Li Cu asked him, “What is it? You said we can just take what we need and leave. This place is very strange, and we shouldn’t stay here for long.”

The other person replied, “I’m sorry, I’ve deceived you about something. I can only tell you about it once we’re here.”

Li Cu then asked, “Can’t you wait until we go up to talk?”

The person looked at Li Cu and said, “Regarding that dream, there’s actually a part I didn’t mention.”

“What is it?” Li Cu asked.

The other person said, “If we don’t complete a certain task in this cave, we might all die here.”

Li Cu and Su Wan exchanged glances.

“What task?” Li Cu asked. “It’s not about cultivating some martial arts secret, is it?”

“No,” the other person replied. “This cave is governed by conservation. If we take something from this cave, we have to leave something in exchange.” Saying this, the man in white weighed his bag and kicked away some small pieces of gold, revealing a flat stone.

On this stone, Li Cu saw various dried human organs: fingers, whole hands, ears, teeth, rotting skin, and reproductive organs.

“These are left by those who came before,” he pointed to the center of the stone slab where there was a bronze turntable. “Spin this, and wherever the pointer stops, you leave that organ.”

Around the pointer were carvings of various human organs, even eyes and tongues.

“This is a gamble,” the man in white said. “This gold is more important to me than my life.”

“We don’t want it,” Li Cu said. Who the hell would risk cutting off their own body parts for a pile of gold?

“Sorry,” the man in white smiled. “If a few people come in, a few people must go out. If I choose gold, you must also choose gold; otherwise, none of us can leave. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless someone dies here.”

Li Cu smiled and picked up a gold rod from the pile. “Then I’ll just have to beat you until you’re left with nothing.” Just as he stepped forward, Su Wan suddenly crouched down and hugged Li Cu’s thigh.

“What are you doing?” Li Cu was taken aback when Su Wan suddenly pulled out a golden spike and stabbed it directly at Li Cu’s ankle.

A sharp pain shot through Li Cu, and he thought, “You’ve gone against me!” He swung the rod to hit Su Wan, and in an instant, all the gold around him vanished, and darkness reappeared. He felt excruciating pain in his ankle, as if someone was stabbing him hard with something.

He writhed in pain, and then he heard someone beneath him shout, “Dali, wake up quickly! Don’t close your eyes!”

The snakes around him were tightening incredibly tight; he was in so much pain that he almost cramped up, shouting, “I won’t close them! Can you stop stabbing me?”

The person below immediately stopped. “Sorry!” Li Cu recognized it was Su Wan’s voice. As the pain in his ankle dissipated, Li Cu felt something was wrong; that hazy feeling returned. He immediately shouted, “Don’t stop, keep stabbing!”

“Can you have a bit of common sense?” Su Wan cursed, and then quickly stabbed Li Cu a dozen more times. Li Cu yelled, “Can you not be so extreme?”

Su Wan slowed down, and Li Zu immediately asked what was going on. Su Wan replied that he was also entangled by the snake; after Li Zu was grabbed by its claws, he became the second one. The two of them were likely dragged into the sand around the same time.

“This snake is particularly sinister; whatever you do, don’t fall asleep,” Su Wan said, rhythmically stabbing at Li Zu’s ankle. Li Zu’s ankle had gone numb, and he gradually lost all sensation. “If I manage to wake myself up, I’ll see you mumbling in your sleep and immediately stab you.”

“Can you stab the snake?” Li Zu retorted, “What good would stabbing me do?” When he woke up, he had no idea he was trapped by the snake. Since Su Wan knew, his first reaction was to wake himself up instead of attacking the snake. There wasn’t much left of his legs to stab.

“Hey, I really didn’t think of that. I hope nothing bad happens,” Su Wan said.

“Grandpa, we’re already in trouble!” Li Zu replied. “Stop stabbing that leg; use the other one. What weapon are you using?”

“A compass; I’m doing math problems,” Su Wan said. “Then I’ll stab the snake!” After saying that, Su Wan jabbed hard at Li Zu’s calf.

Li Zu cried out in pain, and Su Wan immediately asked, “Ah, why does it hurt when I stab the snake?”

“That’s my leg, my leg!” Li Zu had never been this angry before, desperately banging his head around.

“Does your leg have scales?” Su Wan asked, puzzled.

“What scales?”

“I can see the snake’s scales on my watch’s flashlight,” Su Wan said, feeling around and cursing, “Damn it, your leg is inside the snake’s belly, but your ankle is outside. Why? Did you kick a hole in its belly?” Then he exclaimed, “Damn it, you’re inside the snake’s open neck; it’s like a cobra spreading its neck and swallowing you whole.”

Li Zu forced himself to calm down, realizing that this was not a viable solution. Gritting his teeth, he said, “You have a compass, right? And you have a watch, right?”

Su Wan nodded, and Li Zu felt him nodding, furious, “Speak! I can’t see you nodding!”

“Yes, yes.”

“Do you have anything on you that can catch fire?”

“Napkins, and a small bottle of liquor.”

“Use the alcohol to wet the napkins and smear them on the snake’s body. Listen, a GPS watch definitely has a lithium battery, and lithium batteries will burn if short-circuited, reaching very high temperatures. Mix those things together and pour them on the snake’s scales; use as much alcohol as you can to burn it to death.”

“Will it work? My watch is very expensive.”

“The burning temperature of lithium batteries is 300 degrees; even if it doesn’t kill it, it will hurt.”

Su Wan cursed and immediately complied. This was something Li Zu had learned from watching a TV show about Bear Grylls, and he never expected it would actually come in handy.

At first, Su Wan didn’t know how to create a short circuit. After struggling for more than ten minutes, he finally succeeded and let out a scream, clearly having burned himself as flames suddenly flared up from beneath the snake.

Three seconds later, the white snake sensed something was wrong and began to thrash around. Li Zu gritted his teeth as the snake’s movements grew increasingly violent, starting to churn and push away the surrounding sand. Suddenly, a rush of fresh air swept in, and the oppressive feeling around them dissipated. The snake burst out of the sand, flinging both him and Su Wan away, rolling and crawling in the sand, trying to extinguish the fire with the sand.

Li Cu got up, his legs trembling from pain. Su Wan’s hair was completely burnt, and his face was as black as a judge’s. He also managed to get up while holding a compass.

The white giant snake was thrashing around, and to their dismay, the fire was growing larger. Su Wan said, “Dali, you never mentioned to me that this thing had such great power.”

The giant snake flipped over, its scales spreading wide open. Li Cu suddenly noticed that there was something resembling an eye on the snake’s forehead.

“This isn’t a snake,” someone behind them said. Li Cu turned around to see Black Glasses sitting on a rock behind them, holding a spray bottle. “This is an albino Zhu Jiu Yin, a Zhu Long. In ancient times, people used the oil from this kind of snake to make candles. Albino snakes are rare. This snake has been here for a long time; the Hydra Bai provides it with food, or it wouldn’t be this big. This type of snake possesses a certain level of intelligence, and the hormones they secrete can convey a lot of information.”

Li Cu frowned. “Information?”

“Yes, and strangely enough, ancient people discovered that the hormones from this kind of snake can be read by certain individuals. Therefore, the young of this snake were used by ancient people as tools for conveying complex information before the invention of writing,” Black Glasses explained.