TSMITB Chapter1

Bang——!!!

The SUV, which had been cruising steadily along the road, suddenly jolted violently as a deafening bang erupted—the tire had burst.

Old Qiu in the driver’s seat cursed, “Damn it,” under his breath and quickly stabilized the steering wheel, not letting the car veer off. He didn’t dare to slam on the brakes, instead pressing them gently and repeatedly until the SUV gradually came to a steady halt.

The rear door swung open instantly with a pale, flawless hand gripping the door, its fingers were long and well-defined. The hand’s owner stepped out in long strides, steadying himself against the dizziness, and cast a glance at the flattened rear tire. His brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, and he pursed his lips and didn’t speak.

It was still a bit chilly in the mountains in late April. The breeze, mixed with the fresh scent of trees, swept past, temporarily suppressing some of the inner restlessness.

Shen Que twitched his nose, sensing a familiar scent carried by the gust of wind just now, yet when he tried to focus and trace it, no clue came to mind. He lowered his gaze to hide the emotion in his eyes and zipped his windbreaker all the way up and covered the lower half of his face.

The few people who got out afterward exchanged glances across the distance. They knew without asking that this young master was a bit annoyed.

Gang Zi, who had slept all the way and was startled awake by the explosion, was not flustered at all. He proactively handed over the sunglasses Shen Que had previously placed in the car, his tone sincere as he said, “Young Master Shen, the sun is too strong outside, be careful not to hurt your eyes.”

The trees lining both sides of the road were tall and dense, their branches interlacing to create a thick, dark-green barrier, through which not a single ray of sunlight could penetrate.

Shen Que raised his eyes and glanced at him, the corner of his mouth curling into an arc of a false smile. He put the sunglasses on his high nose bridge, lifted his chin, and thanked him: “I’ll send you a hat when we get back, lest your brain get baked dry.”

Gang Zi chuckled as if he didn’t catch the sarcasm in Shen Que’s words. He grinned as he waved his hand at him and said there was no need to waste money; the things he bought were useless except for being expensive.

After saying that, he swiftly moved around to the other side of the car, feigning a discussion with the others about changing the tire.

Shen Que didn’t plan to help. After watching for a while, he started to feel bored. He drew a cigarette and placed it between his lips, then walked to a sheltered spot by the roadside before lighting it. Taking a long drag, he exhaled slowly, his face shrouded in smoke, lending him an air of mystery.

Another gust of wind swept past, bringing with it a hint of exotic fragrance that brushed past his hair. The leaves rustled as they rubbed against one another from above.

In a trance, Shen Que seemed to see a blurry figure among the trees. The figure was tall and slender and seemed to be holding something in his hand. He was looking at him from a not-too-close, not-too-far distance. Shen Que could even feel the temperature of that person’s gaze.

A passionate, longing gaze beckoned him into a swamp of love, inviting him to sink together. Unconsciously, Shen Que raised his foot, wanting to head deep into the dense woods, but his arm was suddenly yanked by someone.

“Young Master Shen!”

Old Qiu’s voice suddenly broke in. Shen Que’s confused eyes then regained clarity. He raised his hand to scatter the smoke in front of him, and when he looked intently again, the figure had also dissipated and disappeared.

Was it a hallucination?

Shen Que stared at the empty woods and shook his head. He loosened his grip on the cigarette, then threw the unsmoked butt onto the ground and grinded it with his foot.

The string of accidents had indeed sparked a fire in his chest, leaving him restless. For a moment, he couldn’t find an outlet for it. In a burst of frustration, he yanked off the irritating sunglasses, flung them toward the spot where the blurry figure had stood, and added a universally friendly gesture of greeting.

“……” Old Qiu quickly grabbed Shen Que’s outstretched hand and firmly pressed his finger down. Half-coaxing and half-dragging, he pulled him back. “You’ve really got nerve.”

The people by the car had different expressions, all tacitly remaining silent. Old Qiu shoved Shen Que into the car and quickly remarked that the car was fixed, then urged to leave immediately before diving into the driver’s seat.

Shen Que crossed his arms while leaning against the seat back half-sideways, and for once, cooperated without asking many questions.

The moment the engine roared to life, Old Qiu floored the accelerator, and the car surged forward like an arrow released from a bow, recklessly ignoring everything in its path.

Shen Que lightly tapped his arm in an intermittent rhythm with his slender fingers. He slightly raised his head and looked at the spot where he had just stood through the rearview mirror. Could it really have been a hallucination? Yet he could still distinctly catch the faint fragrance of that person, the very same scent that had mingled with the wind when he first stepped out of the car.

The road became increasingly rugged and winding. Their temporary stopping place was left far behind until it completely disappeared in just a moment.

Hiss… hiss…

A small blue-green snake straightened up from the tangled grass while its soybean-sized eyes were wide open. The tip of its fine-scaled tail glowed with a faint purple halo. Its thin, forked scarlet tongue occasionally darted out of its mouth, seeking the scent of someone in the air.

Then, extremely light footsteps came from deep within the dense woods, accompanied by the crisp sound of silver ornaments clashing. He stopped just behind the small snake.

A pair of sunglasses lay quietly in the grass, it was clearly the pair Shen Que had impatiently thrown away.

The car’s trace was long gone at the end of the road. The newcomer slowly withdrew his gaze, bent down, and picked up the small snake that had secretly wrapped its tail tip around the sunglasses arm. His pair of eyes, hidden in the shadows, flickered with an enchanting light.

“He came to find us.”

——————————————————

Shen Que shook his head to recover from the chaotic thoughts, and met the eyes of the three people who were secretly observing him through the rearview mirror.

“…Just say what you want to say.”

Gang Zi pouted as his expression dropped, while his two eyes darted around. He then winked at Ah Chao, and Ah Chao instantly understood. He furrowed his two thick, dark eyebrows and said awkwardly, “We’re just curious. You kept staring into the woods just now, your eyes were wide open, and you couldn’t even hear our call… was there some stunning beauty, uh; handsome guy, trying to seduce you? it was Gang Zi who said it, it’s not me ah!”

“……”

Shen Que opened his mouth, wanting to retort, but felt he had nothing to say.

His s*xual orientation was no longer a secret. When he came out to his older brother in high school and got beaten, Old Qiu was one of the people who helped hold him down.

Every time Shen Que thought of this, the look in his eyes towards Old Qiu was venomous. To think that in all his years, the Second Young Master of the Shen family had suffered just one serious beating, the one that kept him bedridden for half a month, and Old Qiu could truly be credited with playing a major role in that feat.

Old Qiu felt a chill down his spine. He awkwardly reached out to rub the back of his neck and coughed twice, while pretending nothing happened, “The car was already fixed by then. We called you several times but got no response, and you kept wanting to go into those woods. This place is eerie. Although we haven’t entered yet, but we’ve reached the boundary of E’yun Mountain, so everyone needs to be careful.”

Shen Que chose to maintain silence to the end.

He originally didn’t believe in these things, but his older brother had fallen victim to this kind of evil stuff, which forced him to believe.

A week ago, Shen Que was getting along famously with a new pretty boy.

On the top floor of the clubhouse.

Warm yellow wall lamps emitted a faint glow. The French window leading to the terrace stood slightly ajar, and a sudden night breeze stirred the gauze curtains, dispersing some of the room’s lingering allure.

Shen Que was half-leaning against the headboard as his amorous fox eyes were slightly narrowed. He held a cigarette with his slender, fair fingers, and occasionally bringing it to his lips.

A beautiful boy was tucked into the crook of his arm as he overtly tracing Shen Que’s refined outline with his gaze. A warm fingertip softly traced the tip of his perky nose, lingering on the small mole on the bridge and pressing it gently with the pad of the finger.

Boom! Thunder roared outside the window, and heavy rain followed immediately.

When the thunder briefly stopped, Old Master Shen’s call came in.

Shen Que dashed through the pouring rain back to the old mansion and followed Old Master Shen into his elder brother Shen Yi’s bedroom.

The room was somewhat dim, with the main light left off.

He following Old Master Shen’s gaze and turned his head, then furrowed his brow.

He saw Shen Yi, who had been his protective umbrella throughout his childhood and teenage years since the age of ten, now lifelessly sunken into the bed. If one didn’t look closely, it would be difficult to even discern that a person was lying there covered by a quilt.

One of his hands was exposed and inserted with tubes for nutrient solution infusion, and it was so withered that only a layer of skin barely wrapped around the bones, blood, and meridians.

A nerve in Shen Que’s forehead twitched violently, tugging at the skin near the corner of his eye with a sharp, fleeting pain. His hands, hanging by his sides, clenched into fists, and his thick, long eyelashes fluttered irregularly, casting a vibrant shadow beneath his eyes.

That night, his heartbeat, which was unsettled ever since the thunder had crashed, now miraculously seemed to find its rhythm again.

“What happened?” He suppressed a sigh as he stepped forward and closed the door behind him. Clack, the sound was like an old-fashioned film projector starting up.

“They say he was afflicted by Gu. In about just half a month, he’s become like this.”

The old man’s sigh echoed in his ears, overpowering the lightning and thunder outside the window.

“What Gu? Can’t it be cured?”

The assistant brought up the surveillance footage and handed him the phone.

In the video, a middle-aged man clad in Miao ethnic attire only stood at Shen Yi’s doorway, cast a brief glance inside, and then shook his head with an odd expression, “Who on earth did you offend? This kind of venomous Gu is beyond my ability to cure.”

“Master, this child is still so young; if it goes on like this, how could he have any chance of survival? Please, think of another way. As long as you can save him, even if it costs this old man’s life, I’ll have no complaints either.” Old Master Shen’s back was hunched, completely distraught.

The middle-aged man still shook his head. “If it were any ordinary Gu, I would definitely not stand by and let him die if I could cure it. However, what President Shen has is a Fate Gu, which has long been lost. No one who has been cursed by a Fate Gu has lived for more than half a year.” He sighed lightly, ultimately unable to bear seeing the elderly man in his seventies sink into despair. “I can only try to keep President Shen alive, but to remove the Gu, as far as I know, the only people who can still raise a Fate Gu nowadays must be sought in E’yun Mountain…”

E’yun Mountain.

Shen Que blinked. He knew this place.

When Shen Que was about ten years old, he somehow became obsessed with various extreme sports such as skydiving, rock climbing, wilderness exploration… whatever was dangerous, he did it. He put himself in danger more than once and had at least wrote forty or fifty versions of his will.

It was also at that time that he learned of the existence of E’yun Mountain.

E’yun Mountain is also called Undying Mountain, rumored to be the sacred mountain of the ancient Southern Yin Kingdom a thousand years ago. The central temple on the sacred mountain was dedicated to the Spirit Master, born from the essence of heaven and earth, and even the most common tribespeople were proficient in Gu arts. However, for reasons unknown, the sacred mountain became shrouded in dense fog almost overnight, isolating it from the outside world. The rumor was that the Spirit Master was in eternal sleep within the temple and cast this thousand-year-old fog to protect the safety of the tribespeople.

It wasn’t until a few decades ago that the fog finally lifted, and E’yun Mountain once again emerged before the world’s eyes. Many explorers and even national researchers wanted to enter the mountain to investigate, but none ever returned alive.

To the Shen Que of that time, this was undoubtedly an extremely attractive destination.

Four years ago, Shen Que finally fulfilled his long-held wish and joined an exploration team into E’yun Mountain, but in the end, he was the only one who returned.

He couldn’t remember anything that had happened inside, his memory was fractured by a blank fault line. All he knew for certain was that he had truly set foot in that legendary, mysterious, uninhabited area.

Later, the Shen family spent a hefty sum to cover up the incident. Shen Que was also sent abroad, where he lived under the close watch of people his elder brother had assigned for several years.

“I have already arranged for Old Qiu and the others to prepare. Even if there’s only a one-in-ten-thousand chance, we still can’t give up on your older brother. During this time, you stay in the company, handle all the affairs, and don’t go out messing around anymore.”

The old man grew increasingly agitated as he spoke, clutching Shen Que’s hand tightly. He broke into a fit of harsh coughs before finally managing to steady himself, “I’m old. If your older brother really passes away, I’ll probably follow soon after. Then you’ll be the only one left, and we truly can’t have the family line end…”

“Don’t worry, doesn’t your son already have seven, eight, nine, or maybe even ten illegitimate children out there? You don’t need to fret; we won’t run out of successors.”

“You…” The old man opened his mouth but made no sound.

Shen Que patted the old man’s trembling hand and offered a perfunctory comfort, then turned to leave. He rushed down the stairs three steps at a time, pulled out his phone, and dialed a number.

When the door was about to close, leaving only a crack, Shen Que’s departing steps paused. He looked up at the white-haired old man again, tugged at the corner of his mouth, and gave him a smile, “Don’t worry, old man, I will definitely find a way to save Shen Yi.”