The moment the words left my lips, hundreds of spiders surged forward, swarming from my feet, legs, and back, up onto my head, completely engulfing me. They didn't just cover my body; they claimed every inch of skin. From top to bottom, they gnawed at my entire being. The sensation was like being pierced by ten thousand arrows—as if every piece of flesh was being ripped apart, flayed alive from the bone.

I squeezed my eyes shut, enduring the searing pain as the spiders tore at my form. A mournful voice echoed in my mind: “Is there anything you wish me to tell your elder sister?” It was the hunchbacked crone, speaking to me through the intestinal Gu.

Hearing her voice, I felt that drinking her poisoned water had been the most correct decision I’d ever made. Otherwise, I wouldn't even have a chance to deliver a final message now. Thus, I silently chanted in my heart: “Tell Elder Sister I love her. Tell Mama I love her.”

After the thought was complete, the Gu in my gut fell still, leaving a deathly calm, save for the frantic gnawing of the spiders on my body. I mused that this must be what slow slicing felt like—the body felt like it no longer belonged to me; I had entrusted it entirely to fate. A century or two ago, someone else must have endured this same agony, dying in a similar fashion.

Ali wailed in the distance, and Xing’er cried out hoarsely beside her, “You’re insane! Completely insane!”

Then, a pair of hands began working frantically over my body, pulling the spiders off my face. I forced my eyes open through the bone-deep agony to find Xing’er standing before me. He had shot up again, nearly as tall as I was now, completely shedding the last vestiges of boyhood.

“You can’t just feed yourself to the spiders so easily. I can’t go back to Miao Village, but you must go back, you must take Ali back with you,” he said while desperately clearing the vermin from my skin.

I looked down at my body. It was a carpet of spiders; where they weren’t present, the venom had burned my flesh beyond recognition. Returning seemed impossible.

“Stop,” I gasped through the searing pain, barely managing to clutch his wrist. “Xing’er, you protect… Ali…”

As I spoke, a spider maneuvered from the back of my neck onto my face. It spotted my mouth, opening and closing as I spoke, and lunged directly inside. Xing’er reacted with a swift twist of his wrist, catching one of the spider’s legs and yanking it out of my mouth.

“Haha…” As he laughed triumphantly, holding the one-legged spider, the trapped creature swiftly pivoted, turned, and thwack spat a jet of venom directly into Xing’er’s eye. Xing’er panicked instantly, dropping his grip, clutching his eye, and screaming.

“So, his weakness is his eyes,” I thought silently.

The spider seemed to realize its advantage. Hundreds, thousands of them, like a tide, surged toward Xing’er, every one aiming for his eyes.

I watched Xing’er roar in frantic desperation, backing away from me while blindly swatting at the spiders on his head and face. With the last breath I possessed, I lunged onto him, shaking off the creatures clinging to me, and used my two clawed hands—now just bloody shreds of flesh—to tear the demons from his face, continually shouting, “Come to me, come to me… I killed your companions…”

And so, the spiders went mad again, redirecting their assault back onto me. They crawled onto my hands, head, and face once more, fiercely spraying poison onto my skin…

The spiders were finally cleared from Xing’er’s face. Blood-red tears streamed from both his eyes… Blood-red tears… That was the last thing I ever saw.