I immediately suspected my phone had been tapped, which was how my location was compromised. Luckily, Little Mustache was no ordinary person; someone dealing in antiquities like him had long since dug an escape tunnel to evade * .

After escaping, Da Xiong found a place to stay in the semi-urban fringe area where the Qidian Internet Cafe was located. He then tracked down Mu Yun, a fellow close friend, obtained a new SIM card, and finally called my Second Uncle, which led him to contact me.

Yet, to our surprise, we were still tailed in the end. After listening, I frowned and asked Da Xiong, "Who do you think they are, and why are they spying on us?" Da Xiong shook his head and replied, "I don't know." Then, the two of us fell silent, each lighting a cigarette.

It was then that I happened to glimpse the driver—it was Little Mustache himself. Little Mustache glanced back at me through the rearview mirror and managed an awkward smile.

Just as I was about to say something, Da Xiong patted my shoulder and said, "Actually, there's something else. Your grandfather isn't dead." I was so shocked I nearly jumped up, demanding loudly, "What!

You're saying my grandfather isn't dead?" Da Xiong held my shoulders down, chuckling, "Don't get worked up. * told me.

When we were flushed out of the volcano by the underground river, everyone passed out. But * woke up first.

When he came to, he saw a group of people coming down from the hilltop, so he hid in the thicket. Then he saw your grandfather leading a group of people who rescued us." My heart was a turmoil of emotions; I didn't know whether to be happy or sad.

I had no idea what my grandfather's true intentions were. Even though he was alive, he seemed determined to remain hidden, unaware of the worry his family must be enduring.

Da Xiong paused for a moment before adding, "Well, in short, all of this is connected to the Ghost Eye. If only we knew the secret held within the Ghost Eye, all these questions would surely be answered." I gave a wry smile.

"But the Ghost Eye is buried deep beneath the Black Bamboo Valley now. All clues have run dry." At that moment, Little Mustache turned around from the driver's seat and said, "We're here.

Let's talk upstairs." My attention had been fixed on Da Xiong until now. Looking out the window, I realized we had driven to a place called 'Sandao Yan'.

Here, a large river surged violently, its banks lined with quaint, age-old buildings housing various farm-to-table eateries and teahouses. The river breeze was cool and refreshing.

We parked the bullet-riddled van outside a teahouse called 'Fengqi Lou' by the riverbank. The security guard looked quite surprised at the state of our vehicle and asked, "Gentlemen, shall I call someone to drive this to a repair shop for you?" Little Mustache let out a dry chuckle and replied in a thick Beijing accent, "That won't be necessary.

If you could find someone to buy this heap as scrap metal, that would be great; otherwise, we won't be needing it much longer anyway." The guard nodded amiably and said, "Then please, come upstairs, sirs. I'll handle this matter." I noticed the guard's subsequent words also carried a distinct Beijing accent.

Upon reaching the second floor, a faint, subtle scent of sandalwood permeated the hall. The entrance featured an antique shelf laden with various porcelain pieces.

Although I'm no expert on antiques, these ceramics clearly looked ancient and genuine, certainly not fakes. Da Xiong nudged me, saying, "He and * need to pick someone up.

Mu Yun is waiting inside for you; go on ahead." I nodded, took a few steps forward, rounded the entrance, and spotted Mu Yun in the distance. He held a cup of tea, but his eyes were glued to the documents spread on the table.

The tea was no longer steaming; it had obviously gone cold. I didn't want to disturb him, so I sat in the seat opposite him and tapped the table lightly with a smile.

Mu Yun seemed startled, lifting his head sharply to look at me. After a moment, he visibly relaxed, a look of pleasant surprise crossing his face as he spoke, "Xiao Chuan, come look at this quickly.

The results from the specimen analysis are truly astonishing." Mu Yun was quite thin, yet he stood nearly six foot three. Dressed in a loose-fitting suit, he seemed to inflate when excited, giving the illusion that he had suddenly grown larger.

Seeing how pleased he was, I asked him what exactly he had discovered. Mu Yun adjusted his glasses, pointed to the documents on the table, and said with palpable excitement, "This is a live specimen of an ancient, extinct species of fish.

Tell me quickly, where did you get this?" Hearing this, I was instantly confused. Ancient fish?

What was he talking about? These specimens were clearly taken from those long-necked monsters.

They hardly resembled fish; they were decidedly terrestrial creatures capable of walking on two legs. But then, I reconsidered.

I had observed those creatures closely at the time, and there were indeed many strange inconsistencies. For instance, land animals usually have hair, even animals that spend a lot of time in the water, like hippos, have fine body hair.

Yet, those monsters were incredibly smooth. Furthermore, their eyes were positioned on the sides of their heads—or rather, the distance between their eyes was wider than that of typical land animals—and they had a highly prominent nasal bridge, which aligns more closely with piscine characteristics.

One more point: when I first directly confronted this creature in the mountain cave, it reacted violently to light and heat. Lighting a match immediately enraged it, which is also characteristic of most fish.

Seeing my astonished expression, Mu Yun smiled smugly and pulled out another stack of documents from his briefcase, telling me mysteriously, "These are some notes my dad wrote when he worked at the institute. You know I've always been interested in extinct and radiation-mutated organisms, and my father was one of the first paleontologists in the New China.

I have these notes memorized. The specimens you gave me bear a striking resemblance to a creature they found in Lop Nur thirty years ago.

This particular fish is called the Thousand-Year Fish. Do you know why?

Because tissue analysis showed these fish were actually over a thousand years old, possibly more than two thousand. The nucleotides in their tissue were almost entirely degraded, yet they remained viable.

That's why they were also called Zombie Fish." I stroked my chin and asked, "Do you have a photo of the specimen?" Mu Yun nodded. "Of course, I do.

But that creature was already dead by then. You know Lop Nur had nearly dried up by the sixties and seventies.

My dad's research team came across a dried lakebed and dredged up a huge thing from the silt. Here's a photo they took at the time." He flipped through the documents and handed me a black-and-white photograph.

When I took it, I saw several people standing in a patch of overgrown wasteland. On the ground lay a dark, indistinct animal corpse that looked somewhat like a plesiosaur, but its fins were forked, resembling human hands.

My father and Mu Yun's father were old acquaintances; I had met him many times. I recognized Mu Yun's father in the photo, wearing plastic gloves and extracting some dark objects from the animal's abdomen, while the others stood around, pinching their noses, clearly because the thing was already rotting and foul-smelling.

While I was looking at the photo, Mu Yun added, "Back then, my dad and his team analyzed the specimen, but in the end, based on its form and tissue composition, they couldn't definitively identify what it was." I put the photo down and nodded, feeling deeply puzzled myself. According to Mu Yun's description, that creature died because the lake dried up, meaning it was clearly a fish.

Yet, what I saw only shared a similar outward appearance, but its habits were entirely different. Moreover, the thing I encountered was clad in a suit of antique bronze armor.

If it were a fish, how could it know how to wear clothes? Or, perhaps, why would someone dress it?