The woman bucked hard, trying to throw her off. Mu Dai clung on, teeth gritted, just like when she once pinned Hongsha under a water jar lid. The difference was weight—Mu Dai was light, tossed around easily. If it had been someone heavy like Cao Yanhua, the woman wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Footsteps pounded—the moment Luo Ren entered, he exhaled in relief, then almost laughed.
He strode over, pulled out plastic zip ties, and bound the woman’s ankles first. Then, with another tie ready for her wrists, he looked up at Mu Dai.
She was still pressing the woman’s head down, cheeks puffed with effort, eyes saying Look at me, I’m awesome—praise me!
Once Luo Ren secured her hands, Mu Dai could let go.
She glanced at him, confused. Why aren’t you trying yet?
He gestured at the woman’s head. “You’re not grossed out?”
Her white hair was damp, sticky. Beneath Mu Dai’s fingertips, the warm, wrinkled scalp pressed against her skin.
A shiver ripped through her. She shrieked, “Eww!” and leapt back, shaking her hands violently.
Luo Ren burst out laughing. He snapped the zip tie shut on the woman’s wrists. The woman rolled her eyes back, struggling and snarling at him, face twisted grotesquely.
“What are you staring at? Want me to cut you?” Luo Ren growled.
Then he turned back—Mu Dai was still furiously wiping her hands against the stone wall, looking like she’d rather cut them off.
Luo Ren sighed. “Little Pocket, you really do short-circuit sometimes.”
It wasn’t the first time. Last time, she had grabbed that strip of human skin with her bare hand, then wasted half his bottle of soap scrubbing herself clean.
Meanwhile, Yan Hongsha had carried a torch deeper inside. At the far end of the cave, she suddenly let out a startled “Huh?” and crouched to examine something.
Luo Ren kept his eyes fixed on the woman, standing perfectly still. Mu Dai, however, rubbed her hands against the stone wall as she inched forward.
At the far end of the cave should be the woman’s “bedroom.” Two protruding rocks supported a wooden plank, covered with animal hides. Nearby sat chipped bowls and basins for food and water. On the bed lay a messy heap of damp-smelling blankets—and something else.
Mu Dai took a torch from Yan Hongsha and leaned closer. On the bed lay two rag dolls, one larger, one smaller.
The dolls were made of scraps of cloth stitched together. When squeezed, they weren’t soft but stiff and scratchy, likely stuffed with dry leaves or coarse twigs. The smaller doll was unfinished, a thin wooden splinter stuck through it as a makeshift needle. There was no eyehole—just a line of frayed thread tied tightly to the end, pulled from torn fabric rather than real string.
Mu Dai picked one up. The stitches were clumsy.
She remembered the scarecrow she had seen before. So these were all made by this woman. Mu Dai had assumed the poor workmanship came from lack of skill, but now she realized—it was half because of the woman’s body, half because she had no proper materials.
Both dolls were girls. Because of the crude materials, they weren’t endearing at all—on the contrary, they looked unsettling, almost eerie.
Was this the woman’s hobby? A strange mix of feelings rose in Mu Dai’s chest as she set the dolls back down.
Later, when it came to confronting this woman, they might have to kill her. That was why Mu Dai didn’t want to know too much about her. If she learned about her family, her lovers, her interests, then this hideous monster before them would no longer be just a monster. She would be a living, breathing person. Someone they might hesitate to strike down.
Yan Hongsha was still half-kneeling, thrusting her torch under the bed. After a moment, she pressed her lips together, then lay flat on the ground and reached underneath.
Before Mu Dai could ask, Hongsha pulled out a rock. Then she reached in again.
Mu Dai glanced at the stone in her hand, then suddenly thought of something. She grabbed it and flipped it over.
Just as she suspected, the underside had been ground smooth, revealing a greenish core inside.
Mu Dai whispered, “A gemstone?”
Half-hidden beneath the bed, Yan Hongsha’s muffled voice replied, “Emerald.”
As she spoke, she pushed out more stones.
Some had been polished, some not. Their colors varied—rosy red, speckled gold, shimmering like stardust.
One after another, they rolled across the ground.
When Hongsha grew tired, she crawled out, her hair tangled with dust and cobwebs. Mu Dai reached over to pluck the web from her head. Hongsha just sat there dazed, staring at the pile of rough gems with a bitter smile.
Luo Ren, worried, stepped closer. Then he heard her murmur:
“My grandfather… he came here to mine, but the well was empty. This woman had already moved every stone out of it.”
Back then, when Old Man Yan and his group of city folk came storming into the mountains, the locals must have known they were treasure hunters. The woman, living in the village, might have heard the same rumors. She didn’t die as expected, but instead wasted away in the bottom of the well, endlessly asking why she had been abandoned, what secret lay there.
She must have seen the stones at the bottom, polished them, and uncovered the gems.
So even if the stones were useless to her, she refused to leave a single one for Old Man Yan. Not a single piece.
Mu Dai could almost picture it: the woman, filled with seething hatred, clawing her way up the well wall, carrying the stones out one by one, clearing the place bare.
When they buried Old Man Yan, Hongsha had said her grandfather had spent half his life dreaming of that treasure well. So they laid him to rest inside it, letting him lie with the gems he had longed for. Life or death, at least he could be with them.
But the truth was—
The treasure well was empty.
A cruel irony. Empty in life, empty in death. What was the point?
Mu Dai sighed, about to speak, when Luo Ren suddenly hushed her.
In the depths of the cave, even that soft shhh seemed to echo.
A chill swept Mu Dai’s back. She turned to him.
But Luo Ren wasn’t looking at her. He had lowered his head, eyes locked on the woman’s throat.
That torn throat, sealed by a thin layer of translucent resin-like amber—
It was rising and falling.
Meow meow On TPH Chapter 26.1