Fortunately, the most intense fire had already passed. The billowing fire clouds were mostly wrapped in thick smoke. Burning black bats began to fall in twos and threes. Without looking closely, they resembled the legendary three-legged crow falling to earth, trailing black smoke when Hou Yi shot down the suns.

Jiang Lian had to admit that Bai Shuixiao’s fire was masterfully set. Of the dozen or so descent ropes the mountain ghosts had sent down, almost none were spared. Only his and Shen Gun’s two ropes, being farther away, hadn’t immediately failed—but the situation was far from optimistic. Several burning points had appeared high up on both ropes, though the flames weren’t large and could hold for a while longer.

Shen Gun?

Jiang Lian suddenly remembered him and quickly looked down.

Thank heavens, Shen Gun was hanging about a hundred meters below, like a giant spider suspended on a thread. He was no longer screaming shrilly—probably exhausted from shouting—but hadn’t fainted. Even while spinning constantly on the rope like a large top, his hands and feet were still desperately flailing.

This man’s luck truly rivaled that of a koi fish: without even mastering the basic operations, he had descended such a difficult cliff; sliding down at such high speed, the rope hadn’t burned; more importantly, he had stopped in time—his depth was at least three hundred meters, and the mountain ghosts’ static ropes were 320 meters in length, meaning if he had slid just a bit further, he would have encountered a “knot.” Passing a knot at high speed carried obvious dangers—if not death, at least severe skin abrasion.

Jiang Lian called out to him: “Grab the rope and straighten yourself! Look around for a place to land—the rope is about to break!”

Shen Gun must have heard: the rope suddenly shook violently, showing what panic the words “about to break” had caused him.

Meng Qianzi looked in that direction: “At his position, there should be a mountain platform nearby. My Great-Grandmother Duan rested there.”

Jiang Lian made an affirmative sound: “Our rope is also precarious, bearing the weight of two people, with fire damage above. Going up is too dangerous, and Meng Jinsong won’t be able to lower new ropes any time soon… we can only hurry down.”

Meng Qianzi looked up at him, as if suddenly realizing something. Her grip loosened, her palm seemingly about to push away, but quickly stopped.

Jiang Lian noticed this and discreetly moved back a bit.

He certainly knew this posture was intimate, but the situation had been urgent—her rope had broken with nothing to leverage against, so he could only hold her. Now he couldn’t let go either: if he released his hand, she would fall.

Pretending not to notice, he looked down, indicating the various attachments on her harness and belt: “You can use the GO lock and quickdraws to secure yourself to the rope. It’s safer that way, and I can free my hands.”

Meng Qianzi also pretended this posture was normal, that she hadn’t noticed, and didn’t care. She looked down, quickly connecting the attachments.

Jiang Lian saw that the area from behind her earlobes to her neck had turned slightly red.

This was becoming dangerous—the atmosphere had suddenly turned awkward in the silence.

Jiang Lian cleared his throat: “Alright, no need to pretend. I know what you’re thinking.”

Meng Qianzi’s scalp tingled slightly, her fingers curling into the quickdraw’s lock gap. She looked up at him: “Huh?”

What was she thinking? She wasn’t thinking about anything—her mind was blank.

Jiang Lian said: “You want to thank me, but having been accustomed to oppressing me these past two days, you can’t adapt to this change and can’t bring yourself to do it… It’s fine, I get it. No thanks needed.”

Meng Qianzi burst out laughing.

She should thank him, but hadn’t found the right moment. Now that he had brought it up, rushing to thank him would seem insincere…

Meng Qianzi looked up at the rope above. The thick smoke hadn’t dispersed, and the few burning points on the rope no longer sprouted flames.

She changed the subject: “You came down quite fast.”

Jiang Lian smiled.

He said, “Not to brag, but if I hadn’t been urgently called away to wash a few dishes earlier, I could have come even faster.”

With that, he leaned forward: “Let’s go. We need to hurry.”

One rope supporting two people, with fire damage—it couldn’t withstand much strain. This meant that despite the urgency demanding a quick descent, they had to be patient and descend slowly. With speed limitations, they couldn’t afford any delays—each second meant additional danger.

As he leaned forward, the rock wall behind him was exposed.

Meng Qianzi suddenly saw that where he had just been leaning, the surface was stained with traces of blood. A sharp protruding edge still held droplets of blood.

Her heart trembled, and she instinctively looked at Jiang Lian’s back, but he had just turned sideways, and she couldn’t see it. She could only see a couple of shredded fabric strips hanging behind him, frayed from abrasion and stained with blood.

Their bodies began to slide downward as the descender took effect.

Jiang Lian tilted his head back, looking focused as one hand gripped the rope while the other slowly controlled the descender’s brake valve. The movement appeared to be just slight releases and tightening, but it required excellent hand feel and skill, without sufficient experience, it would be difficult to master.

Meng Qianzi’s lips moved slightly. She noticed the hand controlling the descender looked strangely colored. Looking closely, she realized the skin on his palm had been abraded away, with blood slowly seeping out. Several fine lines of blood had even slid down to his wrist.

She wanted to say something but felt constricted, as if words were superfluous and thanks were too light.

She looked up again at the blood-stained cliff wall they had just left.

It was farther away now, and fainter, like a dark cinnabar imprint blending into the stone.

As Jiang Lian had predicted, Shen Gun managed to stop sliding just before the first rope knot.

Once bitten, twice shy—he finally remembered how to use the descender: after stopping, it needed to be self-locked to maintain the suspended position.

What happened after he stopped once again verified Jiang Lian’s words: unable to control his balance, the rope began to spin on its own. The rope twisted clockwise to its limit, then reversed. Shen Gun spun until dizzy, his glasses shifting position—originally resting across his nose bridge, they now cut diagonally across his face, with one temple firmly hooked around his ear and the other jabbing into his neck.

In this situation, Shen Gun naturally knew he should remain calm, not struggle or move, but wait patiently for the rope to stabilize. It was like someone learning to swim for the first time: the more they thrash about, the faster they sink, but by holding their breath and relaxing their limbs, they might slowly float.

There was a reason for his constant kicking and grabbing, ceaselessly moving like someone treading water.

Ah Hui’s photo had fallen.

Ah Hui, whose real name was Sheng Zehu, belonged to the Black Hmong of Yunnan. The arm-thick poison insect that Shen Gun had boasted about accidentally sitting on and killing when sharing his experiences with the two Shens was related to Sheng Zehu.

She certainly didn’t know Shen Gun. She died in a small mountain village in Henan during the 1940s, reportedly from an extremely bizarre disease that had stripped a piece of skin from her back. The shape of the wound resembled a fluttering, blood-colored butterfly.

Strictly speaking, she had “committed suicide.” She paid two tubes of silver coins as compensation to hire villagers to carry her coffin deep into the mountains and lower it into a cave high on a cliff. Then she lay peacefully in the coffin, asking the villagers to nail it shut.

The villagers, coveting the silver money, carried out her wishes despite knowing such actions would harm their spiritual karma. They say that as the villagers left after completing the task, Sheng Zehu continuously scratched the coffin walls with her fingernails from inside. The sharp sound made people’s hair stand on end.

Later, it was discovered that she had used her body to feed insects and her life to create a blood curse, seeking revenge on those who had ruined her life.

Shen Gun had acquired two photos of her through a chance encounter and was immediately captivated. After learning her story, he sighed with emotion, constantly referring to her as “my Ah Hui.” His friends teased that she was his “girlfriend.” Far from being angry, he felt his heart leap like an old deer, unable to contain his self-satisfaction. Over time, it seemed to become a reality.

Of those two photos, one stayed at home while the other accompanied him, because his “research” frequently took him to remote places where he might not see people for ten days or half a month, inevitably feeling lonely. As the saying goes, “The night is long; who will share it with me tonight?” His friends all had families and various entanglements, unwilling to listen to his ramblings. Those who didn’t know him treated his words as madness, looking at him as an oddity. After such filtering, only this photo remained to listen to his detailed explanations and grand theories.

He often held the photo, explaining his reasoning and discoveries, then asking: “Ah Hui, what do you think?”

In the photo, Sheng Zehu appeared to be pouting slightly, smiling gently. Shen Gun never dreamed that there would truly be someone in this world who shared his interests. Having this photo that could quietly listen to him speak, without interrupting, ridiculing, showing disgust, or leaving in a huff, was already quite satisfying.

…

But during that violent plunge just now, with his clothes and pockets askew, somehow the photo had slipped out, fluttering and falling toward the depths of the cliff bottom. In his alarm, Shen Gun reached out to catch it, but suspended on a rope, how could he get any leverage? The more he grabbed, the more chaotic things became; the more he hurried, the more he spun. The photo truly resembled a flying white butterfly, swirling like mist, dancing elegantly, growing more distant and faint, gradually swallowed by the deeper darkness.

Shen Gun was utterly dejected, feeling that as the photo flew away, their connection diminished. They had never met in person. When Sheng Zehu died, most of her belongings had been consigned to flames, leaving only these two photos rescued from the fire, their corners already burned. Now, half of what remained was lost!

He felt both lost and distressed, initially wanting to let his body spin with the rope as self-punishment while properly commemorating her. Suddenly hearing Jiang Lian’s voice, he was sharply awakened: the rope was about to break?

Damn, as Living Buddha Tsangyang Gyatso once said, “In the affairs of the world, apart from life and death, which one isn’t trivial?” If his life was about to end, what good was academic research? Romantic sentiments would have to wait.

Following Jiang Lian’s instructions, he quickly reached for the rope and grabbed his descender, looking around to find a protruding platform about seven or eight meters below at an angle. Its size rivaled a large round wedding banquet table—more than sufficient to land on.

Shen Gun was overjoyed. Taking a deep breath, he braced his foot against the rock wall and, while releasing the rope, moved toward that direction. Just as he was about two or three meters away, the pulling force from above suddenly disappeared.

Even a fool would understand what had happened. Quickly, Shen Gun let out a great shout, using all his strength to jump down to the stone platform. Upon landing, his feet buckled with pain, causing him to roll on the ground. Despite the pain, his heart was nearly weeping with joy: clearly, he had landed safely.

In midair, burning bats still occasionally fell; above, Meng Qianzi and Jiang Lian saw Shen Gun’s static rope break and fall. To be safe, they had already grasped the cliff wall, primarily using hands and feet to climb down while the rope descent became secondary, though this approach significantly slowed their progress.

Shen Gun turned on his headlamp to see his surroundings. Inadvertently lowering his head, he suddenly discovered that he was sitting on some writing.

Someone had carved characters into the stone surface with a knife. The carving technique showed expertise, or rather, the knife used must have been excellent: the characters were like silver hooks etched in iron, each with style and form. There wasn’t just one line—he happened to be sitting in the middle.

Shen Gun quickly rolled over and knelt, both reading and moving aside. Who knew how many years these characters had been here? They were covered with damp soil and fallen leaves. He continuously wiped with his hand and finally saw clearly. It wasn’t a poem or verse, but seemed to be something casually carved in a moment of drunken pleasure.

“I drink half the jar, leaving three sips for you;

No fate to meet in person, yet destined to share wine.”

At the end was a slightly smaller line of characters, presumably the author’s signature.

Duan Wenxi

Duan Wenxi…

This name sounded strangely familiar. Then he remembered: when Meng Jinsong explained this heavenly pit to him, he had mentioned a Duan Wenxi, or Grandmother Duan, who had descended this cliff more than eighty years ago.

Shen Gun felt inexplicably excited: more than eighty years ago!

It seemed there was still wine, but where was it?

He instinctively looked around and quickly discovered that near the cliff wall on the platform, there was a not-very-obvious recess with a tiny gourd spout protruding from it. He crawled over on all fours and dug it out.

Surprisingly, it was an exquisite wine gourd, not large, just the right size to fit in one’s palm. Around the gourd’s waist was tied a red silk cord, though after so many years in the damp environment, the cord had long since rotted.

Holding it up and shaking it, there was indeed the sound of liquid sloshing inside, though not much.

Shen Gun was amazed: although gourds can serve as wine containers, being natural plant materials, they don’t seal well. Using them to store wine, it would likely evaporate and leak away within a few years. How had this wine been preserved for over eighty years?

He pulled his headlamp down a bit to examine the wine gourd more clearly.

Now he understood—this gourd was crafted very ingeniously. The inner vessel was made of fired pottery, merely encased in a gourd shell on the outside. The spout was sealed with a cork which, though previously opened, had been resealed with wax by Duan Wenxi. The temperature here was much damper and cooler than outside, with little light exposure. Even in scorching summer heat, the wax layer wouldn’t melt, allowing it to be preserved until now.

Shen Gun swallowed, his heart beginning to pound.

Duan Wenxi was inviting him to drink!

He must be the second person to reach this stone platform since Duan Wenxi, more than eighty years ago. Duan Wenxi certainly couldn’t have guessed who would come to drink the remaining half jar of wine, which is why she wrote, “No fate to meet in person, yet destined to share wine.”

What an elegant person, as elegant as himself!

Shen Gun felt somewhat elated. “Leaving three sips for you”—this “you” had finally found its definitive recipient: Mr. Shen Gun.

To think that more than eighty years ago, three sips of fine wine had been left on this lonely cliff, waiting patiently for him to drink. He hadn’t even been born then.

Fate! What extraordinary fate! What more could be said? Drink!

Shen Gun reached out to twist the cork, but as he pulled, his movements became slower and slower, until finally… they froze.

He smelled an indescribable stench, completely different from the burnt smell of the bats.

He felt a cold wind pass by, making his scalp tighten—not a real wind, but a subtle environmental change that made one’s body involuntarily grow cold with dread.

He saw a long, thick shadow extending across the ground. It was…

Shen Gun’s body began to tremble, his teeth chattering loudly. Perhaps from shaking so violently, he had the illusion that his joints would rattle apart.

He raised his head very slowly.

It was a snake—a giant snake.

About twenty meters long, with a body as thick as a barrel, its color was nearly deathly white. Dense scales on its body reflected a cold light. It was coiled on the cliff wall at a slightly higher position, its head slowly lowering toward him. Occasionally, it would flick out its tongue, blood-red and about half a meter long. Each time it flicked in and out, it made a hissing sound, as if the surrounding air was being violently torn apart.

Shen Gun’s mind went blank as he stared: the light from his headlamp passed through the snake’s body, casting a slowly moving dark shadow on the higher cliff wall. The shadow was much larger than the real body, like black mist spreading, threatening to engulf heaven and earth.

A snake this large must have shed its skin countless times. Snakes shouldn’t typically live on cliffs—perhaps it had been disturbed by the countless burning bats that had fallen?

Shen Gun stared at the giant snake’s fist-sized round eyes, forgetting to swallow the saliva in his throat. Almost absurdly, a ridiculous thought suddenly popped into his mind: could this giant snake be the guardian of this wine gourd? Had he brought this calamity upon himself by touching the gourd?

He actually tremblingly held up the wine gourd, forcing an awkward smile worse than crying onto his face, a few words escaping his throat: “Maybe… you want to drink it?”

The giant snake moved its body, increasing the frequency of its tongue flicking. The hissing grew denser as its head and neck gradually twisted into an S-shape.

This was the end. Shen Gun’s brain exploded with realization.

He had once met a snake expert in the northwestern desert. In certain old professions, snakes were viewed as spiritual creatures, respectfully called “Master Liu Seven.” The man’s nickname was Liu Seven, though he caught and sold snakes. He had told Shen Gun that before a snake attacks, one characteristic is frequent tongue flicking, and another is the head and body gradually forming an S-shape, vividly termed the “S-shaped attack.”

Everything had signs: first, the SRT technique had caused him to fall off the cliff, and now a giant snake formed an S-shaped attack. S was the end of his life, his inescapable fate. No wonder Ah Hui’s photo had left him, no wonder Duan Wenxi had left him three sips of death-portending wine. All of this was arranged by destiny!

…

About ten meters diagonally above his head, Jiang Lian and Meng Qianzi witnessed everything.

They tried to control their breathing, hoping not to attract the giant snake’s attention. Meng Qianzi had already very gently unfastened the connectors to the static rope, then quietly asked Jiang Lian, “Can you push me over there?”

Jiang Lian calculated the distance and position, whispering back: “No problem.”