Gan Pengpeng's account alone is enough to tell you how tragic the situation must have been back then.

"So how did people survive back then?"

Bai Yucheng asked the key question.

The fact that there are descendants indicates that there were still living people in the village at that time.

"Good question."

"This is also why you can't go to the base for the time being. You need to undergo baptism here to weaken the curse."

"Otherwise, your bodies won't be able to hold out for long."

"You haven't been to the entrance of the rift yet, have you?"

Gan Pengpeng meant well.

“We arrived here just a few hours ago and haven’t had a chance to go anywhere.”

Xia Shuang said.

"Alright, then let's rest for tonight. I'll take you down the rift tomorrow."

As for what he was doing down the crack, Gan Pengpeng kept it a secret and refused to say.

Everyone could only endure the night with curiosity.

As winter approaches, the nights grow longer.

When Qin Tan woke up in the morning, it was still dark outside.

Qin Tan went outside and breathed in the fresh air. He heard some noises and looked up to find Shen Qing sitting on the roof.

Aren't you cold?

She looked at the frost on Shen Qing's hair.

Anyone who didn't know better would think he'd been sitting there all night.

"It's not cold."

Shen Qing shook her head.

"Qin Tan, what do you think this world will eventually become?"

"In the future, will we be human, monster, or neither?"

Shen Qing's eyes were filled with sorrow, and his thoughts seemed to have drifted far away.

"I have no idea."

Until the very end, no one knows how the world will turn out.

"But as long as I am alive, I will not give up my identity as a human being."

This might be Qin Tan's obsession.

"Yeah?"

Shen Qing smiled, and Qin Tan could see a lot of complex emotions in that smile. Looking over, Shen Qing had already stood up.

"Qin Tan, I'll be watching."

He stepped off the roof and disappeared.

About half an hour later, everyone woke up. Xi Yang, breathing out cool air, naturally snuggled up to Qin Tan.

"Come with me, everyone."

After finishing breakfast, Gan Pengpeng led the way and walked in one direction.

Look in that direction, that's the back mountain of the village.

The mountain peaks rise majestically and stretch endlessly, covered with a layer of frost, and from a distance, they resemble an exquisite work of art.

The moment I stepped into the mountains, I could clearly feel the chill rising.

Xi Yang and the others rubbed their arms, trembling with fear.

How did you find us?

Ke Yuanyun and Gan Pengpeng chatted idly.

"Through biosignals."

Gan Pengpeng pointed to the first short-haired girl in his team.

"Her ability is to capture biological signals in nature. Tell me, in a wilderness full of monsters, if a few biological signals belonging to humans appear, how could we possibly mistake them?"

The mountain path was rugged, and because no one had walked on it for a long time, it was covered with wild grass.

Gan Pengpeng's men led the way; they were very familiar with the area.

"This place is called Yuxian Mountain."

Ahead lay a long canyon. Gan Pengpeng pointed there: "Go past that, and you'll reach it."

The chill seeped into my flesh and reached my soul.

The chill easily made people drowsy, and the people on Qin Tan's side were yawning repeatedly.

Even for Fan Zhi and Xia Shuang, who had some resistance, their condition was visibly declining.

Qin Tan, however, showed an unusual resistance to this coldness.

The princess nestled in Qin Tan's arms, peeking out to observe her surroundings.

At the collarbone, crows are celebrating.

She could feel something faint in the air seeping into her body and becoming food for the black crows.

Perhaps this is the energy of the cold, dark curse that Gan Pengpeng was talking about.

In places polluted by the abyss, this eerie energy has a great corrosive effect on humanity.

They stopped in their tracks as they passed through the narrow passage.

A crack splits a mountain in two.

The pitch-black crevice stretched into the distance, its end unknown.

The rubble and soil that rolled down from the mountain peaks piled up into small hills around them, and they saw many traces of artificial landfilling.

The entries in the diary can provide some insights.

"The crack has been widening."

Gan Pengpeng stood still along the edge of the crack.

“At first, we wondered if the entrance might be here, but it’s obviously not that easy.”

"However, down below, we found a way to combat the curse."

Some say that everything in the universe has its counterpart, and that there are ways to deal with the places where the Yin Cold Curse appears.

"Come with me."

Gan Pengpeng jumped down, and Xia Shuang and the others hesitated for a moment before following.

Surprisingly, from above, the crack appears completely dark, but when you are actually inside, you see specks of icy blue, crystalline stone.

Like fireflies, it emits a faint glow, illuminating the entire underground world.

It's beautiful.

Beauty is strange and unique.

The group's initial landing point was not deep, and they quickly reached the bottom. The path paved with fluorescent light continued downwards.

"When the villagers discovered these stones, they thought they could fetch a high price, so they started mining them despite opposition."

Gan Pengpeng's voice echoes here.

Humans should have awe for the unknown, but the people in the village did not at that time.

Driven by greed, they rampantly mined the ore here, and even concealed the existence of the crack from the outside world in order to gain an advantage.

"The first people to fall ill from the curse were among the most active group at the time."

"As for the symptoms, you should already know them."

Gan Pengpeng turned to look at them, and after they nodded, he ran his fingers over the ore.

In this magnificent world, what awaits humankind is never good fortune, but rather danger and death.

"But did you know that when a curse causes death, the person afflicted by the curse will be frozen in ice?"

"The flesh will gradually disappear in the ice layer, eventually turning into the same crystal."

"If these crystals are obtained by dissecting corpses, then how many people must have died here?"

The topic shifted to horror.

Seeing Xi Yang's timid and bitter smile, Gan Pengpeng burst into laughter.

"Don't worry, even if they are all dead, they are not our people."

The number of points of light in the underworld is too vast, and if so many people died in human history, it would be impossible to hide it.

"arrive."

A stone door appeared ahead.

This was built later.

Standing at the door, Qin Tan could hear the heartbeat coming from inside.

The sound was gentle and steady, indicating that the other person was asleep.

"Be careful, don't make too much noise."

"Don't wake it up."

Gan Pengpeng pushed open the door, and the creature behind it came into view.

At that moment, no one could describe the beauty and wonder of that creature in words.

Like a piece of beautiful jade, it is crystal clear and translucent.

Flawless is its synonym.

It was enormous, its wings seemingly God's most prized masterpiece. With each breath, the wings fluttered slightly, sending down shimmering powder that covered the ground.