The sight of the other’s bizarre demeanor sent an unprecedented chill through my limbs, and my whole body began to tremble uncontrollably. I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to climb upward, but my hands and feet shook violently, and I felt utterly devoid of strength.

The figure finally noticed I wasn't following, and a cold voice demanded, "Can't climb anymore?" I saw that the position of his mouth hadn't moved at all; clearly, the sound hadn't issued from his lips. This person...

could he be a ghost! A sudden madness seized me.

If I couldn't climb, I decided, I might as well go all out and fight him to the death. The man watched my internal struggle, his thoughts unreadable, before asking, "What is it?

Are you coming down or not!" A cold, strange laugh escaped me, my face twisting into a savage mask. "Go down?

Even if I fall to my death, I’ll smash you first!" With a surge of desperate resolve, I released my grip on the rope and plummeted into freefall. The man was clearly terrified, cursing wildly, "Damn it, what the hell are you doing?

Have you gone mad..." Before he could finish the syllable of "mad," I kicked him squarely on the forehead, sending him tumbling down with me! A profound sense of release washed over me.

So be it, I thought. At least I got my revenge.

Now that I didn't know if Da Xiong or Liang Qian were alive or dead, I’d had enough. Might as well end it all.

I fully expected to fall endlessly, eventually splattering my brains on the bottom. But to my utter astonishment, we landed on the ground surprisingly quickly...

It turned out that only three or four meters below where we had dropped, we had already reached the bottom of the vertical shaft. I landed almost on top of the man, feeling something soft and substantial beneath me—it didn't feel like crushing a ghost, as I had always imagined ghosts to be intangible.

The man let out a sharp yelp of pain, thoroughly crushed beneath me. He then sprang up like a maddened bull, reversing our positions and pinning me underneath.

He yanked a dagger from his waist, pressed the cold steel against my throat, and snarled, "Do you want to die, you brat!" I was startled, not by the threat of death, but because the beam of the nearby flashlight allowed me to see the man's face clearly. The moment I saw him, a cold sweat drenched me.

This person was definitely not a ghost, but seeing him now shocked me even more than the idea of a phantom—this man was actually Ah Zhuo, the innkeeper! And then I understood why I had perceived him as looking up at me: he had already pushed his mask up onto his head, causing me to mistake the top of his head for his face.

A whirlwind of emotions—fear, shock, and crushing embarrassment—left me momentarily paralyzed. After a long pause, I managed to whisper, "Innkeeper Ah Zhuo?" The man frowned slightly and slowly moved the dagger away.

"My real name isn't Ah Zhuo..." "Then who are you?" I pressed immediately, without thinking. "And aren't you the hotel owner?

How did you get down here?" He glanced at me again, resettled his mask, and said, "If we walk a bit further, we’ll be there..." "Who are you, really? Where are you taking me!" I demanded, my voice sharp with urgency.

He stopped walking and gave a cold, mocking smile. "If you don't follow me, you'll die right here." His demeanor choked off my protest, and seeing him walk further ahead, I had no choice but to trail behind for the moment.

I watched him probe the darkness ahead with his flashlight, moving slowly, while I peppered him with sporadic questions from the rear. Ah Zhuo ignored me, but then he paused.

He tucked the flashlight under his armpit, pulled a glow stick from his pocket, snapped it sharply, and tossed it into a specific spot in the darkness ahead. I saw it: a subterranean river, churning violently.

The current was incredibly fast, flowing soundlessly into the deep earth, its surface shrouded in a thin mist that radiated an intensely bone-chilling cold. When my eyes adjusted to the scene by the riverbank, I sucked in a sharp breath.

Lying strewn across the shingle beach were at least a dozen corpses, clad in various types of clothing, some already showing signs of decay. Most astonishingly, crouched among the bodies, was a figure wearing a greatcoat!

The man was massive, squatting on the ground like a bear. The style of his military coat was ancient, tattered and ragged, making him look as if he had crawled straight out of a grave.

He was hunched over a corpse lying before him, his head moving with slight, deliberate motions. A piercing chill ran through me.

Don't tell me he’s eating the dead? Ah Zhuo seemed equally terrified and shouted, "Who!

Who's there!" The figure appeared startled, rising quickly and turning his head toward us. The sight that met my eyes instantly brought a surge of relief.

This person was, unmistakably, Da Xiong! Da Xiong was clearly delighted to see me too, exclaiming, "Comrade Xiao Chuan!

I knew the Red Army contingent would always reunite on Jinggangshan!" I laughed heartily and asked, "How did you end up here? I thought those Ku Ling monsters had killed you!" Da Xiong sighed heavily.

"Ah, it's a long story..." He explained that a massive horde of Ku Ling had burst from the cave. Worried about my safety, Da Xiong hadn't fled alone but plunged into the swarm searching for me.

After searching fruitlessly and seeing me buried under thousands of Ku Ling, he fled toward the exit, though heartbroken. As he ran, he glanced back at the disgusting toads, noticing they were all leaping onto the walls, seemingly trying to evade something.

Then the truly horrifying event unfolded. Da Xiong saw the Ku Ling clinging motionlessly to the rock face.

Thinking they were scared of something, he looked up, only to see a milky-white tide oozing out from every crack and crevice in the cavern roof. At first, Da Xiong thought the walls were simply seeping water, but upon closer inspection, he realized it was a dense carpet of flesh-colored worms, each about the size of a little finger—a truly revolting sight.

He recognized those worms from what I’d told him: Cave Stinging Bees, lethally venomous. The moment the bees appeared, the Ku Ling on the walls began to croak loudly, like desperate soldiers, their bulging eyes wide as they lunged into the mass of insects.

Da Xiong watched as the Ku Ling's tongues shot out like arrows, sweeping up a dozen bees with each strike. But immediately after swallowing, other stinging bees swarmed over them, burying them whole.

They then used the needle-like stingers on their rear ends to pierce the Ku Ling's flesh. Both the stingers and the Ku Ling's skin carried potent toxins.

After biting the toads, the Cave Stinging Bees immediately turned black and dropped dead, though many Ku Ling were also killed or poisoned by the bees. Thus began a savage war between the insects and the toads.

Although the scene of these two extremely brutal species clashing was horrific, they became so preoccupied with fighting each other that they momentarily forgot to attack the humans, saving many lives. Da Xiong didn't dare linger.

He carefully stepped over the bodies of the toxic insects and sprinted toward the cave mouth. But the unexpected happened.

As the Cave Stinging Bees poured out of the cracks, the ceiling of the cavern began to destabilize, causing large chunks of rock to fall. Broken sections of the roof began to leak massive columns of water.

The entire cave quickly became a raging torrent, sweeping the toxic insects and the trapped people out towards the exterior. Just as Da Xiong thought he was about to be expelled by the mountain, the water surge blasted open a hidden doorway in the stone wall.

A massive whirlpool dragged the swarms of insects and the people down into the depths. Falling from the cave, he expected to be crushed within the mountain’s structure, but instead, the enormous hole led directly down to a subterranean river at the mountain's base, and he plunged into the water.

After that, he struggled in the violent current, nearly smashing his head against boulders several times, but luck was on his side, and the flow swept him into an eddy where he managed to drag himself ashore. I looked around at our current location; it was indeed a concave depression in the mountainside, a place where the water swirled, making the current relatively calmer.

After climbing ashore, he found many dead bodies along the riverbank. Most were strangers, but a few others who had been washed down were clearly dying—either bitten by the poisonous insects or battered against the rocks.

Only the young soldier, Dong Zi, was still clinging to life. Da Xiong also noted that the water in this underground river was unnaturally cold, so he stripped a greatcoat off a corpse to wear and found driftwood washed ashore to start a small fire, tending to Dong Zi’s injuries.

Hearing that Dong Zi was injured, I felt a sudden, inexplicable urgency and rushed forward to check on him. I had only taken two steps when I saw Dong Zi lying there, already rigid.

Da Xiong sighed, his eyes reddening slightly, and choked out, "He died less than an hour ago..."