When the middle-aged couple burning paper offerings saw someone emerge from the tunnel, even their sobbing faltered. Gao Ming wore shabby clothes stained with blood. He looked like a survivor who had just escaped a car crash, or a fugitive hiding in the mountain gullies.
The two immediately grew tense. Their surroundings were so quiet that, with no one speaking, only the burning paper money in the brazier could be heard. Gao Ming walked past them. The tear-streaked Middle-Aged Woman stared at him, her lips moving slightly. After a long hesitation, she suddenly spoke. "Excuse me... do—do you know Liu Yi?"
The middle-aged man hurriedly shielded the woman, watching Gao Ming warily. Anyone burning offerings in the deserted mountains would have been frightened to see a bloodstained person appear.
"Liu Yi..." Hearing her name brought their shared memories to Gao Ming's mind. At that very instant, wounds appeared on the back of his head, his arm, and his shoulder, precisely matching the bloodstains on his clothes.
As a great evil spirit at the Unspeakable level, Gao Ming was not someone anyone could easily injure. The only culprit he could think of was Fate.
The Fate Giant Tree that shrouded the Endless Mortal Worlds still had not found Gao Ming's true name, but it seemed able to use the people in his memories to hurt him through some kind of connection.
"In the Deep World, the Fate Giant Tree couldn't do this. But the Endless Mortal Worlds are its territory, after all."
He did not know where the attack came from or how it happened. Perhaps injuries from the future were manifesting early, or perhaps Gao Ming's family and friends in other mortal worlds had been cursed, affecting him in turn.
Seeing the blood seep out made the middle-aged couple even