I froze in place, my legs went weak, and my whole body felt drained of strength. I didn’t dare to move an inch, nor did I dare to look away; the searchlight kept shining in that direction.

Under the penetrating light of the powerful searchlight, the figure was quite clear. What sent chills down my spine was the posture of that person—it was extremely strange. The figure was almost standing upright, but its shoulders were slumped. My first impression was that this person was floating there like me, but it seemed that the figure was completely motionless, as if it were a corpse.

The suffocating feeling at that moment had reached its peak. This was perhaps the most unbelievable thing I had encountered to date. If this were on land, there could be countless explanations, but this was at the bottom of a lake, at a depth of sixty or seventy meters. That shadow stood there, unmoving; it was definitely not a diver.

What on earth was this? A monster, or a water ghost? No one can survive underwater without an oxygen tank, and no one can stand like that underwater. I felt a chill in my heart; this time, I had really stumbled upon something extraordinary. What Agui said might really be true—it was probably a water ghost, and I couldn’t help but believe it.

Thinking of the water ghost, I immediately recalled the bones we had been searching for earlier: were those the remains of the archaeological team that had turned into zongzi after dying in the water? Were they the souls of the deceased after this village was flooded? Had the disappearances of the “Dumb Oil Bottle” and the “Fatty” been caused by these entities?

If it were zongzi, it would be easier to handle; equipped as I was, I couldn’t possibly run slower than it. But if it were a ghost, I was afraid I would have to become its scapegoat. I wondered if Fatty and the others would come back to help me if they had met with misfortune. I was completely at a loss, afraid to move forward or turn back, fearing that if I turned, this thing would immediately pounce. I would rather watch it kill me than suddenly feel something strange behind me.

I could only stare fixedly at that shadow. However, as I stood there frozen for a moment, I noticed that the shadow remained utterly still. Its immobility was very strange, like a stone sculpture, without even the slightest movement. At the same time, I had an even stranger feeling: I felt as if I had seen this shadow somewhere before.

This feeling grew increasingly stronger, as if some subconscious will was guiding me. I mustered my courage, and the shape of the shadow on the screen began to change little by little. Cold sweat began to pour down uncontrollably as I watched the transformation of that shadow; the sense of déjà vu intensified, even momentarily overshadowing my fear. After walking about seven meters, this feeling reached a peak, and in that instant, I remembered.

My God, that shadow, that screen—it was exactly like the shadow in the photo that Brother Chu had! Before I came to Banai, I had received a photo sent to me by Brother Chu, an old friend of my third uncle. The photo depicted the interior of an ancient building, which included a screen. Behind the screen, there was also a shadow of a person. Looking back, that shadow looked exactly like what I was seeing now.

Because the back of that photo mentioned the “Ghost Building of Golmud,” I had initially judged that the photo captured a scene inside the Ghost Building of Golmud. Now it seemed I was mistaken. Could it be that the annotation on the back of the photo was not referring to the photo itself, but that the photo was actually taken here?

However, at that time, the photo did not show any signs of being underwater. In other words, if that was the case, then the ancient village underwater had not yet been submerged when the photo was taken. Such a photo should be from at least the 1930s or 1940s. Could it be that the time when this ancient village was submerged is not as long ago as I thought? The photo… the shadow… the underwater… Could it be that the photo given to me by Brother Chu contains a deeper meaning that I do not understand, and I merely took it as a simple piece of stationery? Did he give me that photo so that I would search for the shadow in it? My mind suddenly became clear, only to be filled with countless strange years afterward.

What confuses me is that shadow. In that photo, the posture of the shadow is so bizarre, yet this shadow now is almost indistinguishable from the one in the photo. If the photo was taken here, then it means that after the photo was taken, this shadow did not move at all and has been here all along? It couldn’t be a water ghost, because this place wasn’t submerged at that time; this shadow should be a lifeless thing.

I stood there in a daze, suddenly filled with courage. I found a brick, put on my flippers, and swam straight towards the screen. As I approached the screen, I smashed the brick against it, thinking to myself, “Damn it.” But before I could finish my thought, I regretted it.

The screen had already been soaked by the water and was unable to withstand any force. The stone hit the column of the screen, causing it to collapse suddenly, and debris floated up like snowflakes, rushing towards me. I quickly retreated, shining my flashlight, but all I saw were floating objects. I pushed aside the debris and directed the lamp forward, and in the chaos, something reached out from the floating objects and lunged at me.

I immediately panicked, struggling to retreat while wildly stabbing with my military dagger. I stabbed a dozen times but hit nothing, and my breathing apparatus fell out of my mouth.

In a flurry, I grabbed it back, and the floating objects had already been swept apart by the water flow. In front of me was just a white piece of driftwood. I cursed and kicked it away, using my flashlight to illuminate the position of the shadow behind the screen.

That shadow still stood there, and the floating debris gradually thinned out, revealing its true form to some extent. It was a humanoid figure, with a head, hands, and feet, standing there. Its entire body was covered in white attachments, presenting a very rigid posture, as if it were a corpse that had been stiffened and waxed after being hung up, wrapped in something. It also resembled a stone statue, very difficult to describe.

Its face was completely covered, and I couldn’t tell if it had any expression, but it certainly looked like a lifeless thing. If it could move, the attachments on its body would not have accumulated so thickly…

What on earth is this? My confusion deepened.