Southern Border, Ten Thousand Mountains.
In a dark, damp, and massive cave, a drop of water fell from a stalactite hanging from the vaulted ceiling and hit the forehead of a delicate-looking boy about thirteen or fourteen years of age with a "plop".
The boy's lips were purplish blue. Startled by the droplet, he suddenly shivered, slowly opening his eyes.
He looked up at the dark vault overhead, dazed for a moment, then struggled to sit up.
"Hiss..."
Pain shot through his body, causing him to involuntarily inhale a breath of cold air.
However, his will seemed quite resilient, enduring the pain to forcefully sit up, leaning against the damp, slippery wall of the cave.
His movements caused a series of loud "clangs", bringing with them moans and groans from all around.
The boy was startled and looked around vigilantly, only then noticing that there were at least two or three hundred silhouettes in the surrounding darkness.
A heavy shackle was attached to one of his wrists, with a chain extending from it connecting the shackles on the hands of about a dozen other people nearby, linking them all together.
"Where am I?" the boy wondered in shock, a question immediately rising in his mind.
He pondered silently but was horrified to find no answer.
The boy felt his mind muddled, his past memories a blur, unable to remember anything at all. The only thing he could recall was his own name, Yuan Ming.
He had lost his memory!
Before Yuan Ming could figure out what was happening, a deep "rumble" resonated from afar, making hearts tremble as if a heavy iron gate had been pushed open.
Shortly afterwards, a fire tore through the darkness, and seven or eight men holding torches, dressed in beast skins, and with ox-horned curved knives at their waists, escorted a half-naked, tall man into the cave.
In the flickering firelight, Yuan Ming saw that these men's skin was a reddish-brown color, their muscular bodies prominent, and their outlines clearly defined, exuding a wild, primal aura.
Especially the half-naked man leading them, whose muscles appeared even more robust than the others, his entire body radiating a sense of explosive strength, resembling a temple tributor of a warrior deity.
However, these people's hair was quite strange; they had shaved off all the hair around their heads, leaving only a thick braid on top.
Yuan Ming watched them, and for some reason, the words "Southern Barbarian" inexplicably came to mind.
As this thought arose, fragments of memory seemed to piece themselves together in his mind, with images flickering intermittently.
The images included bustling markets, magnificent mansions, and crowds dressed in fine silks and satins. Then looking down at his own clothes, now worn to tatters, Yuan Ming was convinced he was not of the same kind as these Southern Barbarians.
As Yuan Ming puzzled over his situation, the half-naked man's gaze suddenly turned towards him, and he uttered a stream of words in an unintelligible language.
Yuan Ming listened to the strange pronunciation, entirely different from any language in his memory, yet he understood it instantly.
This was the Southern Barbarian language!
The man had said, "This is the last one. Be quick and don't miss any."
The beast skin-dressed Southern Barbarians came forward, each holding a torch, and took out something resembling a beast bone with a red stone the size of a thumb embedded in it.
"Who are you? What are you going to do?" Yuan Ming asked in the Southern Barbarian language, attempting to appear calm as one of them approached him.
The half-naked man glanced at him, a hint of surprise crossing his face, but the Southern Barbarian who had approached him growled and swung his torch at Yuan Ming's cheek.
Yuan Ming dodged to the side. The torch grazed his shoulder and struck the wall, sending sparks flying.
Sparks scattered, startling the person beside Yuan Ming into screaming, "Waah!" He shrank back, trying with all his might to squeeze into a crevice beneath the rock face.
In the torchlight, Yuan Ming saw the man was half-naked, with a skirt made of dried grass around his lower half, his skin pitch black, his body gaunt and hair disheveled, indistinguishable from a wild man.
The Southern Barbarian bent down, grabbed the wild man's ankle, and, with little effort, dragged him out, then placed the beast bone above the struggling man's head.
A blue ghost fire-like light first glowed from the beast bone, followed by the embedded red stone, which suddenly lit up.
However, just as the red light appeared, it immediately extinguished.
Seeing this, the half-naked man frowned slightly and shook his head.
The Southern Barbarian holding the wild man's ankle, without a moment's hesitation, drew the curved knife from his waist and brought it down on the wild man's head.
A piteous scream sounded with a "schluck", the wild man's struggles slowing until they came to a stop, his movements gradually ceasing.
"They, they've killed someone..." Yuan Ming felt a warm splash of blood on his cheek, the foul stench of blood permeating his breath, leaving his mind momentarily blank.
A chill rose from the bottom of his heart, leaving him rigid, even forgetting to continue trying to escape.
Of course, he couldn't have escaped even if he had tried.
His wrist was still bound by a cold chain, linked to the still-warm corpse.
Before he could recover his wits, the light before him dimmed, and a beast bone had already been brought over his own head.
As the ghostly blue light illuminated, a red glow, steady as a candle flame, lit up but did not immediately go out.
It wasn't until several breaths later that the red light faded away.
The beast skin-clad man holding the bone placed his hand on the knife at his waist and turned to look at the half-naked man.
The latter hesitated slightly and seemed somewhat reluctant, but eventually nodded his head.
Only then did the Beast Skin-clad man release his grip on the knife and turned to walk towards another person.
It wasn't until his figure had left that Yuan Ming recovered from his fear.
Suppressing all his doubts and shock, he looked around and noticed that nearly all who were bound by chains were disheveled Wild Men like himself.
They were, one by one, subjected to the same probing with Beast Bones atop their heads amidst the panic and confusion.
Those whose heads flashed red and then extinguished were all promptly and neatly killed with a single stroke, while only those whose red light lasted for a moment were spared.
Wails, cries of alarm, and the clashing of metal chains filled the air, ceaseless and overlapping.
After what felt like more than two hours, the cave was thick with the stench of blood.
Once all probing was complete, the naked man began to bark out gibberish commands.
Subsequently, Yuan Ming and the other ten-odd survivors were unchained, again individually shackled at their hands and feet, and escorted to one side to wait.
Yuan Ming felt uneasy and uncertain about what these people intended to do and didn't dare to ask.
However, it wasn't hard to conjecture from the Southern Barbarians' earlier actions that they had passed some sort of selection and were probably not in immediate danger of being killed.
At that moment, the leading naked man suddenly took out a silver-white bell about an inch long from his waist, held its wooden handle upright, and began to shake it.
"Ling..."
The ethereal sound of the bell echoed in the hollow cave.
The moment Yuan Ming heard the sound, he felt as if his mind was struck by a heavy blow; there was no pain, but a severe dizziness overwhelmed him, making everything before his eyes blur into multiple layers.
In his hazy and unreal state, Yuan Ming saw spirit lights rise above the corpses in the cave, followed by vague shadows drifting out one after another.
After emerging from the tops of the corpses, these shadows overlapped one by one until they eventually looked identical to the bodies.
Yuan Ming jolted and became slightly more alert.
He then realized in horror that the floating shadows were real, not an illusion caused by his dizzy eyes.
All of them hung their heads low, suspended in the air above the corpses, motionless.
Yuan Ming swallowed hard and looked towards the naked man with the bell, just in time to see him shake the bell once again.
"Ling"
The same otherworldly sound rang out, but this time Yuan Ming did not experience the significant dizziness. Then, he watched as all the floating figures drifted towards the bell in the big man's hands.
As they drew nearer, each shadow turned into a speck of light, which merged into the bell and then vanished without a trace.
"Could it be... these shadows are the souls of those people?" The thought suddenly sprang to Yuan Ming's mind, sending another shiver down his spine.
If he hadn't passed that mysterious test, not only would his body have been dismembered by now, but his soul might have been extracted like those of the others.
"The harvest is pretty good; we got thirteen. Alright, let's regroup and prepare for the return trip," the naked man stowed the bell away, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and said.
Seemingly, the act of shaking the bell twice had also taken a toll on him.
Yuan Ming stared blankly at the bell in the man's hand, not knowing what it was, but it was clear to him that these Southern Barbarians were far from ordinary people.
...
Three days later, deep within the Ten Thousand Mountains, a valley shrouded in poison miasma.
A troop with uniform blue Beast Skins covering their faces trekked through the patchwork of green and purple Poison Miasma.
These people were clearly divided into two groups; one consisted of Southern Barbarians clad in Beast Skins with curved knives dangling from their waists—only about twenty in total, positioned at both ends of the troop, with a few patrolling to maintain order. The other group was composed of half-naked prisoners, shackled in chains, forming a Long Dragon, quietly trudging along with bowed heads.
Among them, Yuan Ming, being a prisoner, shuffled along, following the group through the challenging terrain.
As he had not spoken a single word during the journey in mountainous mud, nor had anyone approached to inquire, he had gleaned from the sparse conversations among the Southern Barbarians that their current location was known as "Southern Border," and their destination was Biluo Cave.
According to the Southern Barbarians, Biluo Cave was a place blessed by the gods, a holy site for their Cultivation, and they, the captives, were the chosen ones to receive the gods' benefactions.
Considering the sinister conduct of these people, Yuan Ming did not believe that Biluo Cave was any place pleasant, nor did he expect any good tidings to await him. For now, as he was at the mercy of others, all he could do was take it one step at a time.
What was worse, his memory had not returned in the slightest; he still could not recall his identity.
However, his fragmented memory told him that "Central Plains" was far more prosperous than this uncivilized land. He must be from there, but how did he come to be here from the Central Plains, and then wound up grievously injured? Was it a betrayal or pursued by an enemy?
With myriad thoughts swirling in his mind, Yuan Ming silently vowed to unravel the mysteries surrounding him!
The silver lining was that, along the journey, these Southern Barbarians did not trouble them further.
Along the way, they were regularly given food—albeit hard-to-swallow dry fruits and scant jerky—and some herb paste to treat their wounds.
It was during the treatment that Yuan Ming realized he had suffered over thirty wounds of varying severity, including lacerations, abrasions, and puncture wounds, and even one of his ribs was broken.
The herb paste applied by the Southern Barbarians, however, was far from a sham; within just three days, the paste healed nearly all his external wounds, leaving only the broken rib which could not heal quickly. Aside from some pain, it did not hamper his movement.
Now that they had entered the poisonous valley, the Southern Barbarians had distributed antidote Beast Skins to them, which only made Yuan Ming even more cautious.