I felt a chill run down my spine: there was no doubt about it. This was the sound of the horn that had echoed just before the bronze door opened. The bizarre experience at that time was witnessed only by me and the胖子 (the Fatty); now, thinking back on it, the details were still vivid in my mind. After listening a few more times, I recalled everything completely and was utterly convinced.

The earlier situation with the two tapes had been extremely strange, and I had mentally prepared myself for it; my nerves were now sufficiently steeled to handle it. After calming myself down a bit, I managed to shake off the chilling sensation and couldn’t help but let out a long sigh.

It was possible that this tape was filmed by Wen Jin and the others at the site of the giant bronze door at the foot of Changbai Mountain. From the sound, it seemed they might have been walking toward the end of that underground canyon, or perhaps they were already inside the bronze door.

With just a few snippets of dialogue, I could almost imagine the scene at that time: when the horn sounded, those horse-faced monsters definitely appeared, and the people in the tape seemed to be very wary of these things, immediately falling silent and hiding. Moreover, judging by their tone, they must have encountered such situations more than once.

This was yet another fragment of a clue, and it seemed that what the Fatty and I had encountered was not an isolated incident; at that time, it definitely wasn’t just our hallucination. However, for now, I still didn’t know where to piece this fragment together.

I continued listening; the horn sound gradually subsided after a while, replaced by the sound of water in the speaker. I was eager to see what would happen next, but I soon realized that the progress bar on the player was nearing its end, and there didn’t seem to be much content left.

I patiently listened on, and sure enough, a few minutes later, the tape ended. The screen remained pitch black, showing nothing at all. Just as my third uncle had said, there was indeed nothing to see.

I listened to it again, carefully searching for any new clues, fearful of missing even the slightest detail, but there were no new findings. I believed that given my third uncle’s character, he must have studied it quite thoroughly; if he said there was nothing, then there definitely wouldn’t be anything.

Closing my notebook gave me a headache; it seemed unlikely to find any clues from this videotape. I suppose when Wen Jin sent these tapes, he never considered what the viewer would think; perhaps the content wasn’t the main focus.

The man in black glasses looked at me with a helpless smile, patted my shoulder, and moved to sit across from me.

Around us, snoring had already begun to echo; clearly, some people had fallen asleep, and the remaining ones were only whispering occasionally. The warmth of the campfire, along with the crackling sound of the wood, made me feel relaxed; the previous trek had been exhausting, and I still couldn’t quite adjust to the scene before me.

I was already feeling very drowsy, but after dealing with this videotape, I felt more alert. I tried to force myself to rest, but my mind was racing with chaotic thoughts. At that moment, my third uncle returned, his head covered in mud and carrying a faint smell of urine, but there was a strange expression on his face, as if he had just done something unusual.

Seeing that I had closed my computer, he asked me how it was going.

I shook my head and said I had no clues; indeed, I had none. Just listening to the sounds could be matched with any imagery, and this tape was essentially no help in understanding the situation.

My third uncle had anticipated this, sighed, and said nothing. I then asked him what had happened, how he ended up like this.

He said, “A guy found something interesting.” He pointed to one of the drainage outlets. When I looked, I realized it was the spot they had chosen to urinate; no wonder it smelled so bad. With my uncle’s character, could it be that he actually went in there just now?

My uncle said the thing was right beneath this outlet, “It’s too dirty.” He pointed at the mud and moss on his clothes. As he spoke, he kicked a few people who were asleep, urging them to get up and prepare the rope.

I walked over and noticed that the deeper part of the outlet was distorted due to the massive destruction from the collapse of the ruins. The bricks and stones inside were twisted, and the walls of the drainage channel had shifted, with many gaps exposing the sandy soil behind. The sandy layer also had a very wide crack, likely caused by an earthquake. Along the way, we often saw signs of seismic activity, and it was not surprising that this place had experienced several calamities over the past few thousand years.

The interesting thing my uncle mentioned should be inside there, but I couldn’t see anything clearly; the crack was barely wide enough for a person, and the flashlight couldn’t penetrate it.

Those few people clearly had good physical fitness; they woke up within seconds after being kicked. When my uncle explained the situation, they immediately started preparing without a second thought. From their expressions, it seemed they planned to go down.

I immediately felt it was very inappropriate; the crack was too narrow. Going down like that, with one’s chest pressed against one’s back, wouldn’t work; they would have to curl up, and the inside of the crack was very uneven. Who knows where they might get stuck?

“Turns out there’s a layer of sandy mud outside the crack; I just pushed through the urine-soaked mud, and that’s how the crack was exposed,” one of the guys said.

The guy with the black glasses covered his mouth and waved away the smell of urine, saying, “You’ve been quite irritable lately.”

“After all this fuss, with my head stuck in my belt, who knows how long I can hold on? Can I not be irritable?” the guy replied with a bitter face.

My uncle stared at the crack and said, “Once you’re in this line of work, stop with the nonsense. If the money is easy to make, does it still need to be your turn? Get ready, help me hold the rope; I’m going down with the blind man to take a look.”

I immediately stopped my uncle and said, “There might be snakes in such a crack. In such a narrow environment, if you encounter a snake, you won’t even be able to escape. Why are you in such a hurry? Can’t we wait until dawn?”

“You bookworm, there’s no sunlight here anyway; when it gets light, we still need to use flashlights, it’s the same,” my uncle replied, while the other guy was already tying up the rope. It was clear my uncle wanted to go down himself, and he secured the rope around himself.

I felt even more uneasy and said, “Let the guys go down first to scout. You’re an old man; what are you trying to prove right now?”

My uncle gave a strange laugh, seemingly helpless. He first twisted open a sulfur smoke bomb and threw it inside. Then he took the miner’s lamp. “I know what I’m doing; I’ll go down, take a quick look, and come right back.”

Then the guy with the black glasses had already put on a tight suit; he was my uncle’s backup, holding the sulfur bomb, and they both descended together on the same rope.

I watched anxiously from above. The opening of the manhole was not narrow, but the angle of descent was steep. As I saw my third uncle and the man with the black glasses slowly sliding down the rope into the darkness, getting further away, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to go wrong.

However, it turned out I was overthinking it. The distance seemed to be much closer than I had imagined; within just a few minutes, they had reached that spot. The gap was right next to them.

The people above stopped letting out the rope. At that moment, several shadows overlapped, and we could hardly see what they were doing. All we could see were the flashlight beams flickering, casting shadows on the stone walls, making me feel as if I were looking at an underwater tomb.

They paused for a moment, and then the man with the black glasses signaled upwards. When they saw the signal, the few guys holding the rope were momentarily stunned.

I asked what the signal meant. One person replied, “Third Master said they need to continue going down.”

With my third uncle below, we didn’t dare shout loudly, so we couldn’t ask for reasons or updates. Naturally, this group of people would follow my third uncle’s lead, and I couldn’t stop them; I could only silently curse. My heart began to feel restless again.

It was evident that my third uncle had made new progress down there; otherwise, he wouldn’t have made such a decisive decision.

The rope continued to go down, and we saw that they weren’t going straight down but were crawling into the gap created by the loose sand. The two of them squeezed in with great difficulty, and soon we couldn’t see any trace of my third uncle; we only saw light flashing occasionally from the deepest part of the gap.

Even those holding the rope began to sweat nervously, and the few who hadn’t fallen asleep gathered around, making the atmosphere naturally tense.

After waiting for about an hour, my third uncle finally sent a signal from below. The people above were almost petrified from waiting; they quickly pulled on the rope, and gradually, the man with the black glasses was pulled up, but my third uncle was nowhere to be seen.

My heart sank. Just as I was about to speak, the man with the strong smell of mud and urine said to me, “Young Master, Third Master said to let you go down immediately.”