See also previous explanation:

The perl module uses the function Value() to retrieve the value from the variable {_Value}. So setting {Val} will not work with next_row().

sub next_row {
  map { $_ ? $_->Value : "" } @{$_[0]->{sheet}->{Cells}
}
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Now, because a spanned cell COULD hold a value() BEFORE spanning (usually empty, but not necessarily), you will get that value() instead of the spanned value...

spanning is like mounting a drive over a directory that may already hold files.... but it works now, congrats!