As soon as Bai Mingmang's fingers touched the star map, his whole body seemed to be sucked into a whirlpool.
When I opened my eyes again, there were three blood-red moons above my head.
"Fuck." He pushed himself up and sat up, with the cold black rock beneath him. The air smelled of rust and rotten leaves—different from any tomb he had ever visited.
There was a sudden buzzing in my ears.
Not tinnitus. It was some kind of... Whisper. Like a blade scraping across a bone, and like an arrow screaming through the air.
"Thirty steps east... There is murderous intent..."
Bai Mingmang's hair stood on end all over his body. In his life, he had heard the sound of rice dumplings crawling and the clicking sound of mechanisms, but he had never heard weapons speak.
He rolled back behind a rock. His movements were so fast that he didn't look like a forty-seven-year-old man - the instinct he had developed over thirty years of fighting backwards.
After three breaths.
Thirty steps away, three dark figures emerged from the bushes. They wore tattered leather armor and carried scimitars in their hands. The blade glowed dark red under the blood moon.
"There was clearly something moving just now..." The leader spat.
Bai Mingmang held his breath. He touched his waist - and found nothing. Luoyang shovels, black donkey hooves, and glutinous rice are all gone. Only the three gold-touching charms hidden close to his body were left, and they were as hot as a soldering iron.
The three people got closer and closer.
Ten steps.
Five steps.
