Chapter 99: Leaping

The flare fell, streaking across this area, and those faces began to move, dodging the blazing sphere of light one after another, looking for all the world like beetles with human-faced shells.

These must be the real form of the chi gu that Master Liang mentioned—the ancients raised them inside special masks, and somehow they've survived all this time. I had been half-convinced before, but I never thought we'd run into them so soon, and in such a huge swarm.

The faces clung to the bronze tree, which was covered in ridges and crevices, and as the moving light hit them, they displayed different expressions: some pained, some melancholy, some ferocious, some smirking. I had never seen anything so bizarre; it made my hair stand on end.

Master Liang had spoken so magnanimously, but when faced with the real thing, he lost his composure. Trembling, he said to me, "Two… two young masters, these are all alive. Those chi gu are clinging under the masks. What do we do? How do we get past?"

"Don't panic," Old Yang said. "Look how they react to the flare. They're definitely afraid of light and heat. Let's light torches and walk up slowly—they won't dare touch us."

I shook my head. "Don't be so sure. The temperature and brightness of a flare are extremely high, so of course they're scared of it. Torches are different. Don't forget those monkeys earlier—they fled from the flare, but when you scared them with a torch, they only backed off a little. I reckon if you go up with a torch, not only won't you get through, but you'll be surrounded, and then it'll be hard to escape."

"Then what do you suggest?" Old Yang asked me. "Do you have any idea?"

I said, "I don't have a ready solution, just a preliminary thought. Not sure if it'll work."

Old Yang said impatiently, "I know you're full of tricks. Spit it out."

I pointed to the rock wall a few dozen meters away. "Going straight up is too dangerous. If, as Master Liang says, these living masks have some way to crawl onto our faces, a direct charge will definitely cost us. Let's go around instead. Do you have any way to swing us over to that cliff face? There are plenty of holes over there, so it shouldn't be hard to climb, and we can get a good rest."

Old Yang looked at where I was pointing and yelled, "That… that far? Swing over?"

I nodded and gestured. "That's the only idea I've got. We still have the rope, right? Take it out and see if it's long enough. If this doesn't work, I guess we'll have to go back down and bring a flamethrower next time."

Old Yang took the rope from around his waist—one of the pieces of gear he'd stripped from Uncle Tai. It had a UIAA label, the best climbing rope in the world, used even by special forces. Looks like they weren't stingy with their equipment budget.

I'd helped Third Uncle buy gear before we went to the Lu King's Palace, and I'd done a lot of research, so I knew this kind of rope. If the diameter was over 10 mm, it could withstand almost three tons of impact force (from a sudden fall). Supporting the three of us would be more than enough.

The strength was sufficient, but I wasn't sure about the length. Old Yang let it hang down from the tree for a visual estimate and cursed—the total length was only about ten meters. To reach the other side, we'd need a lot more.

"What do we do?" he asked me. "Even if we tie our belts together, it won't be enough."

I squeezed the rope and found it was a 16 mm double-braid rope. An idea struck me. "No problem. We can split the two strands of this rope and join them into one. That should be long enough."

"Little Master Wu, are you sure? This rope is so thin—won't it break?" Master Liang asked. "Look, it's thinner than noodles. Please don't do anything reckless."

"That's what the foreign climbing magazines say. They wouldn't lie to us."

I stripped off the outer braided sheath of the rope and pulled out a very thin nylon cord. I even swallowed my own spit—damn, it was too thin. By common sense, such a thin rope couldn't possibly bear our weight, but the foreign materials did say this kind of reinforced nylon fiber, at 8 mm diameter, could be used as a secondary climbing rope. As long as there was no high-intensity fall, it wouldn't break easily. Of course, using this rope carried some risk, so normally you'd use two together. We only had one, so we'd have to pray to God.

I decided to trust high-tech. It couldn't be that unlucky.

I handed the joined rope to Old Yang. He took a water bottle from his backpack, tied it with a sailor's knot to use as a weight, and swung it hard toward the opposite side. After several failures, he finally looped it around a stalagmite over there. He pulled, the rope went taut, and it was firmly anchored.

"Done," Old Yang said. "Damn, we finally got it. Old Wu, never mind the rope, but are those rocks over there reliable?"

"I don't know," I said, thinking about what would happen if the rocks weren't reliable. I'd probably swing back to the bronze tree side. If I was lucky, I'd hit the trunk and be half-crippled; if unlucky, I'd be skewered by the branches like a sieve.

The other end of the rope was tied to a bronze branch. Old Yang made a special knot so that after we crossed, we could untie it from the other side. The knot was complicated and made my head spin. I asked him where he learned such a skill, and he said, in prison.

Everything was ready. I gave the rope a final tug to make sure both ends were secure, then told them to start climbing. But neither of them moved. I glanced at them and saw they were looking at me with an expression that said, "I'd rather die than be the first to climb." Obviously, being the first on such a thin rope required a lot of courage. I called out again, but both shook their heads. I cursed under my breath, braced myself, and went up first.

Before climbing, I took off my jacket and handed my backpack to Old Yang and Master Liang to minimize my weight. Those items could be tied to the far end of the rope; when Old Yang untied the knot from there later, they could be swung down and then pulled up. Old Yang wasn't too confident about the caves over there, so he stuffed his pistol into my hand, just in case. I sighed, feeling like a martyr about to die. I patted both of them on the shoulder, turned, and started climbing the rope.

The moment my feet left the rope, my nerves were as taut as the rope itself. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and prepared to hear the sharp snap of the rope breaking. But the rope held, only letting out a very unsettling "creak"—the sound of the knots on both sides suddenly tightening.

I told myself not to look down, but my eyes couldn't help glancing down. Oh my god, I groaned, then immediately turned my head, closed my eyes, and chanted "Amitabha."

Old Yang shouted, "Hey, Old Wu, what are you dawdling for? Hurry up and climb! Staying up there is even more dangerous."

I cursed Old Yang's ancestors under my breath, took a deep breath, and began moving my hands and feet toward the other side. This kind of rope had some elasticity—every step caused violent tremors. I climbed with extreme difficulty, and because the rope was so thin, it was very hard to grip. Before long, I felt my strength failing.

By the time I reached the end, my mind was blank. I didn't even know how I managed to step onto the stalagmite on the other side. As soon as my feet touched solid ground, my legs gave way. I hugged the stalagmite and collapsed into a heap, gasping for air.

I had the torch with me. I lit it and stuck it to the side, then looked back at Old Yang and the others. I saw Master Liang trembling as he climbed onto the rope. Old Yang stopped him, telling him to wait. He called for me to first check the situation over here—if it was unsuitable for climbing or there was other danger, we could save some effort.

I looked around at several rock caves nearby. They were only half a man's height, man-made, but after thousands of years of water seepage, some newly formed stalactites had appeared. The caves were damp. These caves might have been related to the work of casting this enormous tree back in the day.

Looking up, the caves were only three or four feet apart. Climbing wouldn't be perfectly smooth, but it wouldn't be too hard either. The caves were empty, with no danger. Earlier, while on the tree, I thought I saw something in the caves, but it was probably an illusion caused by the shifting light and shadows. In a place this dim, it's easy for nerves to get a little jumpy.

Comforting myself, I climbed out of the cave and raised my hand to signal Old Yang.

Old Yang patted Master Liang and told him to go first. The latter rubbed his face vigorously, climbed onto the rope, and started moving toward me.

Watching Master Liang climb the rope was like a thriller movie—he screamed almost every two steps. I was nearly scared to death. After I finally got him down, his lips were bloodless. He knelt right there, and I couldn't even pull him up.

Last was Old Yang. He took a deep breath, tied the flashlight to his hand, checked the knot on the other side again, and carefully climbed onto the rope. He moved quickly and soon reached the midpoint. Just then, the stalagmite I had tied the rope to let out a strange noise.

All three of us froze. Old Yang looked at me with a terrified expression. I turned to look and my heart skipped a beat—a crack had appeared in the stalagmite.

We're in for it! I turned my head and shouted, "Climb quickly! This place can't hold much longer!"

I called out several times, but Lao Yang didn't move at all. He stared straight at me, then actually started to back up, making gestures as he retreated, as if telling me to come back too.

What are you doing? I thought to myself, as a sense of foreboding surged within me.

Lao Yang pointed desperately at the area above our heads while whispering, "Run~"

Liang Shive and I looked up in confusion, and I was instantly stunned.

On the rock face that had been bare just moments ago, it was now crawling with those human-faced masks, jostling against each other, making rustling sounds as they slowly surrounded me like a tide. At first glance, it looked like countless people were clinging to the wall, looking down at us.

At that moment, I really wanted to slap myself. How stupid could I be? If there were Chi Gu on the trees, why didn't I think there would be some on the rock face too? Now we're done for. Could it be that my fate is to turn into something like those monkeys and die of thirst here? It would be better to just jump off and get it over with.

Seeing us frozen in shock, Lao Yang shouted, "Snap out of it! Come back! Cut the rope!"

As soon as I heard that, I snapped out of it. I jumped back to the stalagmite in a few steps, leaped forcefully onto the rope, and the impact jerked the rope downward violently. The stalagmite let out a series of hair-raising cracking sounds. Before I could steady myself, Liang Shive also jumped on, and the rope stretched by more than ten centimeters, pulled to its limit. I immediately heard a very ominous sound, and then a crisp *crack*. The strongest rope in the world finally failed in its final moments, snapping into two pieces.