7: Chapter 7 Inside and Outside the Cave

The Gray-robed Man had been gone for three days.

For these three days, Lu Chen had not really been able to Cultivate. It was not that he did not want to; he just could not calm his mind. Every time he closed his eyes, his mind would be filled with images of that shattered wine gourd and the white object the Gray-robed Man had taken from The Cave.

"What on earth is it?"

He had been thinking about it for three days, but could not figure it out.

On the fourth day, he decided to go and check The Cave again.

The snow had stopped, but it had not melted. It crunched underfoot, leaving a deep footprint with every step. Lu Chen walked slowly, looking around as he went.

The Gray-robed Man had taken over twenty people with him; with so many people going up and down the mountain, they were bound to have left traces.

Sure enough.

From the foot of the mountain to the entrance of The Cave, there were footprints all the way. Some had already been covered by snow, but their outlines were still visible. Lu Chen crouched down and took a closer look.

There were two types of footprints.

One type belonged to ordinary people—cloth shoes, shallow prints, small stride. The other belonged to a Cultivator—the Gray-robed Man's footprints—boots, deep prints, large stride.

"The Gray-robed Man was walking in the lead."

Lu Chen stood up and continued walking upward.

When he reached the entrance of The Cave, he stopped.

The appearance of the entrance had changed.

Previously, the entrance had been half-hidden by bushes, but now all the bushes had been cut away and tossed aside. The entrance stood wide open, like a gaping mouth.

Lu Chen bent down and crawled inside.

The bottom of The Cave had also changed.

The writing on The Cave wall was still there, but a few new marks had been added beside it. They were not words, but symbols—a circle with a cross inside, looking like some kind of sign.

Was it left by Mo Wen?

Or was it left by the Gray-robed Man?

Lu Chen could not tell.

He crouched down and looked at the ground.

There were footprints on the ground. Many of them. The Gray-robed Man's boot prints were the deepest, while the others were shallower. The footprints were chaotic, but one direction was clear—they all led to the deepest part of The Cave wall.

Lu Chen stood up and walked to the deepest part of The Cave wall.

The groove where the bamboo slips had been placed was still there, but it was empty.

The bamboo slips were in his hands. The groove had been empty to begin with.

But the Gray-robed Man did not know that. When he opened the groove, he only saw that it was empty, so he had left a mark beside it—a circle with a cross inside.

"Searching for something," Lu Chen thought. "He did not find it."

What was the white object that the Gray-robed Man had taken from The Cave?

Lu Chen turned and looked toward the entrance of The Cave.

On the snowy ground at the entrance, the Gray-robed Man's footprints were clear from when he entered and left. But when he entered, he was not carrying anything. When he left, he was holding that white object.

"The object was found inside The Cave."

Lu Chen searched The Cave again.

He checked the bottom, the walls, and the ceiling of The Cave. He did not find anything.

Except for those new marks.

He crouched down and looked at the footprints on the ground again.

The Gray-robed Man's footprints paused for a moment in front of the groove, then took two steps to the left. The left side was the other side of The Cave wall, the wall where Wang Qishan had written.

Lu Chen walked over and reached out to touch that wall.

It was cold.

Stone.

But when he touched the middle, the texture was different. A section of the wall was smoother than the rest, as if it had been touched repeatedly by someone.

Lu Chen pressed hard against it.

The wall did not move.

He pressed again, using more force.

It still did not move.

He took out his wood-cutting knife and tapped that section of the wall with the back of the blade.

The sound was not right.

It was not a solid sound; it was hollow.

"A hidden compartment."

Lu Chen inserted the back of the blade into the crevice of the wall and pried hard.

The stone loosened.

He pried a few more times, and the stone fell away, revealing a hole the size of a fist.

Inside the hole lay an object.

It was white.

Lu Chen reached in and took the object out.

It was a bone fragment.

It was not big, a circle smaller than his palm, oval-shaped, with a smooth surface as if it had been polished. There were words carved on the bone fragment, very small and densely packed.

Lu Chen brought the bone fragment close to his fire-starter to look at it carefully.

The words were carved into it; the strokes were very fine but very deep. It was not written in modern script, but rather looked more like some kind of ancient script. He could recognize the shapes of some, but did not know their meanings.

"This was not left by Wang Qishan."

Wang Qishan's handwriting was neat, like that of an accountant. These characters were crooked, as if carved by someone dying using their last ounce of strength.

Lu Chen remembered the four words on The Cave ceiling—"Immortality is Death."

The handwriting was different.

The words on the ceiling were large, with thick strokes, carved deeply. The words on the bone fragment were small, with fine strokes, carved shallowly.

"Left by different people."

He tucked the bone fragment into his robe, stuffed the stone back in, and covered it up.

Then he bent down and crawled out of The Cave.

Back at the Ruined Temple, Lu Chen took out the bone fragment and looked at it by the campfire.

The firelight shone on the bone fragment, and the characters seemed to come alive, flickering in the light.

He tried to identify them one by one.

He recognized some of the characters—"Human," "Heaven," "Life," "Death."

But he could not understand them when put together.

"Human Heaven Life Death"—what did it mean?

Lu Chen stared at it for a long time, but still could not make sense of it.

He put down the bone fragment and took out the jade from his robe.

The jade had turned dark gray, and a few more cracks had appeared.

"The Spiritual Root is growing."

But what was the use of a growing Spiritual Root? He could not even understand the words on the bone fragment.

Lu Chen put the jade away and picked up the bone fragment again.

At this moment, he noticed something.

There was a small hole at the edge of the bone fragment, as if for threading a string.

"Was it worn around the neck before?"

He thought for a moment, tore a thread from his clothes, passed it through the small hole, tied a knot, and hung the bone fragment around his neck.

The bone fragment pressed against his chest, feeling cool.

Lu Chen looked down at it once, then paid it no more mind.

Then he sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and began Qi Channeling.

Spiritual Qi surged into his Dantian.

It was the same as before, neither more nor less.

But he felt something was slightly different—at the location on his chest where the bone fragment was pressed, there was a trace of coolness, like a needle gently pricking his skin.

It was not pain; it was coolness.

Lu Chen did not pay it any mind and continued Qi Channeling.

The fifth day.

Lu Chen went to The Cave again.

This time he was not going to look for something, but to see if Mo Wen had returned.

The entrance to The Cave was the same as before. The snow had not melted, and the footprints were still there.

He bent down and crawled in.

There was no one in The Cave.

The mark beside the groove was still there, and the footprints on the ground were also still there.

But one thing was different—the writing on The Cave wall had changed.

It was not that the words had changed, but that a new line of words had been added.

Newly written.

Below "Never Cultivate," four more words had been added—

"You will regret it."

Lu Chen stared at these four words for a long time.

The handwriting was not Wang Qishan's. Wang Qishan's handwriting was neat; this handwriting was scrawled, as if someone had written it with their finger dipped in something.

It was black.

Lu Chen leaned in and smelled it.

Blood.

It had dried, but he could still smell the metallic scent.

"Who wrote this?"

Mo Wen? If it was Mo Wen, why did he not just come to find him directly?

The Gray-robed Man? If it was the Gray-robed Man, what did he mean by writing these four words?

Lu Chen stood in The Cave, thinking for a while.

He could not figure it out.

He bent down and crawled out.

The sunlight outside was dazzling; he squinted and stood at the entrance, looking down.

Down the mountain, in the distance, there was someone.

It was not the Gray-robed Man.

It was a Person in Black, standing in the snow, motionless.

It was too far away to see their face clearly.

Lu Chen stared at that person for a few seconds.

That person was also looking at him.

Then that person turned and left.

They walked quickly, disappearing into the woods in a few steps.

Lu Chen stood at the entrance of The Cave and did not pursue.

A thought arose in his mind—

"The secrets of this mountain are more than I imagined."

Back at the Ruined Temple, Lu Chen thought through everything that happened today from beginning to end.

The new words in The Cave. "You will regret it."

The Person in Black down the mountain.

The bone fragment the Gray-robed Man had taken—no, that was not right; the white object the Gray-robed Man had taken was not the bone fragment. The bone fragment had been in the hidden compartment, and the Gray-robed Man had not discovered it. The thing he had taken must have been something else.

"What on earth is it?"

Lu Chen could not figure it out.

He took out the bone fragment hanging around his neck and looked at it again.

He still could not understand it.

But he noticed one thing—the handwriting on the bone fragment was different from the handwriting on The Cave wall.

The words on The Cave wall were large, thick, and forceful.

The words on the bone fragment were small, fine, and light.

"It was not written by the same person."

Lu Chen tucked the bone fragment back into his clothes, against his chest.

The coolness came again.

This time it was not one needle, but many. It felt as if someone had pricked many small holes in his chest, and the coolness was seeping in through the holes.

Lu Chen looked down at his chest.

He could not see anything.

But his body knew.

There was a flow of Qi seeping into his body from the position of the bone fragment.

It was not Spiritual Qi.

It was something else.

"What is this?"

No one answered.

Mo Wen was not there.

The Gray-robed Man was gone.

The Person in Black was also gone.

Only Lu Chen was sitting alone in the Ruined Temple, the campfire burning beside him, the bone fragment pressed against his chest, the coolness seeping into his body bit by bit.

He did not know what this was.

But he knew one thing—

From the moment he put on the bone fragment, there was no turning back.