After finally pulling Fu Honglang out of the mud, he was covered in mud and spitting out muddy water from his mouth.
"Boss, where's Shi Tou?" Xiao Liu asked.
Fu Honglang wiped the mud from his face. He didn't say a word, but his expression made it clear that Shi Tou had most likely been dragged down by those vines.
"Brother Xiang, what do we do now?" Fatty asked, leaning close to my ear.
How should I know what to do?
Everyone looked at Fu Honglang. He took out a bottle from his backpack, opened it, and immediately the smell of gasoline wafted out.
"Those are Ghost Vines..." Fu Honglang said. "Ghost Vines are afraid of fire. Everyone, take out anything that can burn. We need to find a way to get Shi Tou out."
"What are Ghost Vines?" I asked.
Before Fu Honglang could answer, Wang Yang explained, "They're plants like Venus flytraps, that feed on plants and animals... Ghost Vines usually grow in dark, damp caves... However..."
"However what?" I asked.
"However, as far as I know, Ghost Vines don't usually grow in clusters. They grow individually..."
"Why?" Fatty asked.
"Because Ghost Vines don't distinguish between their own kind, meaning they'll devour each other. Moreover, Ghost Vines have been extinct for hundreds of years. How could they be here?" Wang Yang said.
"Let's save the person first," Fu Honglang said, already lighting Xiao Liu's jacket and starting to search for Shi Tou with the burning cloth.
When the burning cloth was held in front, the Ghost Vines on the ground quickly retreated.
I noticed that Fu Honglang had a gun in his hand at some point, and Xiao Liu was holding an identical one.
Seeing that the clothes were almost burned up, I tugged at Fatty and asked him to take off his jacket and hand it over.
"Brother Xiang, do you think that guy might..."
Before Fatty could finish speaking, I glared at him.
This guy really has no sense of timing, saying something like that at a moment like this...
"What's that?" Xiao Liu shone his flashlight at something not far away.
We saw a dark mass wriggling on the cave wall ahead. From my position, the thing was at least seven or eight meters in diameter.
"It's the roots of the Ghost Vines!" Wang Yang said.
As the flashlight beam shone inside, I felt my scalp tingle.
The entire cave wall inside was covered with Ghost Vine roots, densely packing the entire cave.
"Xiang... Brother Xiang..." Fatty grabbed my arm, and I could hear him swallow.
"We can't go any further!" Wang Yang said.
Fu Honglang seemed to realize this as well and stopped, looking unwilling. He shouted, "Shi Tou!!"
His shout was so heart-wrenching that my eardrums hurt.
At his roar, the Ghost Vines on the cave wall suddenly stopped wriggling, as if intimidated by his rage.
"Xiao Liu! Get the blasting caps ready!" Fu Honglang said coldly.
"Boss..." Xiao Liu hesitated. "If we detonate explosives here, the cave will collapse..."
Hearing that Fu Honglang was going to blow up the cave, I was also taken aback.
"Uh... Brother Fu, a dead person can't be revived... We who are alive must cherish ourselves..."
As soon as Fatty said this, Fu Honglang cursed, "I'm going to die with these damned things today! Damn it!"
Seeing him losing control, I quickly said, "Brother Fu, we still need to find your wife. You absolutely must not be rash."
Hearing me mention Mao Guizhi, Fu Honglang finally calmed down, but it was clear he was still struggling to let go.
Seeing that the clothes in his hand were almost burned, if we didn't leave soon, who knew what would happen.
"Brother Fu!" I called out to him again, earnestly.
Fu Honglang gritted his teeth and roared in a low voice, "Let's go!"
After leaving the lair of the Ghost Vines, we didn't know where we had arrived.
However, this place was not damp, and the ground was a dry stone slab path.
Strangely, where did the stone slab path come from in this cave?
Perhaps it was laid by the people who dug the cave back then?
It wasn't impossible, after all, this cave used to be an air-raid shelter and later a bandit stronghold.
Thinking of the bandit stronghold, I couldn't help but wonder how the bandits who hid here lived back then.
No matter what, if one lived in a cave, there would have been some traces left behind. How come we hadn't seen any traces all the way here?
"I can't walk anymore... Let's rest for a bit," Fatty panted.
I glanced at Fu Honglang. He nodded slightly, his expression grim.
It seemed he was still thinking about Shi Tou.
It was understandable, after all, Shi Tou had followed him through thick and thin for so many years, and now he had died so inexplicably. Anyone would feel bad.
I didn't know how to comfort him, and given our current situation, it wasn't appropriate to say much more.
Besides, Fu Honglang was a man who had seen his share of storms, and he wouldn't be discouraged by something like this.
After resting for a while and eating some food, we continued to look for an exit.
This cave was like a maze, with a fork in the road appearing every now and then. To avoid retracing our steps, we left marks on the cave walls at regular intervals.
Everyone was quite subdued along the way. Later, Fatty, with his talkative nature, would blurt out a few words that made us want to laugh and cry, and gradually the atmosphere became less heavy.
"Brother Fu, you said earlier that this cave is a ghost cave. What do you mean?" Fatty asked.
Fu Honglang replied, "A ghost cave means a cave with heavy corpse qi. In such caves, you often encounter inexplicable things, like the 'ghost wall' phenomenon..."
"I see..." Fatty nodded. "So, Brother Fu, have you ever seen a ghost?"
Fu Honglang said, "I can't really say if I have or haven't..."
"Huh?"
"Before, when my maternal uncle and I were tomb raiding, we went into a general's tomb. That tomb was very eerie, and we almost didn't make it out," Fu Honglang sighed. "In our line of work, every time we go into a tomb, we have to be prepared not to come back. Some die in the tomb, while others are calculated against by the living... I've seen plenty of brotherly betrayals and double-crosses."
Fatty pressed on, "Brother Fu, what did you encounter that time you went tomb raiding with your uncle?"
"A 'zombie'... and a thousand-year-old zombie at that," Fu Honglang said with a grave tone.
"Zombie? What kind of zombie? The kind we eat to commemorate Qu Yuan?"
I interjected, somewhat exasperated, "The 'zombie' Brother Fu is referring to is a corpse that hasn't decayed..."
"Undecayed for a thousand years? Isn't that thing alive?" Fatty laughed.
Fu Honglang pursed his lips and said, "That's right, that thousand-year-old zombie was indeed alive, and it was a female zombie..."