Chapter 199

Han Shuna turned her head from the vertical icy cliff of the ice abyss, her face a blank white, the distance between us already nearing the extreme range of the "Wolf Eye" at light speed; to see more clearly, I lay flat on the edge of the ice cave, straining to lower the flashlight, though the view was blurry, I could already feel that the "woman" on the ice wall was no longer human.

Ming Shu also shone his flashlight downward, but upon seeing Han Shuna's face, he was so frightened he froze, his limbs going limp, the flashlight in his hand tumbling into the ice crack; had it not been for Peter Huang holding him, he might have fallen into the crack below.

Suddenly, Han Shuna with a white face, startled by the falling flashlight, swiftly crawled toward the dark depths of the ice abyss and quickly vanished into the darkness.

We leaned over to examine the fallen "Wolf Eye" flashlight, hoping to gauge the depth of the ice abyss, but after it dropped, it became a small, wobbling bright point, growing smaller and smaller, ultimately swallowed by the pitch-black below; I and Pangzi had seen the "Bottomless Ghost Cave" in the desert, and seeing this ice abyss with no visible bottom, we couldn't help but think of that ghost cave.

At this moment, Shirley Yang secured a bundle of climbing rope to herself with a carabiner and said to me: "We must hurry and follow." From her posture, it seemed she intended to descend into the ice abyss to pursue Han Shuna; I quickly realized her meaning—Han Shuna's body had undergone some unknown change; although she fled into the depths of the ice abyss upon seeing us, that direction happened to be the slanted insertion point of the Nine-Story Demon Tower beneath the ice slope, whether intentional or not, I do not know. If we fail to clarify this, it may cause unexpected trouble for tomorrow's excavation of the "Glacial Crystal Corpse."

We must find Han Shuna before the situation worsens; I immediately prepared the rope, and Shirley Yang and I turned on all our light sources, rappelling down, but the ice surface in the abyss was treacherously slippery, with no foothold; the blue fluorescent tubes and tactical flashlights on our bodies, when reflected off the mirror-like ice walls, produced strange, elusive light, while everywhere else was pitch-black, leaving us disoriented; after descending just a dozen meters, I already felt my sense of direction slipping away.

We had to pause temporarily to confirm our position. This narrow ice abyss seemed to have no edge.

Shirley Yang said there were at least several hundred meters of depth below, the deepest point possibly being the remaining water vein of the "Sea of Disaster" lake; Ming Shu's flashlight had fallen into the water, hence its disappearance; saying this, she twisted on a fluorescent tube and tossed it downward into the abyss. After a long while, the blue fluorescence vanished from sight; we pressed our ears to the ice wall and faintly heard the sound of flowing water conducted upward.

Han Shuna was moving diagonally downward; we were descending vertically, so to catch up, we had to swing sideways; we tried, but the ice wall was too slippery to manage; finally, we had to rely on tools, attempting to use ice axes to anchor into the wall and push inward, but as soon as we chipped, we found ice fragments continuously falling—this ice abyss showed signs of splitting.

The Longding Glacier lies at a special altitude, belonging to a low-altitude glacier, with two to three months of surface melt each year, but the central ice layer, several hundred meters thick, remains unchanged.

However, our timing is poor—we arrived at the end of the melt season and the onset of a cold snap, precisely when the main glacier is most fragile; added to the countless natural ice pits, ice leaks, and ice fissures, plus over a hundred burial sites of the Wheel of Reincarnation Sect, one could say this ice layer is like a hornet's nest; ordinary days are tolerable, but September is the most prone to collapse; although no major geological shifts have occurred in thousands of years, this "Sea of Disaster" could at any moment unleash an unforeseen catastrophe.

Yet, as the saying goes, all things have two sides; the glacier's fragility is actually advantageous for excavating the Nine-Story Demon Tower deep beneath the ice layer; if we wait until after the cold snap to act, it will be extremely difficult.

Ming Shu, Pangzi, and others above, worried for our safety, shouted loudly for us to return, not to pursue, it's too dangerous.

Their shouting was no issue—the wind carried their voices downward, and I and Shirley Yang felt the entire ice wall trembling; we quickly signaled with our flashlights, urging them absolutely not to shout in the ice cave, lest the wall crack and trigger an ice collapse, burying us alive in this cold, dark abyss.

Our movement speed on the ice wall was slower than expected, and lateral movement was utterly impossible; combined with the excessively dark and complex environment in the abyss, where speed is essential, losing the initiative meant we could not catch up; Shirley Yang helplessly shook her head at me—it seemed we had to abandon the pursuit and first return to think of another plan.

We tugged the climbing rope, preparing to return to the surface of the ice cave, so we signaled those above with our flashlights by drawing several crosses; Pangzi and the others understood and assisted from above; Shirley Yang and I gradually ascended, but since we could not plant our feet on the ice wall, when we neared the top, a kick with our feet sent our bodies swinging uncontrollably in midair, spinning once.

As I turned, I suddenly saw on the dark side wall of the ice abyss a woman crouched, half her body hidden in a crack in the ice, only half exposed, her face a blank white, only two rows of teeth visible; from her hair and the yellow windbreaker on her body, I recognized Han Shuna.

I had thought she had already gone deep into the ice abyss, but I did not expect her to be on the ice wall not far from us, hidden in an inconspicuous crack; when we abandoned the pursuit and prepared to return above, she suddenly reappeared—what did she intend?

I grabbed Shirley Yang's arm, and we both stopped; Shirley Yang also saw Han Shuna crawling out of the ice crack, equally surprised; before descending, I had wrapped the "Wolf Eye" flashlight with a twenty-five-meter range around my arm; now I raised my arm and shone it directly at Han Shuna.

In the dark, cold ice abyss, even the "Wolf Eye" had only under twenty meters of visibility, but this distance was just enough to illuminate Han Shuna in the ice crack; "Han Shuna," pending clarification of what she is, I will continue to call her thus; she seemed unresponsive to the beam of the tactical flashlight, lying in the crack with half her body protruding, utterly still.

Since Han Shuna's face had no features, only a hazy whiteness, with two rows of teeth bared, we could not tell if her expression was sorrow or anger; we remained locked in this stalemate in midair, and I gradually grew impatient—this thing could not possibly be human, nor did it seem like a corpse with stiff joints; but whatever it was, it certainly meant no good.

I drew my M1911, preparing to shoot and blow her head apart, but before I could disengage the safety, I felt someone lightly tap my shoulder; Shirley Yang behind me said: "Don't shoot—it will cause the ice wall to crack."

Before I could even holster my pistol, the faceless Han Shuna suddenly electrified her entire body, leapt from her ice crevice, arms and legs splayed like a white giant lizard, and in a few swift strokes crawled rapidly toward me.

Seeing this, Shirley Yang and I realized something was terribly wrong with Han Shuna's corpse—we did not know why it had suddenly become this horrifying, but we knew one thing for certain: if she touched us, we would face grave danger; without hesitation, we exerted full force to pull down the climbing rope from the belay device, rapidly hauling ourselves up the ice abyss, hoping to lure Han Shuna onto the glacier.

Seeing this, Shirley Yang and I realized something was terribly wrong with Han Shuna's corpse—we did not know why it had suddenly become this horrifying, but we knew one thing for certain: if she touched us, we would face grave danger; without hesitation, we exerted full force to pull down the climbing rope from the belay device, rapidly hauling ourselves up the ice abyss, hoping to lure Han Shuna onto the glacier.

But although our ascent was swift, Han Shuna's crawling speed on the ice wall was greater; when she was still less than five or six meters from the ice surface, her pale, massive face had already reached Shirley Yang's shoe; the people on the glacier saw clearly—Pangzi and Chu Yi ignored Ming Shu's obstruction, raised their guns into the ice cave, and fired in unison; the bullets struck Han Shuna's face.

I turned and looked below—Han Shuna's pale face had two holes blown in it, her body driven downward by the bullet's impact, she fell several meters before catching on the ice wall, lifted her eyeless, noseless face upward to look, the two holes in her face already healing; at that moment, the ice abyss indeed trembled from the gunfire, ice fragments continuously raining down; Han Shuna seemed to dodge the falling hard ice, her form flickered, and she vanished into the ice crack.

Shirley Yang and I took the opportunity to climb up; when we looked down again, the large ice blocks from the collapse above had already sealed that ice crack, making it impossible for us to re-enter and search for Han Shuna; but the ice layer beneath the glacier is a complex web of fissures—who knows where she might emerge next? Moreover, bullets seemed to have little effect on her, making her extremely difficult to deal with.

On this night of wind and snow, too many unimaginable things have occurred; yet midnight has just passed, and dawn is still far off—when the wind and snow will cease is unpredictable; it seems we will not sleep soundly tonight.

Everyone blocked the ice cave entrance, returned to the tent to warm up, tossed and turned half the night, though exhausted, none could sleep; we gathered to discuss Han Shuna's matter; Peter Huang said: "Maybe she wasn't burned to death, just seriously injured, buried in the snow and came back to life..."

Pangzi said: "How could that be? Old Huang, stop talking without thinking—we all saw it with our own eyes, one-third of her head was burned away; if she weren't dead, then no one in the world would die; seeing her face white and bloated above, it's mostly white fur—this is definitely a snow mountain zombie, extremely hard to deal with."

I felt it wouldn't be that simple—such a thing I had never seen nor heard of; Shirley Yang asked Axiong if she had seen anything special, only to learn Axiong hadn't dared to open her eyes to look.

Everyone voiced their opinions, debated for a long time with no conclusion; finally, the guide Chu Yi suddenly clapped his hands—a gesture often used by Tibetan lamas when discussing Zen to indicate sudden realization or deeper memory; Chu Yi had often accompanied lamas into the mountains to gather herbs in his youth, forming this habit; clearly, he had just thought of something.

Thus we fell silent, and Chu Yi said to everyone: "It must be the Snow Maitreya that has entangled us; two years ago, fellows from the Geography Institute encountered this on Kunlun Mountain's Mo Ge Cliff, though no precedent exists in the Kalamail region; the Snow Maitreya of Kunlun Mountain is more terrifying than evil spirits—her corpse grows ever larger and fatter."

Chu Yi was about to recount past harms caused by the Snow Maitreya on Kunlun Mountain to people and livestock, when he suddenly fell silent; in that instant, his expression seemed to stiffen as well, as did those of Ming Shu, Axiong, and Peter Huang sitting beside him; they all stared fixedly at the upper part of our tent behind us, as if something terrifying were there.

I hastily turned my head to look back and saw the tent canvas pressed inward from outside by two enormous handprints, with a huge circular print in the middle, like a faceless human face pressed against it, all twice the size of a normal human body, as if something outside was trying to forcefully burst through the canvas and crawl into the tent; I saw those two huge hands, truly terrifying in size, the tent strained under the pressure, creaking loudly, and would soon collapse.