Shirley Yang was quite certain that the "Great Beehive" ancient city we were in was not the true "Erluo Hai City," but rather the "Bottomless Ghost Cave," and she motioned for Fatty and me to look at Uncle Ming and his daughter's napes.

I mused that the difference between an "ancient city" and a "ghost cave" seemed vast. However, both the time-frozen "Erluo Hai City" and the bottomless, curse-ridden "Ghost Cave" existed beyond common sense and could not be understood by ordinary thought, so I wasn't overly surprised.

I moved over and pushed aside the collar of Uncle Ming's shirt, revealing a shallow, circular red mark on the back of his neck. It wasn't underneath the skin, but rather a faint ring of a rash seeming to seep out from within. It was extremely blurry, and one would hardly notice it unless specifically looking for it. I then looked at Ah Xiang’s nape; it was exactly the same as Uncle Ming’s.

This was the mark of the "Bottomless Ghost Cave" curse. Although it was only in its initial stage and not very obvious, within a month or two, it would gradually become distinct, forming a birthmark resembling both a vortex and an eyeball. Those afflicted by this malicious curse would, around the age of forty, gradually lose the hemoglobin in their blood, and the blood in their vessels would slowly turn into yellow sludge, tormenting them alive into the starved ghosts of hell.

But Uncle Ming and the others had been with us for over a month; they couldn't have possibly gone alone to the black desert of Xinjiang's Taklamakan. Did they truly contract this terrifying curse just by seeing this "Beehive" ancient city?

Uncle Ming was completely bewildered by what we were saying, but hearing words like "curse" and "ghost cave" immediately gave him an ominous premonition, and he anxiously asked me what was happening. I had too many questions for Shirley Yang and no time to attend to him, so I asked Fatty to give him a brief explanation so he could prepare himself mentally. Fatty, with a smug, gloating grin, threw his arm around Uncle Ming's shoulder: "Now we're all ants tied to the same rope. We can't leave, and neither can you. There’s no separating us now. What was that song my relatives sing when they make chicken soup? Oh, right, it goes something like, 'We’re not family, but we're better than family!' Guess what? It goes like this..."

Fatty began embellishing the tale of the "Bottomless Ghost Cave" to Uncle Ming with added flavor, while I pulled Shirley Yang aside to ask how she discovered all this, and why she said we had all been deceived by Ah Xiang's eyes.

Shirley Yang led me to the last few human-skin murals and pointed to the sacrificial rites dedicated to the "Serpent God's Bone." It turned out that the burial site of the serpent god's bones was the very "Ghost Cave" we had seen at the base of the Zaglaman sacred mountain in the black desert.

These human-skin murals did not explicitly state that the "Serpent God's Bone" was in Xinjiang, but combining this with the epic poem of the "King Who Subdues All Enemies," making this judgment was not difficult. Far to the north of the Kunlun Mountains, there was a Sengge Nangyun Grotto containing treasure, within which lay five treasure boxes used to house the serpent god's remains. The serpent god had two divine miracles: first, though its body had rotted away to only a skeleton, its brain still preserved the power of "Realm Shifting Illusion"; second, the giant eye on its head could grant its soul eternal life. At the end of heaven, earth, and time, it would be reborn from its remains like a phoenix. This giant eye could also serve as a gateway to the "Realm Shifting Illusion"—the seventh eye described in Buddhist scriptures, the "Boundless Demonic Pupil."

If explained through scientific phenomena, perhaps this "Realm Shifting Illusion" was the "Imaginary Space" that experts at the University of Kansas Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis had long been studying. In mythology, the "Phoenix Gall" was the serpent god's eye, but no one had ever seen it firsthand. Whether the "Serpent Bone" truly existed in that "Imaginary Space" could not be confirmed; perhaps the "Serpent Bone" was merely symbolic.

The final depiction of the ritual in the human-skin murals showed the ancestors of the Demon Kingdom taking the serpent bone's eye and grasping its secret. They then journeyed far to Karamyran in the Kunlun Mountains and established a massive religious theocracy. Whenever a "Ghost Mother" possessing a "Ghost Eye" governed the kingdom, they would open the passage in her eyes and perform complex rituals, sacrificing captured slaves to the "Serpent Bone." Any slave who had seen the "Realm Shifting Illusion" with their naked eyes would be branded with the mark of the eyeball and then herded like livestock until their blood solidified and they died. The Demon Kingdom people believed that the blood was absorbed by the "Realm Shifting Illusion," and the flesh was then consumed by the faithful. Only those who strictly adhered to this belief were considered pure male and female followers, destined for happiness, joy, and power in this life, and immense divine abilities in the next—which was identical to the true essence of the later "Reincarnation Sect's" doctrine.

Countless people from nations surrounding the Demon Kingdom fell victim as sacrifices to the "Serpent Bone." But most priests within the Demon Kingdom mastered this dark art, particularly excelling at controlling wild beasts and insects, making them difficult for other nations to oppose. It was only when King Gesar and Master Padmasambhava joined forces, sending warriors to infiltrate the demonic domain and cleverly seize the "Phoenix Gall," the pearl of rebirth, coupled with the mysterious destruction of the Demon Kingdom's capital, "Erluo Hai City," shortly thereafter, that the balance of power immediately shifted. The allied forces (called the "Lion Army" in the epic poem) swept through the demon lairs, and the deeds of the King Who Subdues All Enemies have been continuously recited by bards on the snowy plateau to this day.

The "Phoenix Gall" likely drifted into the Central Plains during that turbulent era. If King Wen of Zhou deciphered it as an object of "immortality," that reasoning would be entirely sound. Up to this point, the origins and whereabouts of the "Phoenix Gall" were basically clear, but what about the "Erluo Hai City" we were in? Where did its inhabitants go? Why was time in the city frozen in an instant?

Shirley Yang said, "Where the residents of Erluo Hai City went, perhaps only they know. Old Hu, I recall you mentioned in the Nine-Story Demon Tower that something seemed to be missing from that glacial crystal corpse. The people of the Reincarnation Sect went to great lengths to excavate the Demon Tower and the Gate of Disaster—what was all that for? But the situation was chaotic then, and we didn't have time to think it over. Recalling it now, that glacial crystal corpse was missing its eyes and brain."

I vaguely remembered that the glacial crystal corpse had transparent skin and flesh, with only its internal organs being dark red, like bright red agate. It truly seemed incomplete. The Reincarnation Sect must have removed her brain, including the Demonic Pupil, and placed it beyond the Gate of Disaster? The Reincarnation Sect couldn't find the Serpent Bone's burial site, but they could establish a passage, or perhaps a mirror image.

Shirley Yang said that only after viewing the final ritual on the human-skin murals did she understand everything. The Reincarnation Sect wanted to continue the ancestral sacrifices and activated an ancient city that had long vanished from the world. This city was the Ghost Mother's memories. For example, in that slaughterhouse, the freshly beheaded yak, the boiled beef, and the bloody handprints still wet on the door might not have occurred in the same time frame. These were all fragments deeply impressed upon the Ghost Mother’s eyes, constructed into a city of memory within the "Imaginary Space" via the Demonic Pupil.

Iron Rod Lama admitted that Ah Xiang possessed eyes with an animalistic acuity, which gave us a blind reliance and trust in her. She could indeed see between the real and the illusory, but she was only slightly more acute than human eyes and fundamentally incapable of distinguishing this ancient city constructed in the "Imaginary Space" through impressions. Although it was merely a mirrored city created by the ghost eye utilizing the energy of the Ghost Cave, it existed with its own objective reality, just like the bottomless "Ghost Cave" in the black desert. Anyone who saw it would become a sacrifice to the "Serpent Bone." You could leave at any time, but when death arrived, you still belonged here; you couldn't escape, couldn't shake it off, no matter how far you fled. The Ghost Cave was a nightmare without end.

By this time, Uncle Ming, thoroughly terrified by Fatty's dramatic recounting, came over to confirm with me again. I briefly explained Shirley Yang’s words to him. Uncle Ming looked crestfallen and lamented, "Brother Hu, I never expected it to be like this. I worked my whole life like a dog, slaving away, only to end up like a dog in death, becoming some kind of sacrifice for the Serpent Bone. Alas, I can accept it for myself, but pity poor Ah Xiang, how old is she? I failed her birth parents and cannot close my eyes in death."

I addressed everyone, saying, "Although Uncle Ming and Ah Xiang have been dragged into this, and this city is not the real Erluo Hai City, everything has two sides. If we hadn't come here, we wouldn't have seen these human-skin murals documenting the truth of the Demon Kingdom's rituals. This suggests our fate isn't yet sealed. So, what next? What then..."

Shirley Yang interjected, "Next, we just need to find the ruins of the true 'Erluo Hai City' and perform the opposite ritual on the deepest altar, using the 'Phoenix Gall' to shut down the 'Realm Shifting Illusion.' This curse will then end." I don't believe in curses. I suspect this ghost cave curse is likely a virus transmitted through the eyes, a virus existing only within that 'Imaginary Space.' Severing their connection is the most direct and effective approach.

Hearing there was a way out, Uncle Ming immediately perked up, eagerly asking how to find the true "Erluo Hai City" ruins. This was the crux of the matter; their survival depended entirely on this.

I now realized that a breakthrough in one aspect could unlock the whole situation. I immediately urged everyone to quickly move upward, back to the green rocks by the city's edge. So, everyone grabbed their gear and hurried back the way we came. On either side of the green rocks, one side overlooked the "Erluo Hai City" shrouded in twilight—but that was the Ghost Mother’s memory. On the other side of the green rocks was the clear, transparent "Wind Erosion Lake," where the large schools of white-bearded fish and the dense network of wind-eroded caves on the lakebed were clearly visible.

Legend holds that "Erluo Hai City" was located behind the "Gate of Disaster." The true form of "Erluo Hai City" should be exactly like the remembered ancient city, entirely constructed from massive natural wind-eroded caverns. Now, looking at the honeycomb-like holes at the bottom of the lake, everyone understood. Because the Demon Kingdom worshipped the abyss and caves, they dug the caverns beneath the city too deeply. The real "Erluo Hai City" had already sunk underground, submerged by water. After millennia of vast geological changes, it had become this mirror-like "Wind Erosion Lake." As for the legend that the residents turned into fish, it was likely nonsense; it would be more fitting to say they all died and fed the fish during the catastrophic land collapse. Legends say the Flood Dragons especially enjoy playing with pearls. Those ferocious black and white patterned dragons attacking the fish schools in the lake probably wanted the pearl at the lake's bottom. Perhaps the Reincarnation Sect placed the Ghost Mother's eyes at the lakebed.

Of course, before seeing it, all these matters remained purely speculative. However, one thing was certain: to find the deeper altar, they had to risk descending through the largest central wind tunnel.