When I woke up, the wounds on my hands had already been bandaged. This time, I didn’t see anyone eagerly looking at me and saying, “You finally woke up” (like Panzi used to do). I only saw a dim flashlight in the distance and the figure of a chubby guy checking a notebook in the flashlight’s glow. I sat up; aside from feeling a bit dizzy, I didn’t feel too disoriented. To my surprise, the first thing that came to my mind was how Panzi managed to always be there the moment I woke up.

He must have been paying constant attention to me to notice the moment I regained consciousness. This was something that, aside from Panzi, probably no one else could achieve. Indeed, some people are irreplaceable.

I coughed lightly, and the chubby guy looked up at me, his complexion a sickly green, somewhat eerie. He asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, just a bit dizzy,” I replied. The chubby guy said, “You must have exhausted yourself crawling down and then lost too much blood. The amount of blood lost isn’t much, but your body can’t handle it. Just rest for a bit, and you’ll be fine.”

“How long was I out?” I asked him. He made a ‘2’ gesture with his fingers: “Not long, I just smoked half a pack and had some chemical dehydrated biscuits while casually arguing with the old lady.”

I looked at my hands and saw that my palm had been stitched up with a few stitches, though I couldn’t tell if it was done by the chubby guy or Zhang Haixing. The stitching was quite poorly done, and I thought about how ugly the scar would be. When I looked up, I noticed that the chubby guy also had a wound on his hand, which was bandaged.

I cast him an inquiring glance, wondering if Zhang Haixing finally couldn’t stand the chubby guy and had taken action. The chubby guy raised his hand and said, “After you passed out, I felt bad letting you bleed and cry alone, so I went and found another spot, using my own fat to continue your glorious endeavor. I figured with your slight anemia, it would be enough to cover a large area. I thought my blood could spread across the country, but it ended up just pooling together, completely useless.”

He pointed the flashlight at the spot where he was bleeding. From a distance, it was hard to see, but I could tell that his blood hadn’t spread along the patterns at all; instead, it formed a dark puddle on the ground.

“Could it be because your blood fat is too high?” I asked.

“High blood fat and high lubrication,” the chubby guy replied. “The old lady tried too; her health should be decent, but her blood isn’t good either. It seems only your blood is viable.”

Speaking of Zhang Haixing, I hadn’t seen her: “Hey, where did the old lady go?”

“She went out to send a telegram,” the chubby guy said. “She was quick and sent the situation here to Motuo, asking Zhang Haike to bring more people in. Otherwise, with things like this, how could we handle it?”

I nodded, thinking that the old woman was quite bold to climb up such a dark and far road by herself. But given that she was used to being on her own, even if I wanted to take care of her, I would only be a burden.

The chubby guy continued, “It seems that your blood is also a factor in why you can enter the Bronze Door. After all, your blood has some similarities to his, even though yours isn’t as useful.”

“Yeah, why is that?” I looked at my wound and thought, could it be related to my emotions or what I ate?
“I think it might be because he could be a胎里麒麟 (胎里麒麟 refers to a mythical creature, akin to a unicorn, believed to be born with special abilities).” The fat guy said, “I just pondered it carefully and think that’s the only explanation.”
“What, a Teddy Kirin?” I didn’t quite catch what the fat guy said and thought, what is a Teddy Kirin? Is it referring to those curly-haired little creatures?
“No, have you heard of胎里素 (胎里素 refers to a concept of being born vegetarian)? It means the mother herself is vegetarian and practices Buddhism, so the child has never eaten meat since conception. Isn’t Tang Seng (a character from the Journey to the West who is often depicted as a vegetarian)胎里素?胎里麒麟 means that his blood might come from his lineage, inherited, and it could have been passed down for several generations. Your blood is just ordinary stuff, something you concocted yourself, of course, it’s weaker.”
I looked at the wound on my hand and thought, could it be that the power of this Kirin blood is like wine, getting stronger with age, while mine is just a new brew from two or three years ago?
Well, at least it’s better than the fat guy’s blood, which is all gutter oil.
I ate something and felt completely recovered, so I went to check my results— the patterns formed by my blood on the ground.
As the fat guy said, it really was a series of square frames of varying sizes, appearing wherever the blood could spread. These squares weren’t very regular; some that were called squares could actually be described as triangles, varied, and more often tended toward a rounder shape.
“I flipped through my notebook and found no clues to tell us what these OO×× mean.”
I thought, even if there were clues, you wouldn’t understand foreign characters anyway. I crouched down and closed my eyes. In this state, I could almost imagine what it would look like if all the walls were painted with my blood.
In my mind, the blood that had stopped spreading began to spread again along its inherent patterns, reaching the walls and the top of the cave, spreading to all corners of this cave, slowly forming a complete picture.
I took a deep breath, imagining myself floating, spinning continuously in the cave, slowly expanding it into a flat surface.
I opened my eyes.
“Do you remember the other meteorite we saw underground in the West Queen Mother City?” I asked.
The fat guy nodded, and I knocked on the areas “framed by blood,” saying, “These are all holes, just like that meteorite; this meteorite should also be filled with holes. The areas outlined by these patterns indicate the positions of all the holes.”
“So simple, then why mark these holes? I don’t want to go in.”
I scratched my head; here, I could only guess a little. Yeah, why go to such lengths to mark the openings? And is it really as I thought? Reflecting back made me a bit anxious; what if the fat guy blows it up with a grenade and finds out it’s solid underneath? Where would I put my old face?

I stepped into one of the frames and stomped my foot; it felt like there was no difference at all. A sense of helplessness washed over me—it’s all just wild guessing. Don’t be fooled by my confident words; it’s all just random speculation. What evidence do we have to prove that there’s a hollow space below? The fat guy is right; if it’s only about pointing out the location of the hole, why go to such lengths to create such a sophisticated mechanism?

Suddenly, I realized that my way of thinking was a bit off. If I continued down this path, I would never achieve anything in this lifetime.