"But you must never speak of these things to outsiders. Otherwise..." Niqiong's expression turned stern as he spoke, "the unrest in the Tibetan region won't end in a day or two."

Joma Yangjin had told me this more than once. Neither Old Li nor I gossiped, and the Tibetan region remained peaceful, but my own life had been completely turned upside down. I'd been inexplicably swept into all sorts of accidents, and now I found myself inexplicably at the Guge ruins. Thinking back, sometimes even I found it strange.

After Niqiong finished speaking, Xu Zhiwu and I quickly assured him we wouldn't speak carelessly. He showed a look of satisfaction, saying, "I believe you. Don't rush me; let me think about how best to put this."

This time, it wasn't just Xu Zhiwu who grew impatient; even I couldn't remain calm. I suspected Niqiong was nothing more than a master storyteller, one who always paused at a crucial juncture to sip tea or water, only to deliver a line like, "To know what happens next, wait for the next installment," after you were left hanging, before dusting off his hands and walking away.

Though Niqiong didn't leave, he lapsed into a profound silence. Xu Zhiwu and I had no idea what he was contemplating and dared not interrupt him with idle chatter. The atmosphere settled into an unsettling quiet.

No one spoke, and my throat felt itchy, causing me to cough a couple of times. Niqiong must have heard me, as he suddenly snapped back to awareness, as if realizing he had two guests in the room: "Oh dear... I apologize. When I get deep in thought, I completely lose track of my surroundings."

Xu Zhiwu rushed to say, "It's nothing, nothing... Niqiong, please hurry and tell us about the rock carvings. What secret is it that you've held back so long? I’m about to explode from the suspense."

Niqiong laughed heartily, "No need to rush, no need to rush. Let me tell you slowly... Those rock carvings, you must have seen them. Indeed, they record the fall of Guge—no, not the fall, but the disappearance. The reason the Guge Dynasty vanished overnight lies within that dry-corpse cave..." Niqiong abruptly stopped here, as if he had let something slip, and quickly changed the subject, "I wonder if Tajie has applied the thin mud yet."

"He should have," I interjected, asking, "Could it be that all the subjects of Guge fled into the dry-corpse cave overnight?"

"No, no. Xiao Luo, think about it. There were hundreds of thousands of Guge subjects back then. Those of us who have seen the dry-corpse cave, could it possibly hold over a hundred thousand people?" Xu Zhiwu jumped in to argue, "If it were that simple, our archaeological community would have found that cave long ago and studied it thoroughly."

"Then what happened? It’s not like they could have traveled to Mars through that dry-corpse cave," I deliberately said something absurd to prompt Niqiong.

"Mars... haha... perhaps... haha..." Xu Zhiwu let out a deliberately mocking laugh.

As expected, Niqiong couldn't stand my and Xu Zhiwu's back-and-forth banter and interrupted us, "How could they possibly go to Mars? Who do you think the King of Guge was!"

Xu Zhiwu immediately seized the moment and pressed, "Then who was he?"

"A wise king, one who embraced the world and cherished his people as his own children. When he drank a bowl of butter tea, his first thought was always whether his subjects had any to drink. When he wore a new garment, he would surely ask if his people would be protected from the cold..." Niqiong’s string of praise for the King of Guge was about to continue, but fearing he would digress too far, I quickly cut in, "He was certainly a good emperor. But what does that have to do with the disappearance of the Guge Dynasty?"

"The connection?" Niqiong asked rhetorically, "The connection? What connection do you think there is? Do you know that the entire population of Guge were devout Buddhists?"

I certainly knew that. Guge was founded on Buddhism; from the king down to the lowest peasant or serf, everyone was a devout follower of Buddhism. But this seemed to have no bearing on their nation vanishing overnight.

It felt wrong to say there was no connection, yet equally wrong to insist there was one. I was momentarily speechless, unsure how to answer Niqiong.

Fortunately, Niqiong didn't press for an answer. Instead, he said, "You Han people, ever since Qin Shi Huang, haven't you all sought immortality? The King of Guge was the same. You should know, he also wished for eternal life. But he was a thousand times better than Qin Shi Huang. He wished for his subjects to achieve eternal life alongside him."

A flash of insight hit me, and I immediately thought of the answer, seeking confirmation from Niqiong: "Are you saying the King of Guge found the secret to immortality and took his subjects with him to live forever? And that this was achieved through that dry-corpse cave?"

Niqiong smiled: "Something like that, but certainly not through the dry-corpse cave. Didn't the rock carving already make that clear? A king leading his subjects toward another place filled with golden sunlight."

I agreed with Niqiong. If that were the case, the passage wouldn't be the dry-corpse cave; under no circumstances could one associate that place with a path to something wonderful.

"No, no..." Xu Zhiwu shook his head, "In my view, many of the bodies in that cave appear to be for sacrificial purposes..." Before he could finish, Niqiong slapped his thigh, gave a thumbs-up, and interrupted him, "Zhiwu, you truly are sharp!"

"I..." Xu Zhiwu tried to offer a modest remark, but Niqiong gave him no chance, continuing immediately, "They were indeed for sacrifice. As the King of Guge prepared to lead his subjects away from this perilous world, he ordered the capture of wicked criminals to serve as offerings. Only by eliminating wickedness could the gate to eternal life be opened."

"You mean the people of the Guge Dynasty are already in another world of eternal life?" I asked, quite astonished.

Niqiong nodded: "Yes." He paused, then added, "Now that I've said this much, I won't hide it from you two brothers anymore. The reason the higher-ups assigned us to guard this place was for this very matter. Of course—don't get the wrong idea and think the higher-ups are after eternal life themselves. They are men of great wisdom; how could they not understand the principle that all life must end? The higher-ups merely wish to find the secret to eternal life to control the turbulent and restless Tibetan region."

At these words, I was utterly dumbfounded. It turned out the thirteen families guarding the Guge ruins were there to help the emperor find the secret to eternal life. Even though Niqiong repeatedly tried to deny that the emperor held this intention, the more he explained, the clearer the reality became. Even ghosts can't escape the cycle of rebirth, yet humans achieving immortality?

It was all a farce. Niqiong and his people were guarding a joke. The fact that I had slipped out of the military hospital and followed Xu Zhiwu to Zhaburang Village had led me to nothing but a joke.

"Haha, so that's how it is." I genuinely found it amusing and burst into laughter.

Seeing me lose composure, Xu Zhiwu quickly signaled for me to restrain myself.

Niqiong seemed unbothered, saying, "It's fine. Everyone has their own perspective."

After Xu Zhiwu tugged my clothes several times, I finally stopped laughing. "Brother Niqiong, I didn't mean to offend you; please don't take it to heart." Realizing I had been disrespectful, I quickly apologized to Niqiong with a serious expression.

"See? You two, Zhiwu and Xiao Luo, you're being too formal... Why would I mind? You are Laba's friends, so you are naturally my friends." Niqiong's face showed no displeasure. "I know you probably won't believe what I've told you. What era is this? Who still believes in eternal life... However, have you two ever heard this saying: 'There is a gate to hell on Mount Qiangbak, where faceless devils reside'?"

That phrase again—I had heard it countless times. "I have," I nodded. "I wonder what that has to do with the disappearance of the Guge Dynasty in the rock carvings?"

"It has everything to do with it," Niqiong said. "There is something on the faceless devils that has escaped from the world of eternal life. Do you know?"

I froze. Was he referring to the crystalline black scorpions inside the faceless bodies? "How can that be?" Xu Zhiwu and I exchanged a look and spoke in unison, "How can that be?"

"That's how it is. The manifestation of the faceless is no good; it will surely lead to chaos in the reincarnation of the Living Buddhas." Niqiong's expression turned grave. "Xiao Luo, Laba told me you killed one of the faceless ones. I want to ask you: what exactly is inside the body of that faceless devil?"

"Scorpions, black scorpions." I was extremely reluctant for anyone to bring up the matter of Mount Qiangbak. I gave a curt answer and fell silent.

Niqiong was perceptive enough to see my unwillingness to discuss it and dropped the subject, returning to the topic of the King of Guge. "If that's the case, wouldn't all the subjects of the Guge Dynasty have something inside them to achieve eternal life?" he asked.

"How could..." Xu Zhiwu started to say, only to stop abruptly. His expression shifted, and he murmured in a low voice, "Xiao Luo did indeed encounter faceless devils, and more than one... This means... there must be a world of eternal life and immortality? And there must be a passage between that world and ours, which is how the Guge Dynasty vanished overnight? Then... then..." By the final 'then,' Xu Zhiwu's voice was trembling with excitement, "Then if we find this passage, perhaps we too can attain eternal life?"

But I didn't think so. I had encountered the faceless, that was true, but to believe there truly was a place of eternal life because of it seemed nearly impossible.

"Perhaps," Niqiong sounded less excited, with a hint of wistfulness. "The people of Guge achieved eternal life. It's a pity, a real pity, that the Guge artisan who made the golden-eyed and silver-beaded ornaments had the chance for eternal life and lost it."

"Had the chance?" Niqiong was speaking in riddles again. If a person truly lived forever, experiencing the passing of eras, joy, and sorrow over thousands or tens of thousands of years—what kind of torment would that be? I couldn't bear such torment; I only wished for the present lifetime to be stable. As for the dream of immortality, let those blinded by worldly desire pursue it. Thinking of this, I recalled my initial curiosity about that Guge artisan who made the golden-eyed and silver-beaded ornaments, though I’d never had a chance to ask about him. Hearing Niqiong's tone, it seemed he knew something about the man, so I asked Niqiong, "What chance? The chance to follow that king to the world of eternal life?"