as the mist. Zhao Qing’s arrogant face, Su Li’s indifferent gaze like a frozen lake, Wang’s sneering scowl—all flickered before his eyes. A stifling mix of pain and humiliation churned in his chest, seeking an outlet.

He straightened, his aching waist making him wince, and his gaze drifted beyond the edge of the herb garden to where the mist thickened and roiled, hiding countless secrets. The treacherous gathering zone lay just beyond. Seven lives lost there… What was concealed within?

The meager warmth from the Red Sun Grass and Zhou Xiaoxiao’s cornbread had long been driven off by the ever-penetrating cold. Hunger, like a cold hook, seized his stomach once more. He drew out the oiled-paper bundle, took out a bun—cold and hard as stone—bit into it with effort, the gritty grains scraping his throat as he forced it down, his esophagus raw as if sanded.

Just then—

Rustling. A rapid, urgent friction, different from wind in the leaves, suddenly erupted from the dense forest below the garden’s steep slope! The sound drew swiftly closer!

Every hair on Lin Mo’s body stood on end. He dropped the bun and gripped his hoe tightly, body taut, eyes locked on where the sound came from.

The mist boiled. In a flash, a gray-brown shadow burst from a clump of ferns! It was small, no bigger than a civet cat, its entire body covered in slimy, mud-caked scales. Its limbs were short but surprisingly powerful, sending it darting across the slick ground. Its head was most unsettling—no eyes, just a mouth slit nearly to its ears, bristling with fine, sharp teeth, now gaping wide and hissing with a chilling, tooth-aching sound.

A Stone-Scaled Worm Lizard! A low-level demon beast that burrowed in the damp crevices of the back mountain, vicious, its teeth laced with paralyzing venom! One alone wasn’t much, but a single bite in this remote place could easily prove fatal!

The creature had sensed Lin Mo, though it had no eyes, as if it could still pinpoint the breath of living things. Its slimy head snapped toward him, maw splitting wider, a shriller hiss escaping as its stubby limbs tore at the earth, launching itself like a gray arrow straight at Lin Mo’s leg!

Lin Mo’s pupils contracted. Instinct for survival honed in the lowest rungs of life took over—he flung his body backward, swinging the hoe in a sharp arc at the gray blur!

Thud!

The wooden shaft struck the lizard’s slick side with a muffled blow, sending it tumbling into a gnarled tree root. But the blow wasn’t fatal—if anything, it enraged the beast. Hissing, it shook its head and lunged again, even faster, its fetid breath almost in Lin Mo’s face!

The sudden dodge tore his back wound anew, pain blacking out his vision for a heartbeat, slowing his reflexes. The creature’s toothy maw was about to close on his ankle.

In the nick of time!

Lin Mo flung himself sideways, landing heavily in the cold, soggy leaf-mold, his wound slamming into the ground and nearly knocking the breath from him. The lizard missed, snapping up a mouthful of dirt where he had just stood.

Seizing the moment, Lin Mo, teeth clenched against the pain, scrambled on hands and knees, fleeing headlong toward the dense forest below the slope. He dared not look back, only aware of the lizard’s chilling hiss and the scrape of claws in relentless pursuit. The fog and slippery ground made every step treacherous, his wound screaming with every jolt, cold sweat and mud plastering his face.

He staggered blindly, desperate to escape, when suddenly his foot slipped—a loose stone giving way beneath him. He lost his balance, a scream catching in his throat, and tumbled headlong down a steep, mossy incline!

The world spun. His body bounced uncontrollably over wet earth, stones, and tangled roots, his wound crushed and torn again and again, pain surging over him like a tide. Instinctively, he curled up to protect his head.

He had no idea how long he tumbled. Suddenly, his back slammed into something hard and icy, the impact nearly knocking him senseless. At last, he stopped rolling.

Lin Mo lay sprawled in the cold muck, gasping for breath, each inhale tugging at the wound that now felt nothing but burning agony. Darkness danced before his eyes, his ears rang, and cold, muddy water clogged his mouth and nose, reeking of earth and rot.

It was a long while before the dizziness and pain ebbed enough for him to regain his wits. The lizard’s hissing seemed to have faded. He raised his head with effort, wiping mud from his eyes.

He was in a small hollow at the base of the mountain, the light above dimmed by dense canopy and fog. He lay atop a heap of slippery stones and thick humus, stopped by a great, inward-slanting wall of black rock. The rock was slick with deep green moss, water beading and trickling down its face.

He braced his arms to sit up, but agony in his back sent him collapsing again, his elbow slamming into something sharp and hard beneath him.

Hissing in pain, he reached down to feel it.

It wasn’t just a jagged rock—rather, it had a strange texture: cold and hard, neither quite stone nor jade. Something was engraved on its surface.

Fighting the pain, Lin Mo scraped away the moss and rotting leaves with muddy fingers.

A palm-sized, irregular black shard emerged. Its material seemed neither jade nor stone, wholly black and icy to the touch. The edges were fractured, as if broken from a larger whole.

What caught his eye most were the characters carved into its surface—ancient, twisted strokes, as if gouged by a primitive blade, exuding a savage and ominous aura. Each line was heavy and chaotic, more a scream of pain or a brand of despair than any writing he’d known. Just looking at them filled him with a formless dread, as though cold tides swept over his ankles.

He tried to look away, but the twisted script seemed to exert a strange pull, gripping his mind. Even the pain in his back dulled beneath its uncanny influence.

What was this? Who would abandon something so ominous in the forbidden depths of the back mountain?

Compelled, he reached out, brushing the remaining dirt from the shard’s surface to see more clearly. His fingertip met the cold, oddly patterned surface.

The instant his finger touched the shard—

Buzz!

A surge of indescribable, icy, and piercing energy shot into him, as if a venomous serpent had lain in wait, striking straight through his fingertip.