The countless Golden Silk Swifts beneath the soles of our feet were like wisps of black cotton batting, barely discernible, while the surrounding turbulence intensified with every passing moment, threatening to sweep a person skyward at any instant. The fabric of our clothes snapped and roared in the gale. Only by being there could one truly grasp that stepping onto this Immortal Bridge wasn't about treading upon the birds themselves; rather, it involved exploiting the brief moments when the mass of Golden Silk Swifts plugged the eye of the wind, allowing one to glide almost mid-air using the oscillating air currents above the Swift Bridge. The swifts beneath our feet bore only two or three-tenths of our actual weight. The ancients described such peril as "crossing the passes as if in flight," but standing before this terrifying Soul-Scaring Platform, where one is neither fully aloft nor firmly grounded, even a man of immense strength and boundless courage would likely have his spirit utterly crushed.

Fortunately, there were so many Golden Silk Swifts that they densely blocked the updrafts in the mid-air void. The four of us pulled at each other, relying on our own weight to manage a few precarious steps against the wind. Yet, immersed in such profound danger, our very souls felt as though they were scattering on the breeze, and the cold penetrated right to our bones. Under the strange effect of relativity, these few short steps seemed to stretch out into an agonizing eternity.

My teeth chattered; I had finally experienced firsthand what the "Soul-Scaring Platform" felt like, and I swore I would never set foot there again in this life. But now, I had no choice but to steel myself and press forward, closely following the plump man ahead. As we neared the stone waterfall just before the Dragon Gate, a tremendous upward force suddenly surged from beneath my feet. The tens of thousands of Golden Silk Swifts had finally broken free from the constraints of the air currents, and amid their cries, the birds rushed upward like a column of black smoke.

I inwardly cursed, "Not good, the bridge is falling apart," and instinctively threw up my hands to shield my face, preventing the swarm of chaotic "Cloud Borers" from blinding me. I felt the world spin violently, as if I were plummeting from the clouds, momentarily suspended by the surging throng of swifts below. But this lasted less than the blink of an eye. The moment the Golden Silk Swifts left the "wind eye," they dispersed instantly in graceful, fluttering arcs. The avian formation could no longer support our weight, causing us to "leak" out of the mid-air support and fall.

The "Shadowless Immortal Bridge" formed by the Golden Silk Swifts dissolved as quickly as it appeared, its stability lasting only a fleeting moment. The flock of swifts circled above for a moment, then in an instant escaped the canyon's turbulence, scattering in all directions, borne aloft by the wind. Having been shot upward by tens of thousands of swifts—feeling as though struck by clusters of cotton—we traced a parabola through the air, plunging from the bird formation toward the "Dragon Gate." I felt my body drop, certain that this time I would be smashed into a pulp. I forced my eyes open and saw that our rapid advance had brought the group alarmingly close to the gorge entrance. A final upward lift from the swifts actually propelled us across the pitch-black chasm, sending us obliquely downward toward the stone platform carved with the ancient seal script for "Soul Scaring."

The chaotic, formless wind eye existed only within the canyon itself and had significantly weakened by the time we reached the gorge opening. However, though the mountain wind was invisible, it seemed to possess substance, dissipating the force of a fall from ten meters high. My vision blurred, my shoulder stung, and I landed hard, knocked breathless, unable to tell up from down, or east from west.

Before I could congratulate myself on surviving the "Shadowless Immortal Bridge," I felt a cold, slick sensation beneath me—I had landed directly on the polished surface of the fossilized waterfall. This area was impossibly smooth, offering no crevices or purchase for my hands. Furthermore, the section above me was a mirror-like curve, making any stop impossible; I immediately began to slide downward uncontrollably.

Knowing the peril, I quickly flattened myself against the stone, daring not to exert any more force. I spread my palms against the waterfall’s surface. The sweat now coating my hands provided the necessary friction, instantly halting my slide. Had I slipped another half-meter, the waterfall’s surface would have curved into a sheer vertical drop; without the adhesive pads of a gecko’s palm, I would have plunged into the abyss or been sucked into the wind eye by the turbulent currents. (A text note by Zhen Hanliu.)

My heart hammered against my ribs. I steadied myself to look left and right, only to see Professor Sun plastered against the rock face, sliding slowly past me as if gliding on ice. I lunged to grab his arm, but in doing so, I was dragged along with him down the slick surface of the waterfall. I shouted desperately for help.

Shirley Yang, Yaomei'er, and the Fatty had landed in a region further inside. Hearing my shout, Shirley Yang instantly knew the situation was critical. She threw her Tiger Claw grappling hook, snagging Professor Sun’s backpack. She and Yaomei’er, ignoring their own pain, gritted their teeth and dragged Professor Sun and me, like dead weight, back from the slippery waterfall.

The five of us lay sprawled on the ground, looking at each other with dazed and pale expressions, our ears ringing from the din.

I let out a deep breath and looked at Old Master Sun, whose brow was deeply furrowed, cold sweat beading on his forehead. I asked him what was wrong, and he explained that his arm had been dislocated during the fall and subsequent pull. In his agony, he muttered, "Now that we've uncovered the secret of the Shadowless Immortal Bridge, it seems the ancient tomb of the Earth Immortal Village is right before us! Once we rub off the Dragon Bone Divination Chart hidden within, fame and fortune will be ours! I, Sun Xuewu, finally have my chance to shine! Just wait and see who dares to slander me again... Ouch..." He stopped midway, unable to bear the pain, and begged me to reset his dislocated arm.

I was aching all over and could barely muster strength. "Ninth Master, don't celebrate too soon," I said. "I wanted to urge you all to assess the situation before crossing the bridge, but you and Fatty were too eager. In the time before the swifts return to their nests, we have no room to retreat..." Then I turned and told Fatty to reset Professor Sun’s arm. Back when I was doing manual labor in the countryside, the village's barefoot doctor often brought Fatty along to help when animals were injured, because Fatty was known for being rough and heavy-handed—qualities that made him useful, whereas the gentle-handed were useless.

Fatty grimaced, climbed over, grabbed Old Master Sun’s right arm, and gave it a few sharp tugs that nearly made the old man pass out. He quickly exclaimed, "Ow... Oh, hey... Slow down, slow down! Not that arm... the left one!"

Fatty suddenly seemed to remember something. "Hey, who was it that shoved me onto the bridge just now? If luck hadn't held, I'd be smashed into tofu crumbs! Is this a joke? Old Hu, was that you pulling a stunt? Can't we be just a little more serious and earnest in our attitude towards life and work?"

I was shocked. "This isn't some baseless gossip. You were actually pushed onto the bridge? No wonder your steps were so unsteady! Who pushed you?"

I quickly recalled the moments before we rushed across the Swift Bridge. Professor Sun, fueled by excitement, had been at the front, so he couldn't have pushed Fatty, who was behind him. Shirley Yang would never do something so crude. Yaomei’er, adept at the ways of the "Honeycomb Mountain," was bold but outspoken; in my view, she wouldn't resort to malicious trickery. Who could it have been?

A fleeting image crossed my mind. I quickly looked up toward the opposite side of the deep gorge. There, framed in the tunnel entrance, was the Bashan Ape-Monkey we had encountered at the Qingxi Air-Raid Shelter, making faces at us with an expression that was clearly hostile.

A chill ran through me, and I forgot my pain. I jumped up immediately and exclaimed, "Trouble! The Guiding Light Inscription on the weathered stele... it's almost certainly a trap!" Tomb raiding is a contest between the living and the dead. In this contest, the tomb owner is always passive because the tomb's layout cannot change. However, deception, false tombs, decoy mounds, and ingenious methods to confuse raiders have always been plentiful. If a raider falls into a "snare" set in the tomb, the passive and active roles immediately reverse.

The nature of a trap lies in its secrecy and deception, making it impossible to discern. Unless one personally triggers it, one might never determine its authenticity. The Guan Shan Tai Bao (Master of Mountain Observation) certainly lived up to his reputation as an expert tomb robber; his methods defied convention. The unnamed corpse at the tunnel entrance was a masterstroke—no one could guess who that person was, and while countless possibilities could be conjectured, none could be confirmed.

The terrifying Shadowless Immortal Bridge would also lead people to mistakenly believe they were entering a "Mysterious Gate," either being repelled by the sheer natural hazard or lured across by the promise of the passage beyond, only to stray onto the wrong path. This canyon is surely not the genuine entrance to the "Earth Immortal Village Tomb"; it must conceal some deadly mechanism.

Yaomei’er said to me, "Maybe it was that fool Fatty, shooting the Bashan Ape-Monkey without asking questions. That creature holds a grudge. It probably wanted to push him off the bridge. The area on this side might not be the trap."

Professor Sun, hearing our words, was both alarmed and suspicious. Dangling the injured arm, he asked, "Could it be... have we walked into a dead end? Is this not the tomb of the King of the Shifting Tomb of Wushan?" He paused, reconsidered, and added, "Hu Bayi, don't jump to conclusions! Have you abandoned the objective approach to problems? That celestial bridge is a rare wonder in this world, and this canyon features stone beasts and imposing, treacherous mountains. I believe there is a high probability that the entrance to the Earth Immortal Village Tomb lies here. We should investigate before concluding anything." (A text note by Zhen Hanliu.)

I snorted coldly. "I think you’re so desperate for fame that your mind is muddled, with only the Dragon Bone Divination Chart in your sight, causing you to lose the objective stance needed to view the problem."

Shirley Yang interjected, "Stop arguing. The Earth Immortal Village Tomb itself was designed by master tomb robbers, intentionally—or unintentionally—leaving many clues. But none of these clues can be verified as true or false. This means from the very beginning... we have been led by the nose by the so-called Guiding Light Inscription. That is the genius of the Guan Shan Tai Bao's methods. To escape this predicament, we must discard the hints given by the Inscription." Professor Sun countered, "If we can't determine true or false, there is still at least a fifty percent chance it's real. If the Guiding Light Inscription is real, wouldn't we be heading in the completely wrong direction?"

I looked up at the surroundings. Countless swifts were circling in the canyon, their mournful cries seeming to fill the air with signals of danger. I told everyone, "Whether it's real or not, we'll have an answer soon enough. If this place is indeed a trap, we could face sudden, immense danger before the Golden Silk Swifts return to their caves. But if, after the swifts have completely returned to their nests, there is no movement nearby, our situation may become relatively safer." Fatty looked up at the sliver of sky above and said grimly, "Commander Hu, you knew there might be danger and still brought us here? Remember what the Old Master always emphasized: flexibility and maneuver win against a superior enemy; we can't use brute force. If only we had listened to me and not crossed that damned bird bridge."

I replied, "If you hadn't been so reckless and rolled across the Immortal Bridge first, I wouldn't have been so quick to follow. My greatest concern was the dispersal of personnel. As long as we stay concentrated, like a clenched fist, even if we take some risks, we can look out for one another, which is better than being picked off one by one. I have my principles and my stance; I can't claim objectivity, but I certainly won't abandon comrades who fall behind or get separated."

At that moment, I noticed the flocks of swifts in the sky flying lower and lower, and I didn't know what was about to happen. I quickly gestured for Fatty to stop talking and focus on resetting Professor Sun's arm. I glanced at Shirley Yang; she must have also sensed something impending, as she met my gaze. Our eyes connected, an unspoken understanding passing between us. She slowly drew out her Diamond Umbrella and positioned it in front of Yaomei’er.

Just then, the large flock of Golden Silk Swifts filling the long, narrow gorge suddenly split into hundreds of streams, flowing like wisps of light smoke toward the bases of the cliffs on both sides. We were all stunned: "The Golden Silk Swifts are behaving strangely; they aren't returning to their nests. What are they doing?"

The canyon beyond the Dragon Gate was sheer, as if cleaved by an axe or knife. The path carved into the valley floor was remarkably flat, but the terrain closed in at the far end, shrouded in a faint, swirling mist in the deep recesses. Stirred by the swarm, the hazy, ethereal mist suddenly dispersed, revealing all the indistinct, ghostly areas. Standing at the gorge entrance, we could see that the path ahead was a dead end, not the "Spirit Path" leading to the actual tomb complex. Seeing this, our collective spirits sank by more than half.

After the initial shock, we noticed that the base of the cliff walls was riddled with cave-like hollows, and many straw figures stood before these openings. The straw figures were dressed in ancient, long green robes, girded with yellow sashes, and topped with conical hats resembling Daoist headwear—indeed, they were dressed as Daoist priests.

The things clutched in the hands of these straw Daoists were even stranger; we couldn't discern their purpose. We had been to many places and seen all sorts of scarecrows in the fields, but never such oddly dressed, evil-looking straw figures. A feeling of surprise mixed with foreboding overcame us.

The masses of Golden Silk Swifts seemed to fear the straw Daoists, circling and crying out before the cave mouths without attempting to enter, yet unwilling to approach even half a foot closer. I saw that the canyon walls closed in ahead, a labyrinth of impassable cliffs, and the chasm before the Dragon Gate, locked by the wind eye, was impassable. Though I knew disaster was imminent, I had no idea where to retreat or what was coming, so I stood frozen, watching the sky full of swifts dance around the caves. Professor Sun suddenly asked Yaomei’er, "Girl, do you know what those straw Daoists are for? Were there ever any like this in Qingxi?" Yaomei’er shook her head; she had never seen them. It was only by entering "Coffin Gorge" that she realized her old home harbored so many bizarre things; she couldn't have imagined them in her wildest dreams.

Shirley Yang asked Professor Sun, "What is it? Do you think those scarecrows are significant?" Professor Sun ground his back teeth, fearful of disturbing something. "I worked near the Yin Ruins in Henan for a time. The local land temples there housed straw Daoists. We found this custom strange, but later discovered that during the great drought in the Ming Dynasty, when locusts ravaged the land, the superstitious people didn't focus on eradication. Instead, they treated the locusts as deities, calling them Locust Immortals, commonly known as Straw Demon Immortals. They were often fashioned from grain stalks and straw into human shapes and offered sacrifices to pray for the end of the plague..."

Shirley Yang asked, "Are you saying those straw figures represent the Straw Locust Immortals? Are there locusts in Coffin Gorge?"

Professor Sun said, "They... resemble them. Note my wording." I exclaimed, "How could there be locusts in Coffin Gorge? Are there locust species that survive in caves?"

Shirley Yang nodded slowly. "Only the 'Guide Locusts' breed in caves. They have powerful reproductive capabilities, and when they swarm, their numbers are terrifying. Could it be that all those straw figures were set up by the Guan Shan Tai Bao..."

Her words were like a sudden awakening for me. A wave of profound despair washed over me. The spectacle of the Shadowless Immortal Bridge, formed by tens of thousands of Golden Silk Swifts, might not be a natural wonder at all, but a meticulously planned installation. All those caves in the valley must house colonies of Guide Locusts, which are the Golden Silk Swifts' food source.

I had heard whispers about Guide Locusts. They supposedly eat not only crops but also the dead—human and animal alike—when starving. Their hind legs possess sharp serrations, and their wings beat at an extremely high frequency. Where a swarm passes, it is like a high-speed, rotating blade cutting through everything. If they struck a person, they could instantly carve open a bloody, mangled wound. Hence, they are also called Saber-Armored Flying Locusts. If Guide Locusts appeared in a plague, the result would be catastrophic. It was rumored they had been wiped out in China before the liberation, but who knew if large populations still existed in Coffin Gorge?

The scarecrows lined up at the cave entrances must utilize the swifts' habits, or perhaps the caves are lined with some persistent secret drug that keeps the Golden Silk Swifts from entering to devour the Guide Locusts wholesale, forcing them to eat only a few released daily to survive. If this were true, it would be an application of the cyclical principles governing earth, stars, and creatures. With proper occult knowledge, such an apparatus could be set up using the labor of dozens or hundreds—far more effective than the walls and cities built by millions for imperial tombs. Could the Guan Shan Tai Bao of the Great Ming truly have been an omnipotent immortal? (A text note by Zhen Hanliu.)

Since taking up the illicit trade of grave robbing, I have encountered countless strange events and wonders. The most profound lesson remains the words of Professor Chen: "Never underestimate the wisdom of the ancients."

I had not only heard tales of esoteric arts utilizing the principles of "creation and restraint" between all things for tomb raiding or defense but had witnessed many firsthand. Seeing this scene, I immediately grasped the implication. I quickly said, "Never mind whether those things are truly in the caves or not; if they emerge, it will be a disaster capable of collapsing the heavens. We must find a place to hide immediately." But looking toward the depths of the canyon, filled with straw figures in Daoist robes and boots, I didn't know how many insect holes there were, or where safety could possibly be found.

At that moment, the golden swifts in mid-air continued to cry softly and circle incessantly. A sound like a thousand bees beating their wings arose from the mountain caves on both sides. Suddenly, the swift formation in the air fractured, and hordes of Guide Locusts poured out of every cave opening like flowing fireflies. These Guide Locusts were covered in golden armor and silver wings; they were heavy-bodied with hard shells and could not fly very high, darting and weaving at low altitudes.

We hurriedly retreated toward the cliff base, but to our horror, two shining, glittering golden locusts burst from a cave behind us. Pressed by the presence of their natural predator, they flew headlong toward us. Everyone’s eyes swam as the two sparks flashed, and the golden locusts were instantly upon us. Shirley Yang cried out, "Watch out!" and swiftly raised her "Diamond Umbrella" to block the way. We heard two sounds like grinding metal, and the two Guide Locusts, each as large as a thumb, bounced off the umbrella like shattered meteors,. Before they hit the ground, they were snatched up by the Golden Silk Swifts swooping down from above and swallowed whole.

But there were simply too many brilliantly shining Guide Locusts; their surging mass darkened the sky. Furthermore, the two dull thuds from Shirley Yang’s umbrella blocking the initial assault were enough to confirm the terrible power of the Guide Locusts. Their impact force was comparable to a flung stone, something no flesh and blood could withstand.

We watched as patches of flying fire and meteors filled the canyon with tremendous force. Even the agile Golden Silk Swifts dared not meet the onslaught head-on, instead darting and weaving in the air, snatching only those locusts that rushed about blindly. Meanwhile, vast swarms of golden-armored locusts, numbering perhaps hundreds of thousands, clustered together on the canyon floor, rolling about aimlessly. A chill spread through all of us from the depths of our hearts. Right now, perhaps only the "Diamond Umbrella" offered temporary defense, but we only had one, and even if it could repel water, how could it protect five lives?

Tens of thousands of Golden Silk Swifts had formed a sweeping "net of swifts" in the sky, circling to corral the golden-armored locusts. However, they too feared entering the densest areas of the Guide Locusts, only daring to seize momentary openings to devour the stragglers on the periphery.

The narrow slit of light across the canyon was now completely obscured by millions of surging locusts. The Guide Locusts pressed forward like black clouds covering the city. As cold-blooded insects, they possessed no wisdom or emotion, but even ants fight for survival. Faced with annihilation, the black mass, flashing with golden light, beat their wings and collided within the mountains, resembling clouds of burning, golden smoke.