The moment I recognized the voice, I should have had countless reactions—confusion, anger, surprise, doubt, fear, and so on. But in reality, my mind went completely blank. Hearing his voice here was truly unexpected. In my mind, the Muffled Oil Bottle could be anywhere in the world, or perhaps not even in this world at all, but there was absolutely no reason for him to appear here.

Indeed! How could he be here? What was he doing here?

Could the person who sent the videotape really be him? Was he hiding here? Or was he, like me, following some clue?

After my mind went blank, a flood of questions surged in like a tide, and I found myself unable to think. The scene of him walking into the bronze door flashed in my mind. An impulse surged within me; I really wanted to grab him immediately, choke him by the neck, and demand to know what the hell he was up to.

However, the reality was that he was covering my mouth, and in the darkness, I couldn’t make a sound or move at all. I could clearly feel his strength was unyielding; he had no intention of letting go but wanted to keep me restrained like this. This made me very uncomfortable. I struggled again with all my might, but he pressed down tighter, and I could barely breathe.

At that moment, I heard a very harsh creaking sound from the wooden door I had just closed, as if something was pushing it open.

That thing came out. I took a deep breath and immediately quieted down, holding my breath and stopping my struggles, focusing intently on sensing any movement in the darkness.

Suddenly, the entire room was eerily quiet, devoid of the sound of my own voice. I immediately heard more sounds—extremely faint breathing, almost right next to my head.

It was the Muffled Oil Bottle’s breathing. Damn it, he was alive! When I saw him walk through the door, I thought he was done for, that he had gone to hell.

The Muffled Oil Bottle seemed to sense my stillness and loosened his grip on my hand slightly, but he still showed no intention of letting go. The surroundings quickly became so quiet that I could hear my own heartbeat.

Just like that, it felt like we were stuck in a stalemate for an unknown amount of time when I suddenly heard a very strange “puff puff” sound coming from the direction of the door.

After a while, no more sounds could be heard, and the hand covering my mouth finally loosened completely. Suddenly, my eyes were dazzled as a match was lit.

It took me a long time to adjust, squinting my eyes to see that familiar face finally appearing clearly in front of me.

The Muffled Oil Bottle looked almost unchanged from when he disappeared a few months ago; the only difference was that he had grown some stubble on his face. I was quite surprised, but upon closer inspection, I realized it wasn’t stubble—it was just dust stuck to his face.

My mind had completely frozen at that moment, and I stared at him blankly, forgetting all the questions I had previously thought of, momentarily speechless. He, however, seemed to pay me no mind, merely glancing at me casually without asking anything. He cautiously moved to the door, using the match to illuminate the inside, and then surprisingly closed the door again.

After closing the door, he stood up straight, raised the torch to illuminate the ceiling, and began searching for something. I was fuming inside, wanting to burst out with a few words several times, but he stopped me with gestures. The intensity of his movements was swift, making me feel a sense of urgency, while his actions left me baffled, and my gaze followed the flickering light of the torch.

The light from the torch was dim, but in this darkness, combined with my own imagination, I quickly grasped the situation of the room. When I came in, I hadn’t noticed the ceiling of the basement; looking up now revealed that it was covered in pipes, just like the garage. These pipes were coated with a layer of pale paint, indicating that the place had been renovated several times, with remnants of old paint still visible. The ceiling was painted in a pale white, and the mortar on the brick exterior had mostly peeled away, exposing sections of the brick surface. It seemed that the ghostly woman had been climbing along these pipes.

But how could there be such a thing here? What the hell was going on?

The man with the torch looked around carefully but quickly. In the middle of his inspection, the torch went out, and he quickly lit another one. Indeed, there was nothing hidden away, and then he returned to stand in front of me.

“She didn’t follow,” he said softly, glancing at the door.

All my questions were about to explode from my mouth, but unexpectedly, he turned to look at me and made a gesture to keep quiet, then casually asked, “What are you doing here?”

My mind suddenly filled with rage, and I felt like jumping up to strangle him. I thought to myself, you damn picky idiot, why are you asking me? I haven’t even asked you yet! Did I want to come here on my own? If it weren’t for those videotapes, I wouldn’t have come here even if you killed me!

I gritted my teeth, wanting to curse, but looking at his face, I couldn’t let loose like I did with the fat guy. The curse words just wouldn’t come out, and it almost made me feel internal pain. I held back for a long time before finally answering, “It’s a long story… how did you end up here? What is this place? You… back then, didn’t we go through that door? What the hell is going on here?”

These questions were incredibly difficult to articulate; my mind was already a jumbled mess, and I didn’t know how to express them clearly.

“It’s a long story,” the man with the torch either didn’t want to answer or was avoiding the question. When I asked, his attention turned to the enormous stone coffin. I took a look and indeed saw that the lid of the coffin had been pushed open, revealing a large gap, but it was pitch black inside, and I couldn’t tell what was there.

I feared when he acted this way; I remembered that whenever I asked critical questions before, he almost always responded like this, and I immediately wanted to ask again. But before I could open my mouth, he waved his hand at me, signaling me to be quiet, and leaned toward the coffin.

I was too familiar with this gesture; although I didn’t know what was happening, I instinctively shut my mouth and leaned in to look inside the coffin. As he extended the torch forward, I saw that the coffin was actually empty, revealing a clean stone bottom, seemingly devoid of anything. What was strange, however, was that there was a hole at the bottom of the coffin.

I was curious when I suddenly heard some faint sounds coming from that hole. Listening closely, I couldn’t make out what it was. After waiting for a moment, a hand suddenly reached out from the hole, and a person crawled out like an eel through the narrow opening. Then, with a flip, they emerged from the gap in the coffin lid and landed lightly in front of us.

I was startled. Once the person landed, they wiped the cold sweat from their forehead, glanced at the dark oil bottle, and then raised what they were holding, saying softly, “Got it.”

The latter seemed to have been waiting for this moment. They gave me a pat and whispered, “Let’s go!”

I followed them, carefully tiptoeing and sneaking along the original path. However, just as I stepped up two or three steps, I heard the door at the end of the corridor creak open behind us.

The person in front cursed and started running, and I immediately followed suit. We dashed out, rolling and scrambling, until we reached the courtyard and jumped over the wall, finally letting out a sigh of relief.

I was panting heavily, but the two of them showed no signs of stopping. After jumping out, they ran off without caring about me. I thought to myself that I couldn’t let them get away this time, so I hurriedly chased after them.

We ran desperately, all the way out of the old city. Suddenly, an Iveco van rushed out from the darkness, and the door swung open immediately. The two of them dashed over and jumped in, showing no intention of waiting for me. The door was about to close, and I didn’t know who stopped it for a moment, but I barely managed to jump in.

Breathless, I collapsed into the vehicle, closing my eyes and taking several deep breaths to recover.

As I looked around, I was stunned to see that the van was filled with people, all looking at me with a sort of half-smile. What surprised me the most was that I recognized many of them. I spotted several very familiar faces right away.

Oh no, it was all from that group of survivors from the heavenly palace, the mixed crew of An Ning. We had hung out together for a long time in Jilin.

Seeing my astonished expression, a few familiar faces laughed. A Caucasian man spoke to me in broken Chinese, “Super Wu, fate brings us together from thousands of miles away.” Then, I saw An Ning’s head peek out from behind a chair, looking at me in surprise.

I glanced at the dark oil bottle and then at the person who had just crawled out of the stone coffin. It was a strange young man wearing sunglasses. Neither of them was out of breath and both were looking at me. Suddenly, I felt very confused and asked them, “You bunch of idiots, can someone tell me what the hell is going on?”

An Ning replied, “Shouldn’t I be the one asking you? How did you end up in the basement?”

The Iveco sped along, directly driving out of the city of Golmud and into the Gobi Desert, while I sat in the vehicle, staring out at the darkness, completely unaware of what was happening.

Along the way, An Ning and I had a long conversation, sharing what had happened on both sides.

It turned out that An Ning also found the address and key on the videotape. Clearly, one of the “three people” mentioned in Wen Jin’s notes was actually her. After discovering this secret, she immediately divided her work into two parts: one team was sent to look for the address, while she personally came to Hangzhou to test me. She wanted to know whether I was aware of the situation in the videotape.

However, what she didn’t expect was that I had also received such a tape, and after she came to find me, I quickly set off for Golmud, almost simultaneously discovering that haunted building.

(I was fortunate that my actions this time were indeed swift and precise, without too much hesitation; otherwise, I would definitely have missed seeing that notebook. Thinking about it makes me anxious, but at the same time, I felt a bit happy. I touched the notebook in my pocket; this was my first significant achievement from acting independently. It seems that my grandfather was right: being proactive is indeed the way to go.)

After that, I asked An Ning what was going on with the “Mysterious Oil Bottle” and how they ended up together.

An Ning smiled and said, “What? Just because your third uncle can afford it, we can’t? These two are clearly priced; right now, they are our consultants.”

As she spoke, the guy in black glasses grinned and waved his hand at me.

“Consultants?” Speaking of consultants, I thought of Fatty and figured that An Ning had learned her lesson this time and hired someone reliable. However, it felt strange that the “Mysterious Oil Bottle” would become An Ning’s consultant; I felt a bit betrayed.

At that moment, the Caucasian man said, “Don’t listen to her nonsense. These two are our partners, directly assigned by our boss. Ning is just a deputy now. The main operations are handled by them; we are only responsible for intelligence and support, which is safer. The boss said that in the future, professional matters should be left to professionals.”

This must be due to the high casualty rate at Yunding. Remembering the situation back then, I asked, “What exactly is going on with this whole matter? Do you have any clues about the content of the videotape and the ‘forbidden woman’ inside?”

The few of them shook their heads, and their gazes turned to the “Mysterious Oil Bottle” and the guy in black glasses. An Ning shot them a glare, then gave me a knowing look and said, “We don’t know the specifics either; it should be about the same as what you know. We’re currently acting based on what they say. These two friends are hard to communicate with.”

After hearing this, I turned to the “Mysterious Oil Bottle.” At this point, I could no longer hold back; I had to ask him for a clear explanation and find out what was really going on.

However, before I could prepare myself, there was suddenly commotion in the car. The Tibetan driver called out, and everyone began to grab their luggage.

Then the vehicle slowly came to a stop, and the door was suddenly flung open. Outside, I could already see a ray of morning sunlight, and a gust of cold wind from the Gobi Desert rushed in.

I squeezed out of the car and was greeted by a scene that left me dumbfounded: dozens of Land Rovers were lined up on the Gobi, with a large amount of supplies piled on the ground, bonfires lit one after another, and everywhere I looked were people dressed in trench coats. Many were lying in sleeping bags, while huge satellite dishes and illuminating gas lamps stood tall.

It seems that this place is a gathering spot for self-driving tour enthusiasts, but upon closer inspection, it’s clear something is off. All the cars have a uniform paint job, and there’s a rotating, soft antler coral logo on the doors, which is unmistakably a sign of Anning Company’s operations.

When we got out of the car, many people gathered around us. Anning said something to them, and they erupted in cheers.

This scene left me quite astonished. I grabbed a Caucasian man nearby who was celebrating with high-fives and asked him what was going on.

The Caucasian man patted me on the back and said, “Friend, we are going to ‘Tamutu’!”