Chapter 11
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: Breaking - 5
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The girl sank into the water with her eyes tightly shut. Whether from the shock of the fall or the blow to her heart, she had lost consciousness. The ancient spring silently swallowed her whole, wrapping around her like silk.
The water flowed in, filled her, then rushed out again, surging forward. The spring was profoundly deep, brimming with water. To the naked eye, it looked like any ordinary mountain pond, a mystery of the mountains ignored by passersby. The thick currents would swell up only to recede like the tide, vanishing somewhere into the depths.
The rapids struck swiftly. Before the unconscious girl could drown, they yanked her along. As if refusing to let even a single drop enter her lungs, they fiercely enveloped her. Then the underwater channel below carried her swiftly away, thrusting her into a massive waterway. Like wreckage washed ashore, the girl ended up stranded in a river within a cave.
It was a miracle.
Her fingers twitched. The tips curled delicately.
Anyone glancing past wouldn't have noticed. But they moved again. Now, and now. The fingers clenched. What had been forming a small fist then opening gripped a protruding rock. Silently pulling on the stone, her body was drawn toward the shallows.
Her eyes opened, and a chill set in. Her soaked body cooled rapidly. The surroundings were a darkness lit by faint glimmers.
Stones, rocks, slick and damp limestone like melted wax. Stalactites. The girl had never seen a cave before. Plip. A small droplet fell from above, landing on her head. The girl quietly took in the world. It was no different from before. Dark, cold, chaotic.
The girl moved forward in silence. Deeper in the cave, a small light flickered.
In the quiet, her footsteps echoed softly. As the light grew nearer, more details emerged. First, that the glow wasn't from an oil lamp or campfire. Fist-sized orbs hung from the ceiling, emanating fire and warmth, each containing a dancing flame. Even a fingernail-sized shard could buy a tiled roof house—they were night pearls.
Where the night pearls' light poured down, there was an old writing desk and a corpse clad in splendid robes. The desk was worn to the point of crumbling, and the corpse's clothes were on the verge of rotting away. Yet the wood grain held strength, and the garments were the softest silk imaginable; clearly, they had once been treasures.
A single book lay motionless atop the desk.
The girl absorbed the warmth of the night pearls as she gazed at the corpse. The dead did not stir. She quietly studied the white and black bone fragments, the stains clinging to the marrow.
The skull's hollows returned empty answers. Silence, wrapped in tattered silk, stared back at her. From afar, the sound of water lapped gently.
Closing her eyes to the resentment gleaming there, she picked up the book. At the beginning, in neat script, it read:
Fellow Traveler.
The ink lines were fine and precise, revealing the writer's very temperament.
Fellow Traveler, even this one writing I leave you is born of my lingering attachment. Time is fleeting, memories fade—that is the way of life, and the Supreme Lord has decreed all things to decay, as they should. Yet my foolish obsession has left this behind.
No matter how lofty one's achievements in life, they cannot touch the heavens; it is all futile struggling.
I am Yushin Liang. Born the son of a woodcutter, I wandered the jianghu and endured over fifty years with my strange constitution. The Supreme Lord is fair, granting us neither excess nor lack—that realization led me to mastery of the acupoints. At one hundred twenty, I ascend, leaving my legacy here. Take it up, and a moment's silent prayer for me will suffice.
In the next chapter, I record my achievements. Fellow Traveler, engrave them deeply.
The girl's hand froze. In the dim light, it trembled faintly.
Was it hope?
Blood flickered in her mind. Gangil's blood drenching her, the neck she had snapped today, the people who hadn't spared her a glance, fragments of words that pierced like winter cold—they all came alive. Martial artists seeking Flash Guest's legacy, the autumn day burning mercilessly—it all surged back. At last, she murmured softly.
"Mountain Immortal..."
It was a faint whisper. She didn't even know what she poured into it. She simply had to call. Wanted to call. Let the next page, scrawled on the rustling paper, be her salvation. Stroking her trembling cheek, the girl turned the page.
Shh.
And then she stopped.
Her breath caught. The trembling halted, her faintly convulsing body stiffening unnaturally. For an instant. Her grip tightened. The decayed paper couldn't withstand it, crumbling from the corner. And again, the girl moved. Her body moved. A low wail, like a stifled scream, filled the space.
[All for naught.]
That was all the next page held—a single sentence.
The handwriting was bold. Heroic as a warrior's stele. Thick and dark, it laid bare the writer's state of mind. Flash Guest had been brimming with conviction. As if these words would save his reader, the characters marched across the page without hesitation, writhing on the paper. Alive, pulsing and leaping.
The girl clutched the book with all her might. The ancient tome crumbled like mud. Her breathing grew ragged, like a drowning man's. Her chest ached, burned so fiercely she couldn't bear it. A frantic hand clutched at her heart. Yet, yet... nothing changed.
Warmth trickled down her cheek. Her body shook. Her frame heaved in tiny sobs from head to toe. In the next moment, the girl screamed. The cry rose high like a dying soul's, raw and desperate. She wailed until her throat gave out, until no voice remained. Where hope had vanished, pain rushed in.
For the past three days, she had barely rested. She ran for Gangil, then from the place he died. In the rain-soaked mountains, she ran all day and throttled a man's neck. The bruises beneath her skin screamed in protest. Her exhausted body from crying weighed like a thousand pounds.
What had the Mountain Immortal been doing then?
As the flames raged so fiercely, as the fields ran red, had he done nothing? What was he doing when his own statue's head was severed?
He was absent.
When villagers died. When flames were hurled onto the dead. When the shrine collapsed and obscenities were heaped upon it. To the girl and Gangil, to the villagers... to us.
There were no heroes, no Mountain Immortal, no Jade Emperor, no Buddha.
The girl's eyes—those eyes alone—grew sharper in the darkness. At last, she saw. The wavering night pearl flames, the shadow of dead Gangil beckoning from beyond. At some point, she murmured.
"No."
Someone had to become it.
For the weak, for those with nowhere to turn, she had to show them that such a thing existed somewhere.
So she had to survive. Grow stronger.
The girl's hand clenched the dirt tightly. Her body, which strengthened with emotion, rejected rest. A tiny spark ignited deep in her eyes. Fwoosh. It sank into her black pupils. The ceaseless blaze resembled the night pearls' glow.
Her delicate hand pressed the ground. In the warm, damp soil, a worm slithered by. Crunch. A thick, cloying taste filled her mouth. When the wriggling legs burst inside, a strangely refreshing sensation washed over her. The girl stood. Pressing the earth, pushing away the soil. Leaning against the wall, she surveyed the cavern.
The girl remembered. The way the nine-foot giant moved his body, how the dragon-patterned man circulated his qi. She recalled it vividly. She could mimic it exactly now. Where, how far they had struck. How it amplified and grew.
The minions those two commanded had circulated qi in a similar fashion. Like parent and child. They must have passed on their innate constitutions to others. Within the sect's bounds, teaching and nurturing each other. And thus.
They grew that strong.
But the girl had no one. Only darkness and herself. It didn't matter. She had work to do now.
Something someone had to do. Since no one else would, she had no choice.
If not a god, then a demon.
Her ink-black eyes scanned the cave. She took in what the night pearls illuminated. Worms crawling feebly. Moss growing on rock piles. Clear water. Time was plentiful. Crunch. The girl put another worm in her mouth.
In the small cavern, something crumbled with a sound.
And time flowed on.
The Dragon Star Clan and Huangfu Clan departed, leaving only massive losses in their wake. A mutual defeat, neither eager to publicize the details, so the truth was buried. When snow fell on the ashes, no one inquired about Engchon Village's fire; only its aftermath quietly rippled through the world.
Some bided their time for opportunities, others plotted comebacks. In the prelude to uneasy strife, the martial world grew harsher. The imperial court, dysfunctional for decades, showed no interest in jianghu affairs. Had the emperor lost his vigor? The next summer brought torrential rains. The autumn harvest was meager, and many starved.
Winter again. Then spring. Finally, the next winter, when slash-and-burn folk scavenging near old Engchon's site gathered corpses... someone spotted a massive rock split deep in the mountains.
"Hey, what's inside?"
"Nothing. Just bone shards and some rags."
"Then let's go."
The starving wanderers lost interest.
Amid the thick snowdrifts, a single large rabbit's footprint remained.