When Jiang Man heard my question, she comforted me, "Don't worry, Manjing just fainted, he's fine!"
After hearing Jiang Man's explanation, I finally felt a little relieved: "Did you faint? Did you choke on water?"
"No, we were attacked!"
Jiang Man shook her head: "You must have already seen those talking monsters in the forest. We were attacked by those monsters before, and we had already escaped them, but then a strange bird appeared in the sky!"
What kind of bird?
Hearing Jiang Man's words made me even more curious.
Although the space we are in now has rivers and forests, it is still inside the mountain, and the space for movement is very limited. So I find it hard to understand why there would be birds in such a place.
When Jiang Man heard me ask this, she shook her head and said, "We don't know either. That thing was too fast. We just found a feather on the ground when we were attacked by it, so we made this analysis."
When I first came ashore, I only saw Manjing and Linque. To avoid the strange bird's attack, we ran to the edge of the cliff so that the bird would have no room to maneuver. However, we were attacked by those talking monsters. To protect us, Manjing fought the monster alone, but even he couldn't defeat it in a one-on-one fight. Fortunately, Monkey arrived in time and shot the monster away. Manjing, however, fainted from exhaustion.
As you can see, there's very little in this woods that can be used to start a fire, and we've all just come ashore from the river. So, after Manjing fainted, I risked going into the woods to gather firewood, and unexpectedly, I ran into you all.”
I heard that Manjing was just exhausted and started helping to bandage the wounds of the Wei family members: "Manjing is exceptionally talented. Even that monster couldn't defeat him. It's truly terrifying."
"Yes! Luckily, I found a gun by the river when I got ashore, otherwise, that monster would probably have wiped us all out here!"
The monkey nodded in deep agreement: "Young Master Duan, do you know what that monster is? It has eyes all over its body?"
"I don't know, I've never seen any relevant records."
I shook my head: "In all my books, the cases of corpses coming back to life in tombs that I've seen are mostly parasites like corpse puppets, puppetry, or some kind of evil magic. But when I fought that monster just now, I felt that it had a body temperature, and the temperature was very high. This doesn't match any of the records, so that thing must be a living creature!"
The monkey raised an eyebrow: "A living creature? I've never heard of anything that looks like this before! Could it be an alien?"
"Perhaps it was some kind of Gu (a type of magical artifact) created by the ancestors of Ping'an Village to guard the tomb."
I didn't jump to conclusions about the monsters: "Although we don't know where those monsters came from, their existence is a huge threat to all intruders! Fortunately, our people have already reunited, so we don't need to take any more risks!"
"Yes! After we gathered, we also surveyed the surrounding environment. I walked along the mountain wall for a while and found that this forest continued to stretch along the valley. At least we couldn't find the end."
Jiang Man nodded: "What are your thoughts on the next steps?"
I replied, “Although this cave is large, it must have boundaries. The mountain wall around us is the edge of this forest. My suggestion is to first explore along the mountain wall. If we can’t find a path, we should cross the forest horizontally and then walk vertically through it, dividing the forest into several areas and searching for clues one by one.”
Jiang Man agreed with my plan: "My suggestion is also to act as soon as possible, because those monsters can't just attack our group. Among the four forces that entered here, only Duan Jinyan and Ping'an Village have guns. Perhaps we can find them through this method."
I added some firewood to the campfire: "Everyone has been working so hard for so long, they must be tired. Take a break and we'll set off once Manjing wakes up."
The monkey glanced at the Wei family members: "Then what about him?"
Before I could speak, a member of the Wei family said, “Mr. Duan, I am very grateful that you risked your life to save me! But my current situation is not optimistic. I have become a burden. I work for the Wei family and have no reason to hold you back. So you don’t need to worry about me. I just hope that you can leave me some food and supplies for the sake of our shared origins from the four families, so that I can continue to search for the young lady and the others!”
“Come with us. You’ve seen how dangerous this forest is. Without a few reliable teammates, you won’t have a chance to get out.”
I patted the arm of the Wei family member: "The four families are of the same lineage, so there is no need to feel indebted. I believe that if one of our people were lost and Wei Shengnan and the others saw him, they would not stand idly by either."
When the others heard me say this, none of them objected. Just as I said, although we and Wei Shengnan have different goals, if we really met, we wouldn't turn against each other. Instead, we could support each other without any conflict.
Lin Que stretched his body and said to me, "Brother, you're already injured. Take advantage of this campfire and rest for a while. Otherwise, once we set off, we don't know when we'll be able to rest again. I'll take care of the sentry duty."
"Um."
I knew this wasn't the time to be stubborn, so when I heard Lin Que say that, I didn't insist. I leaned against the mountain wall and drifted off to sleep.
In such harsh conditions, I was on edge and didn't sleep for long; I woke up in less than an hour.
When I opened my eyes, Manjing was already awake, sitting by the campfire eating beef jerky.
Seeing that everyone was ready, I picked up the canteen next to the campfire, poured myself a cup of hot water to moisten my throat, and said, "It's about time, let's go!"
After resting for so long, the chill of the campfire had been dispelled. When I spoke, everyone got up and began searching along the valley.
Just as Jiang Man said, the forest next to us is very large. We walked along the cliff for more than 20 minutes and still showed no sign of ending.
The monkey stood to one side, muttering speechlessly, "Ordinary tombs, even a large one, are only a few hundred meters long. But look at the tombs we've come to, some stretches for several kilometers!"
"To be precise, this is just a series of mechanisms and feng shui formations along the way; we haven't seen the tomb yet."
I smiled at the monkeys, about to say something, when I suddenly stopped and gestured for them to be quiet: "Don't talk, turn off your flashlights!"
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