Shen Gun began by recounting the events of yesterday morning.

The route map that didn’t match the surrounding mountain terrain at all, Jiang Lian’s sudden deep slumber, the dangers encountered by Jing Rusi’s group, Meng Qianzi and Xian Qionghua’s successive rescue attempts, the two bizarre intestinal openings, as well as the two unfortunate snow pheasants that had gone ahead to scout.

He could only tell this much: no one knew what was inside the cave, after all, up until now, no one who had entered had come back out.

Jiang Lian listened very carefully, but frankly speaking, this information was useless for the current situation and offered no reference value for rescue efforts.

He asked, “So do you think something has happened to Qianzi and the others?”

Shen Gun spread his hands: “Hard to say, maybe something serious happened…”

Seeing Jiang Lian’s face darken, he quickly changed his tone: “Or maybe they just got lost in there, or perhaps took a wrong turn and ended up on another peak—sure, the snow pheasants met with misfortune, but you can’t compare birds to humans, especially considering how well-equipped Miss Meng and her team were.”

That made sense. Jiang Lian felt somewhat relieved, although this “relief” was something he had forced upon himself.

He asked further: “So what’s the plan now? Third Grandaunt has arrived. What does she intend to do?”

Shen Gun nodded toward a tent not far away: “She called that Huang Song fellow down, probably wanting to question him more thoroughly… As for the plan, they’ll have to go in for a rescue. Twenty-five people are in there, including several heavyweight figures—they can’t just be abandoned.”

Jiang Lian also looked toward that tent: “In situations like this, there’s no way to know what happened without going to the site. I need to go too.”

As he spoke, as if suddenly coming to his senses, he flung open his sleeping bag, hurriedly put on his clothes and shoes, then grabbed his backpack, hastily sorting through the things he would need inside the cave.

Shen Gun said to him: “No rush, no one’s competing with you…”

Before he could finish speaking, Jiang Lian had already grabbed his toothbrush and toothpaste tube and gone outside. When Shen Gun followed him out, Jiang Lian was standing at the edge of the valley, mouth full of toothpaste foam, brushing while surveying the mountain formations around him—Today’s weather was fairly decent, generally overcast but without fog, occasionally even a fleeting ray of sunlight would streak across the sky.

Jiang Lian mumbled to him: “That map, open it up and let me see—does it not match?”

Shen Gun had kept those two pages of paper rolled up in his pocket the whole time. Upon hearing this, he took them out and unfolded them. Jiang Lian looked at the map, then at the mountains, all while hurriedly rinsing his mouth: “It doesn’t match.”

Suddenly, Shen Gun remembered something: “But Miss Meng said that looking at it upside down gives a better sense than right-side up.”

His service was exceptionally attentive, turning the map upside down to show him.

Anyone who draws knows that when you have a series of undulating mountains, if you turn the image upside down, it’s still “mountains”—just that the original peaks become valleys, and valleys become peaks.

Jiang Lian stared at it for a while, then looked at the mountains. If Qianzi felt it “made sense,” she wouldn’t have said it casually—he studied it for quite some time, twice even stepping back several paces, brows furrowed in thought.

Shen Gun’s heart was beating a bit fast. He sensed they were onto something.

Sure enough, Jiang Lian spoke up.

“Do you know which parts match? There are indeed some similar areas.”

Really? Shen Gun regretted treating Meng Qianzi’s words as passing wind, not investigating further.

Jiang Lian pointed to the map: “The lower part of the mountains, more precisely, the base parts—the areas near the mountain roots all look very similar.”

Shen Gun wasn’t stupid. After a moment’s pause, he exclaimed, “Ah!”

He understood now. Previously, everyone had discussed how mountains could collapse or avalanche, so ancient mountain formations wouldn’t likely match current ones, but they had overlooked one point: unless an entire mountain disintegrated, the root structure would be very difficult to change.

It was like a tree with a dense, lush crown. Winds, lightning strikes, or broken branches could change the shape of the canopy at any moment. The tree ten years ago and ten years later might look completely different, but the contours and patterns at the root would remain unchanged.

Shen Gun stammered with excitement: “So, this is actually… this place?”

They had truly come full circle: at first, everyone guessed it was here, then, after seeing the map didn’t match, they all thought it was elsewhere…

It turned out to be here after all, which made perfect sense: this was where the sealing site appeared and where Yan Luo and his team’s mountain mirage appeared on their journey, this was where the strange intestinal openings were, and this was where Little Lian Lian had fallen into a prolonged sleep…

With these thoughts, he asked Jiang Lian: “You slept so long, were you just… asleep? Or did you have some awareness?”

Jiang Lian answered casually: “Had some nightmares, nothing special.”

Shen Gun was curious: “What nightmares?”

Jiang Lian wasn’t in the mood to tell him about his dreams: “Just the usual… running around kind of thing.”

He stared at the tent where Ni Qiuhui was, hoping that in the next second, people would emerge from within, fully equipped and ready to go.

Shen Gun was quite dissatisfied: “Little Lian Lian, could you be a bit more serious? Whether good dreams or nightmares, they all reflect a person’s spiritual world. Every dream I have is crucial…”

Jiang Lian felt a bit anxious: “Your dreams are certainly crucial, but I’m not you.”

Shen Gun found this curious: “How do you know your dreams aren’t crucial? Let me ask you, are you sure your fainting spell was just because you applied the spirit eye in the middle of the night? What if it was due to something else? What if… it was related to this geographical location? Would you have the same dreams if you applied a spirit eye in the middle of the night in Xiangxi or Guangxi?”

Jiang Lian’s heart skipped a beat.

That was hard to say.

He recalled the boundless fog cluster in his dream, and his uncontrollable urge to crash into it when facing it.

He hesitated for a moment, then described his dream.

Shen Gun, as expected, became interested: “You went there twice? After the bell sound disappeared the first time, did you return there?”

Jiang Lian nodded.

“Why did you go back?”

It was hard to explain. Having slept so long, his head was a bit foggy. Jiang Lian pressed his temples: “I don’t know, it just happened naturally, as if my heart felt I should go there, and wanted to go there.”

“How did you find your way? From what you’re saying, getting there wasn’t smooth—climbing mountains, falling, sometimes having to pass through deep passages.”

Jiang Lian couldn’t answer: “I just… naturally found my way there.”

“Then, you wanted to enter but couldn’t?”

“Right,” Jiang Lian remembered the scene from his dream and couldn’t help but shudder, “Suddenly, I became very manic, didn’t even recognize myself anymore, completely unable to control that desire inside. It was a bit like…”

He wasn’t sure if the comparison was appropriate: “A bit like a drug addict seeing drugs—that shameless, limitless, desperate kind of frenzy.”

Shen Gun made an “oh” sound, his expression somewhat profound.

Jiang Lian noticed the change in his expression: “Do you have any idea? Just say it.”

Shen Gun chose to speak indirectly: “Little Lian Lian, scientifically speaking, what you experienced is called lost consciousness; superstitiously, it’s called an out-of-body experience. Let me ask you, what does your soul… yearn for?”

Jiang Lian didn’t grasp his point: “…Freedom?”

Shen Gun was exasperated: “Have you been reading too many prose poems? Your soul! Left your body! Your body! Lying there! What does your soul long to return to? Huh?”

At this point, it was an obvious question.

Jiang Lian understood: “The soul wants to return to the body?”

“Yes, exactly!” Shen Gun nodded, “Just like birds returning to their nests, swords to their sheaths, turtles finding… You know what…”

Jiang Lian frowned: Why did that sound like an insult?

“It’s instinct. When soul and body separate, of course, it wants to return to its vessel. But you were driven by an enormous desire toward another place, meaning that the fog cluster had a stronger pull on you than your original body. I ask you, what could that be?”

It was truly inconceivable—what could be more important than returning to one’s original body? Jiang Lian instinctively said, “I don’t think so. One might willingly abandon an old vessel, but it can’t be about transcending to immortality…”

He suddenly stopped.

Shen Gun knew he was starting to make connections and became even more excited than he, clenching his fist as if to cheer him on: “Keep going… keep thinking…”

A soul seeking a place to return to—the body is only a temporary home, but there’s something more stable, more enduring than the body…

Jiang Lian murmured: “Water Crystal?”

“That’s it!” Shen Gun excitedly slapped his thigh, but since his hands were bound, this moment of forgetting himself almost made him stumble, “Doesn’t it fit? I didn’t think of it at first, but when you said it was like an addict craving drugs, I realized it’s an extremely powerful physiological need—you can control bodily physiological needs with rationality, but what about spiritual physiological needs?”

“Also,” he continued enthusiastically, “you mentioned feeling various emotional signals from the fog stream—contemptuous, mocking, disdainful—doesn’t that sound like many people? Doesn’t it sound like ‘them’?”

Jiang Lian shuddered: “You mean ‘them’ from the Drifting Cave?”

Exactly. Shen Gun might as well speak plainly: “They reside in the Water Crystal, and you were just a passing lonely soul. You wanted to enter—how could you possibly get in? Of course, they would look at you like a presumptuous clown. You’ve applied spirit eyes at night before, though perhaps not as late as this time, but it shouldn’t have been so difficult to return, right? All these signs make me think…”

He lowered his voice: “Our previous guess about the Drifting Cave drifting back to the Kunlun Mountains was correct, and it’s likely nearby.”

Before Jiang Lian could respond, his attention was drawn to a sudden commotion.

It was Ni Qiuhui leading people out of the tent, preparing to set out.

The moment Meng Qianzi prostrated herself in worship, she understood the meaning of “exiting through the intestinal opening, door on the left, seeking hands.”

Because she saw that the ends of the two rope bridges beneath her feet were each looped around two… hands beneath the light gate.

That’s not quite right: originally, there were two large stone lumps beneath the light gate, appearing like irregular protrusions attached to the rock face. The rope bridge ends seemed to penetrate and be welded inside them, making them extremely sturdy, no matter how much they shook.

But now, those two stone lumps had opened, looking exactly like clenched fists extending their five fingers. Before Meng Qianzi could react, she, along with the rope bridge, had already fallen.

Her body dropped rapidly, with wind howling in her ears. Meng Qianzi instinctively clutched the edge of the rope, with two words flashing through her mind.

It’s over.

She had a rough idea in her head: the two ends of this rope bridge must be held by those strange fist-shaped stone lumps. Her “knocking” had triggered something, causing the fists to open and the entire rope bridge to plummet into the bottomless abyss.

Nine winding intestines—this journey might break her guts with the fall.

They say that before death, important people and events from one’s life flash by like a revolving lantern. It seemed her lantern show was about to begin. She hoped Jiang Lian would appear early rather than being the finale—this was a race against time; she didn’t want to be flattened before he could make his appearance.

Just as these thoughts raced through her mind, her body suddenly jerked to a halt. It felt as if someone had caught the rope bridge. Her body oscillated back and forth like a diabolo, ears buzzing. Due to the rapid fall, she could no longer hear clearly. When she looked up, she vaguely saw a cave opening not far ahead, slowly moving. On either side of the opening were two more stone lump hands, and the end of the rope bridge on this side was cradled in those two hands.

Meng Qianzi’s chest was in turmoil, her head spinning, feeling nauseous enough to vomit, but she hadn’t eaten much these two days, so there was nothing to throw up.

Why was the cave opening rotating? “Nine winding intestines, rotating three times a day”—had the time for “intestinal rotation” come?

Just as this thought arose, something terrible happened again: she saw those two stone lump hands simultaneously pull apart.

The next second, that maddening free fall began again. Thankfully, once bitten, twice shy—Meng Qianzi gritted her teeth, closed her eyes tightly, and held on for dear life. Sure enough, after what felt like five or six seconds, another jolt came.

Meng Qianzi swung violently on the rope. This time, she turned to look: she no longer heard the fluttering of the snow pheasant. Had it fallen to its death, or had it managed to jump onto the rock face during the fall?

What she saw made her both laugh and cry: the snow pheasant was still there. Somehow, it had managed to cross its claws and hang upside down from the rope—being light, it swung constantly, looking like a goose hanging in a braised meat shop.

At least she had a bird keeping her company, which was better than being alone.

Meng Qianzi shouted: “Hold on tight…”

Before she could finish, the rapid descent began again.

During this plunge, Meng Qianzi counted silently, nine times in total. By the latter fall, she was completely disoriented, vomiting acid water in mid-air. When she occasionally opened her eyes, she couldn’t tell what was real and what was an illusion. On the vast cave walls, intestinal openings slowly rotated, like giant eyes watching her fall again and again.

After the final jolt, there was no further movement for a long time. Meng Qianzi peered over the side of the rope bridge, breathing unevenly, mouth half-open in near-vomiting, as wretched as a dying dog.

Only then did she discover that about half a meter below the rope bridge seemed to be… solid ground.

Damn it, how she longed for the feeling of firm ground beneath her feet! Never in her life did she want to experience such heart-shattering, terrifying falls again. Meng Qianzi flipped off the rope bridge, rolled once, then lay on her back, gasping for breath.

Her chest was ice-cold where her inner layer of clothing had long been soaked through and chilled.

After this series of falls, Meng Qianzi was temporarily deaf, her eyes unable to see clearly. Everything appeared blurry with multiple overlapping shadows, more than just two or three layers. She stared with empty eyes, feeling a whiteness pervading her vision, pierced by waves of cold, while in mid-air, a huge, oddly-shaped head seemed to be watching her.

What the hell is that?

Meng Qianzi’s heart tensed. Using all her strength, she stumbled to her feet and reached for the flamethrower at her waist—she had used it several times already, and it was quite light now, but it was still her most handy weapon.

As she staggered forward, the world spun around her. In her blurred vision, she couldn’t tell if she was walking toward the creature or if it was charging at her. Meng Qianzi thought it looked like a snake, yet it was covered with the long, thick fur typically found on a yak.

She shouted: “What the hell are you?”

She raised her hand and fired.

As expected, the flamethrower was running low on fuel. This final burst produced only sparse flames and exhaust gas, but they still clung to the creature, burning weakly, though not for long. Droplets of oil sputtered and fell.

Meng Qianzi couldn’t stand steady and sat down hard on the ground. Sitting there, she fell asleep.

She didn’t sleep for long—it was too cold here. It felt like being in an ice cellar, with waves of chilling air seeping in through every pore of her body. The snow pheasant was at her side, nudging her ice-cold palm with its fluffy head.

Meng Qianzi bit her lip hard. The iron-rust taste of blood spread in her mouth. She shuddered and finally woke up, her vision clearing.

Her first reaction was to look up at what she had attacked with the flamethrower when her consciousness was blurred.

It was actually… an ice dragon.

Yes, an ice dragon, coiled along the cave wall like the rope bridge, yet not far from the ground. The dragon was enormous, entirely forged of ice. It wasn’t finely carved—in fact, it was rather primitive and crude—yet its aura flowed vividly, as if alive.

She also realized what she had mistaken for a yak’s long, thick hanging fur—they were icicles hanging from the dragon’s body. It was so cold here that water froze, layer upon layer, dense and thick, giving the ice dragon the appearance of wearing a heavy felt coat.

This was probably an ancient work of art, and she had carelessly attacked it with her flamethrower.

Meng Qianzi looked at the spot she had just fired upon. The flamethrower was indeed powerful—even with just the last bit of fuel, burning thousand-year-old ice, it had still burned a hollow in that spot.

The white part exposed inside…

That couldn’t be… bone, could it?

Meng Qianzi’s heart trembled. With strength from who knows where, she sprang up from the ground and strode toward that spot. Just as she reached it, before she could examine it closely, there came a cracking sound of ice breaking beneath her feet. Before she could react, she had already fallen through.

Is this… a hole in the ground? A trap?

Meng Qianzi was shocked. As she fell, she reached out desperately and managed to grab a cold bronze chain. But the chain was icy and covered with a layer of frost. In her haste, she couldn’t get a good grip and continued to fall. Just as she panicked, her body jerked to a stop as she hugged a pendulum-like ice lump, halting her descent.

Breathing heavily, she collected herself and looked up.

Now she understood. What she had thought was level ground wasn’t ground at all. From her current perspective, it was just like one floor of a tall building, with the bottomless pit still below—but on that level, there was a well-sized opening with a bronze chain hanging from its edge. Now, she was dangling alone at the end of this nearly twenty-meter bronze chain, swinging in the empty darkness.

She didn’t know how to face everything that had happened today: how many sins had she committed in her previous life to encounter this series of dangers, and how much good karma had she accumulated to always cling to life at the last moment?

She was grateful for this ice lump, even though she could barely hold onto it anymore, and her hands were almost numb from the cold. Without it, she would have plummeted straight down.

Meng Qianzi had no strength left for now. She allowed herself half a minute’s rest before climbing back up.

Exhausted, she took deep breaths, her warm breath hitting the upper edge of the ice lump, gradually melting the white frost that obscured her vision.

Suddenly, Meng Qianzi froze.

Where the white frost had melted, the transparent ice surface gradually revealed itself, showing an elderly woman’s face frozen inside.