The mist on Penglai Island was as thick as congealing ink, winding in threads around Shen Mingyue’s hair and collar. Every breath was heavy with a salty, humid stench that felt as though it might seep into her very lungs. The Jade Pendant in her bosom burned with an alarming heat; even through three layers of fabric, it seared her skin like a coal ready to burst.
The patterns on the pendant’s surface pulsed with an eerie red light, throbbing like veins, as if transmitting a crisis from afar. Xiao Lin lay on a stretcher, his complexion as pale as paper. The blood seeping from his wounds had long since soaked through the coarse linen, dragging a winding, dark red trail across the muddy mountain path, each drop a silent accusation against the cruelty of fate.
His breathing was as thin as a spider’s silk, each rise and fall accompanied by labored gasps, with intermittent groans escaping his throat like the death rattles of a fading life. Shen Qingyao, carrying a heavy medicine chest, shuffled along the slick mountain path, her steps uneven. Her figure flickered in and out of the morning mist until she suddenly slipped, falling heavily into a mud pit.
Chapter 76