The Exit

Because he was being dragged across the ground, his clothes were shredded. Li Huowang’s eyes flicked sideways toward the lion-masks that were tracking them.

Through the white light emanating from their bodies, he could faintly make out something larger behind the group of lion-masks.

Li Huowang didn’t know what the Lion Dance Palace sect was, but the only thing he was certain of was that there were strong and weak members among them. The two he had dealt with before were probably just small fry.

“Second Spirit! Run faster! Those lion-masks are only the small ones! There are older ones behind them!”

Hearing this, Bai Lingmiao’s pace became even more urgent. She wasn’t running blindly but was doing her best to head toward the sound of the drum.

Suddenly, Li Huowang spotted something and slapped Bai Lingmiao’s body. “Go east! Trust me, go east!”

Bai Lingmiao planted all four limbs firmly on the ground, pushed off with force, and quickly leaped onto the wall to her left. After changing direction on the wall, she charged off in the direction Li Huowang had indicated.

They hadn’t run far before they arrived, in the darkness, at a “forest”—a forest made of corpses hanging by ropes around their necks. This was what Li Huowang had seen.

Under the gaze of that peculiar vision, Li Huowang instantly felt his thoughts begin to slow. This was the Rope Son’s territory. The Rope Son was up on the ceiling right now, staring down at him!

This thing was watching him, but Li Huowang didn’t care. Because he knew that, compared to the two of them, who were alone and weak, that large group of lion-masks radiating white light was far more likely to catch its attention.

As Li Huowang had expected, when they sensed the massive commotion, those hanging corpses completely ignored them and instead slowly began to turn, drifting toward the lion-masks.

With the Rope Son’s obstruction, the white light and dense, hurried footsteps behind Li Huowang finally began to fade away.

With their pursuers gone, Li Huowang and his companion followed the drumbeat and, beside a rock face, regrouped with the others.

The others, who had been terrified and at a loss, finally seemed to have found their pillar of strength. They hurried over, surrounding Li Huowang and peppering him with questions.

“Don’t panic, everyone. That brat Han Fu is nothing special. In a direct, head-on fight, he can’t beat us. We just need to be careful he doesn’t ambush us!” Li Huowang said, his voice full of confidence, bolstering the others’ spirits.

“But… Brother Li, where do we go next? We don’t even know where we are.” Chun Xiaoman looked at the blurry darkness surrounding them, her voice strained as she spoke of their current predicament.

Although they had just defeated Han Fu and escaped from the lion-masks, the place seemed to have a disorienting effect. Even if it didn’t, with no landmarks at all and everything looking the same, they still couldn’t get out.

If they couldn’t find an exit, they would eventually run into those two things again.

Looking left and right, Li Huowang’s gaze fell to the bell at Chun Xiaoman’s waist. “Give me the bell. Can a live person be suffocated by a lack of piss? Maybe the Wandering Lord can help us find a way out!”

It was only then that Chun Xiaoman realized the Wandering Lords could even do this. She was about to hand over the bell, but then pulled it back.

“Brother Li, I’m young. I have more yang life left. It’s better if I use the bell for you.” Before Li Huowang could answer, Chun Xiaoman was already shaking the bell rapidly.

As several Wandering Lords flew out, Li Huowang wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he felt their figures had grown a bit bigger.

In this oppressive environment, one quarter of an hour passed, then two. But those Wandering Lords never returned.

This development caused the hearts of the others, who had only just regained their confidence, to sink.

“Could those Wandering Lords have been eaten as snacks by some evil spirit in the darkness?” Gouwa speculated fearfully, offering a very bad guess.

Seeing their current predicament, Li Huowang’s brow was deeply furrowed.

Not to mention the threat of Han Fu lurking in the shadows, if they waited until those lion-masks had dealt with the Rope Son and came back for them, it would be too late for anything. They had to get out of this damned place, and fast.

He began to recall the various rituals from the Thousand Greats Record, which he had already memorized by heart. But after quickly running through them in his mind, he was ultimately left empty-handed.

The Thousand Greats Record was an essential item for the Ao-Jing sect, but it only recorded ways to inflict pain on oneself or others. In this situation, it was utterly useless.

Just as Li Huowang turned his head, about to ask Bai Lingmiao whether the spirit-dance could help in this regard, he saw the big simpleton, Gao Zhijian, holding his thumb up straight into the air, his expression grave.

Clutching his wounds, Li Huowang looked up at him. “What are you doing?”

Gao Zhijian, who rarely spoke directly, didn’t answer. Instead, with a grave expression, he put his thumb back in his mouth, sucked on it, and then held it up again.

A flash of insight struck Li Huowang, and a surge of joy filled his heart. He understood what the other was doing. “Using your finger to feel the direction of the wind? There’s wind? Did you find an exit?”

Gao Zhijian quickly pulled his finger back, nodded at Li Huowang, and pointed toward the west. “Th-this… this… here.”

“Gao Zhijian! Good work!” Surprised and delighted, Li Huowang walked over and gave him a firm pat on the shoulder before leading the others in the direction he had pointed.

The direction indicated by the wind wasn’t a straight line. They continuously threaded through dissolving caves and rock caverns, going up and down.

While traveling, Li Huowang took a new measure of the tall man before him.

To find a way out by thinking of a method in this situation—Li Huowang couldn’t help but look at Gao Zhijian with newfound respect. This wasn’t a method a normal simpleton would think of. He must have many stories in his past.

But in this critical moment, there was no time to probe his background.

“Duck down, the ceiling ahead is lower.” Everyone bent over and continued forward.

This cave entrance was getting narrower and narrower. Just when even the tallest, Gao Zhijian, was about to be unable to squeeze through, the cave began to widen. From somewhere in the distance came a sound like ghosts howling.

Hearing this sound, Li Huowang’s heart was overjoyed. That wasn’t really a ghost crying; it was the howling sound of wind blowing through some narrow dissolving cave.

Gao Zhijian hadn’t been wrong! There was an exit here!

The others also realized this. Although running through this place and being frightened for so long had exhausted everyone to their limits, they still squeezed out the last of their energy to press forward.

As they passed through another winding dissolving cave, there was a sudden light outside. A slanted cave mouth appeared in the rock ceiling above; the wind was blowing in from there.

The light spilling down from it wasn’t the bright light from the Lion Dance Palace. It was the pale silver light of the moon. Unbeknownst to them, it had already turned dark outside.

They walked under that silver light, looking up at the twinkling stars above like frogs at the bottom of a well.

Clearly, this was not the same exit they had entered through. But at least it was, without a doubt, an exit.