Countless “mouth monkeys” pounced on me, tearing at my flesh. I struggled violently, determined not to give up until I had exhausted my last ounce of strength, but deep down, I was already hopeless. In this situation, even if a deity appeared, they couldn’t save us.

Just as I was stubbornly resisting, the ground suddenly shook, and we were all thrown to the ground. The monkeys clinging to me were momentarily stunned, and in an instant, all the monkeys slid off us, desperately fleeing towards a gap in the exit.

I turned to look at the fat guy, and he was experiencing the same scene. The “mouth monkeys” all retreated from the gap as if they had seen a ghost.

The fat guy was covered in injuries, bewildered. We exchanged glances, and he muttered to himself, “What’s going on? Aren’t you going to eat what you caught? Am I too greasy for you?”

The chaos of the “mouth monkeys” wasn’t over. The monkeys surrounding the gap didn’t hesitate, climbing back into the mouth of the giant bird with a human head. The giant bird began to move, taking off into the sky, quickly disappearing as if it had received some command or seen a terrifying enemy, fleeing in a frenzy.

I handed the fat guy the five or six-style gun and told him to load the bullets, then cautiously approached the gap, not daring to go out. I poked my head out to take a look and was instantly dumbfounded. One by one, the head-bird monsters flew into the sky, and soon there wasn’t a single one left around us. It became quiet, leaving just the two of us.

This was really bizarre. I signaled to the fat guy to come out, and we looked around, feeling a bit unaccustomed to this sudden turn of events before death. I thought to myself, “God, even if you don’t want me to die, can’t you find a better reason?”

I muttered to myself, “What are they afraid of? Do these monsters actually have a natural enemy?” Before I finished speaking, the fat guy patted me; he had seen something.

I turned my head and saw that the human skin sealing the giant bronze door on one side had somehow completely burst and fallen off. The two massive bronze doors had actually shifted slightly outward, revealing a pitch-black, narrow gap between them.

My heart raced, and I broke into a cold sweat. How could such a huge door open by itself? That violent shake just now was definitely the reaction from the door opening. Who opened such a heavy door? Who was inside?

According to Wang Zanghai’s account, this underground giant door was described as a passage for an evil god traveling between hell and the ancestors, containing ancient evil within. In short, it was not a good thing. Now that the door was open, could it be that an evil god from hell was preparing to come out for a stroll?

This was an entirely unpredictable scene. In an instant, my mind raced with questions: Was it a monster or a zongzi (sticky rice dumpling)? Should I run or observe? If I ran, which way should I go?

At this moment, my thoughts were surprisingly clear, and I began to admire the resilience of my tortured mind.

However, after the door opened, there was no further movement; the door didn’t continue to open, nor did anything emerge. After standing still for a long time, the fat guy asked me, “Should we go take a look?”

But if we entered and the door closed, such a massive bronze door couldn’t be moved even if a thousand people were here. We would definitely be trapped inside. What value would knowing the secret have then?

This is essentially a choice between leaving here safely or risking it to find the answers. After weighing it back and forth, I still couldn’t endure the mystery that had tormented me for nearly a year. I had to go in and see what kind of scene Wang Canghai had witnessed in the magical realm back then, and what mysterious power lay behind the secret that had entangled our family for three generations.

I glanced at the Fatty, and he shared the same sentiment. The Fatty handed me a Type 56 rifle while he picked up his M16. He scavenged a few magazines from the corpses scattered on the ground and wiped the blood from his face, signaling for me to come over.

The gate was enormous; from a distance, it looked like a narrow gap, but up close, it was wide enough for a truck to pass through. The force required to move a gate weighing tens of thousands of tons even this little distance was unimaginable.

I suppressed my excitement and walked up to the giant gate. I caught a strange smell wafting through the gap, and my heart began to race, a mix of tension and unease growing stronger. Our hands were sweaty, and my legs felt a bit weak.

The Fatty shone his flashlight inside; the beam illuminated the giant gate but then completely vanished, revealing nothing. Wang Canghai had mentioned that when the Dongxia people brought him here back in the day, the first section inside the gate was a void. One had to use a peculiar light source called “the fire of truth.” We speculated that they must have used rhinoceros horn candles to see what was inside.

As I thought about this, I was suddenly taken aback, realizing that we didn’t have such equipment. Even if we went in, we would only see darkness. Would we be able to pass through that void to reach the magical realm?

The Fatty hadn’t thought of this yet. Seeing me frozen, he assumed I was scared again and asked, “Are we going or not?”

Just as I was about to respond, I suddenly saw several lights flickering in the darkness within the crack of the bronze giant gate, as if something was coming out. Just as I was about to pull the Fatty over to look, he grabbed me, and when I turned around, I noticed a faint blue mist rising from the cracks in the stones beneath us, like waves of clouds, rapidly ascending.