This sudden loss of direction felt very strange to me.

I was following the direction of the compass the whole time, so how could I have been going around in circles for so long?

Jiang Man looked at the lush vegetation around her and asked, "Duan Shenxing, the situation here is indeed a bit strange. Even if we walk slowly, it's impossible that we haven't even covered five kilometers in three hours! Do you think we might have gone the wrong way?"

"This possibility is still very high. We've been almost entirely through bushes along the way. The visibility was terrible, and we didn't have a clear direction. If we deviate from the starting point, we'll be way off track after a few kilometers."

I nodded, took a long piece of tree branch from the machete, and tapped it against the surrounding grass to scare away snakes. Looking at the compass, I said, "Everyone, head back. As long as you avoid the tracks we left behind, that's another path."

Following my instructions, the group set off again, trekking through the rainforest once more.

It took us more than two hours to walk here from the location where we lost satellite signal.

However, on the return trip, although we followed the direction of the compass the whole time, after walking for three and a half hours, the handheld terminal still did not detect any satellite signals.

Lin Que looked at the increasingly dark sky and began to worry: "Brother, I have a feeling we're going to get lost in this jungle! It's getting dark so fast, is there any chance we'll get out of this hellhole before nightfall?"

Looking at the exhausted group, I comforted them, "Don't be so pessimistic. At least we haven't encountered any other dangers along the way, except for some venomous snakes. It's probably because everyone is tired and their strength has decreased, so the pace of our journey has slowed down. Let's continue for another hour and see."

In this situation, we continued walking for a while. The monkey looked at the woods ahead, his expression becoming somewhat complicated: "Young Master Duan, I have a feeling that we've already passed through this area."

When Jiang Man heard the monkey say that, she comforted it, "The plants in this forest are basically all the same. We've been walking for so long, we're already experiencing visual fatigue, so it's normal to have blurred vision."

"No! I think the monkey is right. It seems like we've really been to this place before."

I shook my head, interrupting Jiang Man, and reached out to push aside a large patch of leaves in front of me, revealing the scene behind me.

Behind the bushes was a patch of trampled weeds, with many cut plants on the ground, and a tree missing a branch.

And that branch is now in my hand.

This scene not only made everyone else's faces darken, but it also gave me a rather uneasy feeling.

For an explorer, knowing how to navigate is the most basic survival skill. In the complex deep forests, losing your sense of direction is like playing with your life.

The Duan family's mountain-crossing mirror is an ancestral technique. As long as I have a compass, even if I'm thrown into a desolate desert, I can accurately determine the direction.

But today, in this forest, I led the team around for almost seven hours, and we kept going in circles.

Seeing that we had returned to where we started not long ago, Jiang Man asked me in a deep voice, "Duan Shenxing, what's going on?"

We've encountered a ghost wall!

Looking at the dense, towering jungle around me, I said with a grave expression, "Being trapped in a maze has always been the most feared situation for tomb raiders and scientific expeditions. Going around in circles like this can lead to death."

The monkey, knowing what "being trapped in a maze" meant, asked in surprise, "But we've been walking in a straight line the whole time! How could we have gone around in circles for so long and still ended up back in the same place?"

I explained, "There are two types of 'ghost wall' formations. One is caused by special natural environmental factors that make the terrain complex and difficult to identify. The other is caused by human intervention, using special methods such as Qimen Dunjia to create formations to confuse the enemy. And the location we are in is in a dense forest, which is the area most prone to 'ghost wall' formations."

Lin Que knew nothing about feng shui or esoteric practices: "Brother, will we be able to get out of here?"

“Let’s go through it again!” I glanced at the tree whose branch I had cut earlier and strode into the woods to one side. “We didn’t realize we were in a maze before, so we chose a completely different path. But now that we’ve found the problem, let’s find the path we took into the woods before and follow the trails we left behind. That way we can leave this woods. Let’s go out and rest for the night, and then go back into the woods tomorrow after we’ve had a good rest!”

...

A few hours later, our group emerged from the woods and returned to the tree.

By this time, it was completely dark. The swaying bushes around us, illuminated by the lamplight, looked menacing, as if they were about to devour us.

"Damn it, this place is too eerie!"

The monkey shone his flashlight on the trees ahead, his face so dark it was almost dripping with water: "When we retreated just now, we clearly followed the tracks we left behind. Logically, we should have been able to get back to the outside of the jungle. We shouldn't have ended up here!"

Lin Que was starting to panic: "Big brother, do you think this place is really haunted? I've never seen anything so eerie in my life! This is beyond my comprehension!"

"Don't you understand the principle that Confucius did not speak of strange phenomena, physical prowess, disorder, or spirits? It's already dark, what are you talking about with all this ghost nonsense!"

The monkey made a sarcastic remark to the sparrow, then clasped its hands together and bowed to the surrounding area: "Mountain God Grandpa, Earth God Grandma, if you truly have spirits, then please stop messing with us!"

Seeing the monkey's appearance, I was both amused and exasperated: "Alright, stop making a fool of yourself here. Instead of wasting time, we should be thinking about how to get out of this forest!"

Jiang Man thought for a moment and said to me, "How about we go through it again? This time, we can leave marks along the way to correct our bearings!"

“We followed the same route as before, but we went around in circles and ended up back here. So leaving marks along the way might be useful, but we’re not sure yet.”

I looked at the pitch-black sky and shook my head: "This place is too strange. The lushness of the jungle doesn't even give me a chance to observe the stars... Everyone is tired after a long day. Let's set up camp here and rest until tomorrow morning."