"Let's go."
Something was tossed to her side.
"Go? Go where?" Yan Xiao'er glanced at Yu Changmian, utterly bewildered.
On the ground lay a coil of long rope.
"To work."
"!!"
Yan Xiao'er surveyed the cave. It was nothing but rock walls on either side. Did he expect her to climb up and pick fruit with a rope?
She pointed at the rope, then at herself. The gesture was clear: *Do I look like someone who can climb mountains?*
Yu Changmian neither nodded nor shook his head. He simply picked up a burlap sack and began walking slowly toward the rock face on the other side of the stream.
The stream wound through the mud, varying in width. Yu Changmian found a spot where he could clear the gap easily and leaped across.
Though she couldn't understand his motives, Yan Xiao'er found herself picking up the rope and following him anyway.
Once across, she watched him sit down cross-legged, facing a long, narrow fissure in the rock face—a gap so tight that only one person could barely squeeze through.
"Aren't we going in now?"
"Wait for... dark."
Yan Xiao'er looked back at the stream, then at the fissure. If they had to wait, why not wait where it was more comfortable? She truly couldn't fathom what was going on in his mind.
Only when night fell did she understand.
The mountain stream, swollen by a sudden evening surge, had tripled in width; it would have been impossible for an ordinary person to cross now.
Yan Xiao'er stared at the sight in disbelief.
She turned to say something to Yu Changmian, only to realize that, at some point, his partially white hair had turned completely, glossy black.
In the distance, a beast let out a low, unrecognizable growl.
Yu Changmian rose to his feet and slipped sideways into the rock fissure.
His frame seemed to have grown thinner and taller.
Yan Xiao'er shook her head, wondering if her eyes were playing tricks on her.
The fissure was incredibly narrow, becoming even tighter the further they went. Having grown accustomed to the darkness, she could barely make out the path, but she still couldn't avoid scraping her face and hands against the sharp, jagged rocks.
As she navigated the winding, cramped passage, she felt as if she were gasping for air with every few steps. Yu Changmian’s shadow had long since disappeared from sight.
"Stand there and don't move," Yu Changmian’s voice came from somewhere around a bend ahead.
Yan Xiao'er stopped obediently, leaning against the rock to catch her breath—or rather, wedging herself into the gap.
Bored, she accidentally looked up and was frozen with terror.
Above her, clustered in a dense, shimmering mass, were countless glowing crimson orbs. They flickered incessantly, accompanied by a faint, hissing murmur and a suffocating, terrifying pressure.
She didn't even have the breath to scream. Paralyzed with fear, she scrambled forward, only for a hand to reach out, wrap around her shoulder, and pull her close.
Before she could even let out a soft "Ah," a warm palm covered her mouth.
"Shh, keep it down. Didn't I tell you not to move?" Hearing Yu Changmian’s voice, she finally exhaled.
She whispered, "Above... there's something strange above!" Her lingering fear made her steal another glance upward. The red lights were still there, but they seemed to have gathered further away. With someone beside her, she felt a little less afraid.
"Ignore what's above. As long as you don't make a sound, they won't attack you. Watch your feet."
Only then did Yan Xiao'er realize they were standing on a wide ledge, riddled with holes of various sizes that emitted a cold, blue glow. A single misplaced step would surely send her tumbling into the abyss.
"Where... where is this?"
Yu Changmian didn't answer. He simply wrapped both arms around her waist.
Yan Xiao'er widened her eyes in disbelief. What was he doing?
Before she could ask, she felt the rope being coiled around her and tightened into a knot. He was securing her to him. Yan Xiao'er had never been this close to a strange man; she instinctively tried to push him away, but Yu Changmian only held her tighter.
"You want to..."
Before she could finish, he tightened his grip, and they leaped together into one of the mid-sized blue holes.
Yan Xiao'er heard the wind whistling past her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut and let her body fall, yet, strangely, she didn't feel as terrified as before.
The descent grew faster and faster. Just as she felt she might suffocate, she felt a cushioning force lift her slightly before she landed softly on the ground.
"Interesting," Yu Changmian said. "No wonder you weren't dashed to death when they dragged you in."
Yan Xiao'er stood up, but her head was spinning. She didn't understand what was "interesting," nor the talk of being "dashed to death"—she only felt like she was on the verge of fainting.
She opened her eyes to see Yu Changmian’s deep, black gaze, with faint, ghostly blue glints in his eyes that made her heart tremble.
"You can let go of me now," Yan Xiao'er said, instinctively pushing him away. But the rope tightened, pulling her back and straight into his chest.
"Oh, so that's what 'letting go' means."
Yan Xiao'er blushed, suddenly realizing that ever since they entered the fissure, Yu Changmian’s way of speaking was no longer halting, his eyes had changed, and his words were bizarre.
This man was entirely different by night than he was by day.
She pointed at the knot at her waist, pursing her lips. She didn't want to say anything else; no one had ever teased her like this, and she didn't know how to retort.
Once unbound, Yan Xiao'er felt the icy chill rising from the ground. While she had been in his arms, his body heat had masked the freezing temperature of this place.
Looking around, she was struck with awe. She had thought the area between the rock walls was the bottom of the Tianjian Abyss, but she now realized she hadn't grasped the true scale of those words at all.
In the vast, cold blue mist, there seemed to be no end or boundary. She and Yu Changmian were like tiny pebbles in the universe, or flickering white specks in an infinite starry sky, ready to vanish into nothingness at any moment.
"Don't wander too far from me." As he spoke, he tied a knot around her wrist. A gentle tug confirmed the connection between them. "Follow me."
Yan Xiao'er asked, "Where are we going?"
"I told you, to work. Unless you want to eat and live for free? I suppose that's fine, provided you trade something else for it."
Yu Changmian’s cold voice echoed. The rope at her wrist went taut as he led her forward.
Yan Xiao'er smiled bitterly to herself. What could she possibly trade? She was a woman branded as a monster, a life on the verge of extinction; people outside avoided her like the plague. If she could be of some use here before she died, it wouldn't be a life entirely wasted.