Chapter 100: Leaping

The eight-millimeter rope really couldn't support the weight of three people; with a crisp snap, the knot on the copper tree side gave way, and we swung like a pendulum in a huge arc, slamming heavily into the cliff wall beside us, knocking us dizzy and almost making us spit blood.

Lao Yang at the bottom took the hardest hit; for a moment he couldn't hold the rope and slid down. He frantically grabbed at a crevice in the rock to stop himself. Master Liang and I were no better off—my head scraped against a rock ridge, cutting a gash that bled profusely. Master Liang hung vertically, unable to get a good grip; the rope slipped through his palm and shot straight down, but luckily Lao Yang was below to catch him, so he didn't fall.

From above came the sound of stalactites continuing to crack, threatening to break at any moment. I quickly reached out, grabbed a nearby stalactite pillar, jumped over, and then pulled Master Liang over as well. Master Liang was terrified; he looked up and started thanking me profusely, but before he could finish, a mask suddenly shot down from above and latched onto his face.

In that instant, I seemed to see several crab-leg-like claws extending from under the mask. Master Liang let out a muffled scream and tried to cover his face, but it was too late—the mask was already stuck. He struggled desperately to tear it off, but the mask seemed glued to his face; he pulled it away several times only to have it suction back on. I wanted to help him, but he was thrashing wildly. Before I could get close, he knocked me over. I grabbed the rope again and slid down to Lao Yang's side, barely managing to stop.

I glanced down at the bottomless abyss beneath my feet and cursed under my breath. Just as I was about to climb back up to help Master Liang, a shadow as big as a hand came down from above and grabbed onto my face. Everything went black; I couldn't see anything, only feeling several fuzzy things burrowing straight into my mouth.

In my panic, I managed to grip a rock crevice with one hand and pry at the mask with the other, while clenching my teeth to keep those things out. After prying once, the mask fell off by itself. I quickly threw it away, but it landed right on Lao Yang's rear end. He cursed loudly and hastily knocked it down with the butt of his gun.

I sighed in relief, but when I turned my head, four or five Chi Gu jumped onto the edge of my head, startling me into a shiver. I raised my hand and fired four shots, but it was useless. In an instant, another dozen surged over. Lao Yang and I retreated downward as we heard muffled screams. Looking up, Master Liang had already been overwhelmed; his body was covered in Chi Gu. He shouted and struggled, trying to slap them off, but each one he knocked off was replaced by more.

As I backed away, I fired until my bullets ran out, but the situation didn't improve at all. Like a tide, the Chi Gu surrounded us from both sides. Turning around, I saw the rock walls around us were already covered with them, their movements creating a bizarre cacophony that almost split my head. In a moment of distraction, several of them jumped up, diving straight for our faces; one careless move and we'd be hit.

We kept retreating downward, but there was no way we could outrun them. Soon we were completely surrounded, and just as we were about to lose hope, Lao Yang fired his Paiziliao with a deafening roar, blasting away a large patch of Chi Gu above our heads. The nearest masks shattered instantly, falling like snowflakes around my head.

But within a second, the empty patch of rock blasted by the Paiziliao was covered again by more Chi Gu. Seeing it was useless, Lao Yang quickly wrapped his head in his clothes and shouted to me: "Old Wu! I'll cover you—cover your mouth and go get the torch!"

I looked up; the torch was still wedged on a protrusion where I'd stuck it earlier, with no Chi Gu around it. Obviously these things were afraid of fire, but between me and the torch, every inch was crawling with Chi Gu. There was no way I could climb up there. I

shouted back to Lao Yang: "No way! Can't climb up! Too many!"

"I'm out of ideas!! Let's take a gamble!" Lao Yang yelled while swinging his Paiziliao wildly. "Damn bad luck—why weren't these things here last time!"

I stared at these creatures, trembling inside. These Chi Gu weren't particularly aggressive, but their sheer numbers were overwhelming, and with their hard masks protecting them, they were hard to kill completely. These were just the survivors after thousands of years of reproduction; it was unimaginable how many the ancients had created to guard this copper tree.

Lao Yang shook off the Chi Gu on him again and tried to crawl over to me. But when he looked up at me, he froze and yelled, "Old Wu, what's wrong with you?"

Just as I stood there stunned, several masks crawled on his shoulders toward the cloth on his face. I shouted back, "What's wrong? Watch out!"

Lao Yang snapped out of it, hastily swatted the Chi Gu off his shoulders, and said to me, "Old Wu, I mean—have you noticed? This isn't right!"

"What's not right!" I pulled him over and yelled impatiently, "What time is it? Spit it out if you've got something to say!"

"Look at yourself—there's not a single mask on you! Why aren't they crawling on you?! That's impossible!"

I looked down and let out an "ah" too. Then I glanced at Master Liang and Lao Yang—they were covered in Chi Gu, no matter how hard they tried to shake them off. But on me, there really wasn't a single one.

My heart skipped a beat. I suddenly remembered that from just now until now, apart from the one that flew onto my face, none had crawled onto my body at all. In all the chaos earlier, I hadn't noticed, thinking I'd been lucky. Now it seemed something was off. I quickly looked around and found that although the Chi Gu were also crawling toward me, as soon as they got close, they changed direction and crawled elsewhere, as if they were avoiding me like they avoided the torch.

"What's going on?" I wondered. I tentatively reached out to grab the nearest mask. Before my hand even touched it, the patch of Chi Gu retreated in a flurry.

I looked at Lao Yang, and he looked back at me. Neither of us understood. Lao Yang exclaimed, "Holy crap, that's awesome! Did you accidentally get something on your hand? Check it!" I looked at my hand immediately—aside from some dried blood from my wound and grime, there was nothing special.

This was strange. What were they afraid of from me? Did they have selective parasitism?

Watching the Chi Gu retreat like that, I remembered the scene where Poker-face drove back the Corpse Beetles, and a question popped into my mind.

Wait—could it be... blood?

How could that be? Why would these vicious things be afraid of my ordinary blood? I stared at my hand in confusion, my mind a mess, unable to figure anything out.

Meanwhile, Lao Yang was about to be overwhelmed. On reflex, I tentatively reached out toward him. What happened next left me dumbfounded: the Chi Gu attached to him retreated as if they'd seen roach spray, exactly the same as when Corpse Beetles fled from Poker-face's blood.

"No way!" My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe it was working.

Lao Yang still didn't understand what was going on and shouted that he wanted to climb up to get the torch. I patted him and said, "Wait, look—something's not right."

With that, I raised my hand and climbed a few steps toward Master Liang, who was already convulsing. Just those few steps, and the Chi Gu in that area receded like a tide. The previously orderly sound of masks clicking suddenly turned into chaos, overwhelmed by terrified squeaks.

Lao Yang stared at me in shock, like I was some kind of monster. I ignored him, climbed up, and placed my hand over Master Liang's face. The mask suddenly arched upward. I grabbed it and yanked it off, pulling out a slimy tongue-like thing in the process. Master Liang, who had been semi-conscious, immediately vomited everything when the "tongue" was pulled from his throat, spraying himself all over.

The Chi Gu in my hand struggled violently, almost slipping out of my grip. The tongue-like thing was too disgusting, so I slammed it hard against a rock, splattering green juice all over my hand.

The Chi Gu around us retreated but didn't go far, forming a huge encirclement that kept shrinking. Lao Yang quickly retrieved the torch and swept it around, forcing them back a little. By then, Master Liang coughed twice and seemed to regain consciousness. Lao Yang also fetched the water canteen and gathered the remaining rope. Unfortunately, our other gear and food were still up on the tree, and I didn't know if we could get them back.

I poured water into my hand and moistened Master Liang's lips. He finally came around, and when he saw me, two streams of tears rolled down his cheeks. I froze and quickly pushed him aside. Lao Yang's nerves had been wound too tight; he was almost hysterical. I told him that with the torch around, they couldn't get close, and to relax, or he'd lose his mind.

Only when he saw that the Chi Gu indeed stopped approaching did he breathe a sigh of relief. He planted the torch on the ground between us and immediately asked, "Old Wu, what's going on? When did you become so badass? Why didn't you use it earlier? We've been through hell because of this."

I looked at my own hand and shook my head. "I don't know myself. Feels like a dream."

Lao Yang took a little of the blood from my hand, smelled it, and didn't believe I was that powerful either. He asked me, "When you came over just now, did you touch anything special? Think carefully—maybe you happened to come across some natural enemy of these stupid masks without knowing it."

I thought about it—I'd touched everything they'd touched. The only thing I'd touched that they hadn't was my own blood. But it really couldn't be. If my blood were that powerful, I would have shown it off at the Lu King's Palace. Why waste it then? Unless—could it be that I'd gotten some of his blood on me earlier, and it's still working? No way—

I shook my head and dismissed the idea to myself.

Liang Shiye heard us talking about what happened just now, so he asked us what was going on. His eyes were covered by the mask, and he hadn't seen anything. Lao Yang, trying to needle me, said to him, "You don't know, just now our Lao Wu really had a moment of glory. It went like this and that."

Liang Shiye heard him say that, clicked his tongue, and said, "Little Wu, have you ever eaten a certain thing? It's black, about this big—"