adminThe large monkey king looked at me, continuously opening its mouth to reveal its white, sharp fangs while emitting a threatening sound, as if warning us.
Old Yang and I each grabbed a burning stick and desperately waved it, forcing the charging monkeys back. A few of them were a bit slow, and their behinds got singed by my stick, causing them to scream and flee to a distance.
However, at the same time, a few particularly clever monkeys were stealthily approaching our luggage. By the time I noticed what was happening, it was too late; a small monkey had snatched a couple of waterproof bags that Old Yang hadn’t put into his backpack yet. I realized it was a disaster and rushed over to grab it back, but as soon as I moved away, another monkey darted out from behind me, trying to snatch my luggage.
Fortunately, my bag was very heavy. After a few attempts to drag it away, the monkey realized it couldn’t do so easily and gave up, instead reaching into the bag to grab some smaller items inside.
I was astonished: these monkeys were very skilled in their actions, and this kind of coordinated attack on humans was clearly not their first time. I had always thought that no matter how smart monkeys were, there were limits, but it seemed that when it came to the profession of robbery, we might not even be able to compete with them.
In my moment of distraction, that monkey had already pulled out a box from my bag. When I saw it, I was alarmed; it was a pack of compressed biscuits. Without caring about the monkey that was still chasing me, I rushed back, kicked the monkey away, and quickly picked up the box, stuffing it back into my bag.
At that moment, a sudden flash of yellow light caught my eye; the monkey king had already leaped up, clawing at my face. I had seen monkeys hunt rabbits, and their claws were incredibly sharp—if I got caught, I would surely be scarred.
In a panic, I didn’t have time to dodge, so I swung the stick to block it. The monkey managed to scratch a long gash on my hand, causing me to grimace in pain, and the stick slipped from my grasp.
As soon as the monkey king landed, it immediately counterattacked. I didn’t have time to retrieve the stick, so I hastily kicked out, but to my surprise, it grabbed my leg and bit down hard.
The pain was excruciating, almost driving me mad. I slapped at it, but it reacted quickly and rolled away. In a moment of desperation, I instinctively grabbed its tail.
A monkey’s tail is crucial; being grabbed by it during a fight is like receiving a death sentence. The monkey panicked, letting out a roar, and lunged at my face without hesitation.
With a surge of anger, I sidestepped its final attack, swung its tail, and slammed it to the ground. I estimated that this monkey weighed at least 40 pounds. Although this blow wasn’t fatal, it was enough to stun it.
However, the monkey was surprisingly strong; despite my efforts, it seemed unaffected and screamed as it attempted to charge at me again. I was momentarily at a loss, so I swung it again, slamming it hard against a tree. This time, I exerted too much force, and my grip slipped; it was thrown several meters away, tumbled a few times, then jumped up and climbed onto a tree.
Old Yang was still thinking about the bags that were snatched away and was chasing after the hungry monkeys that had just stolen our things. Those monkeys, seeing that their king had just suffered a loss, didn’t dare to confront him head-on and quickly scattered. However, they didn’t run far; instead, they continued to make threatening gestures. He chased one of them, while the others followed behind, throwing stones at him, which made him extremely frustrated. In this way, he was running around, but he couldn’t catch any monkeys, and he was already panting heavily.
I had a vague feeling that things were not looking good. These wild monkeys were huge and agile, and the most troublesome part was that they were not afraid of humans at all. Dealing with one monkey king was already very exhausting for me, and if two monkeys attacked me at the same time, I was afraid I would suffer a great loss today. Moreover, monkeys have strong memories; if we unintentionally got involved with these creatures this time and couldn’t resolve it completely, we might not have peace in the future.
Old Yang chased for a long time, exhausted, and returned panting, saying, “No—no way, these monkeys run too fast. Let’s not stoop to their level; we should just leave. Those lost items can be considered a gift to the mountain god as a greeting.”
I thought about it and realized there was no other way. Competing with monkeys for things in the old forest was indeed a gamble we couldn’t win. If we wasted more time, we might incur further losses. Besides, even though we lost some items, they weren’t critical; for example, we could replace the glow sticks with torches.
So I nodded and said to Old Yang, “You’re right. This place is deep, and once it gets dark, our path will be even harder to navigate. But you better keep an eye on your things and not let those monkeys get the better of you.”
Old Yang recalled what had just happened and got even angrier, waving his hand at me, saying, “Alright, enough of that. This grudge is settled now.”
We tightened our backpacks, shouted loudly to drive away the monkeys, and continued down the narrow path. Those monkeys saw us leaving and thought we were fleeing, so they jumped onto the walls on either side and chased after us, taunting us as they did. Hearing this, Old Yang got furious and shouted back, “You bunch of monkeys, don’t get cocky! If I get the chance to come back, I’ll catch all of you and eat you!”
The monkeys, seeing him shout, became even more energized in their pursuit, especially the monkey king, who strutted around like a victor, closely following us, wanting to pounce on me when I wasn’t paying attention. Old Yang saw this and got angry, picking up a stone from the ground and throwing it at the monkey king’s nose. The hit was quite heavy, almost knocking the monkey king off the cliff.
Unexpectedly, the monkeys, furious and embarrassed, began picking up stones from the ground and throwing them back at us. Soon, I got hit several times on the head with stones and clumps of dirt. Luckily, no one else saw it; otherwise, I would have had to bash my head against a wall to save face.
We ran wildly for what felt like half a cigarette’s worth of time before stopping. When I looked around, we had completely entered this narrow gorge. The “one sky” above had turned into a “thin line of sky,” as the distance between the two cliffs had narrowed even more, and the tops of the cliffs gave off a feeling of impending pressure, making my back chill and wishing to escape from there immediately.
It seemed that what Old Liu said was not false; I thought to myself that this mountain crevice might indeed lead to the road to the underworld.
As we moved forward, the feeling intensified. At this rate, if I hadn’t inquired beforehand, I would have surely thought that the two mountains at the innermost part were fused together. I recalled what the old guide had said and thought about the legend he mentioned.
I had heard quite a few legends about ghostly soldiers, and many boring people had speculated about them. The more famous one is the “Scary Horse Trough” in Yunnan, which is said to have been excavated by the Southern Barbarians’ king, Meng Huo. That place still exists today. Every rainy season, the sounds of clashing weapons and fierce battles can be heard. Another one is from the Tangshan earthquake, which is even more mysterious. It is said that many people saw a long line of horse-drawn carts carrying hundreds of thousands of heads coming out of Tangshan, just as the People’s Liberation Army’s transport team was entering the city for disaster relief. I can’t remember the details after that.
Old Yang also mentioned other things, saying that since this gully formed, almost no one had walked through it, yet not a single weed grew, as if it were trampled by horses every day. A few years ago, someone even wanted to build a tourist attraction here, but every time the construction team arrived, it would start pouring rain, and it happened every single time. The leaders had no way to deal with it, and since it was too far from the village, they had to give up.
We continued to delve deeper, gradually becoming a bit numb. I had no idea how long this mountain crevice was; the deeper we went, the darker it became, and the temperature dropped. It felt eerie, as if we were being watched for no reason. Moreover, at some point, the monkeys that had been following us were no longer with us, and suddenly the entire crevice became frighteningly quiet, with only the howling wind and some unidentifiable strange sounds. This feeling made us very uncomfortable.
Old Yang and I took turns telling each other riddles to distract ourselves, trying not to be affected by the eerie atmosphere in the crevice. Nevertheless, I still felt very uneasy, and as we went deeper, this unease became more pronounced. I even felt several times that the sliver of sky above us could disappear at any moment, and we would be trapped forever in the pitch-black depths of the mountains.
I was lost in thought, unsure how long we had been walking, when suddenly Old Yang, who was in front, stopped. I didn’t react in time and bumped into his back hard. I was a bit annoyed and asked, “What’s going on? Why did you stop without saying anything?”
He turned his head, his face pale, his mouth trembling for a while before he stammered, “Old Wu, there’s—there’s someone—up ahead—”
I was taken aback, thinking, “What do you mean ‘someone’? The nearest village is at least forty kilometers away; how could there be anyone here?” I hurriedly leaned forward to take a look. Just one glance made my scalp tingle, my mind buzz, and I almost bit my tongue. My heel hit something, and I fell to the ground.
It turned out that in the shadow of the mountain crevice ahead, there really stood a “person”-shaped figure, its face obscured in the darkness, staring blankly at us.
