The Black-Veiled Woman

Besides the graceful woman wearing the black silk veil, there was also a pair of brothers who stayed constantly at her side — called companions, though they looked more like attendants.

Counting the short man and his companion Big-and-Burly, the group totaled seven: five men and two women.

A wind swept through in the early morning, carrying with it a strange, pervasive odor — but the moment sunlight baked down on the earth, the smell vanished entirely, as if the chaos of the previous night had never happened.

By day, the outer south gate had reopened; travelers needed only to register before heading out.

Leaving the outer walls behind, guided by the short man, the seven of them set off toward Yangyang Village.

The southern route faced the Qin Mountains, and taking any form of vehicle — whether flying or driving — would have been an affront to the demon clans that ruled those peaks. So anyone heading south made the journey entirely on foot.

As he walked, Mo Fan found himself intensely curious about the strangely dressed woman.

It wasn't that she looked bizarre — quite the opposite. Her appearance was breathtaking. Despite the biting cold, she wore a silk robe embroidered with colorful birds, a rich crimson shawl draped luxuriously over her shoulders. With every step she took, the shawl swayed in a mesmerizing rhythm, her slender waist and full, rounded curves alternately hidden and revealed beneath its flow.

Mo Fan was walking behind her, and he found it nearly impossible to tear his eyes away — from her waist to her hips, down to her slender legs, then further to her pale, delicate feet. Every inch of her seemed to radiate temptation, as if designed to ensnare the soul.

Mo Fan had seen plenty of the world and his share of beautiful women — he even had one walking right beside him — yet this retro black-veiled woman's allure only seemed to grow stronger with every step they shared.

"Hey, short man — where'd you dig up this woman?" Mo Fan finally surrendered to curiosity and called out to his unscrupulous guide.

"She said she wanted to come here, and she paid up faster than you did, so I brought her along." The short man was blunt about it. As he spoke, he stole a sidelong glance at the black-veiled woman, a lecherous gleam flickering in his beady eyes, and flashed Mo Fan the kind of grin that needed no explanation. "What — she got to you too?"

"Just asking." Mo Fan kept his tone casual. "I've got a feeling she's not ordinary."

"Not ordinary? Ha. People call me Short Man, sure, but I've been with more beauties than any pretty-boy type you can name — every kind of woman imaginable. But this one..." He clicked his tongue and shook his head. "I don't even care what she looks like under that veil. One night with her and I'd swear off all other women for good." He wore the expression of a man thoroughly without shame — and clearly considered Mo Fan to be cut from exactly the same cloth.

"Can't you think a single clean thought?" Mo Fan said, the very picture of moral indignation.

"Sure, I'm the corrupt one. Then who the hell has been walking behind her this whole time?"

"Uh... how much longer to Yangyang Village?" Mo Fan asked, his expression perfectly composed.

The short man had no words for someone so obviously guilty yet playing the saint. He shook his head. "The thing you should be worried about isn't when we reach Yangyang Village — it's when the sun goes down."

He raised a finger toward the horizon, where the sun was already sinking away.

"Damn sun, it's going down already?!" Mo Fan swore. Time had slipped away far too quickly.

"It's winter — long nights, short days. Maybe crack open a book sometime," the short man said.

"You still haven't told me who she is."

"You've got legs, go ask her yourself!"

Mo Fan had walked away empty-handed and returned to his spot in the group.

It was then that Liu Ru spoke up, keeping her voice low. "The aura coming off this woman is strange."

"Ah — right, the aura." Something clicked for Mo Fan.

He'd been watching the black-veiled woman this whole time, and it wasn't only wandering thoughts that occupied him — there had been something beneath the surface, a faint thread of an unusual presence he'd been sensing without quite naming it.

"She practices Black Magic, I think," Liu Ru said.

The element one cultivated left its mark on a person's bearing and presence — Liu Ru's instincts were sound. The woman radiated a searing allure, but beneath it ran an unmistakable current of darkness. Mo Fan himself cultivated the Shadow Element and had some familiarity with Black Magic. And Liu Ru, classified as a dark creature in her own right, had senses far sharper than his.

Of course, practicing Black Magic didn't make someone a villain. Even Curse Element practitioners, so long as they followed the covenants of the Magic Association, were considered legitimate cultivators.

"She must be very beautiful," Liu Ru added.

"You can tell that too?" Mo Fan looked at her, genuinely surprised.

"Mm." Liu Ru was studying the woman herself, with an expression that held something like appreciation — and a trace of envy.

Watching Liu Ru's reaction, Mo Fan quietly filed the observation away.

The sky darkened steadily. In this season of long nights and short days, the sun barely scraped past five before diving behind the horizon, retreating to whatever dark corner it called home.

Mo Fan and Liu Ru had faced Undead before, but the dead silence that settled as dusk approached set a cold unease creeping through them regardless.

The land stretched in every direction — how could you ever be sure you weren't walking right across an Undead congregation? That was exactly why hiring a guide was a non-negotiable expense out here. Come alone without one, and next year your grave marker would be sprouting weeds two meters tall.

"Here — eat this." Big-and-Burly reached into the pack on his back and produced something gray that resembled garlic.

The man was powerfully built, but clearly ordinary — not a trace of magical presence about him, and at the same time oddly lacking the vitality a healthy person should naturally carry.

"Food! Why didn't you say so earlier — I'm starving." Mo Fan never needed a formal invitation. The moment he saw Big-and-Burly handing something out, he helped himself.

The gray thing looked a bit like a sweet potato, or perhaps an oversized garlic clove. Without a second thought, he bit down with a satisfying crunch.

**Pfft!**

In the next instant, Mo Fan spat out every bit of what he'd bitten off, gray debris raining across the ground.

"What the hell — is this dog shit?!" Mo Fan howled.

"It's Gray Garlic," the short man explained immediately. "It masks the life energy of living people. With it, the Undead won't attack us. And there's a limited supply — you just wasted one. If you can't make it through tonight, that's your problem."

"If it tastes like that, I'd rather hack my way through an army of Undead than swallow another bite," Mo Fan declared.

At those words, a spark of interest crossed the black-veiled woman's bright eyes — the unmistakable look of someone reassessing a person they'd barely noticed before.

"Don't speak too soon..." The short man's voice dropped to a hush. "Listen."

"Listen for what?"

"Below us. In the earth..."

Everyone fell silent. And sure enough, even as the sky still held its murky gray, the soil beneath their feet — mixed with fine white sand — began to shift.

At first glance, it could have passed for seeds stirring in the earth, the ordinary miracle of a farmer's planted crop beginning to sprout. But the short man's expression had gone completely still, and it told them everything they needed to know about what was coming.