The third day in the canyon brought no relief. The spring had slowed to a trickle, barely enough to wet a mouthful of cloth. The food was gone. Not low. Not running out. Gone. The last of the grain had been boiled into a thin, watery gruel that morning, and there had been nothing left for the evening meal. The cooking pots sat empty and cold, their bottoms scraped clean, and the smell of boiled barley still hung in the air like a cruel reminder of what they had lost.
The refugees sat in clusters around the dying fires, their faces hollow, their eyes dull. The children had stopped crying. They had learned that crying took energy they didn't have. The old people had stopped moving. They sat against the rock walls, their breath shallow, their eyes fixed on nothing. Some of them had closed their eyes and simply not opened them again. No one had the strength to check if they were still breathing.
Gu Yao sat apart from them, his back against a boulder, his hammer beside him. He had not eaten since the previous morning. He could feel the hunger in his stomach like a dull ache, a constant, gnawing presence that never went away. His body was running on reserves, and the reserves were running out. His hands trembled slightly when he tried to grip the hammer. His vision blurred at the edges, and he had to blink several times before the world came back into focus.
Shen Yi sat beside him, her hand on his arm. She had not eaten either. She had given her portion to a young mother with a crying infant, and now she sat in silence, her face pale, her eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the firelight. She had not spoken in hours. There was nothing left to say.
The camp was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that precedes violence.
Gu Yao had been feeling it for hours—a tension in the air, a shift in the way the refugees looked at him. The hunger was doing its work, grinding away at the thin layer of loyalty that had held the group together. The Sects had known what they were doing when they had created the bounty. They had known that hunger would break the bonds between people faster than any sword. They had known that fear and starvation would turn neighbors into enemies, that the promise of salvation would be more powerful than the memory of shared suffering.
"Brother Gu." Xiao Liu's voice was low, barely above a whisper. He had appeared out of the shadows, his face pale, his eyes darting nervously. "We need to talk."
Gu Yao looked up. The boy's expression told him everything he needed to know. There was fear in his eyes, but there was something else too—something that might have been shame.
"How many?"
"Five," Xiao Liu said. "Maybe more. They're in the eastern passage. They've been talking for hours."
"About what?"
"About you. About the bounty. About what they could get if they turned you in. They're hungry, Brother Gu. They're scared. They're not thinking straight."
"Hunger does that," Gu Yao said. "It makes you forget who you are. It makes you forget what you've been through. It makes you forget that the people offering you salvation are the same people who put you in chains."
He rose slowly, his joints protesting. His right leg was almost entirely stone now, the calcification spreading upward toward his hip. He could feel the weight of it with every step, a dead anchor that he had to drag behind him. The fifth nail in his spine was pulsing, a slow, rhythmic beat that matched his heartbeat. He could feel the cold radiating from it, spreading through his veins like ice water.
"Where are they?" he asked.
"The eastern passage. I can show you."
Xiao Liu turned and led the way into the darkness. Shen Yi rose to follow, but Gu Yao stopped her with a gesture.
"Stay here," he said. "This is something I need to do alone."
She didn't argue. She never argued. She simply nodded and sat back down, her eyes watching him until he disappeared into the shadows.
The eastern passage was narrow and dark, barely wide enough for two men to walk side by side. The walls were rough and uneven, the floor covered with loose stones that shifted underfoot. Gu Yao moved slowly, his hammer scraping against the rock, the sound echoing ahead of him like a warning.
He stopped before he entered the main chamber, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. He could hear their voices now, low and urgent, like the scraping of rats.
"Three Sky-Patching Pills," the first voice said. "That's enough for a man to break through to Golden Core. Do you understand what that means? That's immortality. That's never being hungry again. That's never being afraid again."
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"I know what it means," the second voice said. "I also know that he saved my life. He saved all our lives. Without him, we'd still be in Qingzhou, waiting to be drained like cattle."
"He saved a lot of lives," the first voice said. "That doesn't mean we owe him ours. He's going to die anyway. Anyone can see that. He's got a foot in the grave and the other one on a banana peel. All we have to do is help him along. Quick and clean. No one has to suffer."
The voices were familiar. Gu Yao had heard them before, in Qingzhou, on the long journey through the Blood Road. They were the voices of ordinary men, men who had been pushed too far and had started to break. He didn't blame them. He couldn't. He had been where they were.
"I'm not saying it's right," the first voice said. "I'm saying it's the only way. We've got women and children here. They're going to die if we don't do something. And he can barely stand. He's in pain every minute of every day. Wouldn't it be a mercy to help him along?"
"I don't know," the second voice said. "I just don't know."
"You don't have to know," the first voice said. "Just follow. Let us do the dirty work. You can stay back if you want. You can pretend you didn't see anything. But you don't get to judge."
Gu Yao stepped into the chamber. He moved slowly, deliberately, his hammer dragging behind him. The sound of the iron scraping against the stone announced his presence long before he appeared.
The five men froze. They were gathered in a small circle, their faces lit by a single, flickering candle. In their hands, they held a crude collection of weapons—a sharpened stake, a heavy stone, a length of rusted chain. They had come prepared. They had been planning this for hours, maybe days.
"Brother Gu," the first man said. His voice was steady, but his hands were shaking. "We were just talking."
"About what?"
"About the journey," the man said. "About how tough it's been. About how we need to stick together."
"Stick together." Gu Yao's voice was flat, devoid of emotion. "That's what you were talking about."
The man nodded. His eyes darted left and right, searching for an escape route that didn't exist. The other four men shifted uneasily, their weapons still in their hands.
"Before you came," Gu Yao said, "the Sects told us that they would protect us. They said that if we kept our heads down and paid our tribute, they would keep us safe. And we believed them. We believed them because we wanted to believe them. Because the alternative was too terrible to face."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"I'm not the Sects," he said. "I'm not going to promise you protection. I can't protect you from hunger. I can't protect you from the cold. I can't protect you from the fear that's eating away at your guts right now. All I can do is walk in front of you and hope that the path I'm taking is the right one."
The men exchanged glances. Their hands were still shaking.
"I know what you've been discussing," he said. "I know what you're planning. And I understand."
"You do?" one of them asked, his voice breaking.
"I understand because I've been where you are," he said. "I've been so hungry that I would have traded my soul for a handful of grain. I've been so tired that I couldn't see straight. I've been so afraid that I couldn't breathe. I know what it does to a man. It hollows him out. It takes everything he is and leaves nothing behind."
A man stepped forward from the group. He was the leader, the one who had been doing the talking. His face was gaunt, his eyes sunken, but there was something else in them too—something that might have been shame.
"We didn't mean it," he said. "We were just talking. We didn't mean to—"
"I know you were," Gu Yao said. "And I know why. But I'm going to tell you something, and I want you to listen carefully."
He waited, making sure he had their attention.
"If you think that turning me in will save you," he said, "you're wrong. The Sects don't want you. They don't care about you. They don't care about anyone. They're going to drain you until there's nothing left, and then they're going to move on to the next person. They've been doing it for three thousand years. They're not going to stop now."
The man's face went pale. "You don't know that."
"I know it," Gu Yao said. "Because I was one of them. I was the best of them. And I watched them drain the life out of everything they touched."
He turned and walked back toward the fire. The men remained in the passage, their weapons still in their hands, their minds still churning. Behind him, he heard the sound of something heavy being dropped onto the ground—a stone, perhaps, or a length of chain.
"Brother Gu!" The voice was desperate, broken. "What should we do?"
Gu Yao paused. He did not turn around.
"Follow me," he said. "That's all I can offer you. Follow me, and we'll find a way through."
"This is a mistake," someone muttered. "He's going to die on us, and then where will we be?"
"Then we'll carry on without him," another voice said. "We'll see this through."
Gu Yao continued walking, the weight of his hammer steady at his side. The third nail in his spine was pulsing now, a slow, rhythmic beat that matched his heartbeat. He could feel it loosening, the ancient lock beginning to give way. He didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He only knew that he couldn't stop it.
Shen Yi was waiting for him at the fire. She didn't ask what had happened. She could see the answer in his face.
"They're scared," he said. "Hungry. They're not thinking straight."
"Neither are you," she said. "You haven't eaten in days. You haven't slept in longer. Your body is falling apart, and you're still trying to carry all of us on your shoulders."
"Someone has to."
She reached out and took his hand. Her fingers were cold, but her grip was firm. "Not alone," she said. "You don't have to do it alone."
He looked at her, and for a moment, the weight in his chest eased.
"I've never done it alone," he said. "I've always had you."