Chapter Twelve: The Forest Shrine

The setting sun hung on the branches, carrying out its final duty. Its afterglow spread across the rolling clouds, casting a fiery crimson light that would soon fade away.

Time was running out; Yu Ge could not afford to hesitate. He ran to the front of the building, rushed inside, and slammed the wooden door shut behind him, raising a storm of dust and grime in the stale air.

After such a long ordeal, finally finding a place to rest allowed Yu Ge to let out a breath and relax, if only for a moment.

It was only now that he took a closer look at his surroundings.

He suddenly realized that this was not just an old house—it was clearly an abandoned shrine, long neglected and left to decay.

The shrine was small, with the simplest of furnishings. The white walls, battered by time, had turned yellow and black; everywhere, the plaster was broken and peeling, like a dense web of cracks. On the rare sections that remained intact, moss had invaded and spread, painting blotches like some wild pattern.

In the center, atop a square pedestal, stood a statue with only half its body remaining; the upper part had vanished without a trace.

In front of the statue rested a heavy, decaying altar table, thick with dust, two of its legs broken and collapsed. Beside the altar stood a rusted, shattered shrine cabinet, riddled with cracks and tangled with cobwebs, and nothing else.

Yet, regardless of its state, it was at least a temporarily safe haven.

Through the cracks in the wall, Yu Ge could see the old toad and the mountain ghost, shrouded in flickering black mist, prowling around the shrine. But no matter how they circled, neither dared to set foot within its bounds.

It was obvious—either the foundation stone was etched with mysterious runes and talismans, as in the town of Yunji, or there was something else here that the spirits feared.

With this, Yu Ge felt he might just survive the night.

He searched the shrine front and back but found nothing else of use. He gathered a few collapsed wooden planks and braced them against the battered door.

He knew full well that this rotting door could never withstand even the lightest touch from the mountain ghost, or even the old toad. It was not this door alone that kept them at bay.

What truly barred the way was more of a comfort to himself than any real defense.

As darkness deepened, Yu Ge gripped his Soul-Cleaving Blade tightly, unwilling to relax for a moment. The old warning against venturing out at night, coupled with the unknown terrors lurking in the red mist, made spending the night alone in the wild an ordeal he had never faced before.

He could not help but feel tense.

As the last rays of sunlight disappeared, darkness swept over the land, and with it came a vague, impenetrable mist.

Yu Ge’s eyes never left the doorway. Whether it was an illusion or not, he seemed to see fear in the mountain ghost and the old toad. As the crimson mist rolled in from all directions, both the toad and the ghost appeared to vanish.

Yet escape was impossible now—the red mist’s arrival crushed any thought of leaving.

He had no desire to test his luck in that unnatural fog. After all, townsfolk had tried before, and the outcome had been disastrous.

The red mist surged like a boundless tide. In the dim light, Yu Ge saw it flood up to the shrine, only to be repelled on every side by an invisible barrier. The entire surge swept past, leaving the shrine untouched, as if a glass bowl had been overturned atop the building. Along the rim, a soft, flickering yellow glow shone—just like in Yunji Town.

Lying in the heart of the shrine, Yu Ge watched the wavering light and listened to the indistinct whispers in the red tide. At some unknown hour, he closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.

At dawn, a sharp birdcall snapped Yu Ge awake. He leapt to his feet, startled to discover the sky was already bright.

Warm sunlight filtered through the cracked walls, scattering dappled shadows across the floor.

Recalling the night before, with the red tide so close, Yu Ge shuddered. He looked around, saw nothing amiss, stretched his limbs, and crept to the gap in the ruined door for a look outside.

He was stunned.

The mountain ghost was still there, lurking by a thicket, its form entirely concealed by swirling black mist, staring fixedly at the shrine as if it had never left.

It seemed determined to keep watch over him.

Yu Ge frowned, realizing this could be trouble. He had only limited rations; a standoff of this length was unsustainable. He could survive in the shrine for a few days, but once his food ran out, he would have to venture out—and then face the mountain ghost, which he could not hope to defeat.

It felt like a dead end.

Pacing the cramped shrine, Yu Ge’s gaze swept the surroundings, searching for anything that might be of use.

His eyes fell on a blue stone partly visible beneath the threshold, carved with strange patterns resembling talismans.

He raised his brows, but quickly dismissed the idea. Even if he could carry the foundation stone, its removal might destroy the shrine’s protective power, and he couldn’t be sure a single stone would suffice.

As he circled back, his eyes paused on the heavy altar table before the statue. Suddenly, he recalled a feat he had triggered before.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Cursing under his breath, Yu Ge hurried over, briskly swept away the dust and debris, and tried lifting it—estimating it weighed nearly a hundred pounds.

It was heavy enough. He began practicing the same stone-lifting exercises he had once done in Zhao Ziming’s courtyard.

Now, his dearest hope was to complete the unfinished feat: "Great Strength Brings Miracles." He prayed the reward would truly be miraculous.

One, two, three...

As time passed, Yu Ge lifted and lowered the altar a dozen times, checking the progress in his mind and seeing it tick up bit by bit.

There was no need to rush—he could finish a hundred lifts by noon, and another hundred in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, he continued to peer through the door’s cracks. The mountain ghost barely moved, staring like a stone statue from the thicket.

As for the mutant toad, it vanished a few times, but always returned before long, never straying far from the shrine.

It seemed they were dead set on him.

What puzzled Yu Ge was how the old toad had managed to track him down—he hadn’t been the one who killed the little toad, after all!

Now he was certain the old toad was here for revenge. He refused to believe it was a coincidence—why else would it target him alone?

One thing he could not figure out was how the toad found his trail. Was it the sticky slime that had gotten on his hands when he handled the meat?

Yu Ge couldn’t know for now, but looking back, he realized the caravan had suffered for his sake. He had been angry when they abandoned him, but now the feeling had faded.

Still, one thing left him indignant: they had run off without paying him, and he felt sorely cheated.

This old toad had cost him his reward. Remembering this, and seeing the toad still blocking his way outside, Yu Ge found himself itching to rush out and give it a taste of his blade.