Chapter 259: Dawn: Bloodshed

Blood ticks are addicted to blood; they must have been drawn here by the snake blood. The number of ticks in this forest is terrifying, and they were clearly starving, all gathering toward this spot.

I lowered the torch and burned the ticks off the surrounding bushes, but I got bitten several more times on my feet. There was no time to deal with them now, so I had to just let them be and find a way to break out.

Fatty improvised a torch from the jammed gun. We used the fire to drive them back and lifted Panzi up. When we did, we saw that Panzi's back was completely covered in blood blisters—he must have been bitten earlier, but his back was pressed against the grass so we hadn't noticed.

Fatty immediately used the torch to burn them off, and a whole bunch fell away. Then we dragged Panzi's backpack and hurriedly left.

Luckily, Panzi's bleeding had stopped and didn't attract even more ticks. When I looked back, I saw that the python's corpse was already completely covered in black dots. Soon it would be reduced to just a layer of skin, like the snake skeleton we'd seen in the canyon.

"When they rated the Four Pests, they really did this thing wrong by leaving it out," Fatty said, clicking his tongue.

We carried Panzi all the way to the edge of a swamp. Afraid that the blood on us would attract more ticks, we washed the blood off our bodies and Panzi's backpack with water. As we washed, the sky began to lighten, and dawn finally came. I looked up at the white light seeping through the sky, wanting to cry but having no tears. This was my second night here, and if possible, I really didn't want a third.

Fatty asked me again which direction was best to go. I pulled out the compass and climbed a tree, trying to do what Panzi did.

The morning light was dim, not quite bright yet. After climbing the tree, I suddenly smelled extremely fresh air, and my spirits lifted. If there was anything good about this cursed place, the morning was probably the only thing that could buoy my mood—probably because the nights here were so terrifying.

I took a deep breath and was about to look around when I suddenly froze. I found the view ahead incredibly wide open. No more than fifty or sixty meters in front of me stood a huge black ruin that looked like a massive temple.

I don't know how to describe the feeling. I'd expected to see endless treetops, like before. This sudden giant thing left me unable to think for a moment. It took me a while to react: if I hadn't climbed this tree here, I might have kept walking and passed right by this temple from so close without noticing.

Unlike the ruins we'd seen before, this temple was a single whole—a massive, complete multi-story structure. In the current light I couldn't see the whole thing, but it felt far larger than what we could see. And from the outline, it was much better preserved than the ruins in the rainforest. Only a few patches of weeds and trees were scattered across the visible site. I saw large expanses of dry stone—a sight I'd missed. The ancient Western Regions reliefs on the temple's corridor walls and columns looked like tiny patterns on the stone from this distance, giving off an air of profound mystery.

I led Fatty toward it. In less than two minutes we emerged from the woods and entered the ruins. The trees gradually thinned out.

From ground level, the ruins were even more astonishingly large. At first glance it really felt like Angkor Wat—stone corridors everywhere, unknown square pagodas. Eventually we came to a high spot and saw the huge temple rising behind the treetops. Fatty was stunned. I looked around and said admiringly, "If this place were developed, it would be the Eighth Wonder of the World, you believe me?"

"I believe it." Fatty suddenly spotted something and pointed in a direction. "Damn, if it's not one of the world's wonders, it's one of ours. Look over there."

I looked where he was pointing. On the flat ground in front of the temple, there was a row of more than a dozen large tents—a field camp.

The tents were canvas, big and old, scattered in various sizes. Their color was the gray of stone, so we hadn't noticed them from a distance. They weren't A Ning's tents, but they weren't old enough to have stood here for over a decade either. A hope flashed through my mind. Then Fatty called out, "Those are your Third Uncle's tents—Fatty recognizes them!"

Hearing that, my heart leaped with joy and I almost shouted out loud. It was just like the saying: after endless mountains and rivers, a village appears in the shade of willows and bright flowers. It seemed the heavens had gotten tired of toying with me and wanted to let me rest.

Fatty and I immediately charged toward the camp. I don't know where the strength came from—all I could think about was resting.

We sprinted across the open ground in front of the ruins. It was a square paved with huge stones, studded with many large pools of flowing, clear water. Beneath the water I could see corridors leading into darkness, their ends unknown. Obviously, these parts used to be above and below the waterline; now they were submerged. The huge temple we saw might have been just the roof or top floor of the original structure. How grand the whole building really was, we couldn't even guess.

Before we even got close to the camp, Fatty started yelling. After shouting for a while with no response, as we ran we noticed something off about the camp.

The whole camp was eerily quiet—nobody moving, no figures, no voices or sounds of activity. Dead silence, as if abandoned.

We reached the edge of the camp and stopped, utterly exhausted. The earlier excitement was gone. I realized rest might still be far away. Fatty panted, quieted down, and listened carefully. The camp in the dawn light was completely silent, as still as the rainforest, with not a trace of life.

"Not good," Fatty muttered. "Maybe we came at the wrong time."