Uncle Ming hesitated, feeling that inley Yang was perhaps too hasty, insisting they scramble up those steep, towering green rocks instead of taking the path. But Fatty and I knew that inley Yang was always serious about such matters and never joked about danger. Since she was so anxious for everyone to keep a distance, she must have spotted some ominous sign. Moreover, now that she mentioned it, I could see it too: the path up the mountain was indeed too smooth, utterly devoid of even a single blade of grass—certainly not a route meant for people.

From our position in the lake, we were perilously close to that mirror-smooth track. Whatever beast might charge down from above, it would be unstoppable in the water. Daring not to dwell on what might be coming down from the mountain, we quickly grabbed Uncle Ming and A Xiang, using all four limbs to swim toward a patch of green rock on the left shore.

Although the lakeside was dense with forest, accessible landing spots were scarce. Besides that unnaturally smooth path, the other two sides were sheer cliffs that seemed to pierce the sky. The only other option was a massive, dark green boulder to the left, easily ten meters high, requiring some effort to scale.

We swam to the base of the green rock. Just as our hands reached the cool stone face, we heard the sound of grating stones from the far end of the mountain path, growing louder. It sounded like some enormous creature was rapidly emerging from the depths of the forest. A chill settled in everyone's heart. The noise was approaching fast; only a colossal serpent or a beast like the "Dragon King Crocodile" that supposedly inhabits the depths of Kunlun could grind the mountain path smooth like that. Whatever it was, it spelled serious trouble. We quickly used our ice axes to hook onto the green rock and began to climb.

But the green rock was slick with moss, and its steep angle made the ice axes awkward to use. inley Yang’s Flying Tiger Claws were hard to retrieve from her pack, so she had to improvise: she tied a loop in a length of climbing rope and, using the lassoing skills she’d learned in Texas, secured the loop around a protruding stone.

Uncle Ming’s agility belied his age; he moved like an old ape. A seasoned sailor who had spent years navigating the seas, he was frighteningly quick when escaping danger. With a few swift pulls on the rope, he scrambled ahead onto a natural ledge halfway up the green rock. Fatty and I supported A Xiang below, boosting her up, and Uncle Ming reached down to haul her the rest of the way.

Then they helped inley Yang ascend. By then, the stone anchoring the rope had become loose. Fatty tugged, and the rope—stone and all—plunged into the water. As inley Yang prepared a new rope, Fatty and I heard a sudden, violent splash behind us—something had shot down from the mountain and plunged into the lake.

inley Yang and Uncle Ming lowered a climbing rope from the rock to assist us. Uncle Ming, seeing the monster in the water from his high vantage point, immediately suffered from his habitual tremor—perhaps an early sign of Parkinson’s. When he was agitated, his hands shook violently; whether plucking a stringed instrument or holding tools, he couldn't keep a firm grip. Now, trying to wedge a piton into a crack, his tension peaked, he loosened his grip, and the piton fell into the water.

Just as Fatty and I reached for the rope, about to pull ourselves up, the entire length of the rope and the piton plummeted down before we could exert any force. Down below, Fatty and I cursed Uncle Ming, calling him the "Italian of our side," for only making things worse!

inley Yang realized there wasn't time to fetch more rope. Pointing at the water, she told me, "Get into that underwater cave first to hide."

Though Fatty and I didn't know what creature had entered the lake, we knew it was trouble, and there was no room for negotiation—it was almost upon us. With no choice, we held our breath and sank to the lakebed. The lake wasn't deep, and visibility was excellent in the clear water. The rocks below were white. There were several seepage holes connected to the underground and a few deep depressions, making the floor pockmarked—a landscape formed by wind erosion before the area was submerged. This was a unique "Wind-Erosion Lake," where millennia of geological change had sunk this massive eroded rock structure to the bottom. Perhaps when the lifespan of this lake ended, the wind holes below would collapse entirely, and the water flowing from the mountain would rush into deeper caverns, forming an underground waterfall.

The fish in the lake were in chaos. Besides the most numerous "White-Bearded, Scale-less Fish," there were also some "Red-Scaled Schizothorax" and "Long-Tailed Black Goby Minnows." Whether startled by the explosion near the "Gate of Disaster" or the creature suddenly entering the water, these fish were clearly terrified. They darted into caves to hide. The "White-Bearded Fish," perhaps a variant of catfish, which are smaller than a meter and not suited to the underground environment, swam back in a panic from the group fleeing the Gate of Disaster. They preferred the danger of the water monster to leaving the comfortably warm "Wind-Erosion Lake."

As soon as I submerged, I spotted it among the panicked school of fish: a creature five or six meters long, resembling a giant lizard with four short legs and large black-and-white stripes, rocketing toward us like a torpedo.

The name of a fearsome beast flashed into my mind: the "Striped Flood Dragon." Fearing heat and susceptible to cold, it was known to them. A brother unit working under the ice of the Mêdá Bucha Glacier in Kunlun in 1972 had once excavated a frozen corpse of this beast. Someone intended to make a specimen, but for unknown reasons, it was never done. We had traveled hundreds of miles to see it back then. It was terrifying—more ferocious than the "Dragon King Crocodile," with skin so thick and tough that even a Springfield rifle couldn't penetrate it.

Fatty and I paused briefly at the Striped Flood Dragon’s swift approach, then immediately sank beneath a vertically oriented, oddly shaped wind-eroded rock at the lakebed. The creature’s hard, triangular head slammed into the rock, instantly shattering the fragile, snow-white stone into countless fragments. It used the resulting surge to burst from the water.

A cold dread seized me: it was trying to leap out to attack inley Yang, Uncle Ming, and the other on the green rock. Water sprayed everywhere, white foam flying, as the Striped Flood Dragon crashed heavily back into the lake. It seemed its leap force wasn't quite enough to reach the prey on the rock. The creature immediately coiled and dove down again, but it appeared to have no fixed target, thrashing wildly in the lake, biting and tearing apart any fish too slow to scatter.

I seized the opportunity to take a couple of breaths from Fatty's oxygen tank, and together we took advantage of the chaos to hide in a wind tunnel at the bottom of the lake. Many fish were already sheltering there, and now neither we nor they paid attention to the other, each seeking refuge. Soon, I understood the "Striped Flood Dragon's" intent: it was stirring up the water relentlessly to drive out the fish hiding in the tunnels. The White-Bearded Fish couldn't withstand the agitation and darted out everywhere, only to be slaughtered by the waiting predator. It seemed to hold an ancient, profound hatred for this school of fish, not merely hunting for sustenance.

The "White Lake Fish" must have previously formed a "fish formation" to defend against this brutal natural enemy. The clear water quickly turned crimson with fish blood, and the lake floor was littered with shredded corpses. Huddled in the wind tunnel, Fatty and I watched the horrifying spectacle. We considered trying to swim back to the green rock, but ascending would take at least half a minute. If we ran into the bloodthirsty Striped Flood Dragon mid-climb, its underwater speed rivaled a torpedo. Without advantageous terrain to hide behind, facing it directly in water or on land offered zero chance of survival. We had no choice but to wait at the bottom for an opportunity.

Fatty's oxygen tank was running low when an even more brutal scene unfolded below. The Striped Flood Dragon, chasing and tearing at the fleeing fish, swam right past the wind tunnel where we hid. Then, a white shape flashed through the blood-tinged water: the old White-Bearded Fish from the depths had silently appeared behind the predator. It whipped its ten-meter-plus body, swung its head, and slammed violently into the Striped Flood Dragon's only vulnerable spot—its soft underbelly. The impact sent the creature tumbling end-over-end. It twisted its massive body and charged back, biting down hard on the old fish's spine. Though scaleless, the White-Bearded Fish’s skin possessed wave-like dermal denticles, making it tough. Especially for this old giant, its dermal denticles were much thicker than those of younger fish, allowing it to withstand several bites without fatal injury. The two titans locked in combat, turning the entire lake into a boiling cauldron. However, due to the constant inflow from the mountain and substantial leakage through the wind holes below, blood mist was dispersed quickly, and the water in the Wind-Erosion Lake remained crystal clear.

Fatty and I realized this was a duel between two kings fighting for dominance in the Wind-Erosion Lake. Why they were fighting to the death—perhaps due to the lake's unique water composition, perhaps ancient enmity—we couldn't know. But this was our chance to escape to the surface. We both greedily sucked the last dregs of oxygen from our tanks, skirted the fighting beasts, and swam toward the surface, clinging to the edges of the eroded rock formations.

inley Yang, looking down from the green rock, had an even clearer view of the battle than we did underwater. Seeing us resurface amidst the chaos, she lowered the climbing rope, not daring to let Uncle Ming assist this time.

As I climbed onto the rock, I glanced back down. The old fish had gained the upper hand, using its head to slam the Striped Flood Dragon against the lakebed. The predator was foaming blood from its mouth, clearly at its limit. By the time I reached the top, the situation had drastically reversed. Another, larger Striped Flood Dragon had emerged from the mountain path. The White-Bearded Elder Fish, focused only on its immediate rival, was completely unprepared for the rear attack. The newcomer clamped onto the elder fish’s gills and dragged it deep into the largest wind tunnel in the Wind-Erosion Lake.

It seemed the fierce battle for dominion over the Wind-Erosion Lake was nearing its end. Fatty wiped the water from his face. "Once they finish biting each other, we need to hurry down and grab some fish meat. Uncle Ming dropped the food pack behind the crystal wall; otherwise, we'll all starve tonight."

I told Fatty, "The water is too dangerous. Don't lose your tsampa ball over a few qingke particles. I still have some food in my pack. We can follow the Chairman's old teaching: eat dry when busy, eat thin when idle, and half-dry/half-thin when neither. If we ration, we can manage for three or four days."

Fatty countered, "Only a stomach full of tsampa gives you a mind to think. I’m going down for fish later. There’s no free time in these deep mountains; who knows what we’ll face next? I don't want to be a hungry ghost facing trouble in the underworld."

inley Yang watched the lake intently, clearly believing the underwater battle was far from over. Hearing our exchange, she told us, "We can't eat these fish. The residents of the city of E'luohai vanished overnight; no one outside knows what happened. There are many legends about the city's destruction, but one claims the soldiers and civilians turned into these fish. While those tales are hard to believe, Tibetan culture has always held a custom against eating fish. And this massive school of White-Bearded Fish is definitely strange. We’d best not invite trouble..."

Suddenly, tens of thousands of White Lake Fish appeared in the clear water of the Wind-Erosion Lake, densely packed. They seemed to be trying to reach the bottom to rescue their elder.

As dusk deepened and the shadows lengthened, we climbed to the very top of the green rock for a better view. But what lay behind the rock eclipsed even the battle of the fish below. The area behind the rock was a depression lower than the lake's surface, where a structure resembling a colossal beehive—an ancient city carved from wind-eroded rock, at least a dozen stories high—was embedded. It was surrounded entirely by gleaming white wind-eroded stone, honeycombed with countless caves. There was a marker shaped like a massive stone eye. Could this be the legendary "E'luohai City"? I felt no joy of reaching a destination after a long trek; instead, every hair on my body stood on end. What was truly chilling was that this city was brightly lit yet utterly devoid of life.