Where Immortals Once Walked

The cavern was jarringly wedged into the hillside, its shape irregular, and at its widest point, the mouth was at least thirteen meters across. From where the group stood, looking up at an angle, they saw that the cavern was not dark at all; on the contrary, light was spilling out from within.

Which meant there were even more glowspores inside.

Someone could not help blurting, “What is this place? And what’s that draped over the pit? A brocade?”

It did look as though the cave was covered by a single, enormous bolt of brocade, woven from gold, red, silver, and black silk threads. The patterning was highly abstract, but even by the light of the glowspores it shimmered with color, like the evening clouds at the edge of the sky.

Liu Tong said in a tight voice, “That’s not brocade. It’s a spiderweb, and there are spiders crawling on it.”

Only when one focused did it become clear that it was actually layer upon layer of webbing.

Whoever spun it clearly understood the art of light.

For the first time, He Lingchuan felt that spider silk could look even nobler than silkworm thread.

“Anyone can see that!” Skinny stared, rapt. “This should be the broodmother’s nest of the spider monster. It hasn’t been touched by fire.”

Spiders were indeed coming and going through the giant hole in a constant stream.

He Lingchuan, not knowing, asked, “I thought bees and ants were the social ones that live in groups and move in order. Spiders are mostly solitary, right? How come the spider monsters in Guizhen Stone Forest all move in packs?”

From a distance, these spiders really did look like ants. They were busy, bustling, and each seemingly with its own job.

“You’re talking about ordinary species’ habits. Once they become monsters, it’s different,” answered Willow. “We have an old saying: ‘When one gains enlightenment, even his chickens and dogs rise to heaven with him.’ It’s an exaggeration, since people who gain enlightenment still have nowhere to go, and chickens and dogs wouldn’t know where to fly anyway, but the logic isn’t wrong, and it applies to monsters too. Once a creature gains enlightenment or insight into the Dao, a large number of its kind will soon gather around it seeking protection, and its offspring will find it much easier to step onto the Dao as well.”

At once, He Lingchuan thought of the sand leopards to the west of Heishui City. Leopards were loners by nature, but that den of leopard monsters lived together, hunted together, and defended together; they had, indeed, become social.

If leopards could be like that, then it was nothing strange for the same to happen with spiders.

“But the flip side is, the burrowing spiders here in Guizhen Stone Forest are present in ridiculous numbers. Which can only mean—” Willow’s expression turned grim. “There’s very likely a greater monster in that broodmother’s nest!”

“Of course there is.” The guide stared blankly at the vast pit up the slope, his face drained of color. “This is Zhu Erniang’s home! We’re done for! We actually walked right into Zhu Erniang’s den!”

He Lingchuan glanced over. “This greater monster is actually called Zhu Erniang? Second Lady Zhu?” A greater monster living in a spider’s nest, what else could it be but an old spider monster? No wonder her surname was “Zhu.”[1]

Still, what’s with Erniang? Or second lady? Isn’t that title meant for village wives?

A spider monster that could weave brocade, taking on a human-style name...

“Yes. She’s the mistress of the stone forest, the Mother of Ten Thousand Spiders,” the guide stammered. “Long ago, these spiders ate people. Any cultivators who rushed into the Guizhen Stone Forest to exterminate them never came out again. Back then, Zhu Erniang’s name could stop babies from crying at night all across Puxi Gully!”

“We need to go!” His voice was quavering now. “We can’t stay here!”

So, putting out their torches earlier had been a wise decision. It was best not to alarm the broodmother.

Everyone set their feet down even more lightly and soothed their horses, trying to keep them quiet.

The spiders along the bank gathered in, no longer hissing and posturing as they had before. Instead, they crouched silently, as if they too did not dare make a sound.

After another dozen steps or so, the party suddenly noticed that several massive boulders lay on the slope above the great hole. The tallest, straightest one was bathed in glowspore light, and on it were three giant characters!

Skinny asked Doorboard, “What does the stele say?”

“How would I know?” Doorboard shot him a sidelong look. “Do I look like a pedant to you?”

The script seemed familiar, but in truth, none of them could read it.

Skinny laughed it off. “Maybe it just says Zhu Erniang.”

Meanwhile, He Lingchuan was much more astonished than they were.

He had seen this style of script before. He had seen it back at the immortal’s cave abode by Immortal Spirit Lake!

He still had not found anyone to decipher the rubbings he had taken of that immortal’s legacy text, and here in Guizhen Stone Forest, the very same script had appeared again.

This then raised a troubling question. Why would an ancient inscription be sitting at the mouth of a burrowing spider’s den?

Moreover, He Lingchuan noticed that under the glowspore light, the inscription was a vivid blood-red. This place was rarely trodden by people, so who had been coming by to retrace the characters in red? Otherwise, wind and rain should have long since washed the color away.

“The longer we stay in Guizhen Stone Forest, the stranger it gets,” Willow murmured. “This isn’t a place to linger. Let’s move.”

Safety first, she was not a woman with much curiosity.

Just as the party was about to turn away, the den’s “brocade” stirred though no wind was blowing; wave-like bands of light rippled across it, so exquisitely bright they were almost blinding.

An instant later, something enormous heaved itself out of the hole.

It was the size of a small house, with a back patterned in alternating brown and white, eight long legs, and a body bristling with coarse hairs.

It was a giant spider, dozens of times larger than the little ones crawling everywhere.

As with all colossal things, its very presence pressed down on the eyes. Even someone as brash as Willow could not help turning her head aside.

But then the giant spider flipped onto its back with a quickness that belied its bulk. Glowspore light washed over its abdomen, and everyone in the distance stared, wide-eyed.

Because the spider monster’s abdomen was simply too beautiful.

A cerulean ground like open sky; countless gleaming, gradient white specks like a field of stars; and several great lights tinged yellow and red, matching the main stars of a constellation.

A summer night’s sky had seldom looked better.

The giant spider promptly rolled back, planting all eight feet on the ground and hiding that star map away; the ferocity returned, and beauty gave way to menace.

Countless small spiders swarmed around it as if delivering reports.

Then the giant spider set off toward the northeast.

It looked massive, but it moved with uncanny quiet.

Spiders filled the ravine and hillside, clustering around it like stars around the moon.

Only when the giant spider’s silhouette crested the long slope and vanished into the trees did the invisible pressure lift all at once.

At least four-fifths of the spiders went with it, leaving only a fifth as sentries outside the den.

Only then did anyone dare speak. “That was Zhu Erniang?”

The guide wiped at his sweat. “That was her. It had to be!” He had not seen her before either, but some instinct recognized it. Could Guizhen Stone Forest truly hold a second monster like that? The tales, it seemed, were true.

“She headed northeast,” Doorboard said, hesitating. “What do we do now?”

“Skirt the slope and keep north,” Liu Tong whispered. “Zhu Erniang is moving toward our main force.”

The guide looked worried. “Can the troops from Panlong City beat her? She’s the overlord here!”

He Lingchuan answered with two crisp words, “Of course.” Of course, we don’t know!

With heaven, terrain, and—let’s be honest—the spiders themselves all in her favor, General Nanke’s forces held none of the advantages. So what if the Panlong City troops were first-rate? So what if they had the help of origin energy?

Seeing the stiffness on everyone’s faces, He Lingchuan decided to put some steel in their spines. “We don’t have to defeat her. We fight as we fall back. As long as we make it out of Guizhen Stone Forest, we win.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Liu Tong let out a breath in secret. “That’s exactly it! Let’s go.”

Just then, the merchants’ horses were spooked by birds in the trees and let out a sharp whinny.

Their riders yanked the reins at once, but at night, sound carried far. The spiders at the den’s mouth heard it, lifted their legs, and came scuttling.

“Damn it, move!” If these things ran them down, they were in for it.

* * *

A runner reported, “General, the spiders at the breach are bigger now, and they’re harder to deal with.”

When General Nanke hurried over, he saw it himself. The spiders that were coming at them, once cat-sized, were now a full size larger, each as big as a dog. They were not quite as nimble as before, but the silk they spat was stickier, and their strength had grown.

Another soldier ran over and reported, “The spiders are shifting the fire wall!”

“How is that possible?” General Nanke was taken aback. Inspecting the middle stretch of the blaze, he discovered that some spider monsters were spinning webbing that fire did not touch, letting it adhere to the burning logs. The rest swarmed up to help, heaving backward in concert.

These spider monsters likely did not fear ordinary flames themselves, but they had no intention of charging through the wall of fire to brawl at close quarters. With humans wrapped in origin energy, any melee would be a losing game.

The best tactic was to tear the wall of fire down and let the spider swarm pour in.

General Nanke watched with his own eyes as a giant log that was over thirty-three meters long was dragged by tens of thousands of spiders. The sight rattled him. He ordered his archers up into the trees to single out those fireproof spider monsters. There were not many of that kind, so each one shot was one fewer to worry about.

The troops barely had time to catch their breath before they were hacking down fresh timber to plug the gap.

How did these things suddenly get stronger and smarter?

General Nanke’s brows drew together. “Looks like the leader has arrived.”

He filled his dantian with qi, and his voice boomed over the wall of fire, echoing through the ravine, “Zhu Erniang, are you there? Come forth and meet me!”

Before marching, he always did his homework; of course, he knew that the mistress of Guizhen Stone Forest was the spider monster Zhu Erniang.

Sure enough, the tidal assault of spiders slackened. In the dark, a massive figure appeared on a little hill some sixty-odd meters away.

“Are you Zhu Erniang? I am General Nanke of Panlong City. We’re escorting a merchant caravan through Guizhen Stone Forest and were set upon by a swarm of burrowing spiders. What’s the meaning of this?”

A low voice thrummed in everyone’s minds. “You killed my children and burned my dens. You broke faith first. And now you dare to bite back and claim injury? A debt of blood must be paid in blood.”

Just as I thought. General Nanke raised his voice. “The ones who burned your nests were the people of Baling, not the soldiers and citizens of Panlong. Debts have their rightful creditors—if you want satisfaction, you should be troubling them.”

At his last word, two spiders stepped into the breach in the wall of fire.

The soldiers leveled their spears, but the creatures merely stood there.

Zhu Erniang spoke again, “Tell me, can you tell these two apart?”

Everyone looked. The pair were the same size; both had twelve glittering eyes; both had round, glossy bodies; both had shaggy, black legs, and even the white spots on their feet were in the same places.

General Nanke fell silent.

He understood what she meant. To humans, all spiders looked stamped from the same mold, and to spiders, humans were no different.

This greater monster had no patience for sorting Baling from Panlong. Humans had wrecked and scorched the burrowing spiders. Hence, she would take revenge on humans.

1. The spider monster’s surname Zhū (朱) is a homonym for spider (Zhū | 蛛). Also, the Erniang part literally translates to Second Lady. This is a somewhat similar case to Lady Three, whose actual name was Yuan Sanniang, in Tome of Troubled Times ☜