Classmates

Lin Feng sensed that something was off, too.

A few too many people had come up to ask for his contact details today. It was giving him a headache.

Luckily, his heart remained unmoved.

No women in your heart, and your swordplay becomes divine.jpg.

It was one in the morning, yet there were still plenty of people waiting outside the little hot pot restaurant. All of Fog City seemed to come alive at night, its streets filled with pedestrians.

When Lin Feng's turn came, the auntie who owned the place smiled at him.

"Little Lin, you've gotten even more handsome lately."

Her classic accent blended Sichuan dialect with Mandarin. Lin Feng mumbled a couple of vague responses, then took out his phone to look at himself.

Nothing had changed.

He still looked the same, a touch of languor in his eyes and brows, his features unchanged.

Did practicing swordsmanship come with benefits like this?

Could it really make him more handsome?

Once all the food arrived, Lin Feng brought his nine-section hot pot to a boil, took a sip of soy milk, and started scrolling through his Moments feed.

Lin Feng was a champion at cheering people on in Moments.

By champion, that meant he kept his circle small and close-knit. From his high school friends to a handful of middle school friends and almost all his university friends, whenever they posted one of their little updates, he would give it a like—even if it was just a promotional repost.

If he saw a selfie, he would even offer a couple of compliments, whether it was a man or a woman.

Because of his work, Lin Feng actively kept in touch with his classmates. He had also met plenty of followers online and interacted with them.

Who knew? One day, he might be able to use them to pad out a video.

Knowing more people never hurt. He might even get a free meal out of it.

As he scrolled, Lin Feng spotted a photo of a dark-skinned young woman wearing traditional Tujia clothing.

Hmm, traditional clothing?

His guard went up.

His scrolling finger paused, and he opened her Moments feed.

He opened her latest photo, zoomed in, then backed out.

[My supervisor finally gave us some time off, hahahaha! Two days to have fun!]

That was the caption.

A young woman who looked deeply tanned was smiling, showing bright white teeth. She held her headdress with both hands and tilted her head for the camera.

That was the photo.

It looked very much like a tourist snapshot. The location tag underneath read: Fenghuang, Xiangxi.

Western Hunan?

Lin Feng immediately grew more interested. Perking up, he popped a piece of tofu into his mouth.

Ever since playing Western Hunan Blood God, he had found himself mixing up the game and reality.

Especially now that the game could actually affect reality—him, specifically—Lin Feng felt there was something even more extraordinary about it.

Now he had suddenly discovered that a friend was in Fenghuang, Xiangxi.

His interest soared.

He knew this young woman very well.

Her name was Xu Nian. She had been his high school classmate, and they had sat one behind the other. Later, she had studied history and gotten into a postgraduate archaeology program. Lin Feng wasn't sure whether that counted as switching fields, but she had indeed gone on to a combined master's and doctoral program.

This should have been the first year of her doctorate, still under the same supervisor.

Apparently, during her interview, the supervisor hadn't been particularly keen on taking a woman. They often had to work out in the field, and having a woman along could be troublesome.

Luckily, Xu Nian had always known her own mind. Somehow, she had managed to persuade him.

Xu Nian had put plenty of effort into fitness for her archaeological fieldwork. When she came back a few years earlier, she had gone to the gym with Lin Feng and powered through one cardio routine after another. Frequently hauling equipment out in the field had left her lean and deeply tanned.

"I wear sunscreen! What am I supposed to do when the sun's that brutal?"

That was how she stubbornly defended herself whenever Lin Feng called her dark.

Had she gone to Western Hunan for an archaeological dig?

Western Hunan? Archaeology?

Originally, Lin Feng had only given her a like. But since Western Hunan was involved, he went straight to his friends list, found her, and sent a message without a second thought.

The classic opener: [You there?]

She replied instantly.

Xu Nian: [?]

Lin Feng: [You went to Western Hunan? Robbing tombs again?]

Xu Nian: [**, make that archaeology-is-tomb-robbing joke one more time and I'll strangle you when I get back. Daddy hates that joke more than anything!]

Lin Feng: [So you're in Western Hunan? On vacation?]

Xu Nian: [Vacation my ass. I'm here working with my supervisor. Some ** dug open an ancient tomb deep in the mountains of Western Hunan, and we're doing a salvage excavation.

The first phase wrapped up, so our supervisor gave us some time off to come out and see civilization.

I'm so ** exhausted. Those ** tomb robbers (angry)(angry)(angry)]

Those few messages were packed with mother-related profanity.

Lin Feng thought nothing of it. Once he wanted to be Xu Nian's dad and she wanted to be his, their conversations had long since become completely unrestrained.

An ancient tomb.

Deep in the mountains of Western Hunan.

Seeing those terms, Lin Feng unconsciously tapped a finger against the table. His gaze flickered, and he quickly followed up: [What kind of ancient tomb?]

Xu Nian: [No idea. Western Hunan has always been home to lots of ethnic minorities. We don't know what kind of tomb it is either.]

On the other end of the phone, Xu Nian was nursing a headache of her own.

She lay on her hotel bed, having just taken a shower.

At last, she felt alive again.

The mountains were unlike anywhere else.

The inconvenience was the least of their problems.

More importantly, there was the mountain weather.

Never mind an archaeology newbie like her—even her supervisor, a leading expert in the field, had felt his skin crawl when he heard the news.

What he dreaded most was being deep in the mountains, miles from the nearest settlement.

The weather in the mountains of Western Hunan was already wildly unpredictable, to say nothing of the swarms of insects.

The mosquitoes were this big! (hand gesture, shocked face)

They looked capable of sucking a person dry!

And there were leeches!

There were also insects she didn't even recognize, living deep in the mountains.

Insect repellent and mosquito repellent did little against those bugs.

Just hearing about it frightened everyone on their team.

More importantly, for anyone unfamiliar with the mountains, the current heat meant nothing. An entire group dying of hypothermia at night would hardly be unheard of.

People who didn't know the deep mountains had no idea how terrifying nature could be.

Primeval mountain forests, vast oceans, golden deserts, uninhabited stretches of the Gobi—these had always been forbidden ground for the living.

Xu Nian had only come out for a breather. In a few days, she would have to go back.

Honestly, Xu Nian had never seen a burial like this either.

Before they even reached the main site, they had already excavated several sacrificial burial pits.

But the bones in those pits all seemed somewhat deformed.

The tree roots had burrowed into those remains. Call it a tree burial, and it didn't look right; say it wasn't, and there was no other explanation.

More importantly, Xu Nian's senior labmate had been acting strangely these past few days. He kept saying that someone was watching them from deep in the forest at night.

Whenever he went out to relieve himself, someone behind him would call his childhood nickname.

"I saw it. A blood-red figure was watching us."

When her senior labmate said that, he didn't look like he was joking. It had made Xu Nian's scalp prickle, and she told Lin Feng about it as a bizarre story. Lin Feng replied: [Is it possible he's telling the truth?]

Xu Nian: [??? Keep that up and I'll come back and smash your stupid head in the moment my supervisor gives me time off.]

Xu Nian: [Don't scare me. It's not just a bunch of teachers and students going into the mountains. We've got local guides, officials, and armed police with us.]

Xu Nian: [How old are you? Why are you still so childish? Having fun scaring girls, are you?]

Lin Feng: [I'm in Fog City.]

Lin Feng: [Come hang out if you have time.]

On his end, Lin Feng put down his phone. For some reason, a powerful feeling had come over him.

Was it possible that Xu Nian's senior labmate hadn't been lying?

Had he really seen a blood-red figure out there?