Meng Qianzi’s eyes had light-sticks in them, but they only allowed her to see rough outlines, not enough to make out more details—her flashlight was in her backpack, but with her life hanging in the balance, she couldn’t spare a hand to reach for it.
This wasn’t just some ice lump; it was a person, completely covered in ice, year after year, frost completely covering it. If she hadn’t fallen and embraced it, exhaling warm breath on it, looking down from above, she would have truly thought it was merely an ice pendulum.
Meng Qianzi’s mind was buzzing. She wanted to climb up, but suspended in mid-air, she couldn’t gain leverage. Her heart wouldn’t stop panicking. After several attempts to climb, her feet kept slipping. Once, she nearly fell, and these repeated attempts made the chain sway. She and the ice corpse, embraced together, swung gently back and forth in this dark, silent vastness—a scene that made it difficult to breathe just thinking about it.
It was too cold. Her fingers had become stiff and numb from the cold. Meng Qianzi tried to retract her hands into her sleeves, relying on the strength of her legs and arms to hold tight to the ice corpse—bare skin could not touch the ice directly, otherwise it would freeze and stick, impossible to pull away.
Her breathing grew even more rapid, the large clouds of white breath repeatedly melting the frost on the ice surface, allowing her to see more.
The woman was hanging here head-up and feet-down, facing forward, with a chain wrapped around her neck. But she hadn’t been hanged—those who die by hanging usually have protruding tongues and bulging eyes, but she had neither. Most likely, she had been killed first, then hanged.
She guessed who this woman was.
When Madam Duan disappeared, she was over seventy years old, certainly elderly already, which matched her age.
Yan Luo had personally admitted to killing Madam Duan.
Elder Sister Gao Jinghong had once had a dream about Madam Duan, and with teary eyes told her that Elder Sister Duan “died restlessly, neither in heaven nor on earth, suffering every day”…
So “neither in heaven nor on earth” meant this.
She tried not to look at the face beneath the ice.
Why did Yan Luo kill Madam Duan?
This journey into the mountain intestine required the Mountain Ghost’s assistance in many places. For him to kill her so ruthlessly could only mean one thing—
He had obtained what he wanted, and Madam Duan no longer had any value to him.
Meng Qianzi looked around in bewilderment.
Was this where Yan Luo obtained the Qilin Crystal? Wasn’t it said that those grape-like clusters in the Drifting Cave were the Qilin Crystal?
Also, theoretically, having reached this point, that box would have no value to Yan Luo anymore. Where had that box been discarded?
Ni Qiuhui was only one year younger than Tang Yuru and had just celebrated her sixty-fifth birthday a few days ago.
She was frail and small in stature, surrounded by mountain dwellers. She didn’t look like someone who could give orders as a Mountain Matriarch, but rather like a small old lady doing odd jobs and assisting others.
Fearing he might have found the wrong person, Jiang Lian repeatedly confirmed with those nearby before approaching her. Getting straight to the point, he introduced himself and expressed his desire to join the rescue mission.
Ni Qiuhui wore a chain-linked reading glasses without temples around her neck. She held the glasses up to her eyes, squinting at Jiang Lian for a long while, then said, “Oh, so you’re Jiang Lian.”
Jiang Lian had the intuition that although he hadn’t met all seven Great-aunts yet, the seven Great-aunts probably knew everything about him, down to his zodiac sign and hobbies.
After looking him over, she turned to the person behind him: “And this is… Mr. Shen, right?”
Shen Gun hurriedly nodded and also volunteered: “I want to go too. Though I can’t fight and I’m not fast, but…”
Ni Qiuhui interrupted him: “I understand. Tasks can’t be accomplished by fists alone; we need one or two people with good brains who can provide suggestions. If you want to go, then go. We have no leads anyway; once we get there, we’ll just have to feel our way through.”
With that, she hunched over and slowly walked away to give instructions to others.
Watching her retreating figure, Shen Gun felt a wave of disappointment: honestly, he had held certain expectations for Ni Qiuhui, given that she was a figure comparable to Duan Wenxi.
Yet she turned out to be so ordinary.
He nudged Jiang Lian: “Is this Third Great-aunt a Mountain Matriarch? She doesn’t look like one.”
If she is, then she is—what’s this about looking like one or not? Jiang Lian replied: “Perhaps true talent doesn’t show on the surface.”
…
Before departure, aside from their Mountain Ghost baskets, the mountain dwellers also went to the supply station to collect additional equipment.
The so-called supply station was just a slightly larger tent filled with equipment freshly carried in by yaks, mostly guns and flamethrowers, along with some portable cutting and drilling tools.
Jiang Lian went there too, only to discover that the person responsible for registering and distributing supplies was none other than Tao Tian.
He was a bit surprised: “You’re here too?”
Tao Tian lowered her eyelids, seeming a bit uncomfortable: “Yes, I’m not qualified for the rescue mission, so I’m doing some logistics work.”
Jiang Lian found Tao Tian somewhat difficult to understand: normally, people should become more familiar with each other over time, especially after going through dangerous experiences together, so why was she now so distant and formal?
But this thought only flashed through his mind briefly before he looked at the various supplies in the tent: “Hey, is there anything good to eat?”
Tao Tian was taken aback: “There are energy bars. Are you short on dry rations?”
“No, I’m just craving something different,” Jiang Lian smiled. “Always energy bars, couldn’t you prepare something else? The mountains are so dreary, and the food is so boring.”
Tao Tian seemed a bit flustered, the roots of her ears turning slightly red: “There isn’t anything… I’ll pay attention to that next time.”
Nothing, huh…
Jiang Lian remembered Shen Gun’s big bag of colorful snacks and went back to ask him for some.
Shen Gun became very nervous, wrapping a pile of snacks tightly in his sleeping bag: “Didn’t I already give you a bag of shrimp chips? Little Lian Lian, why are you so greedy?”
Jiang Lian said, “I’m not asking for myself. Qianzi has been in there for twenty-four hours without eating anything else. She’s your boss, and she arranged for you to stay in a five-star hotel and even gave you those fashionable glasses…”
The implication was clear: think about what you should do.
Shen Gun reluctantly handed over another bag of rice crisps.
Jiang Lian opened his backpack, where the bag of shrimp chips was also stored. Due to the high-altitude effects, the bag had swollen up, making slight plastic crackling sounds.
He stuffed the rice crisps in as well.
Both bags were for her.
Nothing bad would happen, right?
She should be… fine, right?
Like Jing Rusi, Ni Qiuhui selected twenty people, plus Jiang Lian and Shen Gun, making a total of twenty-three.
The group moved as lightly and quickly as possible, heading up the mountain while there was still daylight.
Ni Qiuhui was preoccupied with worries. She had questioned Huang Song for a long time but couldn’t extract anything valuable. For this rescue mission, she didn’t even have a general plan in mind and could only take it step by step—a very uncomfortable feeling.
With the leader silent, the mountain dwellers naturally became tight-lipped as well. Only Shen Gun kept chattering, constantly discussing his issues with Jiang Lian.
“What do you think was going through my mind? How did I end up becoming a traitor?”
Jiang Lian corrected him: “Can you use the proper subject? I’ve told you many times that wasn’t you, at most it was your ancestor.”
Shen Gun didn’t listen: “Also, that Kuang ancestor’s oral account—I feel like I wrote it!”
Jiang Lian sighed, correcting him again: “It couldn’t have been written by you. In ancient times, they didn’t even have characters, let alone classical Chinese. That oral account of Ancestor Kuang was transcribed by Kuang family descendants using their familiar classical expressions. At most, you knew the content of that oral account and subconsciously continued in that semi-classical writing style for a few sentences.”
Shen Gun persisted: “Yes, but how would I know the content of the oral account? Could I be Ancestor Kuang? Are Miss Kuang and I… related? Was I abandoned at the entrance of Little Village by the Kuang family?”
People can be so confused about their situations while being perfectly analytical about others.
Jiang Lian gave him a sidelong glance: “Wake up. The Kuang family is nearly extinct. When you were abandoned, my godfather was running a supermarket in Southeast Asia with Kuang Yunyang.”
At this point, he paused: “But you did remind me of something.”
Shen Gun tensed: “What did I remind you of?”
“This Ancestor Kuang knew too much. Think about it, he was just a small craftsman, and one who was forced to change sides. He wasn’t even in the outer ring of power, let alone the core.”
“When a bird is caught, the bow is put away—someone like him would be lucky just to stay alive after being used. How could the Chi You faction still entrust him with important tasks and let him know so many secrets?”
“Even the Mountain and Water Ghosts were kept in the dark, yet a small craftsman somehow knew about the Phoenix Eye, the Kunlun Ladder, and the Qilin Crystal. Isn’t that too improbable? Such big secrets, and he ‘asked around carefully’ and found out? Wouldn’t that mean the Chi You faction’s secrecy measures were inadequate?”
Damn, Shen Gun swallowed several times: indeed, such simple logic, how had he not thought of it?
He stammered: “Then, what do you mean?”
Jiang Lian pondered: “There must be another person involved, someone of no small stature. Ancestor Kuang’s oral account most likely came from that person.”
Shen Gun felt completely lost in the fog: “Who could this person be? Me? Wasn’t I already exposed and gutted by the Yellow Emperor’s faction?”
Jiang Lian found it amusing: “Don’t be so quick to identify yourself as a traitor. So far, you’ve only seen some scenes. Like you said, a person wielding a knife could be committing a crime, defending themselves, or acting as a good Samaritan…”
Before he could finish, the vanguard gradually stopped, and word was passed back that they would rest for five minutes.
Five minutes wasn’t even worth sitting down for Jiang Lian. He gazed down, able to see the lake at the foot of the mountain.
It was getting dark, but the reflections of the mountains could still be vaguely seen on the lake’s surface. From this vantage point, the view was expansive, and being halfway up the mountain, it allowed one’s heart to feel more open.
As he was absorbed in the view, from the corner of his eye, he suddenly noticed Ni Qiuhui: she was standing at the edge of the cliff, holding her chain glasses again, also looking at the lake below.
This Third Great-aunt was quite interesting. Could she be severely nearsighted? As a Mountain Matriarch who needed to frequently enter the mountains, having poor eyesight seemed…
Jiang Lian smiled to himself and shifted his gaze elsewhere.
However, after a while, when he looked back, he found that Ni Qiuhui was still watching. Not only that, the people around her had also gradually stood up, pointing at the lake and discussing. Jiang Lian overheard someone mumbling: “It is different, really different…”
Different? Jiang Lian looked toward the lake again, and as he kept looking, his heart began to race.
Damn, the reflections on the lake’s surface were different from the mountains standing beside it. In other words, the reflections on the lake, which seemed to be reflections of the surrounding mountains, did look somewhat similar at first glance, but upon careful observation, they weren’t.
He hurriedly instructed Shen Gun: “Where’s that route map? Give it to me.”
Shen Gun didn’t understand but pulled it out and handed it over.
Jiang Lian quickly unfolded it and repeatedly compared it with the reflections in the water, and this time, they matched almost perfectly.
He understood now. The ancients had anticipated that the mountain’s shape would change, or perhaps the ancients themselves had drastically altered the mountain’s form—but they had placed the true mountain shape in the lake water, using some technique that made this true form substantial enough to override the mountain’s reflection and appear clearly.
This way, when later generations tried to find the mountain according to the map, they wouldn’t need to find one with a matching shape: their eyes would have to see through appearances to look at the reflection. As long as the reflection matched, the mountain was the right one, even if the reflection was narrow and elongated while the mountain was short and round—it didn’t matter, they just needed to find the corresponding location within that short, round mountain.
Jiang Lian held the map, quickly matching it with the mountain shapes in the lake, sometimes stepping back, sometimes moving sideways. Soon, everyone’s attention was focused on him.
Jiang Lian’s palms were sweating: it was this mountain, no doubt about it. Although they were on this mountain, simply by comparing the mountains on the left and right, they would know that Yan Luo’s final destination was this very mountain.
He walked quickly toward Ni Qiuhui, not bothering to explain where the map came from, and first asked Huang Song, who was standing nearby: “Those cave openings you mentioned, the two openings, how far are they from here?”
Huang Song couldn’t answer: “We’d still need to walk… about forty-five minutes?”
“No,” Jiang Lian simply pointed to the mountain on the map, “We’re here, and the mountain is this tall. Where do you think those two openings are roughly located?”
Huang Song hesitated, then moved his finger across the paper: “Here, around here.”
The location he pointed to corresponded exactly with those four characters:
Kunlun Ladder.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. Those two intestinal openings were the entrance to the Ladder.
…
As night was falling, the group reached the intestinal openings.
Outside the openings, two mountain dwellers remained on guard. They were hunched up against the cold, their bodies curled with hands tucked in, resembling old farmers from the eighties and nineties warming themselves by gathering their sleeves.
The two rushed forward to meet them. Without waiting for Ni Qiuhui to ask, they reported the situation: “Third Great-aunt, a few hours ago, something strange happened—the mountain seemed to tremble. You couldn’t feel it standing up, but lying flat on the ground, you could sense it, as if something inside the mountain had changed.”
They also showed her a broken rope: “Seventh Great-aunt said she would wrap paper notes on the rope to send us messages. At first, we couldn’t pull it out no matter how hard we tried, but later we managed to pull it out, and it was broken. We don’t know what bit through it.”
Ni Qiuhui took the broken rope, examined it for a while, then bent down to look at the intestinal opening.
This was her first time seeing the opening, and she couldn’t tell if anything was wrong. Besides, changes “inside” the mountain couldn’t be seen from the opening.
She pondered for a moment: “We still need to send someone… to explore the cave first.”
As soon as she spoke, silence fell around them. No one said a word: if specifically chosen, they would roll up their sleeves and enter without hesitation; but if not chosen… stories about the eight-person team and the blood-stained chicken had spread like wildfire, and everyone felt a degree of apprehension, reluctant to volunteer.
Jiang Lian looked around and said, “I’ll go then.”
He wasn’t forcing himself; he genuinely wanted to enter.
After all, this was the Mountain Ghosts’ own business, yet outsiders were taking the lead. Ni Qiuhui felt somewhat embarrassed: “I’ll go with you. This is mountain territory, and having a Mountain Ghost will be more appropriate.”
Shen Gun quickly spoke up: “I… I want to go in too.”
Ni Qiuhui had heard quite a bit about Shen Gun recently and knew that certain ordinary objects, in his eyes, could potentially be clues or breakthroughs, so she didn’t object: “Alright, the three of us will go first.”