After shouting these words, Jiang Lian retreated from the hole’s entrance and sat up, fine sweat seeping from the tip of his nose, thoughts racing through his mind: What should he do? How could he get across?

Shen Gun, though unable to see what was happening on the other side, heard Jiang Lian’s shout and knew he had likely found Meng Qianzi: “Little Lian-Lian, if we can’t get through, let’s quickly find a new path.”

With these winding passages where one gets lost after just two steps, finding a new path would be no easy task. Besides, by the time they found a new route, it would be too late.

Jiang Lian tried pushing and kicking at the stone cave, but unfortunately, this was stone and not tofu. He repeatedly scanned the clothes and equipment he had thrown on the ground: a gun, a flamethrower, and a backpack…

He grabbed the flamethrower: “Quick, take out all our water and unscrew all the caps.”

As he spoke, he pressed the valve, and a large burst of oil fire rolled into the small hole.

The snow pheasant, afraid of fire, ran away with “oh-oh” calls. Though Shen Gun didn’t understand Jiang Lian’s intentions, he still lowered his head and followed instructions.

Both carried backpacks with a total of four small bottles of mineral water. Having been soaked in water and frozen in blood vessels, the bottles were ice-cold, even painful to touch. Shen Gun hesitated for a moment before removing the caps from all four bottles.

Stone isn’t like wood; it doesn’t fuel combustion. After burning for a while, the fire was extinguished. Jiang Lian grabbed the mineral water, forcefully squeezing the bottles to spray the ice-cold water onto the inner walls of the burned hole.

In an instant, white smoke rose with a hissing sound. Soon came the crisp sound of stone cracking from thermal expansion and contraction. Jiang Lian stepped back two paces, drew his gun, fired several shots into the hole, and then kicked it forcefully.

Shen Gun heard the sound of crumbling rocks. Though the cave didn’t completely collapse, the extent to which it had widened was quite considerable.

Seeing that it was almost large enough for a person to pass through, Jiang Lian didn’t care that the rocks were still hot. He crouched down again and, using both hands and feet, finally managed to crawl through.

A moment before, he had forced himself to look at the situation ahead, but his attention had been on Meng Qianzi. Now, having to plan a rescue, he surveyed his surroundings and felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over his head.

This was a bottomless pit, with walls like a barrel. The hole he had crawled out from was like an opening in the barrel wall; a few more steps would lead to a cliff.

Meng Qianzi was suspended almost in the center of the cave, not only far from the barrel wall but also more than ten meters higher.

How could he rescue her? Could he do nothing but watch?

Jiang Lian’s mind was racing, but he didn’t forget to call out to her: “Qianzi, hold on tight, I’m thinking of a way, very soon.”

The only “advantage” now was perhaps that the mountain walls were rugged and rough, easy to climb. Jiang Lian grabbed what Shen Gun had pushed through the hole, put on his clothes, secured his backpack, steeled himself, and began climbing up with his bare hands.

Apart from being able to see Meng Qianzi more closely and talk to her more easily, he didn’t know what else he could do by climbing up.

But whatever, he would climb first and figure it out later.

After climbing a few meters, Jiang Lian’s left shoulder began to ache faintly. These days, his wound had been healing quite well, but the intensity of free climbing still exceeded what his body could currently bear.

Jiang Lian’s face reddened as he continued upward, gasping for breath. Meng Qianzi looked down at him, seeing small rocks continuously falling from beneath his feet. She was so nervous that her palms sweated, momentarily forgetting her predicament.

Shen Gun also peeked out from the hole. One look, and though he was on his hands and knees, his calves still trembled: Heavens, these two people in two different situations, he dared not look at either—one slip of the foot would be fatal here, and there, one loosening of the grip would mean meeting Marx. And who was that person Meng Qianzi was holding? Could it be the Xian family girl?

Something soft suddenly moved beside him. Looking down, he saw the snow pheasant had also crawled through, and like him, was looking up at the progress above.

Jiang Lian climbed to a position almost level with Meng Qianzi and stopped, breathing heavily.

The light from the pocket flashlight was limited, and Shen Gun provided additional illumination from below. This supplementary light made the ice corpse Meng Qianzi was holding gleam, making it even harder to see the face clearly; they only knew it was an ice person.

Jiang Lian’s heart trembled: Meng Qianzi had also entered the cave with Seventh Aunt. Could that be… Seventh Aunt?

However, he couldn’t worry about that now. The living person was the priority. He took a rope in his hand, his hand trembling slightly: he could throw one end of the rope to her, if only she could grab it…

Impossible, the distance was too great to throw it across. And in Meng Qianzi’s current state, she absolutely couldn’t free a hand to grab the rope. Moreover, even if she caught it, she would only swing down violently and crash straight into the stone wall, causing death or severe injury…

His gaze suddenly fell on the snow pheasant watching below.

“Qianzi, you can still command the mountain beast, right?”

Meng Qianzi’s arms were numb. Now, she was holding onto the ice corpse’s feet, with no retreat beyond that.

She struggled to nod in affirmation.

“Can it fly? Call it over, tell it to come to my side.”

Meng Qianzi let out a very light whistle. The snow pheasant stretched its neck, and after a moment, flew with a fluttering sound to Jiang Lian’s side, its small claws gripping a rock the size of a fist.

The rope in the backpack was sufficient. Jiang Lian looked around several times, first selected one, tied the end securely to a protruding rock, wrapped it around his waist, and then handed the other end to the snow pheasant: “Come, bite it. Bite it firmly.”

He instructed it further: “Fly over there, circle that person up there, go around once, understand?”

The snow pheasant clearly didn’t understand. This would depend on Meng Qianzi. Jiang Lian slowed his speech as much as possible, not letting his voice reveal his anxiety, to avoid affecting Meng Qianzi: “Qianzi, listen carefully, I can’t go across, but the snow pheasant can bring the rope end over. I want to tie the rope to the ice corpse, do you understand? I’m making a bridge for you with the rope. You need to make it understand your intention.”

This was a bit too complex, but Meng Qianzi didn’t have the strength to call back. She would do as much as she could. She raised her voice as much as possible and nodded.

Jiang Lian patted the snow pheasant.

The snow pheasant flapped its wings, carrying the rope end, flying straight across. It indeed couldn’t turn and circle, and as it brushed past the ice corpse’s leg, it dropped the rope end, then continued flying with its remaining momentum to the opposite mountain wall.

Fortunately, the rope hung over Meng Qianzi’s head. Breathing heavily, she bit the rope end with her teeth and pulled it around the ice corpse’s lower legs.

Jiang Lian watched with bated breath. Good, the rope had now gone around the ice corpse’s legs, but the problem was, how to tie a knot?

Meng Qianzi was also thinking about this problem. She bit the rope end, tightened her embrace further, and then breathed only through her nose, trying to twist her head as much as possible to bring the rope end toward the taut rope body.

With great difficulty, she finally managed to place the rope end on the rope body. She continued to move her head, gradually lengthening the overlapping part of the rope end on the rope body. Then, she bit firmly at the point where they intersected, using her tongue to twist and probe, trying to tie a knot with her mouth.

Thanks to the mountain ghost’s ropes being relatively strong but thin static ropes, had they been as thick as hemp ropes, she would have needed a mouth as big as a snow wildman’s blood basin to perform such an operation. After a while, Jiang Lian saw her head suddenly turn to one side, biting the rope end tightly.

The first knot was tied!

However, this wasn’t the most critical part. Sweat poured down Meng Qianzi’s back like rain. After gasping for breath several times, she suddenly released one arm, quickly wrapped it around the rope, and grabbed the rope end. At the same time, she rapidly raised one leg, successfully hooking her ankle around the rope body and winding it around once.

Her strategy was correct. The rope was now connected to the ice corpse, and she needed to tie her body to the rope as much as possible.

But this series of movements was very dramatic. From Shen Gun’s perspective below, it looked as if she was about to fall, so he couldn’t help but cry out in alarm.

Amidst Shen Gun’s startled exclamation, Meng Qianzi reinforced the knot she had tied into a secure one, then let her head droop, exhausted.

Now, part of her body weight rested on the rope, much better than the desperate clinging from before.

Jiang Lian also let out a long breath, his voice much more relaxed: “Tell the snow pheasant to come back, we need to set up more ropes.”

He chose another protruding rock to tie the rope, distributing the force points. This rope passed around his shoulder and elbow, and after being carried across by the snow pheasant, it was wound around the ice corpse’s waist.

The third rope followed the same method, secured around the ice corpse’s knees.

With three ropes forming a connection, the situation immediately improved. Meng Qianzi’s arms, legs, and upper body were distributed across the three ropes, with her body supported at several points, making it much easier.

She began trying to crawl toward Jiang Lian.

This crawling wasn’t easy either, because the ice corpse was hanging from a chain, far from being fixed. A pull from this end would cause the entire chain to sway, and the three ropes were like riding on waves, trembling intermittently.

Fortunately, Meng Qianzi was a skilled practitioner. This kind of danger was far from life-threatening for her. However, Shen Gun watched with a pounding heart, muttering and appealing to all nearby and distant gods, from the Jade Emperor, to Mountain Ghost Grandmother, to Jesus Christ.

Jiang Lian was initially tense, but experts recognize expertise. After watching for a while, he knew Meng Qianzi was more than capable of handling the situation, and gradually relaxed.

As his mindset changed, watching her move, grab, and turn on the three ropes, he couldn’t help but smile and said, “Qianzi, the way you’re crawling, you look like a spider.”

Meng Qianzi was high in the air with a bottomless abyss below. No matter how confident she was, she couldn’t help but be extremely cautious. Suddenly hearing Jiang Lian make such a remark, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She caught her breath, her legs went limp, and she lay prone on the rope for quite a while before looking up at him resentfully: “You’re the spider. Spiders spin webs, and I didn’t spin this web.”

That’s true, Jiang Lian smiled: “I spun it. Did it trap you?”

Meng Qianzi made a “pah” sound, but honestly, it was true: each rope had passed through his body, either around his waist, hips, or thighs, before being pulled out—she remembered in “Journey to the West,” the spider demon also released threads from its body, identical to his hog-tied appearance.

A big spider demon.

She didn’t want to crawl over, but what else could she do? This was the only path, and she couldn’t fly.

As she approached, she let out a breath, leaning toward Jiang Lian. He reached out, grabbed her waist, and pulled her into his arms.

Meng Qianzi lay against Jiang Lian’s chest, giggling.

Her body had been tense, but now she finally relaxed, feeling like her wish had been fulfilled. However, as she laughed, she suddenly stopped. Initially, her breathing was uneven, but then she felt her heart pounding like a drum, mixing with Jiang Lian’s heartbeat in chaos: those feelings of fear, dread, and trepidation belatedly seized her.

Jiang Lian’s body trembled slightly, his arms holding her tighter, watching the ropes still swaying in mid-air, feeling as if everything that had just happened was like a dream.

But this dream had been so fortunate—each node, each link, each moment—it seemed that if he hadn’t caught them, he would never catch them again, for all eternity.

He buried his face in Meng Qianzi’s hair, unwilling to let go.

It seemed like they hadn’t seen each other for several lifetimes.

After a while, Meng Qianzi looked up at him and said, “Jiang Lian, your fragrance smells unpleasant.”

Honestly, Jiang Lian also felt he was overly fragrant, but hearing these words from her mouth, especially at such a heartwarming moment after escaping death, made him feel oddly embarrassed.

He raised his head, lifted his chin, and looked down at her with disdain.

The pocket flashlight was still clipped to his collar, the light dimmer now, illuminating his young but disheveled face. One side of his face had scraped skin, with small pieces of skin peeling, and in one spot, blood had seeped under the skin, turning it blue.

Meng Qianzi reached out, gently touching one side of his face, and asked softly: “What happened to your face here?”

Jiang Lian suddenly smiled.

His bit of sulkiness and pretend displeasure hadn’t lasted even two seconds.

That was from desperately crawling through the hole, scraping against the ground. He hadn’t felt it, hadn’t felt the pain. Now, gathered at her hand, it felt somewhat itchy.

He said, “Nothing, the ground was too hard, just a scrape.”

As he spoke, he looked down at her, the flashlight light also lowering, obscured by her fluffy, curly, long hair, shimmering softly on each smooth strand.

Jiang Lian couldn’t resist leaning in to kiss her lips.

Just before their lips met, suddenly, a bright beam from a flashlight shone over, cutting right between the two of them. The light was so strong that Jiang Lian couldn’t help but close his eyes, and Meng Qianzi couldn’t help but frown.

From below came Shen Gun’s surprised voice: “Little Lian-Lian, are you and Miss Meng… dating? When did this happen? How come you never mentioned it?”