Jiang Lian drew in a sharp breath.

He shifted his body sideways as much as possible, making himself “invisible” before Shen Gun, while also signaling to Meng Qianzi: Shen Gun’s consciousness was hovering between foggy and clear—whatever he saw and heard now would either guide him back into confusion or gradually toward clarity.

Meng Qianzi understood and inconspicuously moved aside, simultaneously shooting a warning glare at Jiang Qiaoqiao.

Jiang Qiaoqiao immediately lowered his head, curling up motionless in place.

Shen Gun hadn’t noticed anyone else around him at all. His eyes were fixed solely on that ice dragon.

He sat up, gazing at the ice dragon with a satisfied expression. That look in his eyes was as if he were admiring his life’s masterpiece. As he kept staring, he began to chuckle.

Meng Qianzi’s scalp tingled: when an honest person goes mad, it’s far more terrifying than when a madman throws a tantrum.

Then she heard Shen Gun mumbling: “Alright, that’s good, just like that.”

As he spoke, he struggled to his feet. His head was still dizzy, and his footing unsteady, causing him to stagger, though he remained completely oblivious to his condition, only muttering: “That’s fine now, let’s go.”

Seeing Shen Gun turn around, Jiang Lian quickly crouched down, avoiding Shen Gun’s gaze, and instantly flashed behind him. Jiang Qiaoqiao also sprang into action, closely following on Jiang Lian’s heels in a swift run. As for Meng Qianzi, she had been sitting on the ground all along and never entered Shen Gun’s field of vision.

Shen Gun continued muttering softly: “Not a bone, not a piece of skin should be left behind. Burn it all, everything must be burned.”

He walked toward the mountainside wall.

These words had neither head nor tail. Meng Qianzi’s curiosity was piqued, and several times she wanted to interject with questions, but restrained herself. First, she feared startling Shen Gun—once he became fully conscious, all clues would be lost. Second, she had heard Shen Gun say “let’s go”…

In such a small space where Jiang Lian had searched for so long without finding anything, how would Shen Gun “go” anywhere?

She grew somewhat nervous, lightening her breathing considerably.

She watched as Shen Gun approached the mountain wall, raising his left hand high as if greeting someone. But after just a couple of waves, he collapsed to the ground with a thud.

After a while, he held his head in his hands, continuously groaning, “ouch.” When he looked up, his brows were so furrowed that both eyes became upward-slanting triangles, and he said: “Why am I so tired?”

He was now lucid. Meng Qianzi responded calmly: “Climbing up and down, who wouldn’t be exhausted and tired?”

Is that so? Shen Gun half-believed her, then suddenly remembered something: “Weren’t you going to show me something? How did I end up sitting here?”

Meng Qianzi said: “Yes, I asked you to check if there was a door over there, and you went over, then tripped and fell sitting there… How is it that one fall makes you lose your memory?”

My goodness, Jiang Lian didn’t possess Meng Qianzi’s talent for spontaneous fabrication, and fearing his expression might give him away, he could only turn his face away, pretending to play with Jiang Qiaoqiao.

Shen Gun’s mouth hung half-open, unable to respond for a long time. After a while, he mumbled, “I’m getting old, my mind is starting to forget things.”

…

Following Meng Qianzi’s suggestion, she wanted to try the same trick again, but Jiang Lian refused: such things were a matter of luck; there wouldn’t be a second time. Besides, after fainting once, Shen Gun’s intelligence had noticeably declined—it was feared he couldn’t endure another episode.

He walked to the section of the mountain wall, knocking and tapping, even pressing his ear against it to listen. After a while, he hesitantly raised his left hand, mimicking Shen Gun’s earlier gestures, and waved at the wall.

Shen Gun asked curiously, “Little Lianlian, what are you doing? Having a fit?”

Jiang Lian withdrew his hand, lost in thought.

Meng Qianzi persisted stubbornly, fixating on Shen Gun: “Don’t waste your energy. As I said, we should try once more; it doesn’t hurt anyway.”

Jiang Lian asked: “Qianzi, when you saw the characters ‘seek hand left of the door, what was your first reaction?”

What else could it be? Meng Qianzi said, “First find the door, then look for the hand.”

“Which door do you think it is?”

“The light door from the projection. There was indeed a stone hand by that door, but I didn’t even touch it before coming down.”

Jiang Lian shook his head: “No, ‘door within door, seek hand left of door’—there are three mentions of ‘door’ in total. Many people would assume there are two doors, with the second and third being the same, but it should refer to three different doors.”

He counted them one by one: “The first door is the one where Old Lady Duan carved the characters; the second door is the projected light door, the one you knocked on, also the door you entered through; the third door is the one you exit from. The entrance and exit are not the same door.”

This explanation was somewhat convoluted, and Meng Qianzi pondered it for quite a while.

She understood now. After the second door, one had to descend nine steps. If that door were the exit, it would mean that before leaving, one would also need to “ascend nine steps.”

But Yanluo likely walked from this stone platform, which meant there truly was a third door.

Where might this third door be? Meng Qianzi frowned, looking around: “It should at least look like a door, right? The first and second doors were recognizable as doors.”

Jiang Lian gestured toward the mountain wall before them: “Shen Gun has already helped us find it. It should be right here.”

Shen Gun was bewildered: “I found it?”

Jiang Lian ignored him and continued: “The reason we don’t perceive this as a ‘door’ is because, compared to Yanluo, we’ve missed an important step.”

An important step?

Meng Qianzi was stunned for a moment, then suddenly realized: “Offer the phoenix feather, burn the dragon bones?”

Jiang Lian nodded: “After offering the phoenix feather and burning the dragon bones, one sees the heavenly ladder. I don’t know what the heavenly ladder looks like, but Yanluo once mentioned a term called ‘entrance,’ and in a sense, an ‘entrance’ is also a door.”

Meng Qianzi’s lips went dry: “This ‘door’ cannot be seen?”

Jiang Lian corrected her: “It’s not that it can’t be seen, but that it can only be seen under specific conditions, and then one must look to the left of the door—fortunately, Shen Gun’s position just now has already roughly marked the location for us.”

Is that so? Shen Gun became even more confused. He felt as though they should all be reading the same book, but his copy was missing pages, lacking something crucial.

At this moment, Meng Qianzi could not be bothered with Shen Gun. Her gaze swept urgently across the mountain wall: “Is there a hand up there? A depiction of a hand, or a carved outline?”

Jiang Lian shook his head: “However, Shen Gun’s wave just now reminded me.”

He waved too just now? In that brief memory loss after falling, he had done so many things?

“‘Seek hand left of door’—you can interpret it as looking for hand-related patterns or engravings in this area, or you can understand it as…”

He raised his left hand high and waved it at the mountain wall: “…a specific area of this mountain wall where one needs to find a hand.”

Meng Qianzi fell silent.

She watched as Jiang Lian’s hand moved up and down the wall, constantly changing positions to probe.

It wasn’t particularly strange—if the Divine Race could create boxes using specific blood as passwords, setting up a door that opened through palm sensing didn’t seem difficult…

After an unknown amount of time, Jiang Lian’s hand reached a spot, and just as he was about to move to the next location, he suddenly stopped.

Deep within the mountain, there seemed to be an extremely faint vibration, which extended in tendrils to the stone platform.

The platform began to destabilize. Amid dull and heavy grinding sounds, the section where the stone platform connected to the mountain wall slowly tilted downward, revealing a… hole.

What happened next was chaotic.

Meng Qianzi remembered Jiang Lian coming over to carry her on his back, while she carried the box on her back. Shen Gun carried Old Lady Duan’s frozen corpse on his back and slung the bag containing the seven beast bones over his shoulder—the dragon bones were too numerous and too large, so Shen Gun made a tough decision and left them behind, not taking them.

Not taking them was the right choice, since they would be useless outside anyway. “Offer the phoenix feather, burn the dragon bones” could only be performed here.

The living, the dead, large boxes and small packages, plus one snow chicken, filed into the pitch-black mountain passage. All three people’s flashlights were beginning to run out of power. The dim light beams, mixed with heavy breathing, scattered in the darkness. Meng Qianzi watched the fine dust dancing in the light beams and thought of the aunties and mountain dwellers still trapped in the mountain’s intestines. She had escaped, but what would happen to them?

Would they need to organize another rescue?

As she pondered this, a rumbling sound suddenly emerged from within the mountain.

This was no longer the “nine twists and turns, rotating three times a day” of before. The rotation tremors had been extremely subtle, barely perceptible to those outside the mountain. But this time, it seemed the entire mountain was shaking. Small stones rolled down from the walls, along with fine dust falling like thin threads.

Could it be an avalanche? Or an earthquake?

This sudden tremor intensified everyone’s panic. Meng Qianzi could feel the increasingly hurried footsteps before and behind her. Later, the path beneath their feet became unstable, and they felt as if they had entered a tumbling drum, bumping east and west. Meng Qianzi grew increasingly concerned: was the exit path really this treacherous? Was it also like this when Yanluo left…

Just then, Shen Gun bellowed: “I know! It’s because we’re taking the box out! The mountain’s intestines are beginning to contract!”

Meng Qianzi’s mind flashed with a blinding realization.

The box was the key. These intestinal passages had originally been twisted together. Only when Yanluo brought in the box did the mountain’s innards stretch and extend, coiling through the mountain’s belly into their current form.

But now, they were taking the box out through the exit passage. The mountain’s intestines were beginning to contract, coiling inward again, returning to their original state.

What about the aunties? And those mountain dwellers? Would this change provide them an escape route, or would they be permanently trapped inside these mountain intestines?

Meng Qianzi grew extremely anxious. Just as she was about to say something, another violent twist rocked the mountain passage. Jiang Lian couldn’t maintain his balance and tumbled away. Meng Qianzi fell to the ground, a sharp pain shooting through her leg. The back of her head struck the corner of the box, her vision went black, and she knew nothing more.

When Meng Qianzi regained consciousness, three days had passed.

It was afternoon when she awoke. Warm but not scorching sunlight streamed through the felt tent’s translucent skylight, casting diagonal rays beside her bed. Outside, the faint sound of bustling voices could be heard.

She recognized this place—it was the small “community” by the roadside, the Mountain Ghosts’ final base camp. This room was the felt house she had stayed in before.

Were they no longer in the Nine Twists and Turns? Where was Jiang Lian? Where was Shen Gun? What about the aunties and mountain dwellers?

Meng Qianzi grew alarmed, bolting upright in bed. Ignoring her numb, injured leg, she was about to lift the covers and get out of bed when she stopped.

On a canvas chair by the bedside sat the snow chicken Jiang Qiaoqiao, perched on a fluffy felt cushion, staring at her with its small, beady black eyes.

Meng Qianzi’s mind went blank. She and Jiang Qiaoqiao stared at each other, and she didn’t know how much time had passed when the room suddenly brightened. Looking up, she saw the door curtain rise and fall, and the person who entered…

Meng Qianzi was overjoyed: “Third Mom!”

It was Third Auntie Ni Qiuhui who had entered.

Ni Qiuhui also smiled: “Qianqian, you’re awake.”

She walked to the bedside, first poking Jiang Qiaoqiao’s little head: “Go, go report. Didn’t Jiang Lian say to notify him when Qianzi woke up?”

Then she explained to Meng Qianzi: “Jiang Lian woke up yesterday, one day earlier than you.”

Jiang Qiaoqiao hopped down from the canvas chair, then unhurriedly, swaying from side to side, walked toward the door.