The tent was nearly split open by the giant outside; could this be the "Snow Maitreya" that the guide Chu Yi had mentioned? I hadn't seen Han Shuna clearly in the ice abyss last night, but her physique hadn't changed, and the ice cave had collapsed and sealed itself. Less than two hours later, even if she had crawled out from somewhere else, how could she have grown this large?

Guide Chu Yi seemed to have mentioned being plagued by the "Snow Maitreya," saying that the corpses of the dead would become increasingly bloated, but before I had time to ask what exactly that meant, this thing suddenly appeared outside the tent. If it continued to press down, the tent would be overturned. Losing the tent on the Dragon’s Crest Glacier amidst the raging snow and wind was an unthinkable disaster.

To avoid shooting through the canvas, I instinctively snatched a trekking pole lying on the ground and thrust it toward the outline of the face visible through the canvas. Unexpectedly, the contact transmitted by the pole felt as if the large face possessed no solid substance; the only result was the concave canvas bouncing back against the tip of the pole.

The tent entrance was completely blocked, and Ming Shu panicked, trying to scramble out to escape. I quickly grabbed his leg and pinned him down. None of us, save for Chu Yi who had heard a little about it, understood what this Snow Maitreya outside was. Fortunately, the tent could temporarily hold it back; rashly running out would be like running onto the tip of a knife.

Fatty copied my earlier move, grabbing a vertical flag used for orientation on the glacier and jabbing it twice toward the face. Seeing no effect, he casually grabbed a Remington shotgun, no longer caring what would happen if the tent was ruined, pressed it against the face, and fired a round at close range. The thing outside was struck by the buckshot, and its momentum slightly diminished.

The canvas on the tent roof was riddled with holes from that single shot, revealing much white material. We couldn't see clearly what it was, but it seemed similar to the snow outside, as if the entity outside was a gigantic snowman.

Fatty kept firing continuously; Peter Huang, Chu Yi, and the others also drew their guns and shot. But it had little effect. Suddenly, a support pole inside the tent snapped, and the entire tent immediately collapsed, burying the seven of us underneath.

I thought we were finished; with the tent structure gone, with people's arms pinned beneath their thighs, it was impossible to run out, and even struggling to stand up was extremely difficult. Despite this thought, my body didn't stop; I pushed with all my strength against the person pinning me down and rapidly wriggled out from under the wreckage.

Before I could fully stand, I had already drawn my 1911, but the cold wind howled outside, snow whipped about, and there was nothing there. Just then, Chu Yi, Inley Yang, and Fatty also crawled out from under the tent, scanning their surroundings with their guns raised, but the enemy was nowhere to be seen.

It was Guide Chu Yi, familiar with the maneuvering ground of the snowfield and glacier, who pointed in one direction and fired. We all aimed where his muzzle pointed. Perhaps the deepest part of the night had passed; the Dragon’s Crest Glacier was no longer pitch black. The inky black clouds overhead and the silhouettes of the surrounding great snowy peaks became faintly discernible. We saw a massive white figure running against the wind and snow toward the vast white distance.

That was the Snow Maitreya that had attacked the tent. If not for Chu Yi's sharp eyesight, finding its tracks in this white expanse would have been difficult. Fatty, Chu Yi, and I chased after it, firing as we tracked through the snow. Inley Yang shouted anxiously from behind: "Stop chasing, be careful of the ice crevasses under the snow..." But her voice was quickly swallowed by the wind and snow whipping behind us.

The snow on the glacier had reached mid-calf depth after the night. After running less than ten meters, we saw the giant white figure suddenly sink downward and vanish onto the snowfield. We followed close behind and discovered a very deep ice pit here too, seemingly connected to the previous ice abyss, leading down the slope to the Nine-Story Demon Tower. On this ancient glacier, who knows how many such ice pits exist, and the complexity of the structures beneath them defies ordinary comprehension.

Once the "Snow Maitreya" hid inside, there was nothing we could do about it. We could only walk to the edge of the ice pit, curse a few times, and return crestfallen. Fatty and I asked Chu Yi why the Snow Maitreya, having just gained the upper hand, fled first. What exactly was it? And how could it transform a woman's corpse into that state in just a few hours?

Chu Yi said there was no time to discuss these matters now. While we men would be fine, the team still included two women and one veteran comrade. With the tent gone, we couldn't let them stand on the glacier in this wind and snow. We needed to find a sheltered, safe place to settle down first. We could discuss the Snow Maitreya later. He assured us that it wouldn't come out once daylight hit. The most dangerous thing was if the snow didn't stop today, the wolf packs wouldn't retreat either, and we'd be caught in a pincer attack, which would be more than enough for us to handle.

We returned to where the tent had fallen, and the sky was already bright, but the heavy snow fell ceaselessly. The tent was ruined and had to be abandoned. The vast snowfield's surface was completely covered by fresh snow, but walking far away before the ice surface was completely frozen was extremely dangerous. There were only a few uneven snow mounds nearby, offering no place to shelter.

Inley Yang said there was only one place to go: dig directly into the Nine-Story Demon Tower, at least opening the uppermost layer, so we could all take refuge there from the storm. If we built a fire inside, the airflow would rise, blocking snow from the entrance, which would prevent the entrance from being sealed before the snow stopped. Furthermore, wolves fear fire and wouldn't dare approach easily.

We all agreed this was an excellent plan. Being frozen outside in this icy hell was unbearable, and we all wanted to dig into the Nine-Story Demon Tower as soon as possible, regardless of what strange birds were inside—even just sleeping there for a while to recover would be good. Once we had replenished our energy, we could dig out the "Glacier Crystal Corpse" in one go, then wait for the cold snap to freeze the glacier solid so we could pack up and retreat.

Everyone got to work immediately. We moved our gear and supplies to the leeward side of the snow slope, dug away a large patch of accumulated snow, exposing the dark blue ice layer beneath. We again brushed ginger juice onto the ice surface, waiting for it to permeate. Chu Yi then related something he had heard two years prior, which, although it occurred deep in the Kunlun Mountains, was far from the Kara Mil Range.

Among the Tibetans circulated an ancient, terrifying legend: on the snowy mountains, every time night fell, there would be demons living beneath the ice that would come to steal recently deceased corpses. They would burrow into the clothing of the corpse, causing the outer layer of the corpse to turn white, as if enveloped by a layer of white skin. As this outer skin continuously absorbed, the surface would expand, potentially growing as large as two people combined. Afterward, it would gradually shrink as it consumed its contents. During this process, it would continue to attack and bite living people and livestock. If it failed to consume a living being within two or three days, it would slowly desiccate and shrink, dissolve, and burrow back into the underground glacier to hide until it found a new dead body. Such things preferred to hide in snow gullies and ice pits, only emerging late at night. Seven hundred years ago, they once caused a major disaster. Countless people and livestock perished, and there is a detailed record of this event in the Biography of the Supreme Master Tsongkhapa found in the temple scriptures.

I asked Chu Yi: "So the Snow Maitreya isn't one thing, but a group? Many gathered together?"

Chu Yi nodded. "That’s right. At most, a dozen of those things could attach themselves to a single corpse. Only after they absorb the blood and flesh within the corpse do they become corpulent, looking like whole masses of fat stuck in layers to the dead body. From a distance, they look like ten very fat snowmen. The locals call them 'Snow Maitreya.' The last time the 'Snow Maitreya' caused widespread trouble was many, many years ago. Because so much time had passed, people gradually forgot about these incidents."

This was until a major incident occurred two years ago, resulting in many deaths. It happened because some members of a geological survey team were working at an altitude above the snowline in Kunlun, and they ended up digging out dozens of plump, white, corpulent snowmen from the snow. Before the geologists could figure out the situation, those white humanoid figures rushed into the snow pit. Out of the ten people on the team, only two managed to escape alive.

The area where the geologists were killed had recently experienced an avalanche. An international climbing team had lost contact with the outside world there. The elder monks in the temple said that the fat snowmen encountered by the geological team might have been the corpses of the climbers plagued by the "Snow Maitreya." Coincidentally, the higher-ups were planning an expedition to search for the missing Cangshan team and the bodies of the geologists. Thus, local herders, lamas, and the military—a total of about a hundred people—searched the snowy mountains for five full days, returning without success.

The only weakness of the "Snow Maitreya" is that it only comes out at night; it dares not show itself during the day, even if it is raining or snowing. Furthermore, the Biography of the Supreme Master Tsongkhapa mentions that these creatures are particularly afraid of coarse salt.

Chu Yi told us: "But we don't have coarse salt now, and we have very little salt. The Snow Maitreya will certainly come again tonight. The wolf packs must also be hiding nearby in some ice gully to shelter from the wind and snow, waiting for a chance to attack. It looks like there will be quite a show on this glacier tonight."

Fatty gripped his hunting rifle and said, "It's a pity the equipment isn't ideal, and this area is very unfavorable for us. Otherwise, Fatty alone would dare to take it on one-on-one. What Snow Maitreya? It’ll become skinny under my hand."

What Fatty said had some merit. The glacier covered by heavy snow was full of ice fissures and traps, extremely dangerous. For now, it seemed the only option was to first dig open the tower beneath this ice layer and see what the interior was like—perhaps it could serve as a defensive fortification.

In a short time, the ginger juice had seeped into the ice surface. Everyone immediately exerted force and dug through the ice layer. Five or six meters down, they uncovered large pieces of wood similar to Qilian cypress. It was the same structure as what I found in the volcano: a combination of square timber, round logs, and rammed earth. Digging here, the earth and wood work proved more troublesome than excavating solid ice. But fortunately, there were many hands and efficient tools, and in less than half an hour, they had excavated the first layer of the Demon Tower.

We were fully prepared against potential "Immeasurable Karma Fire" or "Dapu Ghost Worms" beneath the ice layer, but unexpectedly, the first layer of the Demon Tower was empty. Stepping inside, it resembled a low-ceilinged room constructed of earth and wood, primarily featuring black timber and grayish-white rammed earth, creating a deeply oppressive color palette. In this layer, there was only a massive ice disk placed on the floor. The disk was transparent, a very thin layer, with an engraved deity on its surface. It appeared that to dig further down, this ice disk would have to be shattered.

Inley Yang examined the carved deity: it depicted a general with a human body and a wolf's head, clad in battle armor. The wolf head was white, and the armor was silver. I felt I had seen this image somewhere before, but couldn't recall where. As I pondered, Ming Shu and the others also descended into the tower one by one.

To secure a suitable resting place quickly, Chu Yi and Fatty had already begun chipping at the ice disk with ice chisels. But the sound was immediately wrong. Taking off their gloves and touching it, they realized it wasn't ice, but a large piece of circular crystal.

Ming Shu watched Fatty and the others working nearby. The Demon Tower was extremely dim, so he hadn't noticed the wolf-headed carving. It was only when we gathered close to examine the material of the circular disk, with our helmet headlamps shining directly on it, that Ming Shu saw it. His expression suddenly changed. He hurriedly took out the scripture scroll from the Samsara Sect and pointed at the wolf-headed demon carved on the crystal disk, urgently stating, "This piece of Ice Mountain Crystal Stone must not be destroyed. The curse of the White Wolf Demon Slaves of the Hui Kingdom is within it. If it shatters, the curse will be unleashed."

I shook my head, refusing to believe it. The Sixteen-Character Secret Art of Yin-Yang Feng Shui explains the layout of the Nine-Story Demon Tower, and I had seen it in the volcano; there shouldn't be any mechanism on this level. This circular disk of Ice Mountain Crystal Stone should be a kind of tomb decoration called a "Ling Gai," which is found at the connection point of every layer.

However, I was still uncertain about the difference between a "curse" and a "mechanism." At this point, even if I believed Ming Shu, it was too late. The crystal disk carved with the wolf-headed demon slave had already been cracked by the few blows from the chisel, and it would shatter with just one more gentle touch.