Chapter 117

I asked Shirley Yang: "I see these two stones stuck here look out of place, but the rocks themselves aren't particularly special. If they were meteorites and exposed outside, there should be meteorite craters here. Do you see any impact traces from meteorites nearby?"

She glanced at her watch again and said: "Look at your diving electronic wristwatch—it no longer shows the time. This stone has many crystals; I estimate it contains some rare gas and cosmic (top 'treasure cover' bottom 'excellent') elements. Electronic circuit transistors and radio equipment are all affected by it. Nearby plane crashes may be related to these two meteorites. Once off-course aircraft enter this area's upper airspace, all electronic equipment fails—this place is practically Yunnan's Bermuda Triangle."

I and Pangzi both raised our hands to check our watches—sure enough, both were plain white crystals, all data gone, as if batteries were drained. I approached the stones for a closer look and indeed saw many inconspicuous crystals. Having worked as a combat engineer for years, digging tunnels in Kunlun Mountain almost year-round, Kunlun Mountain belongs to overpressed geological structures with nearly all rock layers, so I recognize most rocks. But this gray crystalline mineral rock—I've never seen it before. It truly looks somewhat like a meteorite.

Pangzi still doubted, but we had no extra electronics on us, so he pulled a radio from his backpack—the one I carried for news broadcasts on the road. After entering the mountains, there was no signal, so it stayed at the bottom of the pack. When he took it out and flipped the switch, it immediately emitted a few 'hiss' noises, then fell completely silent no matter how he fiddled with it.

Looking at the flashlight and other gear, since they use dry-cell batteries, they were unaffected. Pangzi remarked strangely: "Damn weird, there's actually such stone. I don't know the international transaction price per tael—let's collect some back for research." Saying that, he picked up his mountaineering pick and wanted to chip off a few samples from the rock.

I hurriedly stopped him, saying: "Don't move! What if there's radiation? I recall reading somewhere that meteorites contain radioactive substances. Exposure would first make your hair fall out, then your whole body would rot and die."

Shirley Yang said nearby: "Not all meteorites contain radioactive substances; this one might hold some electromagnetic energy, causing severe interference with electronics. This meteorite may not have fallen here but was later moved to the valley mouth as a marker for the king's tomb entrance. Actually, large meteorites reaching the ground are extremely rare—there's a large meteorite crater site in the United States. Falling meteorites must hit the atmosphere at a 6.5-degree angle relative to the horizontal tangent; otherwise, excessive friction causes them to burn up completely and vanish as ash. These two stones are merely leftover residue after burning; the surface crystals formed from intense burning. Although nothing grows here, there are active insects and ants around, so it might be harmless to humans. Still, given the uncertainty, I advise you not to touch it."

Pangzi remained reluctant, but since he had already obtained several genuine antiques from the old banyan tree, he gave up for now, declaring he'd come back to mine stones in this Insect Valley when he hits hard times later.

We stood at the valley mouth, again examining the two stones painted with human eyes. Originally planning to camp here tonight and enter the valley depths tomorrow morning to find the toad-marked entrance, but no matter how we looked, the place felt off. Standing at the valley entrance, we felt watched by those eyes, making us uneasy. However, conditions inside the Insect Valley are unclear—if we go further in, who knows what we might encounter—so we had to retreat along the original path and set up camp near the thicket of red-flowered trees.

Since boarding the bamboo raft into Chiluo Mountain until now, besides Pangzi sleeping more than half the night, we three have had no proper rest for two days and one night. Now utterly exhausted, we picked a relatively secluded open spot and camped on the spot.

This area has few insects, and the floral trees emit a fragrant breeze—it's indeed an ideal spot for wild camping. We know tomorrow will inevitably bring more life-risking endeavors; tonight is our last chance to rest. We must recover our physical and mental states to peak through sufficient sleep. So we casually ate some beef and dried rations bought from the Caiyun Guesthouse, hastily finished eating and drinking, left Pangzi on first watch, and took turns crawling into sleeping bags to sleep. Since last night we shot a great egret in the forest—and egrets are animals with extreme vengefulness—by dawn, several had already attacked us. But since daylight had broken, they aren't accustomed to daytime activity, so they temporarily withdrew—though who knows when they'll seize an opportunity to return and retaliate—thus, a night watch is necessary.

That night I suddenly felt my hand go numb and itchy, an intense itch drilling into my heart—the itchy spot was exactly the back of my hand bitten by the man-eating fish in the mountains. I instantly sat up from the sleeping bag, reached out and touched it—the waterproof tape originally bound around my hand back had torn open, and a black (left three-dot water, right top 'treasure cover', middle mouth, bottom 'said') worm crawled out of the wound. I quickly pinched two dead with my fingers, but the worms kept crawling out more and more. Startled, I wanted to call for help, looked up—only to see everything silent around, the moon hanging midair, and neither Pangzi nor Shirley Yang in sight; the sleeping bags were all empty.

Suddenly, the flower thicket nearby rustled—a figure in a green robe wearing a golden mask rode a large elephant through the red flower thicket, charging at me. He came with overwhelming force; I hastily rolled aside to dodge, then suddenly felt someone pushing my shoulder. I opened my eyes—it was just a nightmare.

Shirley Yang was watching me nearby: "You're jumping at shadows again—had another nightmare?"

My clothes were soaked through with cold sweat; this dream felt too real. I nodded at Shirley Yang, realizing it was my turn to stand watch. Strange—I just dreamed of the masked person in my nightmare—was it the Xian King? Dreams don't carry sensation, but the itchy, painful feeling from the wound in my dream still lingered faintly after waking. Thinking of this, I suddenly felt the wound on my hand back tighten, throbbing with pain.

If the wound were healing and new flesh growing, it should only slightly itch—clearly this wound has worsened. I peeled off the tape. The hand back was slightly purplish; I'd already taken antibiotics, so it shouldn't be infected. But the wound seemed slightly larger than before—I had no choice but to reapply medicine and rebandage the hand back, pondering—could it be that those dagger-toothed man-eating fish ate the water wasps from the human effigies, transferring the poison to me? Thinking of the nauseating nature of that poison craft, my heart fluttered anxiously. I could only try to think positively, summon my spirit, and stand watch.

But the more I thought, the more worried I became—afraid I might lose this hand. If truly a few parasitic worms crawled out from inside, I'd rather preemptively chop off this hand. After half a day of internal struggle, I had to wake the just-asleep Shirley Yang, asking her to help check if I'd been poisoned by the craft.

After looking, she gave me some pills to take, comforted me saying this was just a normal phenomenon of wound healing after being bitten by fish—no need to overthink, including nightmares being caused by new flesh growing from the wound. As long as I protect it and avoid reinfection, it's fine.

Only then did I let go of the anxiety in my heart.

After great effort enduring until dawn, the three of us set out according to plan toward our destination, preparing to find the toad-marked spot in the valley and see if we could locate the secret passage through the mountain miasma. However, this Xian King's Tomb has been operated for years, laid out meticulously—even if a secret passage penetrates the surface barrier, this passage likely isn't easy to traverse.

Plants in the Insect Valley are far denser than in ordinary jungles, making it seem not wide. After passing the two massive meteorites before the valley, we followed the Snake Creek deeper into the valley. With the terrain gradually descending, climbing plants increased. Vines and creepers blanketed the upper stream; countless small, varied, exquisite plants hung on both mountain walls; on the mid-slope vines (with the 'silk' radical changed to three-dot water), we often saw multiple plant species growing together, like individual colorful aerial gardens.

Due to the narrow terrain, survival space competition here is especially fierce—various plants stretch outward from above to gain sufficient light, so from high ground we cannot see the valley's interior terrain at all.

The environment is abnormally hot and humid; our vision is filled with lush green, and after a while, our eyes feel dizzy. To advance through the dense plant thicket, we had no choice but to let Pangzi clear the way ahead with his engineer's shovel, while I and Shirley Yang followed closely behind, struggling forward in the mosquito-ridden, old-vine-choked gloomy valley.

Compared to the obstruction from vine-like plants, the greatest disturbance comes from mosquitoes in the valley's dark corners. These jungle bloodsuckers—dozens of types at least—swarm in crowds, fearlessly throwing themselves onto people. We had no choice but to crush the garlic and airplane weed we carried into juice and rub it on exposed body parts; fortunately, the Caiyun Guesthouse owner had given us some locally made mosquito repellent that still helped to some extent. Even with these repellents, we still got bitten a few times—the bitten spots immediately swelled red, turned hard and stiff, painful to touch, like pimples.

Shirley Yang, however, said thank God these mosquitoes aren't that big or toxic—after all, this isn't a tropical rainforest. The poisonous mosquitoes in the Amazon rainforest are the true bloodsucking demons of the jungle, and they're also extremely venomous. But those fiercely toxic mosquitoes fear garlic—this weakness coincidentally matches the European vampire legend.

The valley's lush vegetation didn't surprise us—although when the Xian King's Tomb was built, this place should have been a spirit road leading to the Minglou, with all materials transported through here into the tomb—but now two thousand years have passed; in this long span, the valley may have undergone earth-shattering changes: the vegetation layer, cleared bare during tomb construction, has regrown, burying and eroding all traces of the spirit road.

Yet we can still see that as we go deeper, traces of man-made structures increase. Occasionally, collapsed stone statues and stone figures appear on the ground—these are stone carvings on both sides of the tomb's spirit road. One can see the Xian King's Tomb, like other imperial tombs, deliberately built a spirit road before the tomb for later generations to come to the Minglou to offer sacrifices and pay respects. But the Xian King probably never imagined that less than seven or eight years after his death, his territory and subjects—including his homeland, the ancient Dian Kingdom—would all be incorporated into the Han realm. After expending enormous human and material resources, racking his brains to operate and build the mausoleum, it could only remain in this dark valley's depths, forever buried in history's corner. Only we, these grave-robbing gold-seeking officers, would come to visit him despite hardship and danger.

After passing through layer upon layer of plant bands, walking three or four hours, we finally saw ahead a pile of ruined wall remains—this is the legendary first embankment wall. Now only a rammed earth and stone platform over three meters thick and over two meters high remains, with a layer of weeds similarly covering it; only where blue stone slabs are exposed does no plant grow. Since only a small segment remains, it looks more like a green earth mound, just like the sealed earth mound of a tomb hill, mixed among the deep valley's jungle; if not for Shirley Yang's sharp eyes, we would have just brushed past this place.

To further confirm whether this plant-covered wall remnant is indeed the embankment wall marked on the human skin map, Pangzi chiseled a few times with his mountaineering pick on the broken wall, trying to scrape off surface weeds and moss. Unexpectedly, this light tapping was fine—from the crack in this broken wall, hundreds of small tree lizards 'swoosh-swoosh-swoosh' darted out. These green little creatures have body color identical to jungle plants, only their eyes and tongues are blood-red, each about the size of a finger. Tree lizards usually hide in the cracks of ruined walls; this time, disturbed, they all scrambled out from the rammed earth heap, running wildly in all directions.

Pangzi was also startled by them, swinging his mountaineering pick and engineer's shovel wildly, smashing many small tree lizards into meat patties.

Shirley Yang pressed down on Pangzi's hand, telling him to stop: "These small tree lizards don't harm people—they only eat mosquitoes normally—why bother with them?"

I suddenly noticed that when these small tree lizards panicked and fled, almost all ran toward the valley's exterior or climbed up the side vegetation—but under Pangzi's frenzied beating, not one fled toward the valley's depths. Not just tree lizards—including the flying mosquitoes, tree bugs, beetles, and large dragonflies on plants—after crossing this broken remnant wall, the valley's other side hardly had any insects or animals, as if this place were a death boundary line; even insects living in the valley dare not cross this line half a step.