I, Fatty, and Ding Sitian quickly consulted and made a decision: even if there were ghosts lurking within, we had to bite the bullet and go back. We absolutely had to find Old Sheepskin—alive or dead. Even if he used to be a tomb robber in the daodou trade, by class analysis, he still belonged to the vast majority we could unite with. Tomb robbing was a trade, artisans living by their skill, possessing no means of production capital; at most, he was a handicraft worker, placing him within the realm of contradictions among the people, not against us. Furthermore, the masters of the tombs he robbed were almost all members of the exploiting ruling class, the antithesis of the working people. Broadening the view, many heroes and insurgents throughout history, from the Red Eyebrows to Zhang Xianzhong, the ancient peasant armies, engaged in the excavation of imperial mausoleums—it was rare for them not to. Thus, at that time, none of us found fault with the tomb-robbing artisan. That damned old society was built on the blood and tears of the poor; how could one not rebel or resist? No matter what, we had to bring Old Sheepskin back.

I initially wanted Ding Sitian and Fatty to stay put while I alone went to find Old Sheepskin, but Ding Sitian, disregarding her frailty, gritted her teeth and insisted on coming along. Having no other choice, the three of us turned back. At that time, we already harbored a preconceived, subconscious notion about that unrotted female corpse; though unspoken, in our subconscious minds, we treated her as a female monster akin to the White Bone Spirit. So, without realizing it, we chanted, "The Golden Monkey rises with his thousand-pound staff, clearing the Jade Realm of ten thousand miles of dust. Today, we cheer for the Great Sage Sun, because the demonic aura has returned once more," to bolster our courage. As we walked and chanted, encouraging each other, strangely, the feeling of terror completely vanished. This proved that the spiritual atom bomb wasn't just empty talk. The three of us soon found the original path and circled back to the door of that secret chamber.

Fatty was still mumbling, reciting, "All reactionaries are paper tigers," to keep everyone’s spirits up. I pressed his mouth shut and said to him and Ding Sitian, "Do you feel any change in the vicinity? It seems different from when we first arrived."

Ding Sitian, inherently more sensitive to the eerie, whispered, "It seems... it seems the phantom in the secret chamber is gone. That chilling sensation we had when we first got here is absent..."

She was right. Standing before the secret chamber door, I already sensed something amiss. The oppressive aura that seemed to emanate from the netherworld in the darkness was gone. It wasn't simply because our spiritual atom bomb had bolstered our courage; it was because the source of anxiety within the chamber had disappeared. Could it be that the masked female corpse was no longer there?

Uncertainty about the truth was more unsettling than direct threat. Rather than guessing at the door, it was better to see for ourselves. With that thought, the three of us called out Old Sheepskin’s name a few times into the room. Receiving no response, we clustered tightly together and entered the chamber. We illuminated the area with flares, only to find the floor still a chaotic mess: desiccated corpse-ginseng and piles of decaying corpses everywhere. Looking further inside, we all couldn't help but utter an "Eh?" Wenxinge Sun Wind typed.

The situation was unexpected. The witch corpse wearing the mask lay calmly on the stone table, but seeing it again, one could clearly perceive that, like the other deceased in this research station, it was merely a soulless shell. The oppressive threat that seemed to cling to the room like lingering spirits had completely dissipated.

Something must have changed here while we were too exhausted to stay awake. I led Fatty and Ding Sitian to check the other areas. Old Sheepskin was nowhere in the secret chamber, but the decomposed, yellowish-white corpse of Yang Erdan, dressed in black with a red sash, still lay flat on the ground. Fatty, thinking he was clever, guessed, "Old Sheepskin was probably scared of us holding a critical self-analysis meeting, so he lit a candle in the dark—skedaddled. I bet he fled to the border to join the Soviet revisionists and eat cream buns."

I shook my head. "Impossible. If he wanted to defect, he wouldn't have come back to this secret chamber. When we left, I distinctly remember kicking the Yellow Immortal's box into the corner, but look now—where is the bronze box? Old Sheepskin must have come back for it."

Ding Sitian asked worriedly, "Grandpa Old Sheepskin, what is he doing this for? Where is he now?"

I said, "Perhaps he's still hiding something from us about that soul-summoning box..." Thinking of this, it suddenly struck me: the eerie, ghostly feeling in this chamber might have vanished precisely because the yellow weasel bronze box was gone. Perhaps from the start, we had subjectively made a wrong judgment, seeing the female corpse and feeling wandering spirits around, when in reality, that uncomfortable, chilling sensation came entirely from the bronze box engraved with the yellow weasel's head. Since Old Sheepskin took the box, the chamber had lost that nebulous, spectral atmosphere.

Up to this point, we still couldn't know for certain what was inside that box, but it seemed ominous rather than auspicious. We couldn't fathom Old Sheepskin's motive. Could the corpse in this chamber not be Yang Erdan at all? Otherwise, why would Old Sheepskin abandon him? Regardless of Old Sheepskin’s intentions, he was now a highly dangerous, unpredictable factor.

I told Fatty and Ding Sitian, "We don't know where Old Sheepskin has gone. The terrain of Hundred Eyes Cave is complex and fraught with peril. Just the three of us trying to find him would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Let's pull out first and discuss countermeasures." Wenxinge Sun Wind typed.

Fatty said, "Before we leave, let's give this place a good burn to prevent future trouble." He had a particular fondness for arson. Without waiting for agreement, he went off to find kindling. There were plenty of wooden planks and strips in the chamber. He grabbed a white cloth used for covering things, soaked it with some alcohol, and immediately set it ablaze.

I thought burning it was for the best. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Leaving a corpse unrotted for a century might not be what the deceased desired. Burning the physical form would prevent them from being displayed as a spectacle later. As the fire grew, we had to begin exiting the chamber. Passing near the female corpse, I could no longer restrain my curiosity. I figured there wouldn't be any more danger; I had to see why a dead person would wear a mask. So, using the Kangxi Precious Saber, I lifted the mask covering the corpse's face, only to discover the body had no face—the human face beneath the mask had a large hole gouged out, appearing exceptionally horrifying.

One glance terrified me. Just then, Ding Sitian noticed me lagging behind and turned to look. I quickly told her not to turn around, but as soon as the words left my mouth, she saw the cavity on the female corpse’s face and froze in horror.

A sudden thought struck me: this faceless female corpse might hold a significant secret, but there was no time to examine it further. The raging flames had already engulfed the witch's body—though perhaps "body" was the wrong word, it was merely a skin-suit—and in an instant, it was reduced to ash. Only the metallic mask glowed with a strange golden-red luster in the fire.

The fire spread with unexpected ferocity. Thick smoke billowed up the underground passage. Fatty and I pulled the terrified Ding Sitian, and the three of us rushed through the smoke and flames, only stopping when we reached the door to the surface building to discuss our next move.

I had run too hard, and the wound on my shoulder, which had been healing, started to ache again. I covered the injury and told Fatty and the others, "Under the Yellow Weasel Temple in the Northeast, are buried two yellow weasels encased in human skins. The hollowed-out shells of the dead function like human-skin coffins. I just saw that the witch corpse was also hollow inside. The space behind the mask might have been where Old Yellow Weasel stayed; he hid inside the human skin to play the ghost and beguile people. That so-called witch was probably just that. It seems the Yellow Weasel Grave at Tuanshanzi in the Greater Khingan Range is almost a complete replica of this Hundred Eyes Cave, just much smaller in scale and form." In Northeast folklore, there are mountains with stone beasts standing guard, dense with caves, and deep within lies the portal to the netherworld. After people die, lingering souls must go to that place. It is the world of the dead, with cities and pavilions just like the living world, but it is the world of the dead, not for the living."

Regarding whether ghosts exist in the world, my recent attitude has become vague because some things are truly difficult to comprehend. However, I absolutely refuse to believe in the shadowy underworld filled with layered palaces and towers. Hearing Fatty say this, I cursed him, "Nonsense! In broad daylight, under the bright heavens, where would a gate to the underworld be? That so-called ghost yamen is just a mass burial pit. Once many dead bodies are buried there, legends exaggerate it until it becomes a gathering place for lingering spirits, the nether world."

Ding Sitian said, "When I was little, my grandmother told me many stories from the Water and Land Picture scrolls, about the tortures in the underworld. The one that impressed me most was about a young bride whose lower body was shoved into the eye of a stone mill by little ghosts, ground into pulp and blood froth. A black dog lapped the blood from the edge of the mill, and the unlicked scraps flowed into a clay basin; in the next life, she would turn into maggots and flies for people to swat, while her upper body, half-ground, was still alive. My grandmother said women who were unfilial to their elders would suffer this fate after death. It scared me so much I got goosebumps all over. That underworld is too terrifying; I just hope Grandpa Old Sheepskin hasn't run into the Ghost Yamen in the back mountain."

Fatty said, "Sitian, why are you getting more timid? Even if the underworld truly exists, we revolutionary materialists would go there and chop down ten thousand Yama Kings, plastering (Ox-head) and (Horse-face) with big-character posters, and hold struggle sessions against King Yama himself."

I looked around; the mist wasn't gathering, and the sky was darkening—it was getting late again. It had been a full two days and a night since we left the pasture. I wondered if Commander Ni had sent anyone to look for us. We still needed a way to find Old Sheepskin, or we wouldn't be able to explain things to the people in the pastoral area. I cut Fatty off. "Alright, alright, haven't you pasted enough posters? I think whatever ghost yamen or ghost gate has nothing to do with our immediate interests. But right now, we have to go into the caves in the back mountain, because Old Sheepskin has gone into the back mountain. If that ghost yamen is truly the entrance to the netherworld, Old Sheepskin has probably already stepped onto that path of the dead."

On the dirt ground near the entrance to the building, there was a track extending toward the back mountain—the mark of something being dragged. Hundred Eyes Cave possesses a rare natural environment in terms of Feng Shui. Normally, the temperature difference between day and night on a grassland desert is extreme, but here it was not obvious; the temperature and humidity were relatively high. Moreover, special components in the soil provided a natural preservation effect on corpses. Most of the deceased developed corpse-hairs resembling bird feathers; there might not be another place in the world like it.

Because the soil was unique, the gaps between particles were large, making the soil relatively loose and soft, which left the drag mark on the ground very clear. We hadn't seen this mark when we first arrived at the main research building. Without a doubt, Old Sheepskin had dragged the yellow weasel bronze box into the mountain. Although the bronze box wasn't large, carrying it for a long time would be arduous; he must have pulled and dragged the steel box into the corpse storage cave. Heaven knows what he plans to do next.

Ding Sitian always hoped for the best. She thought maybe Old Sheepskin intended to find a place to destroy the dangerous soul-summoning box to prevent it from causing further harm in the world. I couldn't draw a conclusion before seeing Old Sheepskin, only saying, "Let's hope so." Then the three of us followed the track up the mountain.

The itching on my and Fatty’s hands was becoming unbearable, but we dared not scratch, as touching it caused clear fluid to seep out, making us gasp in pain. I feared Ding Sitian would worry or blame herself for involving us, so I didn't dare tell her we were poisoned. I just had to endure it forcefully, but it was hard to say how long we could hold out in this condition.

However, what comforted me most was finally saving Ding Sitian’s life. Seeing her body and spirit recover significantly lessened the pressure on my heart. I shook off my fatigue and walked into the hill behind the research building. This slope, whether due to a collapse or artificial blasting, revealed a cross-section of the mountain, exposing all the large and small caves within. Among the many openings, the one guarded by giant stone figures and beasts was the largest, resembling a gaping black mouth. To reach the depths, this giant-mouth-like cave was the only passage.

We supported each other and stumbled inside. Ghostly lights and phosphorescence flickered within, allowing us to vaguely discern the surroundings; it wasn't completely dark. This cave had no forks; it was extremely high and vast, with cool stone walls. At the deepest point, a chilling wind howled, making one's hair stand on end. About two hundred paces in, there was a deep, tiered cavern covering an area the size of four or five football fields. Square earthen platforms descended in layers, forming an inverted pyramid. Judging by the residual tools and lighting equipment, this was a massive excavation site, but the area was simply too large. Just as I was fretting over how to track Old Sheepskin’s trail, Ding Sitian, who was right beside me, suddenly swayed, spat out a mouthful of black blood, and collapsed onto the ground.