On Ba Yunye’s side, she kicked the creature that had knocked Qi Zi down and hauled him to his feet in time. Before either had steadied themselves, two creatures charged in and sent them both off-balance. Diao Zhuo was there in a few strides, using his body to slam the creatures aside — the two of them grabbed onto each other and managed not to fall. When the three of them looked up, the creatures had already formed a complete encirclement, ringing the three of them in tightly.
“Damn it — we’re trapped!” Ba Yunye swallowed hard. Diao Zhuo turned sideways and placed himself in front of her.
Ba Yunye recalled something Diao Zhuo had told her before — If we truly find ourselves in a hopeless situation, I can die for you, but I hope that after I die, you can live on.
“I’m furious!” Ba Yunye’s anger flared. “I’m going all out against them!”
“Get down!!” Someone from outside the circle shouted.
Diao Zhuo pressed Ba Yunye’s and Qi Zi’s heads down. All three dropped flat to the ground at once, only to feel the surrounding air vibrating with men’s battle cries from outside the encirclement — followed by a tree trunk as thick as a grown man’s waist being driven into the circle. It swept around in a wide arc, scattering ten or more creatures in every direction. They reacted quickly, scrambled upright, and ran — then saw A’Shui and Old Sun working together, both arms wrapped around that enormous trunk, using it like a battering ram to smash through one creature encirclement after another.
But this kind of sustained close combat still offered no real solution. The creatures were multiplying fast, and in the outermost ring they had already formed a vast encirclement. The moment that ring contracted, no one would escape.
Diao Zhuo spared a glance at the tattooed-snake man — he was still completely unharmed.
“Cover me!” he shouted to A’Shui and charged alone in the direction of the tattooed-snake man. He was convinced — that was the turning point.
The ground trembled again. Everyone saw the creatures’ encirclement begin to close in rapidly — as if all at once they had gone berserk, hurtling toward the group at a full sprint. A’Shui and Old Sun, straining under the weight of the enormous log, swept the creatures charging at Diao Zhuo aside, but their strength was nearly spent and they could no longer hold back the massive wave. On his left and right, close to a hundred creatures were racing toward them in a frenzied charge.
Diao Zhuo was drawing ever closer to the tattooed-snake man groaning on the ground — ten meters, five meters — but A’Shui and Old Sun had exhausted themselves, unable to stop the flood of creatures any longer. Behind Diao Zhuo, a fan-shaped encirclement of creatures flung themselves forward with outstretched arms.
In that moment, Ba Yunye thought: If I am to die, let me die alongside Diao Zhuo!
“Diao Zhuo!!” she screamed, and at the fastest pace of her life, with no regard for anything else, she sprinted toward him. Her entrenching tool became a sword, cutting down creatures all the way.
Diao Zhuo lunged and seized the tattooed-snake man’s convulsing hand, squeezing with a force that almost snapped the man’s bones. The tattooed-snake man went on moaning and retching, vomit dribbling from the corner of his mouth. A creature landed on Diao Zhuo, and he immediately felt the weight of a mountain pressing down — the air inside his chest cavity leaking away drop by drop. He held on to the tattooed-snake man’s hand with an iron grip and forced out a few words: “Why… you… you…”
“It hurts… it hurts!” The tattooed-snake man howled, face deathly white. “Help me… help me…”
A’Shui and Old Sun were struck by creatures rushing in with tremendous force and pinned under the tree trunk. Ba Yunye, running up, was tripped by them both. All three tumbled into a tangled heap, and could only raise their legs to kick the creatures piling on top of them off one by one — the violent exertion making everyone’s heart feel as if it might explode.
In the chaos, A’Shui’s hat, sunglasses, and face mask were all scraped off.
Ba Yunye kicked another creature flying, and in an accidental glance she froze — rooted to the spot as if under a petrification spell — staring at A’Shui. Another creature threw itself at her. She rolled into a carp-flip and sprang upright, knocked it down with two punches, then pointed at A’Shui: “What the— River Horse!!”
“Behind you!” River Horse pointed at Ba Yunye and bellowed.
Ba Yunye arched her body and swept her leg back in a wide arc — sure enough, the creature behind her was sent flying. A creature on her left pounced and grabbed both her hands, dragging her toward the mass of creatures. She was about to struggle free when a creature grabbed her other hand as well. Two creatures together hauled her away.
River Horse lunged and caught Ba Yunye by both ankles, pulling against the creatures in a tug-of-war.
“River Horse…” Ba Yunye recalled how, back in the Badain Jaran Desert, she had seized the hand of River Horse as the sand was about to swallow him — and he had said: I didn’t think you were the type to lose sight of friends for someone you like. She was puzzled — hadn’t River Horse betrayed Long Ge and her? Why had he disguised himself and slipped in with them? Was he friend or foe — and why was he saving her?
River Horse strained to hold on, refusing to let her be dragged away. The effort was visibly everything he had — face flushing red, eyes nearly bursting from the effort.
Ba Yunye’s hands and feet were being pulled in three directions at once, searing with pain. She couldn’t help thinking — am I about to be torn apart? She shouted: “Let go! I’ll handle this myself!!”
River Horse released her. Carried by the momentum, Ba Yunye and the two creatures pitched forward together. She was faster — she leaped to her feet, slipping free of their grasp. Her mind was entirely on Diao Zhuo, so she didn’t stop for River Horse. She looked up and saw at least five or six creatures piling on top of Diao Zhuo, layer upon layer.
“No… no, please!!” Ba Yunye cried out in horror and stumbled, nearly going down on all fours as she charged toward Diao Zhuo. She hadn’t gone far when someone behind her grabbed her. She ignored it and kept charging. Something wrapped itself around both her legs and she crashed to the ground, but still crawled desperately toward Diao Zhuo with every bit of strength she had.
A creature fell on top of her. “Diao Zhuo! Diao Zhuo!!” she called out, thrashing and screaming — the Diao Zhuo who had resigned for her sake, the Diao Zhuo who had thrown himself into danger for her sake, the Diao Zhuo she loved more than anything!! The creature pressing down suffocated her. She felt her hands and feet go cold. Fear, grief, and self-reproach surged through her simultaneously, pain so acute she wanted to die in that very instant — was this what death felt like?
“Diao Zhuo…” Her tears came, hot and wet, streaming sideways into her hair. She had not cried in a long time, and she was not in the habit of using tears to express herself — but in this moment the agony was unbearable. Utter despair.
If she had never come looking for Long Ge? If she had never gone searching for the truth behind those three photographs? If she could have forgotten Ba Xiye? Would any of this have happened? Was it all her fault — her self-indulgence, her selfishness, her blind overconfidence?
Look — she had caused the deaths of Da Qin, Pang Hou, Xiang’an, and Tan Lin. Next would be Diao Zhuo, Ge Mingliang, River Horse — all of them.
They were not like her. They were not orphans, not children no one wanted. They had parents and family. Every one of their deaths would bring immeasurable grief to someone’s household.
Especially Diao Zhuo.
If she had never made the first move with him, or if he had never crossed paths with her — none of what followed would have happened.
His father’s death — even if he never learned the truth, he could have lived a steady and peaceful life, just as she had once dreamed: driving a car, carrying his wife and children, cruising along a road with nothing to trouble him.
But now, he was on the verge of becoming a dried-out husk.
And though she herself would soon become a husk as well — if she had not chased the truth, he wouldn’t be here like this.
Wasn’t it good just to live well?
Yes.
But everyone is dead now.
It is I who deserved to die. Ba Yunye lay pinned under several creatures. She could hear River Horse fighting somewhere nearby and calling out to her — yet she felt it was all over.
What feuds, what grievances — all dust now.
Diao Zhuo was dead. She would not steal another moment of life.
She should have died before Diao Zhuo, if anything. Every second she survived beyond him was already a debt to him.
The light before Ba Yunye’s eyes dimmed gradually. The last trace of breath in her body, like her tears exhausting themselves, faded away.
The tattooed-snake man was still crying out in pain, and the creatures piled on top of Diao Zhuo had grown into a small mountain.
“You…” The last scrap of air in Diao Zhuo’s chest seemed to be evacuated. The muscles at his fingertips felt as though they were being pressed flat against his bones. His entire body had gone rigid, the stench of decay filling his lungs and invading his cells one by one — yet he remained convinced: this was not the end. He summoned the very last of his strength, pulled the tattooed-snake man’s hand close, and bit down hard.
“Ahhh— ahhhh—” The tattooed-snake man went rigid like a shrimp yanked out of water and convulsed violently, swiping and pounding at Diao Zhuo’s head in a frenzy, trying to make him release his teeth.
Diao Zhuo tasted heavy iron in his mouth — but at the same time, he finally understood the secret hidden in this place.
The tattooed-snake man could see him, but could not see the creatures. Or rather — in the tattooed-snake man’s field of vision, there were no creatures at all.
Because he could not see the creatures, the creatures could not find him.
Why was that?
Why was this man the only one who could not see the creatures? Was it because mushroom poisoning had numbed this man’s vision? But this man could clearly see him — judging by the blows still raining down on the back of his skull, every one aimed with precision.
The tattooed-snake man could see him because he was real. Were the creatures real?
Diao Zhuo made a bold hypothesis — what if there were no creatures at all? What if everything that defied logic simply… did not exist? The carnivorous rabbits, Long Ge standing behind the tree trunks, the creatures made of rotting flesh…
Then what was real? And if those things did not exist — why did they seem to exist?
Diao Zhuo, you pride yourself on your intelligence, and now you’ve trapped yourself inside your own illusion? You’re no different from anyone else. A relentless current of self-doubt rose up in him. Despondency and helplessness closed in on either side, and all at once he was seized by a vast, bleak desolation. It felt terrible — as though something were about to break him completely, drag him down into hell.
Exhausted. Truly exhausted — a tiredness that came from somewhere deep inside. Was it time to give up? To accept fate? To close his eyes, stop struggling, and let all of this swallow him whole?
Kong Gan had stubbornly refused to bring them into these mountains — and rightly so. Sometimes timidity and caution saved lives. In a few days, when he heard the news that the rescue team had been wiped out, would he let out a mocking laugh? With his life hanging by a thread, Diao Zhuo’s mind suddenly recalled a few things Kong Gan had once said —
“When we were young, the elders warned us — if you can’t help yourself, if something sinister grabs you by the nose and drags you, you will die for certain…”
“A group of young men went in and only one came out, wearing tattered Japanese soldier’s clothing. But he himself hadn’t suffered any serious injury — just that he’d gone mad, terrified of people. Anyone who got close to him, he’d scream and yell, saying things like ‘the stench… don’t eat me, don’t eat me…’ “
“He never got better after that. Just became a madman, his mouth constantly calling out the names of the few people who’d gone into the mountain with him…”
“Later he died on the burial hill. Before he died, his head was buried in the ground — as if he were trying to drill his way down.”
“On the burial hill, mound after mound — not a single headstone.”
Just like Kong Gan’s “madman,” they too had fallen into this same desperate state. It was genuinely face-scraping, Diao Zhuo thought sardonically.
But wait.
“He himself hadn’t suffered any serious injury.” — This line suddenly crashed into Diao Zhuo’s mind. He forced his eyes open. Everything before him was blurred, and the sound resonating from inside his chest no longer sounded like his own voice — but he managed to ask the tattooed-snake man, who had grown tired of hitting him: “Look at me… my body… any wounds…”
“Look at what wounds?! Get off me!” The tattooed-snake man bellowed, then doubled over retching with the violent twisting pain in his gut, dry-heaving until even his bile came up.
The crushing weight on Diao Zhuo’s back was still there. His four limbs had stiffened almost completely — he could barely move. But in his mind, clarity was beginning to dawn. The question now was: how to break this deadlock…
When exactly had all these strange things started happening? Yes — it must have been around that moment…
He bit down on his own tongue. The jolt of pain restored some of his consciousness — and his vision with it. The criminals’ packs lay scattered all around. The one closest to him looked as though it might be the tattooed-snake man’s. The criminals had confiscated a great deal of what the rescue team had brought, and among those things was perhaps exactly what he needed. He bit harder on the tip of his tongue, tasted blood — but the weight pressing on him seemed to ease somewhat. He stretched out his arm and clawed at the ground, grinding his body forward with great effort. After a long struggle, he finally reached the strap of the pack.
He held his breath and dragged the pack toward him. Diao Zhuo, his joints stiff as rusted iron, tried to open the zipper — every movement requiring an enormous expenditure of force. But he could not fall now. So long as a single thread of hope remained, he would grip it with everything he had.
With a sharp tug, the pack was ripped open. Its contents spilled across the ground. A glimmer of clarity broke through Diao Zhuo’s haze. He saw what he needed —
A compact, portable oxygen canister — carried along precisely for combating altitude sickness at high elevation.
He grabbed it, pried off the cap, pressed it over his nose and mouth, and inhaled. Pure, cool oxygen flooded his nasal passages. He breathed deeply. The weight on his back was still there, but he forced himself upright and kept rummaging through the pack. At last he found several activated-charcoal filter masks. He lay there breathing oxygen for a while. The weight pressing down on him gradually dissolved. He looked around clearly — and finally understood everything.