Wang Yue's screams echoed around us. We clearly saw her left foot, at the ankle, had been cleanly severed!
Blood spurted onto the ground like a geyser. The "hissing" sound of bleeding made our scalps tingle.
Fatty and I quickly pulled her back. As we unhooked her from the cable, she was already becoming drowsy.
I quickly took the first-aid kit from my backpack, tightened a bandage around her severed foot, and then used the remaining bandages to dress the wound.
Honestly, seeing her unconscious made me feel a bit uneasy.
"We need to get her to a hospital quickly, or she'll lose too much blood..." I said.
Professor Zhang frowned, looking full of regret, as if he didn't know what to do.
I called Song Bing over and told him to carry Wang Yue and return the way we came immediately to take her to the hospital.
Just in case, I asked Fatty to accompany him.
"What about you guys?" Fatty asked.
I glanced at Zheng Shuxuan and Yang Hanxue not far away. They had already started examining the stone door, and it seemed unlikely they would turn back just because Wang Yue was injured.
Professor Zhang looked conflicted, clearly worried about Wang Yue's safety but also reluctant to leave this place.
"Professor Zhang, why don't you and they go out first?" I suggested. "I'll turn back the same way after I find the person. You saw how dangerous the mechanisms here are. If something happens to you too later, it would be trouble."
What I said was true. Professor Zhang was already an old man, and if he caused any more trouble, we wouldn't have the capacity to look after him, let alone find the person.
Professor Zhang hesitated for a long time before finally accepting my suggestion. So, Song Bing, carrying Wang Yue, prepared to return the way we came.
Fatty stood nearby, looking reluctant to leave. Seeing this, I didn't rush him.
After Song Bing and Professor Zhang left, Fatty sidled up to me and said, "Brother Xiang, I don't need to go with them, right? I think they'll be fine."
"As you wish," I replied. "Make sure you keep your shield up later."
"Don't worry!"
I asked Yang Hanxue to remove their climbing pitons and pull back the rope. Only then did I discover that the pulley had jammed because it had caught on a piece of clothing.
After pulling off the fragments, the pulley could run again.
I tossed the rope back to Yang Hanxue. He secured his piton, and Fatty and I tugged on the rope, confirming it was stable before I attached the safety buckle to the pulley.
I stepped back a distance, then suddenly charged forward. Approaching the raised floor tile, I instantly retracted my legs and used inertia to slide straight across.
After I crossed, Fatty slid over in the same way I did.
Without Professor Zhang and the others, we felt less hesitant and more decisive in our actions.
Yang Hanxue inserted the crowbar into the gap of the stone door and pried it open with force.
Looking at the opened stone door, I felt a sense of uncertainty. Would Guan Zhenwan be inside?
Thinking about it, it was difficult for us to navigate the floor tile mechanism. How had she managed it back then?
Furthermore, she didn't have the same lighting conditions we had. When I first entered here, I almost fell victim to it.
But if she wasn't here, where would she have gone?
With a belly full of doubts, we walked in.
It was a stone chamber of about thirty square meters. In the center was a lotus-shaped stone meditation cushion. Someone seemed to be sitting on the cushion, their entire body covered by a cloth.
Judging by the dust on the cloth, it seemed no one had touched it.
Fatty asked me what was covered by the cloth.
I replied, "How should I know?"
"How about I lift it to see?" he asked.
I hesitated for a moment, then told him to be careful.
Fatty was somewhat impatient. He nodded, rubbed his hands, and went over to grab a corner of the cloth, slowly lifting it.
After lifting it, we discovered a mummified corpse underneath.
The entire mummy was in a seated meditation posture, similar to the other mummies we had seen when we first entered.
However, being set up alone in such a room clearly indicated that this mummy's status was unusual.
The vast stone chamber was visible at a glance, with nothing particularly remarkable, and no trace of Guan Zhenwan.
This meant she had never been to this place.
"What now?" Fatty asked. "That woman clearly hasn't been here."
I said, "Then where did she go? We've searched everywhere we could, and we haven't found her. Could she have just vanished into thin air?"
Fatty said, "Brother Xiang, do you think there's a possibility she might have already left?"
"Left?"
"Yes, this place might have other passages. She might have gone through one of them and exited. After exiting, she's in the mountains and hasn't found her way to the Taoist temple yet." Fatty suggested.
It wasn't an impossible scenario, but if she had gone through another passage, there should have been some clues. Where else could there be another passage?
"Actually, there's another possibility..." Fatty said hesitantly.
"What possibility?" I asked.
He said, "Do you remember the strange fish in the pool we passed when we were coming? Do you think she might have been eaten by those strange fish?"
Fatty's suggestion made my mind a bit chaotic. Zheng Shuxuan walked up to me and said, "It seems we can only go down there to take a look."
With that, she walked out.
I was a bit slow to react. Go down there to take a look? Down where?
Down in that pool?
Yang Hanxue walked up to me and said, "When we were coming just now, on the suspension bridge, I noticed a light beneath the cliff. You guys were walking ahead, so I didn't tell you."
It was only then that I realized Zheng Shuxuan meant to go down to look beneath the suspension bridge.
"Are you sure you didn't missee it?" I asked.
Yang Hanxue nodded. "I'm sure. However, the light only flashed once. We'll know the specific situation once we go down."
Upon hearing this, we quickly returned the way we came and reached the suspension bridge.
When we got to the suspension bridge, we indeed found a path leading down.
This small path was extremely hidden, at the edge of the cliff, and could barely be called a "path."
It was a very narrow plank path, and it was very steep. I saw some newly chiseled marks on it, indicating that someone had gone down this way.
And only this many people had entered here, which meant Guan Zhenwan had indeed gone down this way.
I was a bit curious. Why did Yang Hanxue only mention this situation now?
If he had said it earlier, we wouldn't have had to go in.
Could it be that he did it on purpose?
Thinking of this, my brow furrowed. Why would he do that?
"Brother Xiang, what are you thinking about?" Fatty walked up to me and handed me the safety rope. "Here, tie it on."
I took the rope and looked at Zheng Shuxuan's retreating figure in the distance, suddenly feeling a sense of unfamiliarity...