SES Chapter 141 Part 2

The woman blinked, confused, and pointed toward the only road leading out of the village. “There’s only one way out.”

“I’m going to see my girlfriend.”

“Oh… I see.”
She understood, stepped back politely, and made way for the car.

Mudai lay on the ground for a long time before she finally pushed herself up.
Her left hand felt numb, like it had been injected with an anesthetic—she couldn’t move any of her fingers. Her leg throbbed with pain whenever she tried to shift it. Carefully, she ran her hand over it inch by inch—nothing was broken or dislocated.

She bent down, tore off a strip of fabric from her inner lining with her teeth, and, using her mouth and right hand together, wrapped the torn skin where her nail had lifted.

She remembered dropping her flashlight nearby when she fell.

Limping, she groped around the dark floor until she found it and turned it on.

She aimed it upward, estimating the height—at least twenty to thirty meters, higher than a six-story building.
It was a hollow cavern inside a mountain.

Around her were several corpses—nothing but white bones now.
The hollow sockets of the skulls made her shudder, and as she stepped back, her heel hit something.

It was a filthy braid, lying across a large skeleton’s chest.
That couldn’t have belonged to a woman—not with hair that long. Could it be someone from the Qing dynasty?

There was also a rotted bamboo basket and a rusted machete.

They looked like ordinary woodcutters.

All the bones were broken—some spines snapped clean in half, some skulls shattered open.
They must have fallen to their deaths.

Strangely, standing among all these remains, her terror mingled with a flicker of relief—she was still alive.

That wasn’t just luck or skill. She owed it to the lightness training she’d practiced since childhood. During her fall, she had clawed, twisted, and grabbed at anything she could to slow herself down.

Suddenly remembering something, she lifted her shirt to check her stomach. It was bloodied and raw. Under the flashlight’s beam, she examined it carefully—nothing too deep. No organs had been cut open.

The cave was large but not too complex—she could see most of it at a glance.
It smelled damp and musty, but not putrid, which meant there must be air seeping through cracks in the rocks. She wouldn’t suffocate.

There wasn’t any visible running water, but when she touched the walls, a few spots were damp.

Lower ground would be colder and wetter. She looked toward the right—higher terrain, though scattered with shattered bones.

Mudai stood there for a moment.

Then she said softly, “Sorry… I didn’t mean to disturb you. Please don’t be angry with me.”

After that, she bowed deeply to the dead before beginning to clean up.

Gritting her teeth, she dragged the corpses—one by one—into a far corner of the cave.
While moving one of them, something fell with a dull thud.

A small cloth pouch.
The red string at its mouth had come loose.
Mudai nudged it with her foot, and a glint of silver spilled out—old silver coins.

Up close, she saw that the coins were stamped with traditional Chinese characters: “Made in the Eighth Year of the Republic of China.”

So much hard-earned money, saved with blood and sweat, only for the owner to slip and fall to their death, leaving behind these bright silver coins for others to sigh over for generations later.

Mudai thought, If I can get out of here alive, I’ll use this money to move their remains out of this cave. I’ll hire monks for a ritual, buy a proper burial plot, and let them rest in peace.

Her master once said: Sometimes it’s not about being noble or heroic. It’s just that, at that particular time and place, fate puts you there. Whether it’s karma or coincidence, you still have to do something.

When she finished moving the bones, she used rocks and the old bamboo baskets to form a low barrier around the corner. Finally, she picked up the machete—it would serve as a good weapon for defense.

Her phone seemed to have broken in the fall. It wouldn’t turn on, and she couldn’t check the time—but midnight must have long passed by now.

Back then, she had promised Luo Ren they would stay in touch every day.
He’d told her, “Cao Yanhua’s disappearance is strange. Things over there are uncertain—so I need regular updates. If something happens, I have to be ready to act fast.”

She had nodded. “I know. I’ll call every day.”

But the very first call never went through.

In the darkness, she raised the machete, twirled her wrist once, then swung—slash, chop, cross-cut. After a brief pause, she went to the damp rock wall, tested the angle, and began sharpening the blade.

The steady, metallic scrape echoed through the dim cave, harsh and unyielding.

Mudai thought of Cao Yanhua—his face pale, his mouth stuffed with cloth, his body tightly bound.

And then she remembered that voice from behind her—soft, thin, yet piercingly sharp.

Whoever you are, you can’t hurt me, my disciple, or my friends.

Yes… who was that person?

She and Yiwansan had come to this village peacefully—no sides taken, no loyalties declared, no hostility toward anyone.

So why had someone struck so viciously, right from the start?

Meanwhile, Yiwansan was curled up under the covers.

—I’m not as skilled as you. I run slower, I’m timid… and I’m afraid of the dark!

The words had sounded firm and serious, but underneath them, his male pride made him a little embarrassed to admit it.

So he forced himself to stay awake, yawning, waiting.

He couldn’t walk beside her through the storm, but at least he could be there to say welcome back when she returned.
That was all Yiwansan ever asked of himself.

After waiting for what felt like forever, he finally heard the creak of the wooden door.

Yiwansan let out a long sigh of relief.

“Little boss lady, thank God—you’re finally back.”