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A local herder who guided Li Huowang's group out of the wilderness after their cave escape; his family provides shelter and tents.

Definition

A local herder who guided Li Huowang's group out of the wilderness after their cave escape; his family provides shelter and tents.

Story context

Welcome to Qingqiu, folks—a land where the hills look like sleeping giantesses, the locals have their own language just to make life difficult, and the signature dish is noodles that look like a green curtain from a fever dream. Our favorite barely-functioning cultivator, Li Huowang, limps into a nomadic trading post with his blindfolded crew, hoping to restock supplies before they're reduced to eating the ox. The good news: they find food. The bad news: everyone stares at them like they're a walking plague banner. Also, Mantou the dog brings back a horse bone as a gift. It's a slice-of-morbid-life chapter that lets us breathe before the next horror drops.

Why it matters

This chapter is one of those rare "breather" segments where the horror is mostly economic and logistical. No demons, no flesh Buddhas, no blood sacrifices—just the quiet, grinding tension of being foreigners in a strange land with empty bellies and no shared language. Li Huowang's vigilance here is turned onto the social world: he notes the stares, the dialect, the strange customs, filing everything away as potential threat data. The scene at the noodle shop is almost cozy, if you ignore the fact that half the group looks like walking medical anomalies under their veils. And Mantou bringing back a horse bone is a perfect microcosm of the novel's tone: just when you think things are normal, the dog drops a piece of someone's dinner at your feet, and no one even flinches. Enjoy the calm before the storm, reader. Qingqiu is not done showing its teeth.