SES Chapter 89 Part 2

Mu Dai gave a faint nod.

“Hand,” Luo Ren said.

He took her hand and examined it. Sure enough, just like last time, traces of crimson amber clung to her fingertip.

Unscrewing the bottle, he tilted it so the water lapped at the rim. “Dip your finger.”

The instant her fingertip touched, the sliver of amber on her skin streaked into the water and merged with the piece at the bottom.

Luo Ren capped the bottle, shook it gently, and muttered, “The big one draws in the small.”

Then added, “That shard must’ve originally been part of the one on her neck.”

Cao Yanhua craned in, still utterly lost. “What does that even mean?”

Luo Ren explained, “That piece of crimson amber wasn’t hard. It was soft, probably because it was fused with the cursed shard and pressed against her neck. When Mu Dai and I fought her, fragments stuck to our hands. Those fragments could be absorbed by the one hanging on the wild woman’s neck. Which means that shard likely came from her in the first place.”

He fell silent, then said, “That wild woman might really have given birth to the wild one.”

Yan Hongsha frowned. “Just because of that amber?”

Luo Ren shook his head. “This woman wasn’t a complete monster. She still had scraps of consciousness. I think she thought she was doomed, but when she survived, she treated the amber at her throat like a charm. Somehow, she must’ve discovered its properties. She couldn’t understand what the cursed shard was—but as a mother, she would’ve wanted her child to have the same protection.”

Yes. Otherwise, why would a wild one wear a piece of amber strung up with a woven cord? Of course—it had been hung there by the woman herself.

Cao Yanhua suddenly thought of something. “The cursed slip is inside this piece of amber. If a chunk of amber broke off, then does that mean part of the cursed slip was transferred into the amber that the wild girl was wearing?”

Luo Ren nodded. “That’s possible.”

Cao Yanhua couldn’t figure it out. “But the wild girl doesn’t look like she’s possessed by the cursed slip.”

Yan Hongsha, however, didn’t think it was hard to explain. “The cursed slip can’t possibly split itself. Otherwise, if one piece could be divided into countless ones, each capable of possessing someone, we’d never be able to gather them all.”

Luo Ren agreed. “Most of its power is concentrated in that woman. The loss of a small fragment probably doesn’t make much difference.”

Cao Yanhua was unconvinced. “But what if it does? What if it does?”

Then he remembered something. “You don’t know—when I first saw that wild girl, she was vicious. But after she caught me and Brother Sansan, I realized she wasn’t that bad. She even gave us apples to eat…”

As he spoke, he suddenly jerked his head up. “Wait—you think it might be because my little master yanked off that amber she was wearing?”

The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. He stumbled over his words, trying to explain. “What I mean is, that amber she wore—it was like a receiver. When she had it on, she’d follow that woman’s orders and act brutally. But without it, she was a little better. Because of blood ties, she’d still obey the woman, but to some extent, she would…”

Cao Yanhua scratched his head, unable to find the right word.

Mu Dai said, “I get it.”

“If you really think of it like a receiver, then the closer she is to that woman, the stronger the cursed slip’s influence. The farther away she is—or if the amber gets removed—the weaker the influence becomes.”

Luo Ren frowned. “But you and I both handled pieces of amber before, and we weren’t affected at all.”

Mu Dai thought for a moment. “Two possibilities. One: the pieces we touched were too small. Two: the wild girl has a blood connection to that woman, and we don’t.”

Yan Hongsha found that reasonable. “The cursed slip has only ever fully possessed one host. If it really has the strength to affect others, then those people must share a very close bond with the host.”

“Fine, let’s go with that for now.” Luo Ren looked at the cursed slip suspended in the fire. “Either way, it’s about to merge into one again. Draw the fire—once the flames burn out, we’ll seal that piece inside too. Then we find Thirteen, and once we do, we’re leaving.”

That suddenly reminded Yan Hongsha of something. She glanced at the corpse on the ground, hesitated, and said, “What about the wild girl… if she finds out her mother’s dead?”

Mu Dai kept quiet. Deep down, she couldn’t help feeling a little sympathy for that woman. She hadn’t expected that the last breath in the woman’s body would be snuffed out by her own hands.

Luo Ren said flatly, “Then don’t let the wild girl find out.”

Silence fell around them. After a while, Yan Hongsha stammered, “You mean…”

“Bury her.”

Yan Hongsha looked up at Luo Ren. He had already walked away, stopping by the fire, his back turned in silence.

Cao Yanhua’s chest tightened. He muttered, not sure if he was speaking to Mu Dai or Yan Hongsha, “Just bury her like this… isn’t that… wrong?”

Because, if you looked past her terrifying appearance and strange behavior, at the end of the day, she was just another woman who had suffered misfortune—one who happened to have a half-wild daughter.

And now they were going to bury her quietly, without a trace, not even letting her daughter know.

Yan Hongsha turned to him. “If burying her is wrong, then what’s right? Should we beat the drums and announce it to the wild girl, so she flies into a rage and hunts us down?”

Cao Yanhua felt lost. He hesitated, then Yan Hongsha stood, picked up her machete, and began digging into the dirt. After watching for a bit, he grabbed another blade lying nearby and helped.

No one spoke. Even when they had fought the wild girl, they hadn’t felt this low.

Meanwhile, Luo Ren compared the cursed slip’s size against an empty water bottle, realizing it wouldn’t fit. He dug out a foldable water bladder from his pack instead, told Mu Dai to keep watch over the fire, and went to fetch water.

Cao Yanhua glanced toward the cave entrance, his expression complicated, then called out softly to Yan Hongsha.

“Hongsha?”

She didn’t look up. “Hm?”

“Don’t you think…”

He trailed off halfway, muttered, “Forget it. Just keep digging.”

He couldn’t help but feel Luo Ren was being too cold. Just a plain “bury her,” not even a flicker of emotion.

By the time Luo Ren returned, the pit was nearly done. Cao Yanhua and Yan Hongsha laid the woman’s body inside.

Once they covered it with dirt, Luo Ren asked Mu Dai, “You alright?”

Mu Dai looked down at her hands. “I feel like I just killed someone.”

Luo Ren replied, “First, she was already dead. Second, even if you can’t remember exactly how it went down, if she hadn’t tried to kill you, you wouldn’t have fought back. It was self-defense. Nothing to blame yourself for.”

Maybe he was right.

Yan Hongsha and Cao Yanhua stamped the dirt flat. After Luo Ren packed the cursed slip into the water bladder, they scattered the remnants of the fire over the burial site to cover the signs of digging.

Mu Dai’s chest felt heavy, like a stone pressing down. She grabbed a torch and walked toward the exit. After a few steps, she realized she had gone the wrong way, turned back, and headed the other direction.

But in that turn, something caught her eye. She froze, then lifted the torch toward the cave’s shadows.

It was the dolls she had shoved aside earlier—the small one lying facedown, the larger one leaning against it. Their jagged, sawtooth-like eyes glinted in the firelight, staring straight at her.

Mu Dai shivered.