To receive such treatment at an ordinary communications post was impossible; this meant the owner of this room was no ordinary person. The thought brought my attention back to that conspicuous notebook—perhaps I could find some answers there.

The paper of the notebook was fragile and yellowed, crumbling to dust with the slightest pressure. I adjusted the beam of the headlamp I wore and proceeded to flip through the pages with extreme caution:

March 22nd. Clear. Since being confined to this room, I’ve only been able to gauge the date by watching the sun rise and set each day. I don’t know for certain if today is the 22nd, but it’s approximately so. I wonder how the others who were locked up are faring. My mind is still sharp, my thoughts clear, and I feel no agitation. Could it be that I alone will be spared? Can I escape this fate? Outside, I think I hear Lao Qin and the others trying to break down the door. I wonder if their situation is worse than mine. They probably forgot this room was specially reinforced by the military; even smashing their heads wouldn't damage that door in the slightest. Ah… why should I worry about others? I can barely look after myself right now, and my fate hangs by a thread. Better to focus on the scriptures.

The handwriting in this entry was neat and square. I’ve studied graphology; even after twenty years, the script reveals the writer’s psychological state: he was perfectly lucid and methodical. Aside from the content which exudes boundless despair, I couldn’t discern anything amiss. Moreover, his tone suggested he was detained by the military? Never mind, no need to overthink—I’ll just keep reading. … April 1st. Clear. The weather is fine. I wonder if I’ll be lucid enough to record all this tomorrow. My mind is starting to fragment; my thoughts short-circuit frequently. I feel my entire face expanding infinitely. There are no mirrors in this room, so I cannot see what I look like. Lao Qin and the others are howling like ghosts, day and night. I can only rely on the scriptures to find a sliver of peace.

The script has become restless, the strokes hesitant and weak. Clearly, Wang Weicheng’s state of mind is collapsing too. However, from the entry on the 22nd up to April 1st, he never clarified why they were locked up. Based on these logs, they don’t seem like criminals, but more like plague victims under quarantine.

April 5th. I want to break out and kill! Kill those howling ghosts, Lao Qin and the others! Wait, why aren't they screaming as much these past few days? Haha, they must be dead… Good riddance!

This entry makes no mention of the weather. The handwriting is completely messy and illegible, and these two sentences fill the entire page. It seems Wang Weicheng’s mind has utterly broken.

April 7th. Clear. The plain water tastes foul, so I randomly steeped some dried grass I found somewhere in the room. Unexpectedly, I feel much better today. The frenetic feeling has subsided significantly, and my thoughts are somewhat restored. My eyes feel completely swollen, reduced to mere slits, making it incredibly difficult to see. My nose also seems swollen, so blocked that I can only breathe entirely through my mouth. Lao Qin and the others are no longer making a sound. Either they have fully recovered and been taken away, or they simply lack the capacity or strength to utter another sound. Though, I suspect the latter. Fate determines life and death. While I still have the consciousness to read, I should return to my scriptures.

He’s started noting the weather again, and the handwriting is a bit tidier, though clearly lacking backbone. Still, compared to the entry on the 5th, it’s a marked improvement. This indicates Wang Weicheng’s condition has rebounded. This is rather strange. He seemed completely shattered before; how could he recover so quickly? Lao Qin and the others, who constantly feature in his writings, must have been confined alongside him, perhaps in separate rooms. Thinking of this, and recalling the sealed, locked doors we saw when we first came upstairs, a chill ran down my spine.

April 8th. Clear. I’m still haphazardly drinking the water steeped with dried grass today; my mental state is quite good. Is this a deathbed rally? For several days now, there has been no sign of life from Lao Qin or any other living creature. Am I the last living thing left in this vast, snowy mountain range? My body continues to deteriorate. I can no longer open my eyes, and my nose is useless; I can only breathe by keeping my mouth wide open, saliva soaking a large patch of my clothing. Although this rally allows me to control my thoughts and I’m not as manic as the days before, Lao Qin and the others are gone. In a few days, perhaps not even the next second, it will be my turn. Time to read the scriptures…

April 10th. Observing my condition over these past few days, I believe I have found the antidote… It’s just a pity that I have already deteriorated to the terminal stage. Merely maintaining a faint thought without succumbing to madness and death is an achievement in itself… Now, I write down the cure. I hope such an event never recurs, but if it does, may whoever finds this—which I transcribed with my dying effort—be able to save themselves and others…

I had only read this far when a dark shadow lunged forward, snatching the notebook and stuffing it straight into its mouth. The notebook instantly disintegrated into powder. “Damn—!” I screamed hysterically, looking up just in time to see Officer Liu stuffing the pulverized remains of the notebook into his mouth. My eyes burned with fury; I lunged forward and clamped my hands around his throat. “Goddammit, spit it out! Spit it out now!” It was as if I were choking someone else; Officer Liu reacted not at all. He kept shoving the paper dust into his mouth while looking up at me, chuckling with wide, unblinking eyes. At that moment, I genuinely had the urge to strangle him to death. I knew from Wang Weicheng’s diary that he had succumbed to the ‘Faceless’ affliction, and most crucially, Wang had discovered a method to counteract the onset of the Faceless—gleaned from his own horrifying experience. And at that critical juncture, Officer Liu had to destroy it all into dust so fine that even the most skilled craftsman couldn't restore it. If only he had been a second slower, I would have seen the formula! “Blast it!” While fiercely tightening my grip on Officer Liu’s neck, I spun around and unleashed a torrent of curses upon Xiao Zhou and the others. “Are you all dead?! You’ve been soldiers for years, and you can’t even watch one idiot? You might as well all die…” Xiao Zhou and the others were utterly bewildered by my rage. After shaking off my tirade to catch their breath, they finally snapped back to reality. Then, some realized Officer Liu was being choked unconscious, while others rushed over to pull me off. “Get back! Don’t touch—I’m going to kill him!” The attempt to intervene only fueled my fury. I squeezed Officer Liu’s neck with all my might; his limbs thrashed wildly, devoid of any human semblance. “Technician Luo! He’s going to die!” Some tried to drag Officer Liu away, while another grabbed me from behind and forcefully pried my hands open. I was unwilling to let go; I truly wanted him dead. “What’s one death, damn it! I was so close to finding the solution!” I roared, trying to lunge forward again. Xiao Zhou and the others quickly restrained me. “Easy, Technician Luo, let’s talk this over.” “Talk? Talk my ass!” I struggled, cursing. “If you had been a second slower, if you bastards had paid even a little more attention to him and pulled him away for just one or two seconds, I would have seen the formula!” “The formula?” Xiao Zhou and the others exchanged bewildered glances. “What formula?” “The formula to save lives! Maybe it could have saved Section Chief Wang… so close… and now there’s nothing…” Once I stopped struggling, I collapsed onto the floor, saying with utter despair. Hearing this, they fell silent for a moment, then Xiao Zhou bellowed, “Beat that son of a bitch half to death!” … No one held back. Officer Liu lay twitching on the ground, beaten nearly lifeless. I watched them coldly, not wanting to say a word. What right did they have to beat Officer Liu? He had been tied up by us moments before. If they had only kept half an eye on him, none of this would have happened. Perhaps we would all be calmly preparing to leave the mountain right now. After beating Officer Liu, the only sound in the room was ragged breathing. After all, fighting at this altitude is extremely taxing. I don’t know what to do. In this situation, we have reached a dead end. At this point, it’s no longer about being afraid to die; how we die is the most important thing. The records in Wang Weicheng’s journal instilled a fear that chilled me to the bone. I’m terrified that Section Chief Wang, still crawling on the window outside, will suddenly strike me down. If that happens, I’m finished. I will surely howl like Lao Qin and the others day and night, constantly self-mutilating by smashing against the walls, before being slowly tortured to death—and no one will even be around to collect the remains. Perhaps even after my bones have rotted away, no one will ever know we died here…