My scalp tingled, and I thought to myself, “What a nightmare, encountering a ghost again. Is this thing really alive?” The fat guy had already dashed in front of us without stopping, grabbing us and shouting, “What are you dawdling for?”

We were pulled several steps away by the fat guy, and at that moment, we still hadn’t reacted. Turning back to look, we saw an even more bizarre scene: the stone sculpture’s face had actually shattered, its facial features shifting as if something wrapped inside the stone was trying to break free.

“Damn it!” I cursed loudly, realizing that my premonition had been correct, and immediately took off running.

In the vast ruins, the ground was littered with loose stones and vines, making it difficult to gain speed. We had to run wherever the terrain allowed, stumbling several times and scraping our knees. We ran until we were completely exhausted, then turned back to check, only to find we hadn’t gotten far at all. But the stone sculpture was still in place, not pursuing us, though we could no longer see it clearly from this distance.

As we ran, our stamina had created some space between us. The fat guy and Panzi had run farther ahead and were still moving forward, so I hurriedly called out to them. They rushed back to grab me, but I held onto them and told them to hide first while I looked back at the stone sculpture in the distance.

To our surprise, the sculpture hadn’t followed us. We panted heavily, staring at it for a moment; the stone figure remained completely still…

Only then did we relax a bit. The fat guy was breathing heavily like a bellows, struggling to say, “What’s going on? Xiao Wu, it’s not moving. Could it be a trap?”

“We didn’t even touch that thing; how could it be a trap? Besides, a trap couldn’t possibly work to that extent.”

It absolutely couldn’t be a trap. The entire stone sculpture, wedged between two giant trees, would create a huge noise if it were to turn its head. Those two trees might even snap, so even if there were a trap, it couldn’t turn; that was beyond doubt. But no matter how I thought about it, it was clear that it had turned toward us, which was truly bizarre.

I was somewhat mentally prepared for the things we might encounter in the Kingdom of the West Queen Mother, but this was beyond my imagination.

At that moment, Panzi pulled out a pair of binoculars from his gear and looked toward the statue. I hurriedly asked what he saw. What was it? Panzi’s expression changed to one of great surprise as he exclaimed, “What the hell? It’s gone?”

“What?” I immediately snatched the binoculars from him and looked in that direction. Sure enough, the back of the stone sculpture was now visible to us, but that hideous face had vanished.

Before I could lower the binoculars, they were snatched away by the fat guy. My mind was in a whirl. Could it be that what we saw earlier was just an illusion? No way! All three of us had been scared nearly to the point of wetting our pants. What was going on? What was that face we had seen? Could it be a ghost?

“Damn it! Is someone playing tricks on us?” the fat guy stood up.

We were afraid he would act recklessly, so we quickly pulled him back down. The ground was unstable, and he stumbled slightly. We rushed to steady him. By chance, I caught sight of a massive stone about ten meters behind us, which bore a gigantic human face relief, identical to the one we had just seen, expressionless and staring forward like a corpse.

Just now, while running, I was so focused on sprinting that I didn’t pay attention to the ruins around me, so I didn’t know if these reliefs were originally here. The fat guy and Panzi saw it and immediately felt something was off, stopping in their tracks. The fat guy said, “Damn, these can’t be alive.”
“Not just one!” Panzi said, pointing to the side. We looked over and found that on the surrounding giant stones, every few meters, there were patches of human face reliefs, some large and some small. However, most of them were hidden by vines, and if you didn’t look closely, you wouldn’t notice. But upon closer inspection, the scale was astonishing. They were almost everywhere. Less than ten meters from where we were crouching, there was a huge human face. Strangely, all the reliefs here were of human faces, without any bird-like patterns.
Seeing so many lifeless stone eyes staring at him, the fat guy felt a bit panicked and raised Panzi’s gun. I immediately pressed down on him, urging him not to act rashly. I already felt that something was off around us; these didn’t seem to be mere reliefs.
But before I could clearly think about what these things were, suddenly, one of the reliefs actually cracked open, and then I saw a bizarre sight: the shattered stones all floated up into the air.
I stared in shock, thinking, could it be that I’ve finally lost my mind? Am I starting to hallucinate in broad daylight? Just then, I heard Panzi shout, “Damn it, it’s moths!”
I suddenly realized, and upon closer inspection, it turned out that the floating stones were actually black moths. These human faces were formed by the arrangement of these moths, no wonder they appeared and disappeared so suddenly. Soon, we saw the surrounding human face reliefs begin to twist and crack, with a large number flying into the air and dispersing in all directions.
Clearly, these moths had been resting on the ruins, and after being disturbed by us, they somehow arranged themselves to look like human faces.
Before long, the sky was almost filled with black fragments. We didn’t know if these moths were poisonous, so we instinctively covered our mouths and noses with our clothes. However, things that use protective coloration are generally non-toxic. Watching the moths gradually disperse, it looked like a sky full of black petals, which was quite a sight.
The fat guy caught a few, saying he wanted to take a closer look. We didn’t know what species these moths were, but he managed to catch a few without success. Our hearts gradually calmed down; this was just a false alarm. But we couldn’t blame ourselves; the situation was indeed terrifying.
We stayed in place, not daring to make any sudden moves. The moths continued to fly away, leaving only a few scattered ones. At that moment, we saw that the original ruins had changed. In the areas where the moths had just covered, large patches of white were revealed. Upon closer inspection, we found that they were all clumps of white snake skin, entangled in the vines of the plants, resembling the white intestines of some animal.
The fat guy jumped down, saw the vines, and cursed as he picked one up. Most of the snake skins had rotted and were full of holes, extremely disgusting, with a lot of vines intertwined among them. Looking around, snake skins were everywhere, in the gaps of the ruins and among the tree roots, numbering in the hundreds or thousands. Just now, all those moths had been resting on the snake skins, likely attracted by the stench. This place might be a hiding spot for snakes during their shedding.
We looked at each other, feeling a chill run down our spines. This area of ruins was vast; how many snakes must have lived here to shed skin on such a scale?

The fat man climbed up and showed us the snake skin he had picked up. The head part of the skin was swollen, resembling a chicken comb, confirming that it was indeed the shed skin of a venomous snake. This snake skin was as thick as a calf, much thicker than any snakes we had seen before, indicating that we couldn’t estimate the size of the snakes here.

The fat man obviously found it disgusting; he frowned and didn’t even want to look at it. Snake skin is a very valuable traditional Chinese medicine, selling for over a hundred yuan per pound. Given the scale here, there must be several tons of snake skin, which is astonishingly valuable. If the fat man knew that, he probably wouldn’t find it so disgusting. However, even I, who knew, felt goosebumps all over.

Panzi touched the snake skin and said, “This skin is still very tough; it seems to have been shed not long ago. This is where they shed their skin. Snakes usually shed in places they consider safe. If we encounter two snakes here, they would see their territory as severely invaded and would definitely attack us. I think it’s best we don’t stay here too long.”

I looked back; to go back, we had to walk through the area filled with snake skins, which was quite unpleasant. However, Panzi’s concern was valid. There might be venomous snakes hiding in the shadows here.

We immediately set off, hurrying out of the area. I thought we would at least encounter one or two snakes, but the process was surprisingly smooth, and we found nothing. It seemed that snakes are rarely seen during the day, indicating that these snakes are nocturnal, which also suggested that the forest would be very lively at night.

As I delved deeper, I caught a nauseating smell, something very strange. After exiting the ruins and returning to the forest following the terrain, I felt something in my stomach was already lodged in my throat.

Upon re-entering the rainforest, the overwhelming feeling of being shaded by the canopy hit me again. However, after the previous experience, the air in the rainforest felt like a delight; the humid air with a hint of swamp was much better than the smell of snake. Soon, my feeling of nausea disappeared.

Having lingered in the ruins for a while, Panzi was moving particularly fast, but our stamina was reaching its limit, and we stopped talking. After walking for four or five hours, we clearly felt the terrain lowering, and the water in the swamp began to flow rapidly. We could hear the sounds of waterfalls and torrents all around, but we had no idea where they were.

Panzi took out some rations, and we ate while continuing to move forward. Shortly after, we finally encountered a waterfall, a sudden drop in the terrain, the remnants of some ancient ruins we couldn’t identify.

As we walked, I was almost certain that this valley was a concave terrain, with the center of the valley being the lowest point, causing all the water to flow there. I felt that the Western Queen Mother Palace should be located there, but at this moment, it was no longer important.

After passing the waterfall, we were completely drenched. Below the waterfall was another cavern, where the water seemed to seep underground, and the vegetation became denser, with almost no gaps to pass through. Moreover, we couldn’t see the sky at all from below. We were almost squeezing through for a distance when we lost our sense of direction.

The smoke from Uncle San and the others had thinned out quickly. Even though we adjusted the compass, we were worried about straying too far off course. Panzi had no choice but to stop and climb a tree to find our direction.

I was completely disoriented at this point. As Panzi climbed up, the fatty and I leaned against a tree to catch our breath. However, it wasn’t long before Panzi pointed out the direction, indicating that we were close to Uncle Three and urged us to keep moving.

Looking at my watch, I realized we had been walking non-stop for a whole day. I had never experienced such intense trekking in this kind of environment before. The fact that I could still stand was a testament to my improved physical condition. However, I had already surpassed my physical limits; I felt that if I sat down, I could easily fall asleep.

After a brief discussion, Panzi forced us to march on again. The fatty noticed my pale face and realized I was physically exhausted, but given the current situation, he couldn’t do much to help. He could only keep talking to me to distract my attention.

The scenery around us was monotonous, leaving little to talk about. The fatty then glanced at something in the water and asked me, “Xiao Wu, do you think there are any valuable artifacts in those submerged ruins?”

I replied, based on the exploration experience of the Loulan Ancient City, that there were likely some items, but since this ancient city was buried underwater, don’t expect to find silk or bamboo slips; perhaps some pots and pans might still remain. What are you thinking? Are you getting restless again?

The fatty quickly insisted he wasn’t restless and said, “How can you view your old buddy like that? This time, our goal is to strike it big. Once we get our hands on something valuable, I’ll retire. These bottles and jars aren’t worth much; we need to find something we can auction off at a hotel in Beijing.”

I sighed, thinking about how there were so many annoying things to deal with, yet he was still focused on this.

As we walked and talked, it initially helped a bit, but soon I felt my vision blurring. The things in the distance became increasingly unclear, and the trees appeared hazy. I thought to myself, “Am I about to faint? That would be so embarrassing.” Just then, I heard the fatty exclaim, “Damn, why is it getting foggy?”

I concentrated hard, rubbed my eyes, and looked around. Indeed, it was fog—not just my eyes playing tricks on me. The fog had risen without us noticing, and everything was shrouded in a gray haze; the forest in the distance was completely obscured, and even the trees just a few meters away turned into strange silhouettes. A chilling atmosphere began to envelop the surrounding woods.

I didn’t know if it was due to extreme fatigue or the drop in temperature, but I started to feel an intense sense of unease, as if a nightmare was pressing down on my chest.

Last night we were outside the sea of trees; we didn’t know if fog had formed inside the sea of trees or if it was toxic. However, we couldn’t afford to worry about so much; we hadn’t brought any gas masks with us.

We tore off some cloth, dampened it, and covered our mouths and noses. After walking a short distance, we didn’t feel any discomfort, so we let it drop. But at that moment, we realized the fog had thickened to the point where we could see nothing at all.