Chapter 18 The Disappearing Canyon

The rugged man furrowed his brow, clearly not wanting to do this, but reason told him that if they continued, everyone would be in danger. No one knew what sort of ghastly thing might crawl up the rope. Besides, he understood that the three below were likely already…

Drawing his dagger, he forcefully severed the rope. Watching the severed ends plummet into the darkness below, a complex and indescribable feeling enveloped him, making it hard to breathe.

“Stay alert, retreat.”

The group had only taken a few steps when suddenly, a point of light appeared beneath their feet. A torch abruptly lit up in the darkness at the foot of the slope.

Before they could react, more torches began to light up in the darkness, as if triggered by the first. By the light of the torches, Jiang Cheng and the others saw for the first time that the base of the slope was filled with people.

Each person performed the same action, standing perfectly straight, heads tilted back, staring at the slope.

Jiang Cheng immediately realized that these were the things they had been tracking earlier. They hadn't disappeared; they had somehow secretly doubled back and were hiding near them!

The torchlight flickered constantly. Even more strangely, Jiang Cheng could clearly see the clothes these people were wearing, but he couldn't make out their faces no matter how hard he tried.

Their faces were blurred, like paint running on a water-soaked portrait, appearing strange and eerie. A unique religious aura permeated the entire scene.

Perhaps it was due to rigorous training, but more likely it was out of sheer terror, Jiang Cheng's group held their breath, and no one cried out.

The scene froze at that moment. Unsure of the purpose of the figures below, no one dared to act rashly. However, judging by the aura emanating from Number Two and Old Mr. Luo, they were ready to strike.

After a moment, Fatty couldn't help but blink, as if unable to believe the scene before him. “They’re… leaving?”

Indeed, the figures below seemed to receive some sort of command at the same time. They lowered their heads, withdrew their gaze, turned, and then lined up in two loose rows, moving away with stiff steps, but with surprising speed.

“They didn’t… they didn’t attack us.”

The rugged man who cut the rope was stunned. Everyone subconsciously exhaled, feeling as if they had escaped death.

But this incident made one thing clear to everyone: those figures hadn't let them off the hook, nor had they forgotten about them. If they didn't figure out what was going on, this kind of thing would happen again and again, until they eventually fell into a trap.

Number Two watched the torchlights sway as they moved away, his eyes cold. “Did you see clearly just now?”

“I couldn’t make it out. Their faces were like they were covered by a layer of mist,” Fatty said, still shaken.

“I mean their clothes. Did you see them clearly? They were our people’s clothes—camouflage uniforms, and gray work clothes, like… like the missing geological survey team.”

Hearing this, Luo Yunshan nodded heavily. “Those were the geological survey team’s clothes. Before entering the mountains, I received some information, a few photos related to the missing people. The people in the photos were wearing those clothes.”

“So… among those figures just now were not only our first team, but also… also the previous geological survey team. Perhaps Mr. and Number Three are among them!” Having trekked through the mountains for so long, they had finally found a possible clue related to Mr. and Number Three. Hope, long absent, appeared in Number Thirteen’s originally dim eyes.

Staring at the receding torchlights, the rugged man asked anxiously, “Those things are getting away again. What do we do this time?”

“Follow them.”

Jiang Cheng’s attitude was firm. The situation was clear: the other side was leading them along, and they wanted to figure out what the other side was planning.

In a daze, the figure with outstretched arms suddenly appeared in Jiang Cheng's mind, as if foreshadowing something.

This time, the group reached a consensus and decided to continue following these figures. But out of caution, they chose not to re-tie the rope and descend the slope directly. Instead, they went around in a circle, chasing after the torchlights from another direction.

Looking at the torchlights ahead, staring at the trampled leaves and mud on the ground, the group couldn't be sure if the scene before them was real or not. All they could do was keep going, until they solved the deadly puzzle in this mountain, or… they all ended up here, becoming like those figures ahead, appearing endlessly at night, trudging along the rugged mountain roads.

One of the group, a man with a lot of outdoor experience, voiced his doubts about the footprints on the ground. “It’s strange. Why are the footprints so heavy?”

As he spoke, the man with the mustache couldn't help but swallow, pointing to their own footprints and the footprints of those figures ahead.

Before the comparison, no one had noticed, but placed together, the difference was clear. The other party's footprints were much heavier than theirs. It was definitely not the weight of one person, as if something was lying on these people’s backs.

The image made Fatty’s face pale. Number Thirteen tried to reassure him not to be afraid, that everything was just speculation.

Fortunately, they didn't lose their target this time. The speed of the group ahead was neither too fast nor too slow, and they maintained their speed, keeping a relatively safe distance between them.

Looking at the torches and the blurred figures, Jiang Cheng felt like he was missing something, something important.

He didn't know how long they had been walking, but everyone was numb, both physically and mentally. Jiang Cheng even had a bizarre feeling, hoping that the people ahead would stop soon, or that everyone should stop playing games and just have a real fight. If they won, they'd go home. If they lost, they'd just be buried in these mountains. Life and death were in the hands of fate.

Their will was being eroded little by little. Cutting flesh with a dull knife was the most terrifying. Just when everyone thought they would be walking like this forever, a turning point appeared.

The torchlights ahead actually stopped. By the faint light, the group was surprised to see that there was a canyon entrance ahead.

Because the distance was too far, they couldn't see the scene inside the canyon, but waves of mist constantly billowed out of the canyon entrance. Jiang Cheng stared at the mist and immediately recognized that this was the same mist that had caused them to get lost not long ago. It was this feeling, there was no mistake!

So the mist came from this canyon.

Before everyone could react, one of the team members suddenly spoke, staring blankly in the direction of the canyon, his expression changing from doubt to horror. "This is wrong. I studied the terrain of Mount Xixieming before I came. There can’t be a canyon like this in these mountains."

Before he finished speaking, the figures holding torches were gradually obscured by the mist. Only the light of the torches could be seen in the mist.

The lights moved again, as if floating, slowly drifting into the canyon entrance. After entering, the lights became lower and lower.

"They… they seem to be going down." The rugged man seemed to have realized something, his tone involuntarily hurried. "Look, the lights are gradually sinking. That means those things are descending. The canyon entrance is recessed."

Jiang Cheng naturally saw it too, but his idea was even more terrifying. He didn't think it was a canyon at all. After looking at it for a long time, he only felt that it was a grave.

To be more precise, he felt like it was a large tomb, and what was exposed was naturally the entrance to the tomb passage. The figures leading the way were entering a huge tomb!

The tomb was underground, so the tomb passage would naturally be downhill. That made sense.

"What do we do? Should we follow them in to take a look?"

The rugged man looked at the torchlights in the mist getting farther and farther away, and couldn't help but feel anxious.

At the same time, Jiang Cheng's heart was also changing. The longer he looked at the entrance, the more the feeling of fear gradually dissipated, replaced by a strong curiosity.

He inexplicably felt certain that there must be the answers he wanted in that tomb.

Even if it meant death, or facing consequences a hundred times more terrifying than death, he had to go in and take a look.

Even better, everyone thought the same thing. Even Old Mr. Luo, who was always cautious, didn't object.

There was something in the depths of the mist that attracted them all.

As the torchlights grew fainter, the group quickly ran towards the entrance, as if they would miss something important if they were even a step late.

And the mist in front of the entrance seemed to have a life of its own, as if it could sense what everyone was thinking, and actually drifted towards them.

Just as Jiang Cheng was about to rush into the mist, something flashed in the corner of his eye, interrupting his thoughts. He subconsciously turned his head to look. At the edge of the mist, a figure stood there, ramrod straight.

Just like last time, he couldn't see the face, and even the figure was blurry, but the stiff arm pointing behind them was unusually clear.

This sudden scene instantly sobered Jiang Cheng up. By now, the mist had spread to in front of him, and he was about to rush into the mist in the next second.

In this short moment, the strong curiosity in Jiang Cheng's heart was suppressed, replaced by a strong unease about the current situation. The mist in front of him seemed to be alive, as if it wanted to swallow them all.

"Stop! Everyone stop!"

Jiang Cheng was the first to retreat. Although Fatty, Number Two, and the others didn't know Jiang Cheng's purpose, they hesitated for a moment and followed him back. Only the rugged man and his group seemed to be injected with adrenaline, but Luo Yunshan forcibly stopped them at the last moment.

"What are you trying to do?" The rugged man said with red eyes. "Those guys are about to disappear. We came here to save people. This is the best opportunity!"

Jiang Cheng didn't intend to explain to him at all. After everyone calmed down, Jiang Cheng said that he had seen the figure again.

And this time, like last time, the figure disappeared mysteriously, leaving no trace.

The reappearance of the figure made everyone realize that there was something strange about this. "That figure can’t be a ghost who died unjustly in this mountain, right? Because he died in the mountains, he has a lot of resentment, so he wants others who stay in the mountains to die in the mountains as well. We had trouble the last time the figure appeared, and three brothers died. This time… this time, I’m afraid something strange will happen again!"

The more the rugged man spoke, the more nervous he became. Everyone was wary of their surroundings, fearing that those who had disappeared would suddenly reappear from somewhere.

As the only one who saw the figure, Jiang Cheng was also full of fear about the elusive figure. The other party gave him an indescribable feeling of awkwardness, especially the head covered in a sack, and the strange, stiff arm. These reminded him of a horror movie he had seen a long time ago.

In the movie, the protagonist also encountered such a strange person. On a dark, rainy street corner, the other person was wearing a sack over their head, motionless, stiffly pointing in a direction.

At first, the protagonist didn't care, thinking it was just a prank by a bored person, but slowly, this strange person appeared more and more frequently in his life. Even stranger, no one else could see this strange person except the protagonist himself.

Finally, one day, the protagonist couldn't bear it anymore. He followed the direction the strange person was pointing, walking and walking, out of his house, out of his village, and finally came to a cemetery.

And the strange person finally lowered his hand, standing in front of a grave.

And after the protagonist got closer, he was shocked to find that the name on the tombstone was actually his own!

It was also at this time that the strange person finally took off his hood.

In Jiang Cheng's memory, the movie ended there, and didn't reveal the strange person's true face. The identity of the other person could not be found, and it was said to be an open ending.

But he never thought when watching the movie that one day, a scene from the movie would actually be staged in reality.

"What's going on?"

A sudden sound interrupted Jiang Cheng's thoughts. Following Fatty's shocked gaze, the mist gradually dissipated, and the scene in front of him was really shocking. The canyon… was gone.

It was completely gone. Because in front of them at this moment was a huge stone wall.

The group couldn't describe it as just confused at this point. After all, they had all seen the scene just now with their own eyes. There was clearly a canyon. Everyone had also seen the canyon entrance, and those who had disappeared before, who were leading the way, had entered the canyon.

But as the mist dissipated, everything disappeared. It felt like everything before was just a mirage.

"It can't be fake. Look at the ground, the footprints of those people are still there."

Number Two was still maintaining the most basic calm. Panic was not helpful in solving the problem. It was true, as he said, there were still footprints on the ground. The group followed the footprints and walked all the way to the stone wall. The footprints disappeared here.

All the footprints had toes pointing towards the stone wall, as if… as if those people had all walked into the stone.

"What… what's going on?"

The rugged man swallowed at this moment. He was also a Disciple and had seen a lot of strange things, but none of them were as strange as this one. He wouldn't dare to dream of something like this.

Buzz…

Buzz…

At the same time, a strange electrical noise suddenly rang in everyone's ears, very close to them, very close.

The face of one of the group changed drastically, and he tremblingly took out a walkie-talkie from his pocket. After a simple adjustment, a strange sound suddenly came from the walkie-talkie, as if it was coming from a very, very far place, and was already somewhat distorted.

After listening for a few seconds, Jiang Cheng's heart suddenly clenched. He heard a burst of music, the melodious sound of silk, bamboo, wind, and strings, and the sound of beating time, which was very ancient.