I stumbled a bit, and as the fat guy pulled me, we started running wildly without even seeing what it was. We dashed out for more than ten steps, and both of us tripped over a pile of stones.

The noise behind us grew louder, and I finally regained my senses. I looked around and realized Zhang Haiying was not by my side. It was too dark, and the flashlight’s beam was too narrow to see anything.

I shouted, but it felt pointless; the commotion by the bronze door was too loud. Once we moved more than a meter away, we couldn’t hear each other speak.

The fat guy fell harder than I did; he got up with a cut on his head and pulled me to keep running. I shook him off and yelled, “What is that?”

Before I could finish, a shadow suddenly pounced on the fat guy, and I thought it was Zhang Haiying. But when the fat guy kicked it away, I realized it wasn’t a person.

“Load the bullets!” the fat guy shouted from the ground. “Lean against the stones, I’ll shine the light for you!”

The fat guy always had a good sense of the situation, especially at times like this. I knew I couldn’t hesitate any longer, but just as I pulled out my gun, I heard another scream from the fat guy, and his flashlight slipped from his hand.

The flashlight hit the ground and went out. As I loaded my gun, I shone the flashlight on the ground but saw nothing. All I could hear was the fat guy cursing like crazy, thinking, “What the hell?”

It seemed that reason was always right; I definitely shouldn’t have used a grenade.

Finally, the gun was loaded. I raised it and saw countless shadows swirling around, but I couldn’t shine the light on the fat guy. I could barely lift the gun with one hand, let alone shoot it.

It was really quite unrealistic for Sylvester Stallone to shoot a rifle with both hands. Strangely, it felt like nothing was attacking me.

I shouted for the fat guy and swung the rifle around, but I hit nothing. Suddenly, something flashed behind me. I turned around and saw a cold firework going off in the distance. Then it was thrown away.

Next, another cold firework went off, and people over there quickly launched a dozen of them, tossing them into the dark corners like acrobats.

Suddenly, the surroundings were filled with red light, and then I saw the juggler—Zhang Haiying. However, this light didn’t reach us; it was all around her.

I saw those shadows and expected to see something strange, but to my astonishment, I only saw shadows. Even in the light, those things were still shadows, almost formless.

“This way!” I waved my flashlight. I saw her nimbly jumping between the stones, but she didn’t come over; instead, she gestured for me to come to her.

I suddenly understood that we should go to her. I turned back to find the fat guy but saw that he had already scampered over, with a few black shadows swirling around him as if they were sticking to him.

“How ungrateful!” I cursed loudly and immediately ran after him, reaching the range of the red light at what I thought was my maximum speed without falling. Just as I felt a bit relieved, my foot suddenly shifted. I found myself sinking into the stones.

It turned out that the stones beneath my feet were unstable, and there was a void underneath. My lower body got stuck in the stones, almost up to my chest.

I struggled to get up, moving a few times, but suddenly I found myself sinking completely into the stones.

Here is a small space where I curled up and found the flashlight tightly gripped in my hand. I exclaimed, “I’m awesome!” and suddenly saw the true form of that shadow in the crevices of the surrounding stones, everywhere.