Chapter 219

I bent down and picked up the severed hand on the ground; I could confirm it was Axing's right hand, severed at the wrist, the cross-section showing uneven tooth marks, indicating it had been cleanly bitten off by immense bite force. Only Shirley Yang had illumination rounds on her, so she and Axing must have been together. They must have encountered some ferocious beast and finally retreated to the crater of the dead volcano to call for help.

Pangzi dragged the exhausted Ming Shu up from the slope, and at the same time, a red fire lizard emerged from the upper part of the conical mountain, sticking out a tongue about a foot long. It still retained ancient features from the post-glacial period, with several rows of sharp teeth.

I and Pangzi immediately drew our guns and fired; a volley of gunfire struck the fire lizard, knocking it back repeatedly by the impact of the bullets, but its flesh and skin were nearly as tough as that of the "Patterned Flood Dragon." Light weapons could wound it but were insufficient to kill it. Pangzi pulled out a set of three pull-ignition detonators from his pack and threw them at it like hand grenades.

The fire lizard, hit continuously by bullets, had wanted to retreat, but seeing the rain of fire suddenly stop, it lunged forward again. The pull-ignition detonator Pangzi had thrown landed perfectly on its head, then bounced off to the ground. Its forward momentum did not diminish, and it lunged directly onto the detonator.

Since we had suddenly encountered it right near the volcano's mouth at extremely close range, and the pull-ignition detonator explodes on contact, its power for blasting stone gates is very strong. At this distance, the explosion could have meant mutual destruction, so I quickly pressed Ming Shu down. A tremendous roar came from above my head, and the blast wave hurled the fire lizard halfway into the air. Many stone fragments struck us, but fortunately our mountaineering helmets protected our vital head areas. However, the exposed arms were all scraped with several gashes.

After the acrid gunpowder smoke cleared, I looked up at the fire lizard, which lay flipped over ten or so meters away, its intestines torn out and belly ripped open. I was about to tell Pangzi, "If you're planning to learn from Dong Cunrui, go ahead, but please stay away from others—don't drag us into backing you up."

But at this moment, I noticed Ming Shu's eyes were glazed, fixed on Axing's severed hand. I felt a dark sorrow in my heart, not knowing how to comfort him. As far as I knew, if a person's limb is severed and surgery is performed quickly, it can sometimes be reattached. But in this isolated environment, how could surgery be possible? Moreover, this was not a clean cut, so reattachment was utterly impossible, and we didn't even know if Axing was still alive.

Ming Shu stared for a good while before asking me: "Is this… my goddaughter's hand?" Without waiting for my answer, he lowered his head, his face full of dejection, seeming both deeply anguished and deeply self-reproachful, his expression and mood extremely complex.

Pangzi also saw the severed hand and gave me a sideways glance. I knew his meaning: it was a difficult situation—what should we do about Ming Shu? I waved him off, thinking the more I tried to comfort him, the worse it would get. Better say nothing and hurry to help Ming Shu up the mountain.

So Pangzi and I each took one of Ming Shu's arms and dragged him up the conical mountain like dragging a dead dog. Near the crater, there was a large amount of black volcanic sand. The volcanic rock turns from grayish-white to black and then forms sandy crystalline structures, a process taking at least several million years. Even a dead volcano can be said to be a corpse of nature. Walking on it, truly contacting those ancient, massive changes, gives one a strange, inexplicable feeling. I even felt a vague dread about these few steps to the crater's mouth, constantly worrying that inside the dead volcano's belly, we would find their corpses.

However long the road, it has an end. Upon reaching the summit, we must face reality: the crater was much smaller than I imagined. Centuries of erosion have worn and collapsed much of the opening. The remaining opening is about the size of a large factory smokestack—no wonder that fire lizard couldn't crawl in. Peering inside, I saw some green fluorescence below. That light was very familiar to us—it came from fluorescent tubes. I shouted down a few times, unwilling to wait for an answer, and climbed down.

Inside the inverted trumpet-shaped mouth of the dead volcano, there were many stones and black timber in a well-like structure, possibly used for priests to pass through, extending from bottom to top. Although the wood had rotted, the square megaliths remained very solid. I scrambled down in a few moves and saw Shirley Yang holding Axing, sitting in a corner. Seeing they were still alive, my thumping heart gradually calmed.

Axing's severed wrist had already been given emergency treatment by Shirley Yang. I asked Shirley Yang if she was injured, and whether Axing's injury was serious.

Shirley Yang shook her head at me—she herself was fine—but Axing's condition was not optimistic. During the battle in the underwater temple between the "White-Bearded Fish King" and the "Patterned Flood Dragon," the temple floor was shattered, and all the water in the wind-eroded lake poured underground. Shirley Yang was swept by the surging current into the first underground lake. Just as she broke the surface to take a breath, she saw Axing being washed past her by the water. She reached out to grab her, but both were dragged by the current into the second underground lake. Before they could reach shore, they encountered the underground water's "King Salamander," which bit Axing's hand and dragged her to the volcanic island in the lake. Shirley Yang pursued and, in close-range shooting, rescued Axing. Having no ammunition left, they retreated to the volcano's crater on the mountain, where they discovered Axing's hand had been bitten off at some point. She hastily bandaged it, but without medicine, could not fully stop the bleeding, feeling helpless. After stabilizing, she remembered to fire a distress signal.

At this time, Ming Shu and Pangzi also came down separately. Pangzi, seeing everyone still alive, clenched a paratrooper knife in his teeth, climbed back up, intending to cut off a few pieces of meat from the fire lizard, roast them, and stave off hunger—he was truly starving and could not endure it.

Ming Shu looked at Axing's injury, his face turning pale, and said to me: "Old Brother Hu, you can't just abandon Axing because she lost a hand. Nowadays medicine is advanced—go back and attach a prosthetic hand, wear a glove, and no one will notice. She'll surely bear you a son."

I told Ming Shu: "Even when her hand was uninjured, I never agreed to marry her. My position has already been made clear—I firmly oppose arranged marriages. My parents have no objections to me, yet you old man keep bringing this up, making it seem like I despise her for losing a hand. I'll say it once more: even if Axing had three hands, I still couldn't marry her. I don't care how many hands she has."

Ming Shu said: "Oh, stop making excuses—whatever mountain you're on, gather firewood there. You two should just go to Hong Kong for a while to fall in love; then it wouldn't be an arranged marriage. Since you don't mind her hand, could it be you dislike her looks?"

Shirley Yang looked somewhat angry, frowning slightly and saying: "What time is it, and you're still arguing about this? Why don't you ever consider how Axing feels? In your eyes, is she just a bargaining chip in a deal? Don't forget she also has independent consciousness, just like you—she's a person with joys, sorrows, anger, and happiness… Hurry up and think of a way to treat her wound. If we don't suppress the worsening of her injury, she might not survive today."

I and Ming Shu were lectured by Shirley Yang, and we had nothing to say. Although we knew saving lives was urgent, in this situation lacking medicine and medical supplies, wanting to control such a severe injury was easier said than done. Axing's arm had already been tightly bound by Shirley Yang with rope, temporarily restricting blood flow, but whether this is even a proper method, over time that arm might not be salvageable.

I had no good ideas. Anxiously pacing back and forth, I suddenly noticed the backpack Pangzi had dropped when he came down earlier. My heart leapt—I had finally grasped a lifeline. At that moment, Pangzi also returned, carrying several large pieces of lizard meat. I thought, Pangzi and Ming Shu, these two Italians—if they don't help, they cause trouble; the more they help, the more trouble they make. So I sent them to prepare food for everyone, while Shirley Yang and I would treat Axing.

Shirley Yang removed the bandage from Axing's wrist. Since there was no alcohol, I only had to pull the bullet from a cartridge, use the gunpowder to cauterize the wound. Then I took out the few pieces of shed tortoise shell from Pangzi's pack, ground one part into powder, mixed it with clean water, and applied it to the wound, securing it with tape, then wrapping gauze over it.

Shirley Yang asked me if this really could treat wounds. I said, well, that's what Ming Shu claimed. Old turtles that shed their shells are spiritual and never stray far from their shed shells, often licking them with saliva, so this tortoise shell can be used medicinally—it detoxifies, dispels stagnation, and promotes flesh growth and stops bleeding. As for whether Ming Shu's goddaughter lives or dies, it depends on whether Ming Shu has seen clearly. If this remedy doesn't have the miraculous effect he claims, then we are powerless. Although it's not directly a fatal wound, Axing's body is frail, and without painkillers, the pain alone could kill her.

Axing had just been cauterized with gunpowder and had awakened from unconsciousness, crying out in pain, wailing. I comforted her: "Pain in the wound means it's about to heal. Losing a hand is actually nothing—after all, people have two hands. I once had comrades who stepped on anti-personnel mines; those mines were wicked, designed to maim rather than kill, so that wounded soldiers would become a burden to the enemy. Yet after being injured, they still returned home to participate in model reports, moving thousands, and they all married just fine—nothing was delayed."

After I casually comforted Axing a few sentences, I sat down to rest, meanwhile observing the terrain here. The dead volcano is natural, but in ancient times it had been artificially modified. The underground space is not small; our central location is a structure similar to a stone well, but with stone doorways. As you go outward, the terrain narrows, and the vertical drop from the bottom to the well opening above is not great. Although the dead volcano lies beneath the underground lake, the interior is very dry, with no signs of seepage.

Pangzi lit a fire and roasted the fire lizard, skin, tendons, and meat together. By the flickering firelight, I saw many primitive symbols carved on the stone wall, resembling stars scattered across the sky. Among them, a pattern of an eye nebula, set against a five-clawed beast motif, faced eastward. Shirley Yang had once told me that on the biblical map, this symbol marks the true Eye Altar of the "City of Luo Hai," which must lie not far to the east. In the victory ode of the World-Conquering Pearl Great King, this place is called "Maganamani Dun," meaning "Mahakala Strikes Thunder Mountain." "Mahakala" is a legendary demon said to control ores.

I wanted to confirm this with Shirley Yang, so I asked her if this place was "Thunder-Strike Mountain." Unexpectedly, as soon as I spoke, Ming Shu beside me suddenly exclaimed "Aiyo!" Pangzi asked him what was wrong, startled.

Ming Shu's face changed completely. Seeing Axing's severed hand, I had never seen him look so grim. Pressing him for the truth, I learned that Ming Shu was not merely superstitious—he firmly believed in fate and eight-character readings. His given name was Lei Xianming. Upon hearing this place called "Thunder-Strike Mountain," he thought it was equivalent to striking him.

I and Pangzi didn't take it seriously, and we took the opportunity to mock him for overreacting. But Ming Shu spoke solemnly: "You youngsters shouldn't disbelieve these things. A person's name, in small matters, concerns fortune and misfortune; in great matters, it governs life and death itself."

Seeing we didn't believe him, Ming Shu said: "The incident at Luofeng Slope is too far back—we won't mention it. You all know the head of the Military Intelligence Bureau, Dai Li, right? He was also a prominent figure in the KMT. When young, he had his eight characters read, which showed a strong fire nature needing water to balance. So he had people give him an alias, Jianghan Jin—all three characters contain the water radical—hence his rise in officialdom."

I told Ming Shu: "Yes, he rose but didn't rise well—ended up falling from a plane and dying to his death. What good did changing his name do? Just don't worry about it."

Ming Shu said: "No, no, you only know one side, not the other. Dai Li also took many aliases, because Military Intelligence agents are spies who sometimes need aliases to communicate. He once used Hong Sen, Shen Peilin, etc., and even his code names had to contain water. You say it's ghostly, but the very day he fell from the plane, he was compelled by some ghostly force to use 'Gao Chongyue'—seeing mountain but not water, committing a great taboo—and thus his plane struck the mountain and crashed. Those who collected his remains found that the mountain he hit was called 'Dai Shan,' and the ravine where the wreckage fell was 'Kun Yu Gou.' Clearly, this was the ghost gate come to claim his life. So these things are truly better believed than doubted."

Pangzi asked: "No, what are you talking about first? How do you know all this about the Military Intelligence Bureau chief so clearly? What exactly do you do for a living? Speak leniently, resist strictly—otherwise we'll have to deal with you severely."

Ming Shu quickly explained: "I have no connection to Dai Li. These are just things I heard from fortune-tellers when I was doing business back then. But later I checked, and indeed, every word was true. So I firmly believe in these matters. There are countless such examples. If we can't manage, we should withdraw quickly—otherwise we'll surely lose our lives here."

I told Ming Shu: "Along the way, you've also seen—where else down here can we go? We only have to follow the eastern passage of the dead volcano, hoping to find a back door near the altar. But we need to eat and rest first before we can move—nowhere is accessible right now."

Ming Shu felt we couldn't stay in this mountain anyway—he was restless, eager to leave immediately. He walked to the eastern stone door, peered through the crack, but after just a few glances, he seemed to have seen something terrifying, suddenly slammed the door shut, braced his back against it, and beads of sweat the size of soybeans appeared on his forehead. He cried out in alarm: "Someone… someone behind the door… alive… alive."