Emerging from the drain was completely unexpected; according to the escape map, this exit should have led into a massive botanical garden, a landmark we had to detour around to reach the main research building. That was precisely why we had opted for the straight-line route through the sewers initially. Could the Russian intelligence have been false?

The sky was just beginning to lighten, and a dawn mist shrouded the surroundings. Through the light vapor, we could vaguely make out a low mountain separated by a dense thicket. The side of the mountain facing us had been excavated halfway, its fractured surface riddled with caves, large and small, resembling an apple sliced down the middle and infested with pockmarks. These openings appeared entirely natural. I couldn't count them all, but a rough estimate suggested at least a hundred entrances.

Midway up the carved-out slope, an enormous, gigantic stone beast emerged from the earth. The four of us exchanged glances, finally understanding why this place was called the "Hundred-Eyed Grotto"—it was a stone mountain riddled with hundreds of natural hollows. It seemed our previous assumptions were completely wrong. What shocked me wasn't just that; the layout of the mountain caves and the ferocious stone beast reminded me of the "Ghost Yamen" that Yanzi had spoken of recently. Legend held that place to be a gateway to the underworld, from which no intruder ever returned. Yet, while we knew of the Ghost Yamen's legend and that it was located somewhere in the mountains, no one had ever managed to describe its specifics.

The Russian's last testament had also mentioned that the Japanese devils had dug out a gate to hell. Fact aligned with legend: this must be the place—the Hundred-Eyed Grotto, the very gate to the netherworld. I hadn't believed in ghosts, but the string of abnormal events within this secret research facility forced me to question my own worldview.

Fatty also found the opposite slope eerily familiar. After staring for a long moment, he finally recalled, "Isn't this the 'Ghost Yamen' on a massive scale? The one we saw at Tuanzishan was much smaller than this. This must be the genuine article. Do you guys think it really connects to the underworld? I think that's highly dubious..."

The Rong poison afflicting Ding Sitian was deep-nerve intoxication, not a blood infection. It wasn't developing quickly; although she had a low fever, her spirit remained vigorous. Looking at the slope dotted with large and small holes, she said to Fatty and me, "The underworld? Those countless caves make one instantly uncomfortable. Have you seen places like this before? What are those places?"

I felt there was no point in hiding anything now, so I let Fatty briefly recount the events from before. Ding Sitian and Old Sheepskin both showed expressions of astonishment and dread. A burial cave housing the Great Xianbei corpse actually held a legend about being an entrance to the netherworld? The Japanese devils must have excavated too many vicious spirits from that burial cave to justify building that cremation furnace covered in talismans to burn them constantly.

I thought to myself that it was up to me again to find an excuse to stabilize morale. The best method was always "class struggle—one grasp and it works." So I told everyone, "What we've encountered here is certainly startling and difficult to explain with common sense. But I doubt there's any actual underworld. If there is, it's reserved for emperors, generals, renowned scholars, and beauties—it has nothing to do with us, the proletariat. There’s no need to worry excessively about those caves. Besides, with this Kangxi Precious Saber suppressing things, I doubt any Chili or Wangliang dare cause trouble. I absolutely stand by this. It’s not just because this saber belonged to the Emperor; any weapon that has commanded armies or been used in battle carries a certain inherent killing aura that wards off anything unclean."

This speech made Old Sheepskin nod repeatedly; he strongly believed this explanation. But Ding Sitian suddenly asked me, "Then what about us... where do we go when we die? Heaven? Hell? Or eternal nothingness?"

I was struck dumb. I had truly never considered that. I could only tell her, "Eternal nothingness? That’s typical class struggle extinctionist thinking. We must live well and carry the revolution to the end. Even death shouldn't be meaningless, dying in a wretched place like this."

That seemed to reassure Ding Sitian slightly. After speaking, I told the group to rest briefly in place while we re-examined the map. We discovered that the Russian map wasn't flawed; rather, the vast environmental contrast had created an illusion for us. After all, the schematic focused primarily on the underground waterways, with surface structures marked only by symbols. The exit we crawled out of—from the drainage system—was indeed the location of the long-sealed botanical zone. However, its roof had completely collapsed, and some fragmented walls and iron netting remained, hidden among the dead trees. Beyond this thicket, beneath the cave-riddled slope, was a low-slung building complex of grayish-blue stone—that should be the main research building, housing units like the power distribution room, infirmary, storage, and communications. But its surface footprint looked much smaller than anticipated.

The situation inside that building was unknown; finding an antidote there seemed incredibly difficult. The closer we got to our goal, the less confidence I felt. Seeing the faint blue tint deepening around Ding Sitian’s eyes, I knew we had to try anything, even if it felt like trying to save a dying horse with a dead treatment. At this moment, the fog among the hill grasses grew denser, reducing visibility. I fixed our direction, beckoned the others, helped Ding Sitian up, and we hurried into the tangle of dead wood and weeds.

The dry leaves and weeds were thick, rustling loudly against our clothes and startling the forest birds into flight with a few piercing cries. I drew my long saber and took the lead, hacking down the overly dense brambles and dead branches to carve a path. The mist in the undergrowth grew thicker, and with the weeds exceptionally dense beneath the trees, our range of sight was limited to a few paces when we reached the heart of the haze. I had to slow down to avoid getting separated from the others in the woods.

Just as I worried that the fog would cause us to lose our bearing, a massive, fallen vine blocked our path, forcing us to stop. This was the Guanyin vine, barbed and thorny, the habitat of the Jinlin Rong. We thought the Rong had been contained in the crematorium furnace when we left, but we didn't know its current status. This Guanyin vine was huge, its thickest parts requiring several people to encircle. The soil of the Hundred-Eyed Grotto was unusually rich, capable of nourishing decaying matter, which was likely why this massive southern vine could grow here—perhaps one of the reasons the Japanese Army’s Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Unit established their research facility here.

The fallen Guanyin vine was shattered into broken pieces, but the vine was so enormous and covered in hooks that climbing over it was no easy feat. We looked at it, sighed in frustration, and prepared to go around through the even denser vegetation on either side. Then Fatty came up with an idea. We took a few pieces of clothing clearly left by the Russians and planned to lay them over the thorns to climb across.

We preferred not to detour around the sides because the ancient thickets there were a chaotic mess of intertwined trees, leaving hardly any footing, making clearing a path with a long saber extremely arduous. Hearing Fatty’s suggestion, which was surprisingly not half-baked for once, we immediately adopted it. I followed the plan, and indeed, we managed to scale the horizontal vine body easily. Since clothing was limited, everyone had to pass through closely together. Fatty and I climbed up first, then hauled Ding Sitian and Old Sheepskin up after us.

Just as we were about to climb down the other side, Old Sheepskin’s foot suddenly slipped, and he pitched forward, exposing his knees outside the fabric laid down for padding. He was immediately impaled by the hard, upright thorns of the Guanyin vine, his knee deeply lacerated with bone showing. The pain from being pricked by those thorns must have been excruciating, and he let out a sharp, involuntary gasp. As Old Sheepskin slipped, I reached out to grab him, but in that split second, I could hardly believe my own eyes.

Old Sheepskin was wearing a small cloth bundle on his back, containing the miscellaneous items we’d salvaged from the Russian researcher's room. Fatty had been carrying it, but since Fatty and I had to clear the way and climb onto the vine first, he had temporarily taken it. As I reached for him, I saw two pale, furry arms extending from the bundle on his back. The moment my gaze swept over them, the arms retracted into the bundle with a whoosh.

The mist made the light dim, but this wasn't an illusion caused by faulty vision due to light conditions. Those furry white hands were identical to the ones we glimpsed at the door of the cremation chamber. That time, we only saw a white shadow flash across the glass and dared not look closely, but we had definitely seen a pair of human hands. Even though it was misty, it was daylight now, and how much space was in that small bundle? How could two arms emerge? Could a true specter have been following us all this way?

This journey had been filled with uncanny events: being locked in from the outside in the incineration room; the furnace door mysteriously opening in the dark, releasing the Jinlin Rong that nearly killed us and poisoned Ding Sitian; seeing a vague black shadow trailing us in the drainage trench; the burnt remains of a corpse inexplicably reappearing on the table in the Russian quarters, nearly sucking the souls out of us in our sleep—all these occurrences indicated that a malevolent spirit bent on our deaths was closely tailing us, yet I had never managed to locate it. From the start, I had been blind to the enemy's position, putting me at a severe disadvantage.

I never imagined that the entity trying to kill us wasn't following behind, but was much closer—hidden on one of our own people. If Old Sheepskin hadn't accidentally slipped, I might never have uncovered this secret.

Though the realization struck me, the action was faster. Seeing the white flicker inside Old Sheepskin's bundle, I immediately grabbed his arm and shouted, "Throw that bundle away!" Old Sheepskin, perhaps in excruciating pain from his knee, hadn't understood my command; he was grimacing too hard to even speak.

I knew I couldn't explain it quickly, and I didn't know the extent of his knee injury. I decided to pull him up first before dealing with the bundle. However, I couldn't move Old Sheepskin by myself. I pushed off hard, but the clothing under my foot shifted, and the sight I had just witnessed struck me profoundly—it had, in the vernacular, "touched my soul"—and I also slid off the vine.

At this point, Fatty and Ding Sitian reached out to help me pull Old Sheepskin back onto the vine. But with all four of us concentrated on one side, the weight shifted the fabric underfoot, causing it to slip off the hard thorns. All four of us tumbled off the vine together, flipping over. Fortunately, the fallen Guanyin vine wasn't too high, and beneath us were branches and thick, soft weeds that cushioned our fall, so we didn't burst open.

Even so, the fall was rough, and the downward momentum was significant. Right below the vine was a fallen dead tree whose massive roots were withered and rotten. The intertwining roots formed a hollow cavity beneath the trunk, and when Fatty rolled into the weeds, he smashed through the decayed wood covering the tree hole. Our bodies followed, dropping heavily to the bottom of the cavity.

The base of the tree hollow was filled with rotting wood debris. If we hadn't landed indirectly, our waists might have snapped. I felt as if every bone in my body had come loose. I heard Fatty groaning in pain. Just as I struggled to sit up to check on the others, a loud crash echoed above us. The dry, brittle Guanyin vine, stressed by our combined kicking and stepping, finally cracked and collapsed, sealing the top of the tree hollow completely. Darkness instantly enveloped us.

I called out my companions' names in the dark. Fatty and Ding Sitian responded one after another. Though the fall had been hard, their youth and sturdy constitutions meant they were mostly unharmed, just sweating from the pain.

Seeing that these two were okay, I felt a slight easing of tension. I told them to turn on their flare sticks to see if Old Sheepskin had also fallen into the tree hollow. He hadn't made a sound. The hollow had no gaps around its edges and was only about seven or eight square meters at the base—a very limited area. Anxious to find Old Sheepskin, and unable to wait for light, I fought through my body aches and began groping around the base of the cavity.

Suddenly, my hand brushed against something sticky and viscous, like fresh blood. My heart quickened, and I urged Fatty and Ding Sitian to activate their flare sticks immediately. But the two engineer flares were likely suffering from loose contacts from the fall; no amount of tapping would light them. Fatty fished out half a candle stub from his pocket to use temporarily.

As Fatty struck a match, a gust of cold, ominous wind suddenly swept past, seeming like someone exhaled an icy breath, instantly extinguishing the flame. We had already established that the tree hollow was sealed tight on all sides; there was no airflow, so where did the wind come from to blow out the match? Fatty frantically struck another. But before the light could catch, another wave of chilling air blew it out again.