Wu Xie
They walked ahead on their own following the blood trail that became faint as they keep going to pretty much disappear at one point, yet Qiling seems to know where they should head to. However, at some point, the forest became more and more cover with spider webs of all imaginable sizes.
"Xiaoge, are you sure this is the right way?" Pangzi asked and Qiling assented.
"This looks more like a trap than anything else. Perhaps Panma is trying to lure us into a silken web cave. It doesn't make sense he will disappear so suddenly after been seek out by strangers more than once. The locals will not dare to cross into the Buffalo Trench and he knows it, yet he happens to get in there while seriously injured. That should be suicidal on its own right under normal circumstances." Wu Xie said as he looked around, seen only cobwebs everywhere.
"Yeah, he definitely had something hidden in his sleeve. This old man is too tricky... do you think he may be in league with the slope-shoulder man?" Pangzi asked.
"Maybe... we must be careful in here, that's for sure." Wu Xie said.
"We are the Iron Triangle, no silken web cave will keep us from finding this place secrets." Pangzi said with confidence and Wu Xie sighed.
"Pangzi, really, we are not made of iron, so be careful and don't touch the cobwebs." Wu Xie warned him.
"Yeah, yeah... I'm not a danger magnet like you, so there is no need to... huh?" Pangzi hushed as he ducked under one huge web, yet his hand was caught on it anyways and when he try to pull it out, it was like it was made out of a very strong glue.
"You were saying..." Wu Xie teased as he saw him struggle with the cobweb.
"This is definitely made with super glue. Damn it! I shouldn't have hug you during the night. You have transfer me your back luck..." Pangzi whined as he pulled his hand out with all his strength, finally able to have it free, but with less skin.
"Serves you right..." Wu Xie fumed.
"Xiaoge, Tianzhen is been mean with me..." Pangzi complained but Qiling give the cobwebs a better look and ignore Pangzi completely.
"This is dangerous." He whisper.
"No kidding, if you get stick, they will come for you while you try your way out. It seems Uncle Gui was right. There are really man-eating monsters in this forest and we had been set to fall in their traps." Pangzi said.
"Just don't get caught and we should be alright. We had deal with this kind of insects before." Wu Xie said and they walked a bit further ahead, until there was no more room to safely pass between the webs.
"Yeah... shibie, snakes, centipedes and now spiders. I wonder just how big they are..." Pangzi said as he looked up the trees.
"Don't jinx us this soon... is this a dead end?" Wu Xie asked as he looked around.
"It seems so... now I wonder how Panma pass through here. Any further and we will really get stick and end up eaten by spiders..."
"Tianzhen, didn't you said before not to jinx? There must be a trick to pass from here on, but we are outsiders, so, let's go back for now..." Pangzi suggested and they turned to go back on their tracks when a slight movement caught Qiling's attention and just in time to notice it was a big blue and yellow spider that was ready to jump on them at any second.
Qiling warned the other two with a yell and pushed Wu Xie out of the way when the spider jumped in his direction, saving him in the process, but the challenge was just beginning when dozen more spiders crawl down the adjacent trees to get them all at once.
Xiaoge put Wu Xie behind him, but there was no real point in doing so when they were surrounded in a tight circle. Thus he passed Wu Xie a knife he keep on his boot and committed himself to take down as many spiders as he could while keeping an eye in both Wu Xie and Pangzi at the same time.
It was not that Wu Xie could not fight back and Pangzi have his own skills, but Qiling was not taking chances, now that he had them in his new way of life. Their combined dance worked very well at first, he was agile enough to move around the two men in a protective circle, but what he didn't count was that one spider that had been taken down before was not killed in the act and end up biting Wu Xie in his hand, when taken by surprise coming from below instead of up.
"Wu Xie!" Qiling shouted and took the spider from his hand and kill it, but the spiders were still coming in waves, giving him no chance to take a look at Wu Xie's wound, so he moved even faster and when the he saw an opening, he dragged Wu Xie away from that place. Pangzi was closely following them and they run away into the place in where Pangzi had stick his hand into the first time.
"Let me see..." Qiling said as he grabbed Wu Xie's hand and carefully inspect it. The spiders seems to be poisonous and there were red traces of the poison going up his veins.
"Wu Xie... I will extract the poison..." Qiling told him, but Wu Xie retrieved his hand immediately.
"It's okay... I think my Qilin blood is working this time... I don't feel any symptom of a poison." Wu Xie said, but Qiling was not going to have it his way this time.
"You are poison, the Qilin blood is only slowing the spreading inside your veins, you don't have a full effect yet." Xiaoge said before he bend and put Wu Xie's hand to his mouth and sucked the blood from the bite and spit it on the ground. Wu Xie was once again trying to retrieve his hand, as his face was completely heat up in his biggest blush so far, but Qiling keep it in place and repeated the process until the visible poisoned veins were clear of it again.
"Tianzhen, you are now an official volcano in full eruption!" Pangzi laughed at the intensely blushing of his friend.
"Shut up! We need to get out of this place as soon as possible. Let's keep going." Wu Xie evaded and walked ahead in haste, still with a blush reflected on his face.
Qiling and Pangzi followed him in silence after that, but soon they found out that they were going in circles around the same place.
"Damn it! Are we lost or is there something weird working here?" Pangzi asked as he looked up, seen the same trees over and over.
"This is a trap and we have been caught on it." Wu Xie conceded.
"Then how do we get out?" Pangzi asked, but before Wu Xie could even think about an answer, another wave of spiders came falling down on them.
"Watch out!" Xiaoge called and they prepare themselves for another hard battle.
Wu Xie try his best to get all the spiders, but they were too many and Pangzi had been bite once already. Seen no other choice, Qiling cut his hand and throw it into as many as he could get, then they ran again, until Pangzi stumble and fall, obviously affected by the poison.
"Pangzi!" Wu Xie cried and sat by his side, taking him on his arms.
"Tianzhen... my body feels so heavy..." Pangzi said before he close his eyes, which scare the hell out of Wu Xie in a flash. He have been saved by his sporadically activate Qilin blood, but Pangzi didn't have any to slow down the effect of the poison that was already flowing on his system.
"Pangzi!" Wu Xie shook him, but the man did not responded.
"Let me help him." Xiaoge told Wu Xie and he make a tiny cut on Pangzi shoulder, were he had been bitten and pressed the blood out all around the wound, taking the advantage that Pangzi was already unconscious, tainting the shirt with various shades of red. After seen that most of the poison was out, Qilin used his own blood on the small wound to neutralize whatever poison may be left behind.
Wu Xie watched the process in silence while he held Pangzi for him and when Xiaoge was satisfy with the treatment, Wu Xie stared at him once again all heat up in the face.
"Xiaoge... you really didn't need to suck the poison out, right?" He asked and Xiaoge almost smirked at him.
"No." He admitted.
"Then... why did you...?"
"It was less painful and faster."
"It was embarrassing."
"But save your life."
"Even so, I rather have the painful way..." This time Qiling really smirked at Wu Xie's adorable embarrassment, which only make him want to kiss him on the spot.
"I will never choose to give you more pain if I can help it."
"Xiaoge!" Wu Xie said feeling like his face was truly melting and Qiling couldn't resist the temptation and silence his next protest with a kiss. Wu Xie mumble under it, but soon, he simply let Xiaoge kiss him for a short moment.
"Seriously Xiaoge, you are going to give me a heart attack one of these days..." Wu Xie whisper, but Qiling simply kiss him softly again.
"I will not allow it." Xiaoge whisper into his lips, which only melted Wu Xie even more, but luckily, at that moment, Pangzi started to groan in pain and Wu Xie was spared of becoming a newborn star instead of an erupting volcano.
"Tianzhen... am I still in one piece?" Pangzi asked, still on his arms.
"Yeah... you are still alive. Feeling better?" Wu Xie asked.
"Still heavy..."
"Lose some weight then..." Wu Xie said.
"And my shoulder hurts like hell..."
"At least you don't have to be embarrass." Wu Xie said as he looked at Xiaoge, who held his gaze.
"Did we got out?" Pangzi asked.
"No... I don't think we can on our own." Wu Xie said as he looked around.
"Then are we going to end dying in this god forsaken place? Damn it... I still want to see Yun Cai again." Pangzi whined.
"There is a way out." Qiling announced and Wu Xie look at him.
"How?" Wu Xie asked.
"We lure Panma in." Xiaoge said and a plan started to form inside Wu Xie's head.
"Trap him on his own game, I like it Xiaoge." Pangzi said, quite tired.
"Yeah... let's have some rest first and make some plans. The spiders may not cross the path Xiaoge splashed with his blood, so we may be safe here for the time been." Wu Xie suggested and they let Pangzi have some rest while Wu Xie and Qiling plotted against the old man that had wanted them killed.
By nightfall, Panma walked in the forest, poorly illuminated with his oil lamp in search of the bodies that will surely be laying somewhere inside the Buffalo Trench. He walked slowly, taking a good look all around the road until he finally spotted the body of a young man caught on a cobweb.
He didn't know anything about the strangers that had been asking for him, only that the masked man wanted them gone for good, for whatever reason he had. During the decades, he had learn not to question him more than necessary, because the mask man was a very dangerous man that knew even better than him all the mountains surrendering the town.
The man had his secrets and as long as he kept his own, he was fine with helping him to keep outsiders out of the mountains and away from the cursed place below the mountains. It was the only reason he was still alive, when he should had die a long time ago. Karma worked in strange ways and he knew his punishment had been delayed thanks to the masked man that had keep him alive despite coming to know about a few of his secrets.
He illuminate one of the men pasted on the webs and sure enough, he didn't look healthy and there was even a lot of blood on his shoulder. That one was a goner, so he moved to the next, a young man with glasses. He didn't look too sick, but if he was poison it was just matter of time before his body will give into the poison and pass out for good. Maybe he should come in the morning, to give the poison more time to work... so he straightened his back, to go back home, when a knife was suddenly placed at his throat in a sudden move that took him by surprise.
Then the young man with the glasses looked up at him, scaring him even further. Was he seen ghost again? Pangzi asked, as he watched in shock at the man walk toward him, completely unaffected.
"You are not dead?" Panma asked once he realize the young man was not a ghost as well as the knife on his throat was very real.
"Give me the antidote to the spiders poison." Wu Xie demanded and as Panma looked at the other man still sat on the ground, he thought that he could still at least got rid of one.
"There is no antidote. If you are bitten by a spider, you will die." Panma said coldly.
"Are you sure?" Wu Xie asked and the man assented in confirmation.
"Then, Xiaoge..." Wu Xie whisper and Qiling used the spider he had been holding and put it quite close to Panma's face. The old man panicked and give into their request, seen that he was not a match for the young men that had come from the big city. Thus he build up a fire and started working in the antidote for the other man.
"When I was a boy, the town worshiped a kind of spider that the elderly called the Sacred Spider. Their web was very sticky and their poison deadly. No animals cold escape it, not even if it wasn't caught on a web." Panma explained.
"Why not?" Wu Xie asked.
"The webs emits a kind of poisonous gas that is odorless and undetectable. It make the ones in their hunting area to hallucinate and get lost while walking in circles. Only people with a very rare kind of blood is unaffected by the poison, but I had never encounter one." Panma said and Wu Xie starred at Xiaoge, who looked down.
"No wonder we couldn't find our way..." Wu Xie murmur.
"The spider poison is easy to fix, just bur their web into ashes and some broad bean root as well as curcuma powder and it will neutralize the poison. He will be fine in no time." Panma said, but Wu Xie was no worry about it, because Pangzi was only sleeping, as the effects of the poison were already wearing off on their own, thanks to Xiaoge's blood and fast action. Actually, Wu Xie was surprised that Pangzi was not snoring loudly at that point.
"You where the one who guide the expedition team back then, Panma." Wu Xie asked before Pangzi could ruin the moment and the old man stopped on his antidote making for a moment before he resumed the work again.
"You clearly lure us here to kill us right?" Wu Xie asked.
"I only wanted to scare you off a little."
"You lie about the antidote, your actions are not exactly of that of just scaring off outsiders."
"I know about what you want to ask. Others had come to try too... but are you sure you really want to know about what happen back then? It can drag all of you into the pit of hell after hearing it..." Panma warned them and Wu Xie assented, after giving Xiaoge a glance with his approval.
"Yes." Wu Xie answer quite seriously, yet in that moment Pangzi snored and turned to one side to scratch his ass.
"You trick me..." Panma said as he looked at the sleeping man.
"So did you, so we are even." Wu Xie said and after a moment, Panma agree.
"Alright... let's go back to my house and I will tell you the story you want to hear so badly. Whatever happens next, it on your own risk." Panma said and after Wu Xie wake up Pangzi, they headed back to the town and into Panma's house.
AN: We are getting into the more serious parts, so I will try to include a bit of Pingxie while I have the chance. Also I'm thinking in adding some rewrite of the Reboot drama, after the Zhang's Pavilion disaster and the ten years reunion as well, so the story can have a happy ending instead of hanging on where the drama end. Let me know if you wanted them included here. Thanks for reading and soon there will be more Heihua. Until next time, please take care. 😘💖