I just became the Pirate King, and you're telling me I also time-traveled at the same time.

I opened my eyes and saw the roof beam overhead, a dark, looming structure, its surface glowing slightly red from the firelight.

Bai tide was still sitting in the chair, in the same posture as before she went to sleep, her hand resting on the pages of the book, her fingers occasionally twitching.

It seemed like she hadn't moved at all all night.

"Awake?" Bai tide's voice came from the chair, without turning around.

Su Wanwan sat up.

Her clothes were soaked with sweat and clung to her body, feeling cool.

She threw off the blanket, stepped onto the ground, and felt the chill of the ground creep up from her feet, causing her teeth to chatter.

"What did you dream about?" Bai tide asked.

Su Wanwan thought for a moment and then described the four-armed creature from her dream.

After listening, Bai tide closed the book and turned to look at her.

Bai tide's eyes were cloudy under the oil lamp, but there was a glimmer of light beneath the cloudiness, like a bead buried in the soil.

"It's calling you," Bai tide said. "It can feel your bones opening up."

It's pulling you in.

"I haven't drunk any flowers yet," Su Wanwan said.

"It has nothing to do with flowers," Bai tide said. "Once your bones open up, your scent changes."

You used to be a fog, and it couldn't see you clearly.

Now you are a river, and the river has water. The water reflects light, and the light finds you.

Bai tide stood up, walked to the stove, and relit the firewood in the firebox.

Fire leaped from the stove, illuminating half of her face, while the other half remained in shadow, wrinkled like old tree bark.

She put the kettle on the stove, then took a dried flower from the jar—Su Wanwan recognized it as one of the three from last night—and put it in a bowl. Once the water boiled, she poured the boiling water into the bowl.

The dried flowers tumbled in the hot water for a moment, then slowly unfurled.

The petals changed from brown to pale purple. There were five petals, and at the tip of each petal was a small hook with a drop of water hanging from it. The drop of water flashed in the firelight, like a drop of molten silver.

Bai tide brought the bowl over and placed it on the floor beside the bed.

"I drank it."

The first one.

Su Wanwan picked up the bowl.

The water was very hot; the rim of the bowl burned her fingertips until they turned red. She blew on it, and the breath she exhaled created ripples on the surface of the water.

The flower floated on the water, its petals fully open, like a newly opened flower, only the color was wrong—not a vibrant purple, but a pale purple that seemed to have come back to life, like a person whose face suddenly regained color before death.

She took a sip.

Water is bitter, but the bitterness is not the same.

It's not the kind of bitterness you get from tea stems; it's a deeper, more profound bitterness, like digging up tree roots and boiling them for three days and three nights until all the flavors are gone, leaving only bitterness.

The bitterness traveled from the tip of the tongue to the back, lingered there for a moment, and then suddenly spread out like a bomb exploding in the mouth.

She resisted the urge to vomit, swallowing the water in her mouth. The bitter taste went down her throat and into her stomach, which suddenly contracted as if she had been punched.

She bent over and gagged, but nothing came out.

Bai tide stood beside her, arms crossed, watching her.

"Swallow it," Bai tide said. "Don't spit it out."

If you throw up, then you've wasted your time drinking it.

Su Wanwan gritted her teeth and drank the remaining water in the bowl, sip by sip.

Every sip tasted like medicine, no, even worse than medicine, like drinking a bitter gall bladder crushed with a knife.

By the end, her tongue was numb, her lips were numb, and her entire mouth was numb, as if she had been given anesthesia, and she couldn't taste anything.

She put the bowl on the ground, put her hands on her knees, and gasped for breath.

Then she felt it.

Something is moving inside my dantian.

It wasn't the qi that was moving; it was something thicker and heavier, like a lump of heated wax, slowly melting in the dantian, turning into liquid, and then flowing out.

It's not leaking outwards, it's seeping into the bones.

She felt the current flowing into her bones—her left leg, her right arm, her spine—like hot oil flowing into a dried-up riverbed, filling the riverbed with hot oil and making a sizzling sound that only she could hear, in her bones, deep within her body.

Her body began to feel hot.

It's not the kind of heat you get when you have a fever; it's a heat that seeps out from your bones, like throwing a hot stone into water. The water starts to bubble, and the bubbles rise from your bones, through your muscles and skin, turning into beads of sweat that gush out from every pore.

Her clothes were soaked through within three breaths, her hair clung to her forehead, and sweat dripped from the ends of her hair into the bowl on the ground, mixing with the little bit of flower water left at the bottom of the bowl.

Bai tide squatted down in front of her and reached out to press her wrist.

Bai tide's fingers were cool, and pressing them against her burning skin felt like an ice pop against a red-hot iron plate. Su Wanwan even heard a slight "hissing" sound on her wrist, unsure whether it was real or an illusion.

Bai tide's fingers lingered on her wrist for two breaths before releasing them.

"It's doubled," Bai tide said.

Her tone was calm, but Su Wanwan noticed a subtle pause in the way Bai Xi withdrew her fingers—Bai Xi's fingers lingered on her wrist for a moment longer than a normal pulse diagnosis, not quite a breath, but enough.

This was enough for Su Wanwan to know that the doubling speed was faster than Bai tide had expected.

Bai tide stood up, took a dry towel from the stove, and tossed it to Su Wanwan.

The towel landed on Su Wanwan's knees. She picked it up and wiped the sweat from her face. The towel was immediately soaked through; you could wring water out of it.

She draped the towel around her neck and looked up at Bai tide.

"It doubles on the second day, and quadruples on the third day," Su Wanwan said. "What will happen on the third day?"

Bai tide took the pipe out of her sleeve, lit another pipe, took a puff, and exhaled.

Smoke rose in front of her, obscuring her expression.

"After you finish drinking it on the third day, your monthly energy will quadruple."

What does it mean to quadruple? It means that you originally had one portion stored in your bones, and now you have another portion stored in your dantian (lower abdomen).

After quadrupling, your body is filled with sixteen units of air.

Your meridians don't have that capacity, your bones don't have that hardness, and your skin and flesh don't have that resilience.

At that time, your body was like a reservoir filled with floodwater; the dam hadn't collapsed, but the floodgates couldn't be opened.

The water was splashing around inside, making bones ache, making veins ache, and making flesh ache.

How painful? Painful enough that you'd rather be dead.

Bai tide tapped her pipe on the table, and the ash fell onto the book in front of her, but she didn't flick it away.

"But you can't die," Bai tide said. "You have to open up the gaps in your bones one by one in that kind of pain."

If it can't be opened, the lunar energy will be locked inside forever.

The lunar energy locked inside won't stop; it will keep pounding in your bones for ten years, fifty years, until your bones become brittle, your meridians break, and your tail falls off one by one.

By then, you'll be a useless person.

As Su Wanwan listened, she gripped the soaking wet towel in her hand until her knuckles turned white.

She didn't speak, not because she didn't want to, but because her mouth was filled with bitterness, and the bitterness would burst out if she opened her mouth.

She kept her mouth tightly shut and breathed through her nose. Each breath carried the bitter taste of the floral water, which seeped into her brain, making her mind so clear that it frightened her.

"You have two more days," Bai tide said. "Don't think about anything else these two days. Eat, sleep, drink tea, and don't do anything else."

Take good care of your health and get it to its best condition.

On the third day, I stayed by his side.

Su Wanwan nodded.

She wanted to say "thank you," but when she opened her mouth, she found that no sound came out. It wasn't that her voice was hoarse; it was something deeper, as if all the energy in her body had been absorbed by that moon energy, leaving her without even the strength to speak.

She opened her mouth, then gave up, and just looked at Bai tide.

Bai tide looked at her face, which was pale from sweat, and suddenly reached out and patted her on the head.

The pat was very light, the palm landing on her head like a leaf falling on a stone.

But Su Wanwan could feel the temperature of that hand—cool, rough, and with a strange smell of tobacco and osmanthus wine mixed together.

"Alright, go back to bed and get some sleep."

I'll wake you when it's light.

Su Wanwan lay back on the bed, curling up on her side.

She was still sweating profusely; the blanket was soaked with sweat and clung to her body like a second skin.

She closed her eyes and heard Bai tide walk back to the table. The chair creaked, followed by the sound of turning pages. No, not turning pages, but the sound of fingers tracing lines on the pages, once, twice, three times, with the exact same intervals.

The voice was steady and old, like someone who had been sitting in this place for over a thousand years, who had seen everything and found nothing strange.

Su Wanwan fell asleep again amidst that sound.

This time she wasn't dreaming.

When I woke up, it was already broad daylight.

Light shone through the paper window, a hazy white light carrying a damp mist.

The white wolf had been brought into the house at some point. It lay on the floor at the foot of the bed, its head resting on its two front paws, its pale blue eyes looking at Su Wanwan.

Seeing that she was awake, it wagged its tail three times on the ground, then stood up, put its front paws on the edge of the bed, and touched Su Wanwan's hand with its nose.

The tip of my nose was wet and cool; it felt like a drop of cool water when I touched the back of my hand.

Bai tide is not in the house.

A pot of porridge sat on the stove. The porridge was cooked and no longer steaming, but the lid was still tightly closed, with a stone on top—probably to prevent the white wolf from stealing it.

Next to the porridge was a dish of pickled vegetables, finely chopped and mixed with red chili threads, creating a beautiful red and green contrast.

Su Wanwan sat up. Her body was no longer hot, but she had an indescribable feeling in her bones—not pain, but a feeling of being supported by something, like there was a soft, bouncy pad inside her bones. With every movement, she could feel that pad swaying slightly inside her bones.

She moved her left leg, which was now open at the joints, and it moved much more lightly than her right leg. It was so light that she wasn't used to it. She lifted her leg twice as far as she had expected, and her knee almost hit her chin.

The white wolf tilted its head, looked at her, and pricked up its ears, as if asking, "What's wrong with you?"

Su Wanwan reached out and rubbed its ears, then lifted the blanket and got out of bed.

When her feet touched the ground, she felt a change in the sensation of her feet—not a change in the sensation of the ground, but a change in her perception.

Before, when she stepped on the ground, she felt that it was cold, hard, and rough.

Now, as she stands on the ground, she feels a very faint coolness flowing slowly three inches below the surface, like an underground river buried very deep, so slow that it is almost imperceptible, but it is there.

She went to the stove, removed the stone from the pot lid, and lifted the lid.

The porridge was made of white rice, the rice grains were cooked until very soft, and a thin layer of rice oil formed on the surface.

She scooped a bowl of porridge, added a few pickled vegetables on top, squatted by the stove, and ate it spoonful by spoonful.

The porridge had cooled down, but the rice grains were still soft. The saltiness of the pickled vegetables and the spiciness of the chili peppers blended together, creating a surprisingly refreshing taste when eaten with the cold porridge.

She ate two bowls, scraped the bottom of the pot clean, washed the bowls, and sat on the threshold waiting for Bai tide.

When Bai tide emerged from the mist, she was carrying a fish in her hand.

The fish was small, about the length of a palm, its silver scales reflecting shimmering light in the mist.

The fish was still moving, its tail flicking back and forth, sending out a few drops of water that splashed onto Bai tide's sleeve.

Bai tide walked to the water vat in the yard, pulled out the dagger Chu Yang had given her from her waist, and cleaned the fish in a few quick movements—scaling, gutting, and removing the internal organs. Her movements were clean and efficient, just like the way she combed her hair, with a smoothness that came from doing it countless times.

She washed the fish clean, carried it into the house, threw it into a pot, added water, ginger slices, and a few dried fruits that Su Wanwan didn't recognize. She then covered the pot and started stewing it.

"We're having fish soup today," Bai tide said. "Your flower will have it tonight."

You shouldn't drink flower and fish soup together; it will cause vomiting.

"It's not enough to throw up; we have to start all over again. I don't have that much money for you to waste."

Su Wanwan stood up from the threshold, walked to the stove, and moved a chair for Bai tide.

Bai tide sat down, lit her pipe, and watched the fire in the stove while smoking.

The firelight shone on her face, making her wrinkles appear even deeper. Each wrinkle concealed a small shadow, which moved with the flickering firelight, like a swarm of tiny insects crawling beneath her skin.

"Senior Bai Xi," Su Wanwan squatted down beside her, also looking at the fire in the stove, "besides that thing, what else is in the inner tomb?"

Bai tide took a drag of her cigarette and exhaled.

The smoke turned orange-red in the firelight of the stove, like a small cloud.

"There are many more," Bai tide said. "The Inner Tomb is not a grave, it's a city."

That thing was locked in the center of the city, but the rest of the city was not locked.

They roam the city; some are conscious, some are not. Some will attack you, some will hide from you, and some will try to talk to you in your likeness.

If you hear a voice telling you to turn around, never turn around.

If you see someone smile at you, never smile back.

If you see a door ajar, don't push it open.

Why?

"Because none of those are real," Bai tide said. "They are illusions formed by the mist inside the inner tomb."