Chapter 1 The Cliff

Jiang Cheng followed her gaze and indeed saw the cliff she was talking about.

It was so steep, it looked like it had been cleaved open by a giant axe.

"You're planning to leave from here?" Jiang Cheng asked suddenly, withdrawing his gaze.

Whether it was the woman climbing the cliff, or the earlier proposal to traverse the forest, cut down trees, and build a boat, everything pointed to their intention to leave this place.

Not to escape the nightmare, but to leave this land of their birth.

"Yes," someone responded.

Jiang Cheng tilted his head to look at her. "Why?"

Jiang Cheng couldn't understand. They had only just arrived, and hadn't even finished exploring the terrain, yet they were already in such a hurry to leave. Had they discovered some danger, or what?

At this moment, everyone looked towards the woman on the far right, as if the idea of leaving had been conveyed to them by her.

The woman was probably in her early fifties, wearing a string of pearl necklaces, her hair permed into tight little curls like sheep's wool, and dressed in ordinary clothes.

Contrary to her plain appearance and attire, her eyes gave off a strong sense of pressure. These were sharp, eagle-like eyes, clearly belonging to someone who wasn't easy to get along with.

But Jiang Cheng's eyes, meeting hers, were as calm as water.

The next second, the woman opened her mouth and gave Jiang Cheng an answer he had never expected.

"I've been here before," the woman said.

She didn't seem to care about Jiang Cheng's strange gaze, and chose to continue speaking on her own. The young master behind Jiang Cheng also showed great interest.

"Back then, the ship we were on encountered a storm at sea. After the ship capsized, we drifted on the sea in a lifeboat all night. The next morning, we discovered a piece of land."

"Here?"

"Yes," the woman nodded. "We brought the lifeboat ashore."

Having said this, the woman seemed to recall something and suddenly stopped talking.

"And then?" the fatty couldn't help but ask.

"We used the equipment we had with us to send out a location signal, and then we were rescued by a passing ship," she continued. "In short, let's find a way out of here as soon as possible."

That simple?

Everyone present was not a fool. If it were that simple, why would the woman keep urging everyone to find a way out?

It was as if... they had encountered something supernatural here.

"When did this happen?"

"Twenty years ago," the woman answered clearly.

"Twenty years ago," the young man dressed as a young master smiled gently, "you had equipment with you at that time that could send satellite signals?"

"Even after a hasty shipwreck?"

The woman raised her head and looked at the young master in front of her, then looked at Jiang Cheng, suddenly feeling that their eyes were somewhat similar.

"I'm afraid it wasn't an ordinary shipwreck," the young master shrugged.

"Young man," the woman said hoarsely, the aura she exuded at this moment further confirmed Jiang Cheng's guess. "I advise you to focus on how to escape from here, instead of inquiring about things you shouldn't know."

"Otherwise, even if you can leave here alive, someone will come looking for you outside."

Now, the few of them had a rough idea in their minds. If what the woman said was true, then her background was definitely extraordinary, and she was probably on the government payroll.

And what she participated in back then was most likely a top-secret mission.

There was no shipwreck at all. It was just that they were ordered to come here back then, and then encountered something incomprehensible here, or something else.

That was why she was struggling to leave as soon as she arrived here.

Their team back then probably suffered heavy losses, and the woman in front of them might even be the only survivor.

"That's all in the future," the young master said, staring into her eyes. "Right now, I just want to know what happened, and how exactly we can leave."

The woman looked at the young master, then at Jiang Cheng, and finally at the others who were subtly surrounding her.

Now the situation was very clear. If she didn't reveal the reason behind this story, she would probably have a hard time getting away.

This wasn't the world they were in, where there were laws, and the thing the woman relied on held absolute authority.

Here, only rules mattered.

And the consequences of offending all your teammates were obvious.

"You'll regret this," the woman said, making a final struggle.

"I'll return that sentence to you," the woman in the leather jacket on the other side shrugged and said, "If you don't talk."

Her leather jacket was covered in rivets, and she wore knee-high black boots, revealing a pair of beautiful legs that were white and straight.

Her appearance was ordinary, but she gave off a strong sense of motorcycle punk style.

"Don't try to threaten me," the woman said calmly. "I'm old, but I've seen everything. I still have two shattered bullets in my shoulder that haven't been taken out."

"What can you do if I don't talk? Kill me?" the woman tensed her face.

The woman's words were not false. Jiang Cheng and the others could feel the boiling killing intent on the woman's body. She didn't value her life very much.

She wasn't afraid of death.

In her eyes, these people in front of her were just a bunch of kids who hadn't even grown their hair yet.

"No one wants to do anything to you," Jiang Cheng said. "Everyone just wants to survive. Put yourself in our shoes. If one of us had similar information but didn't share it, what would you think?"

"We're not interested in secrets," Jiang Cheng continued. "We just want to survive. After all..." His eyes suddenly became moist, and then his voice became hoarse.

The woman, the fatty, and everyone else looked at him with strange expressions.

This person didn't look like a newbie, so why was his mental fortitude...

Jiang Cheng grabbed the woman's hand, tears welling up in his eyes. "Actually, whether I live or die doesn't matter at all, but I have an old mother at home who's paralyzed in bed. My father died early, and she raised me all by herself with great difficulty. I..."

Fatty: "..."

Jiang Cheng's wave of sob-selling was a bit abrupt. Although his acting was still on point, it seemed a bit too low-level to the others who were about the same age.

Just as the fatty was sweating for Jiang Cheng, the latter actually succeeded.

The old woman didn't know if she was really touched, or pitied these children who weren't very old. Except for keeping some details and the results of the mission a secret, she told everything else.

"Back then, we received an emergency mission," the woman gradually entered her memories. "It was said that one of our passenger ships had a shipwreck somewhere."

"We gathered urgently that night. After the temporarily allocated rescue supplies were in place, we immediately rushed to the scene of the accident."

"I was mainly responsible for checking the supplies on the ship. Under normal circumstances, we would check whether the supplies were complete before setting off, but that mission was very strange. Everyone was in a hurry, and the allocated supplies weren't the usual waterproof cloth packaging, but overall transshipments of dark green containers."