As night fell, the cliff top was brightly lit, with nearly half of the tents and camp lights relocated there.

Meng Jinsong sat in a canvas chair, tightly gripping a satellite phone. He stared at the cliff edge, anxiously licking his lips again and again, reflecting on whether his series of arrangements after the incident had been appropriate.

…

At the time, the fire below the cliff burned too fiercely. The eight mountain dwellers who descended on ropes hadn’t gone far before all came back up in disarray. He steadied his mind and immediately had people focus on the three ropes that hadn’t broken yet. Testing their weight, they could feel that they were still heavy, indicating people were still hanging on the ropes, but they didn’t dare pull too hard for fear of breaking them.

The weight on Meng Qianzi’s rope disappeared first, but almost simultaneously, the weight on Jiang Lian’s rope increased. Meng Jinsong deduced that Meng Qianzi had transferred to Jiang Lian’s rope.

After a while, the other two ropes also broke. Looking on the bright side, as long as they hadn’t perished immediately when the fire started, Meng Qianzi had gained one or two minutes of braking time, potentially turning danger into safety. Looking at the worst case, since there was an ambush below, who knew if there weren’t more traps? Perhaps they had already…

The situation was unclear, and further speculation was useless. Meng Jinsong hardened his heart, set aside these thoughts for the moment, and called the eight people over for questioning one by one.

Combining what the eight had seen, and after discussion with Liu Guanguo and others, he suspected that at the height where the fire started, there might be a mountain intestine. So while ensuring enough people remained on the cliff top, he instructed Liu Guanguo to take about twenty people down to check each cave to determine which one connected to the intestine.

Then, as Meng Qianzi had anticipated, Meng Jinsong hesitated repeatedly before contacting external help: Xian Qionghua was probably still deep in the mountains with no signal, but Qiu Biying answered quickly.

Since he wasn’t certain if Meng Qianzi could escape on her own, to be safe, Meng Jinsong first explained the situation here so that Qiu Biying would be prepared and ready to come if needed, but she didn’t need to depart immediately—if Meng Qianzi came back up in an hour or two, wouldn’t the Fifth Aunt have made the trip for nothing?

But this Fifth Aunt, who resided in Wuhan, known as the “furnace,” had a temperament as fierce as raging fire. Before hearing the full story, she roared: “Daring to set fire to burn our little Qian’er? I’ll twist off her head!”

Meng Jinsong had the illusion that when he hung up, he could already hear the roaring engine of Qiu Biying’s powerful motorcycle through the receiver.

…

There was still no movement at the cliff edge, and the search below had made no breakthroughs yet. Meng Jinsong couldn’t eat, couldn’t even swallow a sip of water, feeling his throat extremely tight and breathing difficult. All he could do was check the satellite phone screen from time to time, in case Qiu Biying tried to reach him—though he knew that in this location, both receiving and making calls were difficult.

Behind him came the sound of someone crunching on biscuits—without turning, he knew it was Xin Ci. Other mountain dwellers wouldn’t be so ill-mannered in front of him.

Meng Jinsong didn’t turn around: “At least you can eat.”

Xin Ci stopped about two meters behind Meng Jinsong, which was already as close as he dared to approach: “Not eating or drinking won’t solve any problems. Old Meng, you need to eat to have energy to work.”

Meng Jinsong gave a cold laugh. The words made sense, but since they came from Xin Ci, he didn’t bother to respond.

Xin Ci didn’t mind and continued crunching his biscuits. Meng Jinsong found the noise annoying and endured it repeatedly. Just as he was about to tell him to go eat elsewhere, the sound suddenly stopped.

Meng Jinsong found it strange and looked back at him.

He saw Xin Ci with his mouth half-open, staring fixedly at the cliff edge. His Adam’s apple bobbed several times before he shakily called out: “Old… Old Meng, did I see wrong? Just now, I think I saw a… head… peek… peek out…”

Really?

Meng Jinsong’s heart tightened. He believed Xin Ci wouldn’t joke about this, but if it were Meng Qianzi coming up, she wouldn’t appear so eerily, just “peeking out.” He tightened the safety hook on his waist, grabbed the baton beside him, and moved in the direction Xin Ci pointed.

Xin Ci himself didn’t dare approach the cliff. Seeing others go near also made his hair stand on end, and he kept telling Meng Jinsong: “Old Meng, you’re too close to the edge, step back a bit, back a bit…”

Just as everyone was on edge, suddenly, two or three meters to the side of Meng Jinsong, a black shadow sprang out, only the size of a jackal, moving with extraordinary agility.

Xin Ci screamed, not even having time to see clearly what it was before running away, thinking to himself that it was better for his friend to die than himself—whatever that thing was, it could go find Old Meng.

Unexpectedly, the creature moved incredibly fast and headed straight for him. In less than two seconds, it had climbed onto his back.

Xin Ci felt fleshy, warm paws pressing on his shoulder and back, and something furry brushing against his neck. Fearing it was some alien creature, he instantly went berserk, jumping and leaping while continuously shrieking.

Meanwhile, Meng Jinsong had seen clearly what it was and felt both angry and amused. Thinking that watching Xin Ci make a fool of himself was enjoyable, he observed from the sidelines without intervening.

Fortunately, more mountain dwellers arrived after hearing the commotion. Many couldn’t hold back their laughter, and some shouted: “Xin… Makeup Artist, it’s fine, it’s just a monkey.”

A monkey? Weren’t monkeys scary, too? Besides, this monkey was climbing all over him. If it clawed his eyeball, wouldn’t he go blind?

Xin Ci was going crazy. He tried to grab the monkey to throw it off, but as soon as he touched the warm fur, he felt his hair stand on end all over his body and let out another strange cry.

Finally, someone said something sensible: “The monkey probably wants to eat your biscuits! Just throw them away, don’t hold onto them!”

Damn, the biscuits!

Xin Ci quickly raised his hand and threw the half-tube of biscuits far away. This tactic worked—as soon as the biscuits left his hand, his shoulders and neck felt lighter. The monkey had already leaped off to chase after them.

The onlookers burst into laughter as if they had just watched an entertaining show. Xin Ci was furious with embarrassment but didn’t dare chase after the monkey, so he could only glare at it angrily.

It turned out to be a small monkey, a small white monkey. Saying it was the size of a jackal was giving it too much credit—it wasn’t even half a meter tall, with a thin tail sticking up behind it, twisting around.

The monkey had previously been attracted by the smell of the biscuits, temporarily forgetting everything else in its eagerness to grab them. Now that it had gotten what it wanted, just as it picked up the half-tube of biscuits, it suddenly saw so many people gathering around. As if waking from a dream, its whole body gave a jolt and froze in fear.

After a while, it hugged the biscuits, turned around, and while trembling all over, tried hard to arch its body, displaying its back to everyone.

A sharp-eyed mountain dweller exclaimed: “A character! A character! There’s a ‘person’ character on its back!”

This was quite a curiosity. Seven or eight people immediately gathered around, surrounding the monkey, looking at it from all angles—sometimes shining flashlights for a closer look, sometimes rubbing the monkey’s fur with their hands to check if the character was newly written or an old mark.

The monkey trembled even more violently, almost curling into a ball, but persisted in neither leaving nor hiding, only forcefully arching its back outward, then outward even more.

After a while, the crowd spontaneously cleared a path for Meng Jinsong to come and see.

Meng Jinsong saw the character from a distance and already had a smile on his face. He crouched down for a closer look, then said: “Miss Meng has reached the bottom, all is safe, the other two people are also there with her. So far, there have been no casualties on this trip—it’s the blessing of our ancestral grandmother. Everyone, cheer up and deal with the matters at hand.”

The crowd was silent for one or two seconds, then burst into cheers. As they dispersed, everyone was beaming with joy and delight.

Actually, they didn’t know what this “person” character meant, but since Meng Jinsong said so, it must be absolutely correct.

The people dispersed, but the monkey still stood motionless. After a while, seeming to feel that the human voices had receded, it timidly peeked out to look—strangely enough, it panicked when people were around, but when no one was there, it became anxious too—spotting Xin Ci still slumped to one side, it hurriedly hopped over to him, squatting with its back facing him, arching to show him the character on it.

Xin Ci said irritably, “Why show me? I can’t understand it anyway.”

Finally, Meng Jinsong came over. He crouched in front of the monkey, raised his hand to hold one of its front paws as if shaking hands, and shook it three times. Then he turned back to instruct a mountain dweller nearby: “Get it some nuts, bread, or something.”

After this handshake, the monkey immediately seemed relieved and stopped displaying its back, happily turning to deal with the half-tube of biscuits, taking one piece and chewing it. Initially, it had snatched them enthusiastically, but now it probably found them ordinary, quickly losing interest and tossing them aside. After a while, it headed toward the mountain dweller who had brought food to attract it, the “person” character on its back stretching and shrinking with its movements, sometimes elongated horizontally, sometimes flattened vertically.

Xin Ci finally caught on and curiously asked Meng Jinsong: “Old Meng, how did you get so much information from just one ‘person’ character?”

Meng Jinsong didn’t want to elaborate: “It’s a code between Qianzi and me. Even if I explained, you wouldn’t understand.”

Tch!

Xin Ci felt resentful, and remembering how embarrassed he had been earlier while Meng Jinsong just coldly watched from the side without showing any concern, he felt even more displeased.

He said coldly, “You and Qianzi? With secret codes? Keep your distance, Old Meng.”

Meng Jinsong’s face suddenly darkened: “What do you mean? What could I possibly think about Qianzi? Saying such suggestive things—who are you trying to trouble?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Xin Ci knew he had spoken inappropriately. Seeing Meng Jinsong’s expression change, he quickly put on a grin and went to pat his shoulder in an attempt to make amends: “I’m just concerned about you, Old Meng. You’ve already been married twice, and you spend most of your time with Qianzi. Your wife is bound to have thoughts. If she divorces you, it will be difficult for you to marry a third time…”

What nonsensical rubbish. Meng Jinsong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He shrugged his shoulder to shake off Xin Ci’s hand. Just as he was about to say something, there was a sudden commotion in the distance.

Looking up, he saw Qiu Dong coming over, panting, his speech a bit uneven: “Assistant Meng, the mountain intestine… we found it below… There is a mountain intestine.”

Meng Jinsong’s heart tightened, and he rushed forward a couple of steps: “What about Bai Shuixiao? Has she escaped?”

Qiu Dong’s expression was strange: “No, she’s… she’s still inside. Brother Liu doesn’t know what to do… Assistant Meng, you should go see for yourself.”

After resting and replenishing their water and food supplies, Meng Qianzi’s group set out again. All three were preoccupied with their thoughts, making the atmosphere rather cold.

Jiang Lian was troubled by his dream, feeling mentally exhausted, as if he had not been dreaming but had actually been running until his strength was depleted. That feeling of being filled with both fear and sorrow extended from the dream into reality, enveloping his entire body, momentarily sapping his spirit, and silencing his voice.

Meng Qianzi had heard Jiang Lian’s sleep-talking and felt that perhaps her talk of “Fifth Mother and Seventh Mother” had triggered a series of associations that brought back some unpleasant memories for him. But such matters were personal privacy—inappropriate to ask about.

Among the three, Shen Gun’s concerns were the most straightforward: he was very worried about the monkey, fearing that in the chaos, the monkey might not have reached the cliff top but had been swallowed by that giant snake.

So he was the first to break the silence, expressing his concerns to Meng Qianzi. She chided him: “Both the snake and the monkey have my charm marks. Would family members attack each other? Asking this kind of question…”

Her tone was full of disdain.

Shen Gun felt ashamed and silently fell behind: such a simple principle, yet he hadn’t thought of it. As the Three-Petaled Lotus, this was inexcusable.

However, this exchange reminded Jiang Lian, who quickened his pace to catch up with Meng Qianzi: “Miss Meng, what exactly does that ‘person’ character you wrote mean?”

Meng Qianzi answered: “Can’t tell you.”

Jiang Lian made an acknowledging sound and stopped asking.

But Meng Qianzi wanted to tell him—she was just habitually playing hard to get, as if something easily obtained would seem less precious. Only after some persistent inquiry would its value be established. Seeing that he gave up asking so easily, she felt uncomfortable holding it in and couldn’t resist any longer, so she found a way to ask him: “What do you think it means?”

Jiang Lian said: “I was thinking, do you have a secret code dictionary where one character can represent very complex meanings… but then I thought that would be too cumbersome, requiring too much memorization…”

Meng Qianzi said, “Of course not. It’s like a magic trick—once revealed, it’s not mysterious at all…”

Jiang Lian reminded her: “Didn’t you say you couldn’t tell me?”

Meng Qianzi abruptly stopped talking, and after a long while, replied: “Well, then keep wondering.”

She spoke irritably and strode forward. But she heard footsteps behind her as Jiang Lian caught up again: “I thought about it, and I suppose you can tell me after all. It’s just that you don’t answer the first time I ask—having a mouth means making requests, I’ve remembered that. It seems asking once isn’t enough.”

Meng Qianzi almost laughed from annoyance but still maintained a stern face: “Many things require multiple attempts.”

Jiang Lian acknowledged: “I understand. You’re saying ‘a good woman fears a man’s persistence’—keep asking multiple times, and there will eventually be results. But I think a good man doesn’t pester a woman; one should be perceptive. If someone is unwilling, then let it be—so, Miss Meng, what exactly does that ‘person’ character you wrote mean?”

Meng Qianzi felt both irritated and amused, but since he had learned his lesson, there was no need to play hard to get anymore.

She glanced back at Shen Gun and lowered her voice: “That character was for Jinsong to see. Mountain ghosts have a rule—they don’t support idle people; everyone must enter a trade. Jinsong’s ancestors were in the secondhand clothing business—collecting used clothes from wealthy households, dismantling, washing, and mending them, then setting up stalls to sell them.”

This was indeed fresh information. Jiang Lian listened quietly.

“Generally, when selling such used clothes, bargaining is allowed. There’s an asking price and a bottom price. The asking price is usually twice the bottom price plus a round ten. For example, an asking price of seventy with a bottom price of thirty—if you offer fifty, they check the bottom price, see there’s still profit to be made, pretend to complain about losing money, and then sell it to you.”

Jiang Lian wanted to smile—isn’t this still the principle of doing business nowadays? It never goes out of fashion.

“But with so many clothes, no one could remember the bottom price for each piece. They were recorded in a notebook, but checking was troublesome. So they used code marks, writing the bottom price on the hem. When they couldn’t remember, they would turn it up to check.”

Jiang Lian had a thought: “The ‘person’ character is a code representing a number?”

Meng Qianzi nodded: “For setting codes, each family had its own rules. Jinsong’s ancestors based it on ‘protruding strokes.’ For example, the character ‘tian’ (field) has no protruding strokes, representing zero; ‘shen’ has strokes protruding at top and bottom, representing two; ‘wang’ (king) has six protruding strokes, representing six…”

Jiang Lian suddenly understood: “‘Ren’ (person) has… three protruding strokes, representing three?”

Meng Qianzi made an affirmative sound: “Jinsong was familiar with this since childhood, using it as numbers in games, and he taught me too.”

“Now with communication lost between top and bottom, if you wrote ‘We’re all safe’ on the monkey, he couldn’t be sure it was written by you, or if someone else wrote it to confuse the situation. Writing a ‘person’ character lets him know the writer must be me. This character also represents three, meaning three of us came down safely, so he understood immediately.”

Indeed, it was like a magic trick—impossible to figure out before the reveal, yet so simple afterward. Jiang Lian thought for a moment and felt there was truly wisdom in every trade: “The number of protruding strokes in a character representing a number—quite ingenious…”

Before Meng Qianzi could respond, Shen Gun eagerly rushed forward: “What strokes? How many strokes? Wow… really, so many heads…”

Jiang Lian was startled and looked in the direction Shen Gun was facing.

Without realizing it, they had entered the peak forest.

Viewed up close, the contours of those peaks looked even more like human heads—each one as if slanted on a neck, with lowered jaw, watching the three insignificant ant-like intruders with invisible giant eyes.

After walking a bit further, Meng Qianzi jogged toward a stone peak to the right front.

This stone peak was estimated to be over two hundred meters high. Its top was covered with many trees, lush and dense, clustered into shadows. At first glance, it looked like a woman with a thick hair bun—indeed more resembling a beautiful woman’s head than the other bare peaks.

Meng Qianzi stopped a few meters in front of the stone peak, adjusted the direction of her headlamp, and shone it on a spot on the rock wall, pointing it out to the two men: “There, there are characters.”

Jiang Lian looked up and could only make out that there were two characters, but they were complex in form, and he couldn’t recognize what they were.

Meng Qianzi said, “The mountain gall is suspended inside this stone peak. It is said these are the characters for ‘gall’ and ‘qi.’ Some say they were created by Cangjie, others say they are oracle bone script.”

Shen Gun interjected: “It should be Cangjie’s creation. I studied oracle bone script for a while before. The oracle bone script for ‘qi’ resembles the number ‘three,’ like a gust of wind blowing past. It’s not written like this.”

This man had even studied oracle bone script. Meng Qianzi glanced at Shen Gun, and a thought suddenly popped into her mind: Shen Gun as her Three-Petaled Lotus wasn’t so undeserving after all—for hundreds of years, the Three-Petaled Lotus had focused mainly on “martial” qualities. Having scholarly one wasn’t bad.

Jiang Lian looked up at the stone peak: “Suspended inside… is there an opening high up that leads to some secret cave?”

Meng Qianzi shook her head: “No, there’s no cave.”

Jiang Lian didn’t understand.

Meng Qianzi explained: “This is just a huge rock. There’s no cave, no mountain intestine going inside.”

Jiang Lian felt her words were contradictory: “You just said the mountain gall is suspended inside this stone peak.”

Meng Qianzi didn’t directly answer: “Have you ever heard of a bizarre incident that happened during the Han Dynasty?”

She continued on her own: “A group of laborers was cutting into a mountain to extract stone. The rocks were chiseled away piece by piece, when suddenly, a hammer blow broke through, creating a hole.”

“Inside the hole was a person, already dead, just bones remaining, with iron chains welded to the rock still wrapped around the ankles.”

Jiang Lian asked her: “Was someone locked up in a cave that was then sealed with rocks?”

Meng Qianzi shook her head: “No, it was one solid rock, but the rock wasn’t completely solid—there was a hollow inside, similar to how imprecise glassmaking can result in air bubbles in glass.”

Jiang Lian laughed: “A naturally formed rock can have a hollow space inside. But you say there was a person chained inside—that’s too far-fetched. A solid rock with no cracks and no intestines—how did the person get in?”

Meng Qianzi’s answer sent chills through his body: “We put them in there.”