After finishing his words, the middle-aged man tossed the medicine in his hand towards Li Zu, who surprisingly caught it. He was momentarily taken aback, but that feeling of surprise was quickly suppressed. How exactly did pheromones work? Could he participate in these fragments of memories?

Opening his hand, he looked at the medicine bottle. A hand reached over from behind him and took the bottle away. When Li Zu turned around, he saw that it was Black Glasses standing behind him. He said to the middle-aged man, “Without this medicine, you won’t be able to enter the cave and will only be trapped here. It’s too dangerous; you will gradually be consumed.”

The middle-aged man replied, “This bottle of medicine isn’t enough for all of us. Staying here is a more dangerous factor than those snakes; humans are always more terrifying than the dangers of the environment.”

“That’s a bit extreme,” Li Zu said.

“Having survived to this point and seeing what we see now,” the middle-aged man continued, “we can hold on here for a while longer. Perhaps in this desperate environment, we can still come up with a solution. The hope in trivial matters can instead lead to disaster. On your way out, you might need these medicines. What I’ve said to Wu Xie is more important than anyone’s life.”

“Third Master, the most terrifying heart here is yours!” Black Glasses said. “Moreover, what you’ve said to Wu Xie isn’t of much value in itself.”

“If he doesn’t understand the meaning of these words, then everything is meaningless. If he does understand, then what I’ve said is enough,” the middle-aged man said. “Please.”

The snake must have been lifted and placed into a sealed container. Li Zu felt a dampness all over his body, as if he had been submerged in water.

He couldn’t see anything; it was pitch black, and he could only hear the sounds of equipment being worn. “I’ll take this knife with me too,” he said.

“You and this knife have some fate; you brought it out of the ground, and it ended up in the hands of such a powerful person, but in the end, it still came back to you,” Black Glasses replied.

“I’ll return it to him; customer service is very important,” Black Glasses said.

That was the last sentence, and everything fell into silence—not a quiet silence, as he could still hear the sounds around him: the clinking of Black Glasses’ gear, the sound of flowing water, and birds chirping. Clearly, he had quickly left the middle-aged man and walked into the woods.

Li Zu felt dazed; he couldn’t summon any curiosity and thought that everything was as it should be. He listened carefully to all the sounds outside.

His attention couldn’t be diverted to his own situation; he vaguely knew what condition he was in, but any feelings of worry couldn’t arise. He could only focus on his surroundings.

Gradually, he began to understand Wu Xie’s pain and torment. He felt a strange sense of time, a kind of external and internal agony.

In the darkness, he felt everything was fleeting, yet at every moment, he felt himself experiencing each day.

Every day that Black Glasses walked in the desert was an unchanging darkness. Occasionally, when water was poured into a bamboo tube, he felt like a prisoner confined in a dark cage, ignored by everyone.

He couldn’t tell how long he had been trapped in the darkness, but when he saw the light again, he saw Wu Xie’s face.

Wu Xie was clearly in a state of extreme grief, seemingly unwilling to face it. Suddenly, he grabbed a bamboo tube and threw it against the wall.

A swirl of darkness, a scene of chaos.

After a long period of time, there was not a single sound, nor even the slightest vibration from the surrounding environment.

Then, the surroundings lit up.

Li Zhuo saw a room, which was very cramped, evoking an indescribable feeling. He could still hear the sound of running water, suggesting it was quite damp.

Wu Xie was sitting on a bed with a moldy blanket, and he was sitting opposite Wu Xie.

Wu Xie’s expression had changed; he was no longer the person he had seen just a moment ago. His hair was disheveled, and he hadn’t shaved. He didn’t know how long the darkness had actually lasted, but for him, it must have been a period of tremendous upheaval.

There were some discarded instant noodle and snack bags around, and many empty bottles piled on the floor. Of course, there were also heaps of cigarette butts.

“I’m not afraid of you anymore,” Wu Xie seemed to be teasing the snake, “You must be starting to fear me, right?”

Li Zhuo thought for a moment and realized that Wu Xie was indeed not talking to him.

“It’s really amazing,” Wu Xie said. “The effect of the blood from my brother actually comes from you.” Saying this, he lit a cigarette and leaned back against the concrete wall behind him.

“Be honest and don’t move. I have something important for you to convey.” As he spoke, the focus of his gaze shifted. He locked eyes with Li Zhuo.

“Hi, stranger,” Wu Xie said to Li Zhuo. “I still don’t know who you are, and you must hate me very much right now. But what I want to say is, you’ve already been pulled onto the pirate ship. For your own sake, you have to listen to me patiently.”

Li Zhuo looked at Wu Xie, and suddenly had a sense of how things would develop from here.

“First point, forget everything you’ve experienced before; none of it holds any meaning,” Wu Xie said. “The reason you can see me here talking to you is that someone is very curious about this information, but they don’t have the talent like you and I do. Or rather, they are disabled.”

Wu Xie exhaled a puff of smoke, showing clear signs of exhaustion, but his gaze was cold: “People like you and me are actually not hard to find, but those who can understand this snake are extremely rare. They will cherish your talent greatly because you will help them decode a lot of information that has been lost through the ages. This was originally my job. Unfortunately, this will also be the beginning of your nightmare.”

“You will become one of them. For centuries, there have been no true outsiders who could intervene in their core. The only person with a chance is me. Unfortunately, all the preparations made by my family have been misled by illusions; they attacked a ‘honey pot’ created by our true enemies. From the moment I was born, I have not been trusted and lost the chance to get close. My fate is very tragic; as long as someone can replace my existence, I will be ruthlessly erased.”

Wu Xie coughed a few times, clearly indicating that the smoke had harmed his respiratory system. He paused for a moment, continued to smoke, and said, “However, you will become one of them. You will spend the second half of your life in a dark prison, surrounded by snakes. There will be no turning back; no one will know where you will be locked away. No one will know what your fate will be. Before you see me here, you were completely innocent, untouched by any of my schemes. They will absolutely trust your cleanliness.”

“Now, you have half an hour before you wake up. Before you wake up, you have two choices. The first choice is to wake up and tell everyone around you all the information you’ve gathered here. The second choice is to patiently listen to me as I outline a plan, for only this plan can help you escape from those around you and regain your freedom for the second half of your life.”