Where Immortals Once Walked

Huh, this fish has roe inside.

He tossed it on the fire to roast, and it turned crisp and fragrant with a satisfying crack when he bit down.

Seeing how clear He Lingchuan was making it look that he was still disgusted at his face, Dong Rui was furious, but there was nothing he could do about it. After the meal, he tore some broad grass blades and braided himself a makeshift face covering. Once he put it on, at least the lower half of his face was hidden.

They had only just finished eating when Zhu Erniang arrived.

He Lingchuan lifted the leftover fish meat and offered casually, “Want to try my cooking?”

Zhu Erniang refused at once. She liked sucking down chilled jelly and could eat raw flesh, but she hated anything cooked. “Finish up and come with me. I’ll find you a place to run your experiments.”

Dong Rui pointed at the abandoned houses behind the long sandy shoal. “Wouldn’t here work?”

“If the swamp floods again, this place will be submerged,” Zhu Erniang said. “You’ve both already taken a trip underwater. That city used to sit above the water.”

With them having no rebuttal, the two men simply followed.

Dong Rui could not help but ask, “Where are we, exactly?”

“This is the Demon Nest Swamp, unclaimed land on the border between the states of Beijia and Fu, belonging to neither state.”

The State of Fu?

The two of them exchanged looks.

He Lingchuan made a slight sound of disbelief. “Isn’t Fu to the east of Beijia?”

Did I sleep through hundreds of kilometers?

Did the Han River actually carry us so far?

He Lingchuan tested the waters with another question. “Weren’t you living in Guizhen Stone Forest? How did you end up moving thousands of kilometers away to the Demon Nest Swamp?”

Zhu Erniang snorted. “Back then, Baling went to war with Panlong City. The flames of war spread onto my territory. I couldn’t swallow it, so I struck back and killed one of Panlong City’s generals. After that, Panlong City kept coming to make trouble for me. I grew sick of it, so I moved.”

Hearing that, everything clicked in He Lingchuan’s mind.

Right, in reality, Zhu Erniang had killed General Nanke. The Red General would never have tolerated that. Once Panlong City finished winning the Battle of Wei City, they would naturally have turned around and dealt with her.

Zhu Erniang being forced to relocate made perfect sense. She had probably even suffered a few hidden losses along the way, judging by how she glossed over the details.

And this was where reality diverged sharply from how events had unfolded in the dreamscape. In the dreamscape of the Generous Pot, due to He Lingchuan burning down her underground farm in time, Zhu Erniang rushed back to her nest, allowing General Nanke to escape. As a result, Panlong City never formed a blood feud with her. Later, the Red General simply flexed her strength. The old agreement was then reinstated, and Zhu Erniang never had to move.

Will the dreamscape’s history and reality’s history keep drifting farther apart from now on?

“I lived in Beijia for a while, but it was boring, so I followed the Han River downstream, and eventually settled here.” Being an old monster from the Ancient Era, she simply found herself unaccustomed to the lifestyle of modern monster states.

He Lingchuan asked about the underwater city’s origin, “Did the residents leave because the water level rose?”

“How could it be that simple?” Zhu Erniang’s voice turned oddly patient, as if she were telling a story she had repeated many times. “This was originally the territory of the Jiana Tribe. They lived in seclusion. At their peak, I heard they had over a hundred thousand people, and strong warriors would appear amongst them one after another. They even bore witness to miracles. I heard rumors that they guarded a treasure bestowed upon them by a god. But some time later, a demonic creature descended and slaughtered them all. Decades later, the swamp’s water level rose and submerged their old home.”

She was leading the two of them away from the ruined settlement, but when they passed the tallest building, He Lingchuan caught sight of a statue through the wide-open doorway.

It had been carved from a single massive block of granite, standing over ten meters tall. Finding a stone that huge and that neatly shaped in a swamp would already be difficult, and moving it here would have been even harder.

There were no trees blocking the front of the building, and a thin ray of sunlight happened to spear through, landing directly on the statue.

So the tallest building in the city is a temple?

He Lingchuan let out a long, startled breath. “Huh...”

His steps faltered, then he drifted inside almost without thinking.

The interior of this exotic-style temple was spacious. After more than a century of wind, water, and rot, moss covered much of it, but most of the white stone floor tiles were still flat and intact. His footsteps rang like bells or chimes—clear, bright notes echoing again and again off the walls.

The offering table had long since decayed into nothing. Only the small patch of floor directly in front of the statue had sunk downward, unmistakably worn by generations of devout worshippers kneeling and bowing until the stone itself gave way.

He Lingchuan stood in that depression and tilted his head back, staring up at the statue.

It was a goddess. She had gentle eyebrows, kind eyes, and a face full of sorrowful compassion. Her gaze was lowered, as if looking down upon her believers. In her hands, she held a treasured jar, and a flood dragon soared at her side. Beneath her feet, an evil ghost was pinned and crushed.

Vines clung to the stone, dulling what must once have been overwhelming majesty.

He Lingchuan did not blink as shock flooded his eyes.

Zhu Erniang and Dong Rui stepped in behind him.

“What is it?”

“This is the god the Jiana Tribe worshipped?” He Lingchuan asked slowly, as if he needed to hear it aloud.

“Indeed, they believed in the Moon Goddess,” Zhu Erniang’s voice softened, oddly. “This is the Moon Goddess that the Jiana revered for generations, yet she failed to protect them from the monster that came to claim their lives.”

Moon Goddess?

He Lingchuan’s mind went blank for a heartbeat, because what he was looking at was unmistakable.

But this is clearly Mitian! This is Panlong City’s patron god, Lady Mitian! The very god worshipped by the entire city.

He had entered and exited the dreamscape countless times. He had been to Mitian’s temple. The statue there differed slightly in expression and bearing, but he could never mistake her identity.

Especially not now. After all, he had just seen that face in the dream.

The Red General!

The Red General always wears a cold expression, while this goddess statue radiates compassion. Still, their features are at least seventy percent the same, especially those distinctive tea-colored phoenix eyes.

Does this mean that all this way away, in the depths of the Demon Nest Swamp, Panlong City’s guardian god had once had worshippers here too, just under a different name?

He Lingchuan forced himself to ask, “How much do you know about this Moon Goddess?”

“How would I know?” Zhu Erniang tapped the ground impatiently. “By the time I came here, this place was already ruined.”

Dong Rui also found it strange. “Then how do you know the Jiana Tribe was wiped out by a demonic creature?”

“Strictly speaking, they weren’t completely wiped out. Some descendants escaped. They moved to the edge of the Demon Nest Swamp and settled there.” Zhu Erniang stroked her round belly. “Before I eat my prey, I like to chat with them first. I like hearing stories and learning interesting things.”

She said it again without shame. Life in the swamp was boring, and she was a greater monster who enjoyed listening to tales.

He Lingchuan and Dong Rui: “...”

Right, we really need to escape as soon as possible.

Something stirred in He Lingchuan’s mind. “Do you know what year the Jiana Tribe was destroyed?”

Zhu Erniang stood still, calculating laboriously in her head. After a long while, she answered, “If their descendants remembered correctly, then as of today, it should be one hundred and seventy-four... No, one hundred and seventy-two years ago.”

One hundred seventy-two years? That would be the seventeenth year of the Panlong calendar.

That’s only a year or two after the incident at the Red Peak Mine.

So while Panlong City prospered under Mitian’s protection, the Jiana Tribe, who also worshipped her, had been all but annihilated.

Still, all that took place so close in time to each other? Could there be some kind of connection between them?

He Lingchuan asked carefully, “Have you ever seen the Mitian statue worshipped in Panlong City back then?”

“Of course not.” Zhu Erniang sounded offended. “Do you think I can just stroll into Panlong City looking like this? Why, are the two related?”

“They look too alike,” He Lingchuan answered automatically.

Zhu Erniang shrugged it off with her own careless logic. “What’s strange about that? Many gods have more than one form in the human world, as well as more than one title.”

Is that really it?

Leaving the ruins of the Jiana Tribe behind, the two men and the spider queen entered a vast, tangled forest.

After traveling several kilometers, the ground rose steadily, forcing them to climb halfway up a mountainside.

Ahead, the earth had collapsed into an irregular sinkhole, presenting an enormous crater. Its widest diameter was around thirty-three meters, and it was deep. Sweet flags[1] and small trees clung to the rock walls.

Zhu Erniang pointed. “We’re here.”

He Lingchuan looked around. In the forest, shadows shifted everywhere, spiders constantly moving around and watching them. It was immediately obvious that Zhu Erniang did not trust them for a second.

In burrow spider territory, even eels had to submit tribute. Two humans, unless they sprouted wings, were not leaving.

For the first time, even He Lingchuan found himself missing the advantages of Dong Rui’s strange bird monster.

Dong Rui was staring up at the sky too. Maybe he was thinking the same thing.

Then Zhu Erniang raised a foreleg, and she suddenly shoved them into the sinkhole.

She moved absurdly fast, striking from behind. Even He Lingchuan could not dodge in time.

With a loud splash, Dong Rui hit the water.

He Lingchuan twisted midair, flipped once, and landed on a small tree jutting out near the rim.

The water inside the sinkhole was clear, but its depth was impossible to see.

Dong Rui was thrashing in the water below. Zhu Erniang stood at the edge, her silhouette massive against the sky. “My children will take you to the laboratory. Everything you need is there. If you require anything else, tell them. The terrain is complicated down there, but there is only one exit. Don’t try anything clever. Otherwise, you’ll get to watch yourselves be drained dry, little by little.”

He Lingchuan and Dong Rui looked at each other, both shuddering.

Sure enough, there was a passage near the waterline leading into the mountain’s depths. Over a dozen spiders guarded the entrance.

Dong Rui waded toward it. He Lingchuan leaped down to the mouth of the cave without ever touching the water.

Once inside, two small spiders started guiding them forward.

Dong Rui spat water from his mouth. “So she really doesn’t trust us. Hey, do you still have that red vial you stole from me earlier?”

He asked twice, but He Lingchuan did not answer. He was busy looking around.

The sinkhole was not isolated. It connected to a karst cave system, and before long, the path branched into forks. However, the little spiders moved as if they knew every turn by heart, leading without hesitation.

“Hey, you...” Dong Rui frowned. It’s just a cave. What is he staring at?

In the cracks of the rock walls, soft grasses and fungus grew. Water could be heard constantly trickling downward, everything eventually feeding back into the sinkhole.

He Lingchuan finally spoke, voice low. “Something’s off.”

We were just shoved into a sinkhole by a spider monster. Dong Rui snapped, “What part of any of this isn’t off?”

There was no daylight in the cave, but the burrow spiders had transplanted glowspores here as natural lamps, so the tunnels were fairly bright.

“Touch the wall.”

Dong Rui reached out. The surface was not as hard as stone should be. It felt like it was covered by a thin, soft skin, and the color had a faint reddish-brown cast.

Is it moss? No, it’s not moss. He looked closely and saw that there were traces everywhere of vines that had once grown and been torn away, leaving fibrous marks across the wall.

“Strange, what kind of rock is this?”

He Lingchuan, meanwhile, was fighting to hide the shock that rose like ice in his chest, leaving him no time to answer.

The little spiders turned through several bends and led them into a stone chamber.

“We’re here.”

Several spider monsters stood guard inside. Meanwhile, their guide retreated.

1. This is referring to the plant. ☜