Looking at him sitting quietly in front of me, I couldn’t describe the feelings swirling in my heart. I didn’t know what thoughts were racing through my mind; there were certainly countless ideas surging, yet I felt nothing at all. After a moment of daze, I suddenly realized and trembled as I reached for his wrist, extending my hand with almost all the strength I had. Fortunately, there was still some warmth, and his pulse was very weak—almost imperceptible.

Turning to look at the fat man, I discovered a large hole in his abdomen, with intestines hanging out; his pulse was even weaker. The wounds on their bodies were still bleeding, all of them were cuts, clearly made by the long claws of that thing, densely packed, suggesting an incredibly fierce struggle.

With excessive blood loss and heart failure, death was almost irreversible. A mix of despair, helplessness, frustration, and regret surged within me, a feeling that was beyond description, and tears almost burst from my eyes. But for some reason, from an unknown source of courage, I pushed all those feelings aside in the next moment and suddenly became calm.

I was startled by this sudden calmness, as if there was another self within me temporarily rejecting the emotions that were about to overwhelm me. I wondered if others had similar experiences in such moments, but at that instant, my mind became incredibly clear. — They were not dead yet; naturally, I could not just run away, but I also couldn’t just watch them die here. I had to do something, make my final effort.

I stood up and began to think about what to do. First, I found some incense ash and applied it to their deepest wounds to temporarily stop the bleeding, then I carefully stuffed the fat man’s intestines back into his abdomen. I didn’t want to record that feeling.

After finishing, I took a diving suit, tore it into strips, and tied them together to make a rope. I found a wooden frame nearby, tied it up, and fashioned a makeshift drag stretcher to secure both of them. “Even if you die, you will die on the ground,” I gritted my teeth and said.

Once done, I grabbed a searchlight and picked up a military dagger, scanning the surroundings. The ground was covered in green liquid, perhaps the blood of that thing, along with dismembered human bodies—an utter mess. I didn’t dare to look closely and turned towards the rock walls, trying to find the entrance that the bottle mentioned. Just one glance left me stunned—within the stone wall, shadows were faintly visible, and there were even more than I had seen before, but they were much smaller, all the shadows of children.

I looked around and felt a chill down my spine; I didn’t dare to delay any longer. Dragging them, I made my way toward the entrance that the bottle had mentioned. The fat man was already extremely heavy, and with the weight of the bottle, I exerted tremendous effort to finally drag both of them inside.

As expected, just as the bottle had said, the entrance led to a passage. Those things seemed to be able to corrode the jade here, moving slowly within the jade. Surrounding us were veins of high-quality jade; if any jade merchants were here, they would surely go mad.

However, if they were naturally formed within the jade, then this passage should be closed. I pulled hard for a moment and discovered that the passage was long. At the same time, looking at the rock walls of the passage, I felt something was very wrong. Faces appeared intermittently in the rock walls, blurred and ghostly, as if people trapped within the stone were gathering to watch me crawl.

Fortunately, my nerves had already reached a breaking point, so I decided to ignore it, gritting my teeth and dragging Fatty and the Silent Oil Bottle along, focusing solely on my own crawling.

This passage had no branches, but it was extremely winding, with some parts even vertical. I crawled for more than ten hours, nearly collapsing from exhaustion, yet I still hadn’t reached the end.

I don’t know how long it had been, but the light from my exploration lamp was almost out when suddenly, I heard the sound of water.

I crawled forward almost frantically, and suddenly my hand found nothing beneath me; I didn’t touch the ground I had imagined, and almost fell.

With great effort, the exploration lamp illuminated ahead, revealing a fault line before me—an irregular crack in the mountain, not wide enough that I couldn’t balance by spreading my feet. Above the crack, water cascaded down like a waterfall.

I took a few sips of water, and as I shone the lamp forward, I found there was no more passage ahead; it seemed to be the starting point of this tunnel. Those things might have crawled down from this crack. I looked up, down, and around, and good heavens! The surface of the fault was riddled with holes as if eaten away, and all on the same side; these things were like pests in the mountains. The other side was completely empty.

I set Fatty and the Silent Oil Bottle down, no longer able to care about their condition, and began to crawl down through those holes one by one, checking which might lead outside.

In truth, I had no idea how to distinguish them; I could only explore one by one. Suddenly, I felt a breeze blowing in from somewhere, and my heart leapt with joy. I immediately followed the sensation and indeed found an opening with airflow.

There’s a way out! I thought, and crawled back, untied a rope, and sent them down one by one.

I had been hungry for several days and actually had no strength left. This journey had been an extreme ordeal, and halfway through, I often felt dizzy when exerting myself, and I began to gag. This was a sign of extreme physical exhaustion, and I felt like I might faint at any moment.

At the very least, it took another six or seven hours to cover this short distance. I squeezed myself in, and then it was more dragging and crawling in the dark.

I was sure that a lot had happened around me during this process because I could hear strange sounds everywhere, yet I felt no emotional response, completely numb. If I died at that moment, it would have been just like that.

I don’t know how long I crawled, but suddenly there was light ahead. At that moment, I didn’t even have the strength to speed up; I just continued crawling like a zombie.

Then, in an instant, I heard the sounds of wind and water and saw the long-lost ground. I could hardly react; before I could figure out where I was, several people appeared around me. Looking up, I saw faces that looked grim and unfriendly, resembling villagers.

They pulled me out of the cave, but I didn’t recognize any of them. On the other side of the lake, a hillside was full of people, and I could hear them speaking in Changsha dialect.

My body was extremely weak; as soon as I was pulled out, I felt dizzy and disoriented. Then, someone came towards me with a group of people. It was night, and the surroundings were brightly lit with gas lamps. I could also hear someone shouting over a walkie-talkie, “Found it! Found it!”

The person leading the group quickly came into view, and to my surprise, I realized it was my second uncle, followed by Panzi. They all looked anxious, but before he could reach me, I lost consciousness.