Volume 8 Chapter 7: The Rupture

My scalp exploded and I thought to myself, “I’ve really encountered a ghost. Is this thing really alive?

The fat man had already rushed to us and didn’t stop. He grabbed us and ran, yelling, ”What are you staring at?”

We took the fat man a few steps away, but still didn’t react. When we looked back, we saw an even more bizarre scene. The face of the stone carving had shattered, and the facial features had shifted. It seemed as if something was wrapped inside the stone and was about to come out.

“Damn it!” I yelled, thinking that my premonition had been correct. I immediately ran as fast as I could.

We were in a large area of ruins, with rocks and vines below, making it difficult to accelerate. We had to run along the mountain range of the ruins, wherever it was convenient, and we fell several times, bruising our knees. We ran until we were exhausted, and only then did we look back to find that we had not run far, but the stone sculpture was still in place and had not chased after us.

When we were running, our physical strength had already pulled us out of the distance. Fat Man and Pan Zi had run farther than I had, and they were still running. I quickly called out to them. When they rushed back, they came to pull me. I grabbed them and told them to hide first and then look at the stone sculpture in the distance.

They were surprised to find that the stone sculpture had not chased after them. We panted heavily and looked at it for a while. The stone sculpture in the distance was motionless.

We let out a sigh of relief. Fat boy panted like a wind bell and said with difficulty, “What’s going on? Xiao Wu, it’s not moving. Could it be a trap?”

“We didn’t touch it at all. How could it be a trap? And a trap couldn’t do that.

This is definitely not a mechanism. The whole stone sculpture is carved, and it is sandwiched between two giant trees. If it were to turn its head, it would make a huge noise, and the two trees might even be twisted off. So even if there really was a mechanism, it couldn’t turn, and this is beyond doubt. But no matter how I thought about it, it was obviously turning over, which was really weird.

I was actually prepared for what might happen in the country of the Queen Mother of the West, but this kind of thing still exceeded my imagination.

At this time, Pan Zi took out binoculars from his equipment and looked in the direction of the statue. I hurriedly asked, “What is it? What is it?” But Pan Zi showed a very surprised expression and said, “What the fuck? It’s gone?”

“What?” I immediately grabbed the binoculars and looked over there. Sure enough, the back of the stone statue was in front of us, but the hideous face had disappeared.

I hadn’t even put the binoculars down when the fat guy snatched them away. I was in a state of confusion. Could it be that what we had just seen was an illusion? No way. The three of us were so scared that we almost peed our pants. What was going on? What was the face we had just seen? Could it be a ghost?

“Shit, is someone playing a joke on us?” the fat guy stood up.

We were afraid that he would be reckless, so we immediately sat him down again. The stones here were unstable, and the fat guy stumbled and slipped. We saw, without meaning to, that on the huge rock about ten meters behind us, there was a huge relief of a human face, exactly the same as the one we had just seen, staring expressionlessly ahead, just like the expression on a corpse.

When we were running, we didn’t pay attention to the ruins around us, so we didn’t know if the relief was there originally.

When the fat guy and Pan Zi saw it, they immediately felt that something was wrong and stopped. The fat guy said, “Shit, this can’t be alive.”

“There’s more than one!” Pan Zi said, pointing to the side. We looked and found that there were human face reliefs on the surrounding boulders every three or five, large and small. But most of them were hidden by vines, and it was not clear without a closer look. After a closer look, we discovered that the scale was amazing. Almost everywhere. The place where we were lying was less than ten meters away, and it was a huge human face. The strange thing was that all the reliefs here were human faces, and there were no bird-like patterns.

The fat guy saw so many lifeless stone eyes staring at him, and he panicked. He picked up Pan Zi’s gun, but I immediately held him back and told him not to move. I already sensed that something was wrong. These didn’t seem to be reliefs.

But before I could figure out what these things were, suddenly one of the reliefs cracked open, and then I saw a strange sight. The broken stones all floated up.

I stared in disbelief, wondering if I had finally gone crazy. I began to hallucinate in broad daylight? I heard Pan Zi yell, “Damn it, it’s a moth!”

I suddenly realized, and looked carefully. Sure enough, the floating stones were all black moths. These human faces were arranged by these moths, no wonder they suddenly appeared and then disappeared. Then I saw the human face reliefs around me begin to twist and crack, and a large number of them flew into the air and scattered around.

These moths were obviously lying on the remains here, and after we disturbed them, they somehow arranged themselves into the shape of human faces.

Soon the sky was almost covered with black fragments, and these moths were not sure whether they were poisonous or not. We all subconsciously covered our mouths and noses with our clothes, but things that use protective colors are generally non-toxic. Watching the moths gradually fly away, like a sky full of black petals, was quite a feeling.

The fat guy caught a few to take a closer look. We didn’t know what species they were, but we didn’t catch any. Our hearts gradually calmed down, and it was a false alarm. However, we can’t blame ourselves for this. The situation was really terrifying.

We stayed in place, not daring to move for a while. The moths flew away one after another, leaving only a few here and there. At this time, we saw that the original ruins had changed. Where the moths had just covered, a large area of white was revealed. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that it was all white snake sloughs, tangled in the vines of the plants, looking like the white intestines of some animal.

The fat man jumped down and saw the vines. He picked up one and cursed. Most of the snake skins were rotten and full of holes, extremely disgusting. A large number of vines were intertwined in them. Looking around, snake skins were everywhere, in the gaps of the ruins, in the gaps between the roots, there were hundreds of them. Just now, these moths were all resting on the snake skins. They may have been attracted by the fishy smell from above. This place may be the hiding place for these snakes when they shed their skins.

We felt a chill down our spine. This was a huge site. How many snakes must have lived here to shed their skin to such a scale?

The fat man climbed back up and showed us the snake skin he had picked up. The head part of the snake skin was swollen and you could see the shape of the crest. It was indeed the skin of a poisonous snake. This snake skin was as thick as a calf’s leg, thicker than the snakes we had seen before. It seemed that we could not estimate the size of the snakes here.

The fat man was obviously disgusted, frowning and not even looking at it.

Snake skin is a very valuable Chinese medicine, and a pound can be sold for more than 100 yuan. The scale here is at least a few tons of snake skin, which is incredibly valuable. If the fat man knew, he probably wouldn’t feel so disgusted. However, I just knew it and felt goosebumps all over my body.

Pan Zi touched the snake skin and said, “This skin is still very tough. It seems that it has just shed its skin not long ago. This is where they shed their skin. Snakes usually shed their skin in places they consider safe. If they encounter one or two here, they will think that their territory has been most seriously violated and will definitely attack us. I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay here for long.”

I looked back and saw that if I wanted to go back, I had to walk through the area where the snakes shed their skin. That would be extremely unpleasant. However, Pan Zi’s worry was correct. There might be poisonous snakes in the hiding places here.

We immediately set off, and hurriedly walked out of the area. I thought we would at least encounter one or two snakes, but the process went surprisingly smoothly, and we didn’t find anything. It seems that snakes are rarely seen during the day, and it seems that these snakes are nocturnal. This also shows that the forest will definitely be very lively at night.

I went deeper into the forest and smelled a disgusting fishy smell. It was very strange. When I walked out of the ruins and followed the terrain back to the forest, the contents of my stomach were stuck in my throat.

After that, I re-entered the rainforest, and the feeling of being covered by the sky came back. However, after the experience of the previous period, the air in the rainforest was a real treat. The moist air with a swampy smell was much better than the smell of snakes. Soon, my feeling of vomiting disappeared.

After a while in the ruins, Pan Zi walked exceptionally fast, but his physical strength had reached its limit. We didn’t talk for four or five hours. We could clearly feel the terrain dropping, the water in the swamp was rushing faster, and the sound of waterfalls and rapids could be heard everywhere, but we didn’t know where they were.

Pan Zi took out some dried food and we continued to eat as we walked. Soon after, we finally came across a waterfall. It was a fault where the terrain suddenly dropped off. I don’t know what ancient ruins it was.

Along the way, I was almost certain that this valley was a concave bottom. The central part of the valley should be the lowest, so that all the water would flow there. I felt that the Xiwangmu Palace should be there, but at this time it was no longer important.

After we passed the waterfall, we were all soaked to the skin. When we got to the bottom of the waterfall, it was like a different world. The water seemed to have seeped into the ground, and the vegetation was denser, with almost no gaps for us to pass through.

We could barely see the sky down there, and we had to squeeze forward for a while before we lost our sense of direction. Uncle San and the others’ smoke was getting thinner and thinner, and even though we had adjusted the compass, we were worried that we would go too far. Pan Zi had to stop and climb a tree to identify the direction.

I was completely disoriented at this point, so when Pan Zi climbed up, Fat Boy and I leaned against the tree to catch our breath. But Pan Zi soon pointed out the direction, saying that we were already close to Uncle San and urging us to keep moving.

Looking at my watch, I realized that we had been walking non-stop for a whole day. I had never experienced such a strenuous trek in such an environment, and now I was still standing. But now I’ve exceeded my physical limits. I feel like I can sleep as soon as I sit down.

After discussing it with Pan Zi, the forced march began again. Fat Man saw that I was pale and knew that I was exhausted, but he couldn’t help me in the current situation. He could only keep talking to me to distract me.

The scenery around was monotonous and there was nothing to talk about. Fat Man looked at the things in the water and asked me, “Xiao Wu, do you think there are any artifacts in these flooded ruins?”

I said that according to the exploration experience of the ancient city of Loulan, there would naturally be some things, but because the ancient city was buried by water, you can forget about things like silk bamboo slips, and you might still be able to find some pots and pans. What do you want? You’re not itching again, are you?

The fat man hurriedly said, “No, it’s not itchy. How can you look at me with such a backward view? This time our goal is to make a big score. Once we get the stuff, I’ll retire. These bottles and jars are worth nothing. We have to find something that can be auctioned off at the Beijing Hotel.

I sighed and thought to myself, ”With so many annoying things, you still have the heart to think about this.”

As we walked, it was a bit effective at first, but then I felt more and more that my vision was blurring, and things in the distance gradually became unclear, and the trees became blurry. I thought to myself, “Am I going to faint? This is really embarrassing.” But then the fat man said, “Damn, why is there fog?”

I tried to focus my mind and rubbed my eyes to look around. I found that it was indeed fog, not my eyes that were foggy. I didn’t know when the fog had started. It was all gray and misty, and the forest in the distance was completely invisible. The trees a few meters in front of me had also become strange shadows. A cold breath began to envelop the surrounding forest.

I don’t know if it was due to overwork or a drop in temperature. I began to feel extremely uneasy and my heart began to pound. It felt like a nightmare, with a sense of oppression pressing down on my chest.

We didn’t know if there was fog inside the sea of trees, or if the fog was poisonous. We didn’t have time to worry about that, and we didn’t bring any gas masks.

We pulled some of our clothes together, soaked them, and used them to cover our mouths and noses. We walked for a while, and didn’t feel any discomfort, so we took them off. But at this point, we realized that the fog had become so thick that we couldn’t see anything.