The face was a bloody mess, and I couldn’t tell if the skin had melted away to reveal the muscle underneath or if blood was seeping from his body, covering his face. In an instant, I felt that this face was very familiar. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was Da Kui, and I was horrified: How could a healthy person end up like this?

The left side of his head had a chunk taken out by a bullet, exposing bone, but it hadn’t penetrated into the brain. I saw that although he was severely injured, he was not necessarily dead, and I couldn’t help but feel a surge of hope. I quickly said, “Hurry up, maybe there’s still a chance to save him!”

However, he didn’t move at all. The look in his eyes was filled with deep resentment, as if he was unwilling to let us leave him behind. I was taken aback, but my hand was already grasped tightly by his. The terrifying blood-red color on him quickly spread to my hand, and I felt a burning itch, thinking to myself, “It’s over!”

Da Kui mumbled something indistinctly and suddenly pulled me down. Thinking of his melted skin, I went into a frenzy and desperately tried to shake off his grip. But he grabbed my foot again, opening his mouth wide as if he wanted me to accompany him to the grave.

I shouted, “Da Kui, just let me go! This is about life and death. If you still want to live, come with me! There might still be a chance to heal you. Otherwise, dragging me down with you won’t help!”

Upon hearing this, he seemed to be provoked by something and lunged at me like a madman, his eyes filled with fierce light as if he had completely lost his sanity. Suddenly, he grabbed my neck, trying to strangle me.

Seeing that it was either him or me, I suddenly felt a surge of murderous intent. I kicked him hard, and as he loosened his grip, I pressed against his chest and pulled the trigger. The bullets were all hollow-point rounds, and the force was immense, causing blood to spray everywhere as he flew backward, his hands flailing in the air, but he couldn’t grab anything and fell heavily into a pile of corpses.

At that moment, the hand he had grabbed was completely numb and devoid of feeling. I couldn’t tell if I was still holding onto the branch; I just felt my body dropping straight down. I quickly reached out my other hand to grab the ghostly vine nearby, but it was covered in Tianxin rock powder, and the vine retracted instantly. I cursed under my breath as I slid down and crashed into a large branch.

The branch was covered in corpses, and my impact caused many to fall. I barely managed to use my legs to grip the branch and stop myself from sliding further down, but a swarm of corpses quickly surrounded me. I couldn’t help but smile bitterly; I now had so many ways to die to choose from: I could either fall to my death, be bitten to death by insects, or die of poison. Heaven was certainly not being kind to me.

Just as I was feeling dejected, suddenly, the fat guy climbed up from below, kicking away a few corpses. It turned out this guy was climbing even slower than I was. When he saw me, he cursed, “What the hell are you doing lying there? Look at my ass; it’s full of holes from being bitten!” Saying this, he came over to help me. I shouted, “Don’t touch me! I’m poisoned; you go first! I’m beyond saving!”

Without saying a word, the fat guy picked me up on his back and said, “Take a look in the mirror; your complexion is better than mine! You look rosy and shiny. How could you possibly be poisoned?”

I was surprised and looked down, only to see my hands covered in red rashes, looking as if I had been bitten by thousands of mosquitoes. However, the redness stopped at my shoulders and was now slowly fading away. I couldn’t help but wonder why the poison didn’t affect me.

The fat guy was carrying me on his back, gritting his teeth as he climbed up. I was behind him, serving as his meat shield, while all those corpses jumped onto my backside, biting me. It hurt so much that I cursed, “You fat bastard! I thought you were being kind, but you just want to use me as a shield, huh!”

The fat guy shouted back, “What are you whining about? If you’re not happy, then carry me yourself! Can’t you see that my butt’s already all skin and bones?”

I didn’t want to argue with him. The area near the Hydra was surrounded by a dense cluster of corpses hanging close to the tree trunk. The fat guy frequently bumped into piles of bones. Fortunately, those corpses had the same trouble; they couldn’t differentiate too many things, and many of them jumped onto the undead we had knocked around, biting them.

Seeing this, the fat guy thought it was a good idea and told me to bump into those corpses, pushing them to get them moving. Although I was reluctant, I had no choice; my life was at stake.

Along the way, I kicked every corpse I saw, and soon the area we passed was filled with spinning corpses. The intelligence of these insects couldn’t compare to that of humans; they were just flailing around, not knowing whether to chase us or bite the spinning corpses, and they ended up just spinning in place. The fat guy took the opportunity to speed up, quickly increasing the distance between us, and we finally had a moment to catch our breath.

After the recent exertion, my hands and feet had mostly regained sensation. I thought to myself that the feeling of poisoning I experienced was similar to what my grandfather felt when he was poisoned, and he ultimately didn’t die. Could it be that I had developed some immunity because of this?

I couldn’t figure it out, but seeing that my hands and feet could move, I asked the fat guy to put me down. Noticing that he was drenched in sweat and panting heavily, I thought to myself that it was even now; when I was carrying him on the stone platform, I felt like I was about to spit blood.

At that moment, I suddenly saw a person sitting on a branch behind the fat guy, waving at me. I shivered and rubbed my eyes, but the person was already gone. I thought they must have hidden behind the tree, so I leaned forward to take a look. The fat guy shouted, “Stop dawdling, let’s go!”

“Wait a minute!” I grabbed him, “Go left, go left! I just saw someone waving at me.”

He sighed and followed me as I climbed over. When we arrived, there was no one there, just a tree hole barely big enough to fit a person, dark inside, and I couldn’t tell what was in there.

When the fat guy shone his flashlight inside, he was startled. Inside the hole was a pile of coiled vines, and entwined within them was a highly decomposed corpse. Its two blue eyes were so clouded that the pupils were unrecognizable, and its mouth was wide open as if it wanted to say something to me. The fat guy looked at me and said, “How can it be a dead person? You’re not seeing ghosts, are you?”

There have been so many strange things along the way that I couldn’t help but believe in ghosts. I thought to myself, since he was waving for us to come over, he must have some purpose. With that in mind, I habitually looked at his mouth. However, his chin was already rotted through, and something had fallen out. I continued to search and found that he seemed to be holding something in his hand. When I pried it open, I realized it was a pendant.

The corpses below started to squeak and crawl up again. I had no interest in rummaging through his belongings anymore. Seeing that he was wearing camouflage, I saluted him and continued to climb up. The fat guy climbed up quickly; we were not far from the crack at the top, and in no time, we made it up.

As soon as we crawled out of the crack and looked down, we saw those corpses showing no signs of stopping, almost all crowding at the edge of the crack. The fat guy shouted, “It’s not time to rest yet, run!”

Having spent so long underground, I had lost my sense of direction. Suddenly, a person ran out of the bushes ahead, carrying something. I recognized it was my third uncle, and I couldn’t help but feel overjoyed. My uncle saw me and shouted, “Quick, go to the back and bring over those barrels of gasoline!”

I ran over and saw that this crack was only separated from the place where we had entered the tunnel by a low cliff, less than ten meters away. Our gear was still there, and I spotted the barrels of gasoline. My heart surged with excitement, thinking, “Good, now you guys are in for a show.”

Each of us took a barrel and ran back. My uncle had already poured the first barrel completely down. At that moment, those corpses were almost crawling onto the ground. My uncle tossed down a lighter, and with a flash of fire, a wave of burnt smell rushed up. The tide of insects immediately retreated, and gasoline formed a wall of fire at the crack. Watching those bugs being burned inside, screaming in agony, was truly satisfying. We poured down the second and third barrels, and the flames shooting out of the crack were almost taller than the two of us. The heat wave came over and singed my eyebrows.

I took a few steps back and looked at the pendant in my hand. It had a name tag on it; the corpse’s name should be James. I wiped it and put it in my jacket pocket, thinking I would return it to his family if I had the chance. For now, may he rest in peace. The fat guy was sweating from the heat and asked my uncle, “What about those two people?”

My uncle pointed behind him, “Panzi seems to be in trouble; he looks like he has a fever. As for that young guy, I haven’t seen him; I thought he was with you.”

I looked at the fat guy, who sighed, “After the explosion, I didn’t see him at all. He’s probably in serious trouble.”

My uncle shook his head and said, “No way, that guy is elusive. Besides, he was above us the whole time. Even if he got blown away by the shockwave, he likely ended up above.”

Looking at my uncle’s expression, I knew he wasn’t very confident either. Although the “Dumb Oil Bottle” was formidable, he was still just like us in front of explosives. If he got thrown outside by the shockwave, it would truly be a matter of life and death.

We searched the area nearby but found nothing and saw no signs of anyone leaving. My uncle sighed and gave me a wry smile.

We returned to the campsite to pack our things, lit a campfire, and heated up the canned food from our bags. I was so hungry that I could eat anything. Uncle San pointed to the low cliff behind us while eating: “Look, this campsite is right next to this crevice. It seems that the old man saw the tree demon, which must be this cypress. They probably made too much noise while celebrating at night, attracting this cypress out of the crevice. Luckily, we didn’t stay overnight and went straight down into the thieves’ cave; otherwise, we might have been dragged away by this cypress long ago.”

The fat guy said, “I don’t know how long that fire will last. If it goes out, it’ll be a problem when those bugs come out again. It’s almost dawn now; let’s hurry and get out of this forest!”

I quickly took a few bites and nodded. The fat guy and Uncle San took turns carrying Panzi and headed into the woods.

The journey was very quiet. We had been chatting and singing on the way there, but now we were trudging back in silence, almost as if we were fleeing for our lives.

I hadn’t rested all night, and my nerves were on high alert. My physical strength had reached its limit. By the end, I was relying solely on willpower to keep going. If a bed had suddenly appeared in front of me, I could have fallen asleep in less than two seconds. We walked for nearly half a day and a morning, finally emerging from the woods and climbing over a small slope formed by a mudslide, and we finally saw that familiar little village.

We didn’t dare to relax. We first took Panzi to the village clinic. The barefoot doctor came over, frowned deeply, and hurriedly called the nurse. I lay down on the bench, and before I knew it, I had fallen asleep after hearing just a couple of their words.

It was a sleep that was truly exhausting; I didn’t dream at all and had no idea how long I slept. When I woke up, I heard a commotion outside and didn’t know what had happened.