Tang Minghao spared a glance for Eighty-Seven and drawled, "I saved this many people's lives; what exactly do you demand an accounting for?" As he spoke, he glanced behind him, anxiously urging Old Li and me to keep watch by the door for any sign of trouble.

The entire hall was filled at that moment with the sound of devout chanting. Foreign tourists and Han Chinese alike were swept up by the atmosphere of recitation led by Zhuoma Yangjin, sitting silently on the floor.

Eighty-Seven finally lowered his submachine gun and motioned for Old Li to call Tang Minghao over, asking why he had chased and frightened these people. Tang Minghao, separated from them by over a hundred people, asked me and Old Li, "Did you see me harm a single one of them? I merely startled them so they would run faster. Otherwise, how could they possibly fend off the monsters if they were slow?"

Old Li sighed in relief and said to me, "Technician Luo, look, Tang Minghao is still a good person. It's fine." I knew how deep the brotherhood ran between him and Tang Minghao; he was afraid that if Tang Minghao had done anything wrong, Eighty-Seven would have shown absolutely no mercy.

I quickly chimed in, "It's fine, it's fine, it was just normal procedure." I was actually saying it for Eighty-Seven's benefit; despite his constant genial demeanor, when it came to killing, he wouldn't hesitate for a second.

Eighty-Seven’s voice remained cold: "Tang Minghao, come here and explain yourself clearly. Why did you disrupt social order, create chaos, and frighten the populace? Do you understand the consequences of your actions?"

Tang Minghao ignored him and asked us again, "Isn't the Fangyuan Ding here? And Princess Guge is here too; these people are not in immediate mortal danger. Luo Lian, Li Zeng, hurry up and come with me. The evil spirit has emerged, the Stone Buddha is weeping—something big is happening!"

The Stone Buddha is weeping? Wangmu had just said the same thing... A sense of foreboding immediately flashed through my mind. Furthermore, this scene felt strangely familiar, and an unprompted ache suddenly struck my heart, causing tears to stream down my face. I was startled by my own reaction—how could this be? Then I immediately realized: Right, I carry memories inside me that are not my own; this must be connected to that.

Since that was the case, I had no way to evade it; I had to go.

"The Fangyuan Ding has already been taken away," Eighty-Seven said, his voice icy and devoid of emotion. "This is your last chance to explain everything."

Just then, Zhuoma Yangjin stopped chanting. Following a casual instruction from Wangmu, an old man in threadbare Tibetan robes stood up from the crowd. He slowly cleared his throat and spoke in stiff Mandarin, "Officer." He slowly scanned us, starting with me. "Officer, this person doesn't seem entirely evil." He would say a sentence, pause, look at us again, and then continue, "I was coming from the west and kept feeling something cold clinging to my back. I got scared and started running. Later, someone asked me why I was running, so I told them my feeling, and then she..." He pointed to a middle-aged Tibetan woman beside him, "...she said she felt the same way and started running with me... And so it went, everyone in that direction began to run, not understanding why. Then... this person..." He pointed to Tang Minghao, "...appeared behind us at some point and loudly commanded us to come here. But no one believed him, so he started threatening us from behind, driving us this way. He didn't hurt any of us even a tiny bit. That's what happened, Officer." After speaking, he sat back down.

Wangmu turned back to Eighty-Seven and asked, "Are you still going to kill Luo Lian's friend?"

Eighty-Seven forced an awkward smile. "I dare not defy the command of Her Highness, the Princess."

Wangmu snorted dismissively, "Yangjin dislikes being called Princess."

Tang Minghao stamped his foot, calling out my and Old Li's names: "What are you two dawdling and mumbling about! Hurry up and come! The fiend is about to strike! Do you think that cold thing they mentioned is harmless? It's a Snow Demon, a Snow Demon!"

A small ripple went through the crowd. Zhuoma Yangjin immediately began chanting loudly, and the people promptly lowered their heads and followed suit.

Tang Minghao kept urging us to leave quickly. I also felt deeply uneasy, sensing that something bad was about to happen, and I too wanted to go see what it was immediately.

Eighty-Seven did not follow us right away. According to him, he needed to prepare some weapons and provisions, telling us to go ahead, and he would catch up. Zhuoma Yangjin, however, dispatched Wangmu to accompany us, ostensibly as a guide, though it was certainly not that simple.

We pushed through the dense crowd with difficulty to reach Tang Minghao. His face was covered in cold sweat, and he looked at me anxiously: "Luo Lian, I only sensed the aura of the Fangyuan Ding here by intuition, thinking I could save them with you. But now, I'm scared—the Stone Buddha is weeping... I'm afraid Old Li following us is a risk; he's just an ordinary person..."

I looked at Old Li; he showed no fear. "Don't worry about me."

Wangmu snorted through her nose, mocking us, "Bian Zhen certainly has good taste; you aren't afraid of death. It's just that she might be afraid of you dying."

Old Li hesitated for a moment, not taking Wangmu's bait. "Let's go," he said.

Tang Minghao eyed the gun in my hand with evident longing, but I only had this one; what would I do if I gave it to him? Fortunately, Wangmu broke the silence. Still maintaining her usual disdainful tone towards us, she said, "Yangjin will bring the weapons; don't rush."

Tang Minghao muttered incoherently and turned to walk out.

I turned back to look at Zhuoma Yangjin. She was still sitting there, chanting. I wondered if Wangmu was telling the truth when she said she would follow.

Heading west, the usually bustling street was completely shut down. Not only were there no pedestrians, but all the shops were closed, and even the small vendors were gone. The desolation was chilling, and the further west we went, the stronger the abnormal, icy presence became.

The more we walked, the more uneasy everyone felt. Even the usually sharp-tongued Wangmu couldn't help herself. She quietly asked if we should wait for Zhuoma Yangjin and the others before proceeding.

I felt uncertain too, but my intuition told me we couldn't turn back. Our presence had already drawn the attention of the so-called Snow Demon; turning back now would only ensure it would track us and endanger everyone else.

Information about the Snow Demon automatically flashed into my mind. They live around the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon, appearing erratically. Such creatures exist in nature, but never with such a heavy, icy killing intent, and they don't usually attack people proactively.

Unless they encounter unusual circumstances. Like the Snowmen attacks on local farmers in Medog, Nyingchi, years ago.

The inexplicable memories reviving in my brain were relaying this information.

"Move forward, faster, faster," Tang Minghao kept urging us. But I felt an indistinct, deep sense of wrongness, a primal fear, because this situation was beyond what the few of us could control. Zhuoma Yangjin would certainly come, but Eighty-Seven and the other two—the ones with the most firepower—hadn't arrived. We had to constantly look out for Old Li and Wangmu; they were ordinary people, unlike us, and they lacked my sharp intuition, making them completely unable to dodge an attack.

A little further ahead, at a small shop selling tobacco and alcohol by the roadside, the owner was hastily pulling down the metal rolling shutter. He looked very surprised to see us, asking what we were doing, then kindly urged us to find a place to hide quickly, saying that disaster was about to strike here. "Everyone says that in the western mountains, a Buddha statue suddenly appeared from an ordinary rock, and it is weeping—a sign of the spirits’ compassion for our plight," he said, a devout middle-aged Han man.

Little did he know that this was exactly where we were headed. We thanked him and nervously continued west. I walked slowly, my mind constantly searching for related data. Perhaps because it was someone else's memory, the process felt extremely difficult. I felt like I should know many things, but when the words were on my tongue or I tried to organize my thoughts, they wouldn't flow smoothly. Perhaps I needed to adapt to this unfamiliar memory system.

By this point, apart from us, there was virtually no sign of life left on the road. Very few living things could be seen. This didn't feel like Linzhi, the small Jiangnan of Tibet, but rather a dead land, a ghost town.

Soon, Zhuoma Yangjin and Eighty-Seven arrived one after the other. When Zhuoma Yangjin appeared, she had already changed into practical mountaineering gear, with gaiters strapped around her calves and a foot-long Tibetan knife hanging from her waist. She also carried a medium-sized backpack, and no one knew what was inside. Wangmu offered to carry it several times, but she refused. At first, I thought it contained something precious, and she didn't want Wangmu, being careless, to damage it. However, when the topic came up later, Zhuoma Yangjin stated calmly, "Wangmu is not like me; she has some foundation, and the spirits bless her. It's already a great deal for a young girl to follow me. If she became inconvenient while carrying something and something happened, I wouldn't be at ease."

Hearing this, I couldn't help looking at Zhuoma Yangjin with new respect.

Later, Eighty-Seven arrived by car with Forty-Three and Thirty-Eight. The three of them each carried a massive pack, and it was clear from their size that they contained serious gear. This somewhat eased my mind. Regardless of whether the monster we faced was a ghost, a spirit, or something else, with an ancient Guge Princess like Zhuoma Yangjin and people wielding modern weapons like Eighty-Seven, it shouldn't be an insurmountable problem.

Everyone squeezed into Eighty-Seven's SUV. Zhuoma Yangjin, without any pretense of status, discussed with us, "The Buddha statue weeping is a great ill omen. What do you think we should do?"

Wangmu no longer dared to speak to us with her usual condescension, carefully watching Zhuoma Yangjin's expression as she asked for our input, "What do you think, Luo Lian? What do you and your friends think?"

"Perhaps the answer you have been seeking, the thing you have been pursuing, is about to be revealed. Although this answer might not be what you like, although its appearance will cause turmoil and strife, leading countless people to fight and die, it has arrived. No one can resist the desire for eternal life." I did not say this aloud, however, as I was still somewhat uncertain.

Later, when I fortunately encountered Hu Bugui again and told him about my thoughts at that time, he shook his head and said, "Little Luo, you are wrong. People only desire what they cannot have. Only when they truly achieve immortality will they regret it, realizing that a life spanning less than a hundred years was happiness. What is the good in eternal life? To be trapped in a cycle of separation and death forever, unable to escape... I truly wish I were an ordinary person who could simply die now."

I had also heard people say that he seemed never to age, always appearing to be around thirty-five or thirty-six. So I asked him if he truly possessed eternal life. He smiled, neither denying nor confirming it.

Alas, I have strayed too far. At that moment, Eighty-Seven's vehicle was carrying us toward a place rumored to be haunted by Snow Demons, where the future was unknown and life uncertain. There was no room to dwell on such thoughts.