Lu Na had a plan, but first she needed to see. She reached into her chest pocket and pulled out a light ward. With a quick tap, her little tomb lit up.

At least it was more spacious than the usual ones.

The next part was harder. Lu Na wasn’t sure if she had the skill to do it. She was going to use her wards to pull the dirt in front of her and form walls behind her. So instead of forming straight walls, this would instead clear the space in front of her.

If only Nugua was here. Her spirit’s finer control over her wards would have saved her.

Lu Na was going to test it on a small part first. She clenched her left fist and turned it left. She only focused on the solid wall in front of her. The idea was, she’d pull the dirt from in front of her to form a wall behind her.

The earth wall in front of her shifted and formed a bar of dirt reaching out to her. Lu Na kept pulling at it until the bar of dirt formed another wall behind her.

This could work. All she’d have to do was keep pulling the dirt in front.

Lu Na unclenched her left fist, releasing the technique. The earth wall in front of her shifted and cracked. Dirt poured in from the crack.

Lu Na quickly reactivated her bracelet to form a small earth wall to close the gap. If it broke the crack further, she would be covered in dirt.

This was not good.

Then, if she couldn’t shift the dirt into her little tomb, then maybe she could push it out instead. That was something Lu Na never thought to try. When she copied this technique from her brother, she had only ever pulled the dirt upwards to form walls. She had never pushed it against something.

The air became thick, like trying to breathe through only one nose.

Lu Na didn’t have a chance to test it. She had to push through. She walked up to the part of her dome with a crack. This was the general location of where the tunnel led, she hoped. Otherwise, she would push deeper into the wall of the labyrinth.

She closed her eyes to focus. Instead of pulling up dirt to form a wall, she pictured in her mind to push. Lu Na clenched her left fist, turned it left, and then pushed with everything she had left in the bracelet.

Please have enough spirit energy, or else the push wouldn’t be enough.

Lu Na felt the wall shift. A large slab shot forward. Her dome cracked all around. It was time to leave.

Lu Na ran down the newly formed tunnel as her dome collapsed behind her. She held onto the technique and kept pushing until she reached a different wall. This was the labyrinth’s wall.

Did she push in the wrong direction?

Her bracelet heated, a reminder that it used up all its spirit energy. The tunnel behind her collapsed as the technique failed.

Lu Na tried to push the technique against the labyrinth’s wall, but it wouldn’t go. She could use the tiger claw technique, but it wouldn’t be enough. It only gouged the wall. It would take her hours to gouge it fast enough before she got out.

Lu Na turned to watch as the tunnel slowly collapsed toward her. This time, she knew she wouldn’t have enough spirit energy to make a new dome to save herself. Besides, she could hardly breathe anymore.

She leaned against the labyrinth wall and sank down to the ground. Nugua had warned her that this was dangerous. She should have listened to her brother too and stayed home. She’d miss him and her younger brothers.

Lu Na closed her eyes and released the earth wall technique.

A loud rumbling came from her left. The dirt beside Lu Na collapsed onto her, forcing Lu Na to sputter as dirt got into her nose.

“She’s here! Grab her,” Sun Ren said.

Lu Na opened her eyes to see a large white fox rush into the tunnel. It opened its mouth and grabbed her by her tunic before dragging her out.

When Lu Na hit the open air again, she breathed a deep breath. She hadn’t noticed how much she missed the stale labyrinth air when she was about to run out inside the tunnel.

The white fox dropped Lu Na just outside before shaking the dirt off herself.

Sun Ren passed a water skin to Lu Na.

“Are you alright?”

Lu Na gulped the cool water. It cleared out much of the dirt from her throat before she coughed from drinking too fast. She handed the skin back to Sun Ren.

“I think I will be. What happened?”

“You saved us. When that boar spirit saw us go into the tunnel, it began shoveling dirt faster than we could run. If you didn’t form that dome to stop it, we would be buried in that tunnel. Then afterwards, you somehow created a new tunnel, pushing out until you hit the wall. We thought you were going to walk out of there until we saw the tunnel collapsing.”

Lu Na looked at the tunnel she made. It came out from one side of the labyrinth until it reached the other side. The tunnel had seemed longer than the other one they entered to get to the village. So all she had to do was push out either side and she wouldn’t have faced the collapsing tunnel.

“That was when Baihu heard you stopped moving at the end of the tunnel. Baihu cut through the wall with her claws to get to you.”

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“Thank you Baihu,” Lu Na said.

“Young one, it was my pleasure. I will continue protecting you both until we get out of here.” Baihu turned into the woman with nine tails. The dirt came off her, but some clung to her white robe that she wiped off. “Just promise that you will help Sun Ren with your inventions. I can see that one day you will become more powerful than even the monk.”

“Speaking of Hen Li, where is he? Where’s Nugua?” Lu Na looked around. Hen Li laid not too far away, with Nugua standing over him. If Lu Na didn’t know any better, it might have looked like her spirit was drooling over the monk.

“Nugua!” Lu Na called.

The naga spirit swiveled to look at Lu Na.

“Oh, my dear child. You made it out. I was so worried about you.” Nugua slithered over to Lu Na. She reached out to touch Lu Na, but that only made her flinch. “Oh sorry. Forgot about my claws. Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No.” Lu Na got up and dusted herself off. Luckily, the dirt blended in with her tunic. Of course, from the quick movement she knew she was going to be cleaning dirt from her body for a month the moment she got to a bath.

“It looks like everyone is fine. Let’s go before something else pops up,” Sun Ren said.

That’s when Jie walked through the labyrinth wall to stand before the group.

Sun Ren unsheathed her sword while Baihu turned back into a white fox, teeth bared.

Lu Na took out two of her wards from her chest pocket, ready to defend herself again.

Jie raised both hands in the air and backed up against the wall.

“Wait. I’m not enemy.”

That was strange. It sounded like Jie, but she didn’t speak as fluently as she did before.

“I sorry. My spirit, bad spirit.”

Nugua appeared behind Jie and wrapped her tail around her. But nothing happened. Her tail went through Jie. That’s when Nugua hopped away from her.

“She’s a ghost.”

Jie made a fist and brought it to her chest and bowed.

“Sorry.” Jie pointed to herself. “I die many years ago. My spirit stay protect village for me.”

Nugua frowned. She leaned over and said something to Jie.

The ghost perked up when she heard Nugua’s words. She began speaking in a language that sounded like theirs, but had many differences. Lu Na couldn’t keep up.

Nugua nodded as she listened. When Jie was done, the naga spirit had tears rolling down her face.

“Apparently, the Jie we have been talking with for the last few days was this ghost’s spirit. She copied her exactly and pretended to be her while defending the village hidden behind these walls. But the spirit became unstable when the soldiers kidnapped the villagers.”

Ghost Jie nodded.

“That’s why the spirit attacked us.” Sun Ren sheathed her sword.

“It gets worse,” Nugua said. “Apparently, anyone who dies within the labyrinth becomes a ghost and isn’t allowed to pass on. Many of the old villagers have come back to haunt her spirit, blaming her for their deaths and eternal prison.”

“The spirit was telling the truth, wasn’t she? The devices and machines in the village are breaking down and more people are dying,” Lu Na said.

Ghost Jie nodded. She pointed at Lu Na.

“Please help.” Ghost Jie got on her knees and began kowtowing to her.

Lu Na guessed that gesture was universal no matter what dynasty they were in.

“I would, but we have our own problems. We need to solve the labyrinth’s puzzle first before anything else, or else we’d join you in the afterlife.”

“Not to mention, we don’t have any food,” Sun Ren said. “All our packs were in that tea house. I only grabbed mine when it attacked.”

Ghost Jie’s face lit up. She beckoned them all over.

“I’ll go with Nugua, Sun Ren. You look after Hen Li,” Lu Na said.

Sun Ren nodded.

Lu Na followed behind Nugua and the ghost. They were talking really fast and ghost Jie was gesturing with her hand. At one point, Nugua laughed and turned to look at Lu Na.

Was that affection coming from Lu Na’s spirit?

They arrived at a different section of the labyrinth’s wall. Ghost Jie pointed at a small section that was colored differently.

Lu Na tapped the wall and heard a hollow sound. She pushed the wall and it slid open. Five sacks hung within.

Ghost Jie said something to Nugua.

“Apparently, those sacks are all food that the village prepared for explorers. But since those rebels came and her spirit went crazy, no one has dared to go out.”

Ghost Jie huffed at Nugua.

“What? If you don’t like my way of translating then you talk with her then,” Nugua said.

“Not crazy. Spirit sick,” Ghost Jie said.

“I understand. This is not the first time Nugua has misrepresented my words either,” Lu Na said. “After we solve the mystery, I will come back and fix your spirit, too. Maybe there’s something the old Xia left behind that I can use.”

At the mention of the Xia, Jie’s face lit up again. She walked further away on the labyrinth wall. She tapped the wall.

Lu Na tapped the wall herself and again heard a smaller hollow sound. It was at the height of her chest, unlike the sacks. She slid it open to find a book with a light covering of dust and a small cube beside it.

“What is this?” Lu Na opened the book and was struck by the diagrams inside. This was a manual for different machines. She recognized the machine in that room all the way at the back of the village. It showed Lu Na exactly where everything went and what it was supposed to do.

“Jie said that it was a manual left behind by her father,” Nugua said. “Her spirit wasn’t lying. Her father was one architect that built the labyrinth and they were supposed to be buried alive with him.”

“But if you have this manual, why do you need me?” Lu Na kept flipping pages, almost afraid that Jie would realize the same thing and take the manual back.

Ghost Jie spoke, this time with her eyes downcast.

“They can forge the pipes and copy the patterns, but the art of activating the patterns has been lost,” Nugua translated. “I could have told you that much. When your mother freed me from my prison, no one around knew how to do it anymore. I bet I’m one of the last remaining spirits that still remember how to manipulate spirit energy to create these devices.”

“Wait, my mother taught me how to do that,” Lu Na said.

“And guess who taught her?” Nugua rolled her eyes. “I was more valuable to her alive than dead, remember? I guess now I’m even more valuable.”

“Wait, can I teach this technique to Jie’s villagers? Then they could repair it themselves.”

Nugua smiled, showing off those razor-sharp teeth.

“You’re such an innocent child. You think you know the technique. Tell me, what’s the first step to activating the pattern?”

Lu Na opened her mouth and then shut it as quickly. She realized she didn’t know. She knew it had something to do with gathering spirit energy using the spirit wand, but she did not know how to use that spirit energy to make a pattern work.

Nugua laughed.

“You think you know how to do it, but it has been me all this time giving you the ability. Without me, you can’t make another ward again.”

No, that can’t be true. She had been using this just that morning!

Lu Na took out her spirit wand and a piece of yellow paper from her chest pocket. She gathered the spirit energy at the tip and put it to the paper. Her hand knew the exact pattern she had always drawn with it to make the earth wall ward. But when she was done, the paper stayed blank and the spirit energy dissipated into the air.

No, this can’t be true.

“Nugua!”