"It's fine," Lu Zong replied, "it doesn't seem dangerous here, does it?" Ganda said with absolute confidence, "Don't worry, there's definitely no danger here. I just looked around; this seems to be where the prisoners are locked up.

There shouldn't be any trouble." Lu Zong responded, "In that case, we should leave. The priority is finding Ma Xiong.

Let's go." Ganda suddenly panicked, saying, "Why the rush? Since we're here, let's just take a look around.

Maybe we can find some treasure, or even Ma Xiong!" Lu Zong’s suspicion of Ganda deepened. What was wrong with Ganda?

Had the Shaman bewitched him, or was he one of their lackeys all along? He felt like a mere chess piece on someone else’s board, moved at another's whim, knowing he could be struck down at any moment without even knowing the identity of the killer.

He looked at Ganda, finding him increasingly suspicious: "Ganda must have been bought off by the Shaman cult." Ganda must have had an ulterior motive for wanting him to stay here, and Lu Zong guessed it would be to his detriment. He insisted on leaving.

Ganda sighed, shaking his head, "Fine, if you insist, then we'll go out." Ganda suggested, "How about this: you step on my shoulders, and I’ll lift you out, and then you can pull me up. How does that sound?" Lu Zong considered it.

In that scenario, Ganda couldn't attack him, because if he did, Ganda wouldn't be able to get out either. "Alright, it's settled then." Ganda crouched down, and Lu Zong stepped onto him without ceremony.

He slowly rose until he was just a finger's breadth from the cave entrance. Suddenly, Ganda beneath him collapsed, and Lu Zong fell down with him, landing with a thud, his entire body pressed flat against the ground.

This position perfectly embodied the idiom: painful yet enduring. Confused, he was about to angrily question Ganda when he noticed several shadowy figures in addition to Ganda.

He quickly lifted his head to look around and discovered Ma Xiong advancing with his procession of dried corpses. Without time for further thought, he rushed to Ganda, pulled him up, and said anxiously, "Hurry and rescue Ma Xiong!

Look, he’s running out of time." Ganda replied with an accusatory tone, "You should have told me to look sooner. If not for that, I wouldn't have bumped into Ma Xiong." Lu Zong was now consumed with worry for Ma Xiong and couldn't afford to think about anything else; he only urged Ganda to get up quickly and figure out a way to save Ma Xiong.

He explained, "He is currently being controlled by a parasitic worm called the Zombie Worm. The most potent feature of the Zombie Worm is its ability to invade every part of the human body, using external force to manipulate the person's movements while paralyzing their brain, causing them to lose consciousness and cease controlling their own body.

These parasites are acidic, eating away at the skin so they can burrow inside successfully. All we need to do is splash an alkaline substance between the mask and the facial skin to neutralize the acid from the Zombie Worms." Lu Zong looked around after hearing this.

The eerie furniture and skeletal remains seemed uniformly non-acidic or alkaline. There wasn't even any alkali to neutralize the acid!

Wait, alkali... Isn't urine also alkaline?

Furthermore, he hadn't eaten much salt recently, so his urine would certainly be alkaline. If he splashed the urine onto Ma Xiong’s face, he could complete this arduous and unpleasant test.

Ma Xiong would surely forgive him once he woke up and knew. Lu Zong shared his idea with Ganda, who nodded and said, "For the sake of a friend, what is a little bit of urine to sacrifice?" Soon, Ganda returned with a plastic bag full of sloshing urine and splashed it onto Ma Xiong’s face.

A stench of urine filled the air. Both men hastily used their clothes to cover their noses.

Looking at Ma Xiong, the droplets of liquid on his face slowly trickled down, soaking a large section of his hair and plastering it against his face. Lu Zong stepped forward to check the effect and saw that the mask was indeed beginning to peel away slowly.

Perhaps it was the sheer stench of his own urine that Ma Xiong couldn't bear, as he began to cough. Coughing suggested his breathing was normal and he was regaining some control.

Lu Zong approached in surprise, steadying Ma Xiong, and asked, "Ma Xiong, wake up..." The beads of liquid on his face continued to drip. When Lu Zong suddenly shook his head, urine splashed everywhere, spattering onto Lu Zong's own face.

He ignored it completely, only continuing to call out for Ma Xiong. Finally, Ma Xiong slumped weakly.

Lu Zong rushed forward and caught him, then saw that a fissure had finally appeared between the mask and the facial skin. Though small, it was just wide enough for a fingernail to be inserted.

He jammed his nail in and, straining with all his might, managed to rip the mask off. He flipped the mask over to look, and it was covered with dense, black, maggot-like worms.

He then looked at Ma Xiong's face; the area around his mouth was terribly swollen, and black dots grew everywhere like stubble. His mouth was trembling slightly now, as if trying to articulate something.

Lu Zong quickly leaned in and clearly heard the four words Ma Xiong managed to utter: "Water for me, I need water." Ma Xiong then licked his lips, an act that made Lu Zong feel nauseous enough to vomit. After drinking the water, Ma Xiong slowly regained some strength.

He opened his weak eyes and looked at Lu Zong, saying, "Where am I? What happened to me just now?

I feel like I had a dream?" Lu Zong proceeded to explain his experience clearly, omitting the part about the urine incident at the end.