Before the morning mist had cleared, Ye Fan led the three women through seven winding alleys. Chǔ Hóngzhuāng's Golden Silkworm Gu vibrated its wings at her fingertips, tracing half a golden arc ahead to steer them clear of three hidden sentry posts—she had nurtured this Gu insect this morning with the molted skin of a centennial cold cicada, enabling it to sniff out the presence of living humans within a ten-mile radius.
Only when the Golden Silkworm suddenly plunged into a grove of wild apricots, knocking down a few dew-droplets, did he halt his stride. "We've arrived." He raised a hand to press against a tree trunk; the stream within his Inner World suddenly surged, and a narrow path barely wide enough for a single person immediately materialized behind the grove.
Su Qingxue swept away the blocking thorns with her handkerchief, her short blade flashing under the moonlight—she had just caught sight of a half-section of thin iron wire tangled in the thickets, the mark of the Soul-Chasing Gate. The valley was narrower than imagined, flanked on three sides by sheer, knife-cut stone walls, leaving only a gap about a zhang wide to the southeast.
Chapter 120