Luo Ning suddenly thought of something and shouted at me from the stone wall, "Comrade Xiao Hu, the mercy bullet!"

The rest of them realized it at the same time. Right, they still had one grenade left, one they hadn't used, currently tucked into the big fellow's belt. The standard Chinese wooden-handled grenade was waterproof; some soldiers stationed at Qinghai Lake often used them to fish. Although everyone had just fallen into the water, the grenade shouldn't have gotten wet. Thank goodness for Luo Ning's reminder.

The big fellow pulled out the grenade. "Old Hu, catch." He tossed it to me from an upward angle.

I quickly stuck my bayonet horizontally in my mouth, caught the grenade with my right hand, flicked off the safety cover with my thumb, opened my mouth to toss away the bayonet, bit down on the pin, and the fuse hissed, spitting white smoke.

I looked down, aimed for the giant Salamander's gaping maw, and hurled the grenade inside. The giant Salamander had no idea what a grenade was. Seeing the black object flying toward it, it followed its usual hunting instinct, whipping its long tongue out to swallow it whole. With a dull thump, the grenade exploded inside its mouth. Although the creature’s outer skin was tough, the flesh inside its mouth was soft. The blast blew its head apart from the inside out. It dropped to the base of the stone wall, its massive body twitching a few times before dying on the riverbank rocks, belly up.

I let out a long breath, completely soaked in cold sweat. I hadn't felt afraid a moment ago, but now my limbs felt weak, and looking down made me dizzy.

Suddenly, the cliff face began to shake violently. The underground river water surged, and the air filled with the scent of sulfur as gusts of heat rushed up from below.

The volcano beneath the riverbed was stirring. The sudden event caught everyone off guard, and they nearly fell. They scrambled up to a relatively gentle slope and sat down, panting. Still shaken, they watched the subterranean tremors grow more intense; the mountain wall of volcanic rock could collapse at any moment.

Luo Ning said it might not lead to a full eruption. It looked more like periodic volcanic activity. The cycles of this activity were unpredictable—it could happen several times a day or only once every few hundred or thousand years. Volcanoes varied greatly; the common inverted cone shape only formed after a massive eruption. Some volcanoes, though not dormant, had been buried deep underground for tens of thousands of years without erupting, occasionally causing tremors.

But regardless of its frequency, we were terribly unlucky to have arrived now. We had intended to follow the underground river to find an exit, but the water below was boiling; going down meant being boiled alive like dumplings. Just as we were at a loss, Ga Wa tugged at my coat and pointed upward, urging us to look.

Several hundred meters above us, a thin, elongated streak of white light appeared. My eyes watered, stinging sharply. What was that? Could it be another long-extinct creature?

Luo Ning cried out, a mix of relief and joy, "It's the sky! It's the sky!"

The underground volcanic tremors had caused an earthquake, and a huge fissure had split open the earth above us. I hadn't seen the outside sky in so long, I had almost forgotten what it looked like—was it blue or white?

I turned to the others. "Comrades, heaven never seals off all escape routes. Persistence until the end is victory. For the New China, forward!"

The four of us, already exhausted, suddenly saw hope of escaping this abyss. Infinite strength surged up from nowhere. We stretched our legs and swung our arms, scrambling desperately up the slope.

The rumbling from below grew more intense, the heat waves stifling, and the dense sulfur stinging our foreheads. We worried the crack might seal shut again due to seismic activity, everyone wanting to get out as fast as possible. On the forty-five-degree incline, we exerted the energy of a hundred-meter sprint.

The higher we climbed, the more fragmented the volcanic rock became, some areas like loose sand, making footing nearly impossible. We would climb three feet only to slide back two. The skin on our hands was shredded, but we ignored the pain, gritting our teeth, kicking and clawing our way up. The five or six hundred meters felt as arduous as crossing the snowy mountains during the Long March. When all physical strength was spent, we finally reached the surface again: blue sky, rolling mountains on either side. The spot we climbed out onto was a section of the Kunlun River valley, the lowest elevation in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region, only a few kilometers from the "Unfrozen Spring" post of the First Company.

Luo Ning was weak, and Ga Wa had an injured foot; they fell behind in the final push. I couldn't rest. The big fellow and I quickly linked the load-bearing straps of their gear together and let them hang down for Luo Ning and the others to grab.

The earthquake intensified; this meter-wide fissure could collapse at any moment. Luo Ning and Ga Wa could only cling tightly to the straps. Affected by the tremors, every step up resulted in a slide back, making no headway.

The big fellow and I pulled with every ounce of strength we possessed, but even our combined might couldn't haul both of them up simultaneously. Just then, Ga Wa let go of the strap and braced himself below, pushing Luo Ning upward. With us pulling from above, she was yanked out of the fissure in one go.

When I moved to throw the strap down again to save Ga Wa, a violent shockwave hit, and the earth slammed shut again. Ga Wa was crushed in the middle.

In the sub-zero temperatures, our greatcoats and hats were long gone. The three of us forgot the cold, clad only in thin clothing, weeping as we futilely dug at the loose stones and sand with our hands and bayonets...

Three days later, I lay in a bed in the Military Region Hospital. The Chief of Staff of the military region held my hand, offering warm condolences. "Comrade Xiao Hu, your performance this time was exceptionally brave. On behalf of the Military Commission, I extend my sympathy. I hope you recover soon and achieve new merits on the revolutionary path. How are you feeling now?"

I replied, "Thank you for your concern, Chief. I am... I am... still..." I wanted to say I was fine, but remembering my comrades lost forever—Xiao Lin, Ga Wa, the Political Instructor, Squad Leader Two—the word "fine" lodged in my chest, refusing to come out.