MLV Ch 33

Jin Feize said He was in that direction. Could the Taisui whistle? If it could, why was it whistling at Jiang Ye? Jiang Ye racked his brain to recall the tune. Where had he heard it before? It seemed to be from his childhood, on some special occasion, he had heard this whistle.

To be safe, Jiang Ye chose to walk in the opposite direction. But the melodious whistle followed him. Jiang Ye stopped and turned around again. The whistling sound hovered not far in front of him, maintaining a consistent distance—neither too far nor too close. From start to finish, the whistle never left Jiang Ye’s side, but it never got any closer either.

What did it mean? Jiang Ye was suddenly reminded of the golden retriever his family used to have. When it had done its business outside and needed someone to clean up, it would follow him just like this. It wanted him to follow, so it would always bark a few steps away. If Jiang Ye didn’t follow, it would just keep trailing behind him.

Jiang Ye thought for a moment and tentatively took a few steps toward the sound of the whistle.

The whistle moved a little farther away.

Just as he thought. It wanted him to follow it.

Could he trust it? What if it was a trap set by the Taisui? Jin Feize was on the verge of dying from blood loss, and with his eyes closed, he himself would never be able to find his way out of this underground tunnel. If he opened his eyes, he didn’t know if he would truly become a madman like Jin Feize, just as he’d said. Jin Feize had strong self-destructive tendencies; if Jiang Ye also went mad, he might kill Jin Feize first and then commit suicide.

Perhaps he had no choice but to take a gamble. The worst that could happen was dying together with this little psycho, Jin Feize.

Jiang Ye followed the sound of the whistle. The sound was like a carrot dangling in front of a donkey, never getting any closer, always maintaining an equal distance. Jiang Ye moved forward with difficulty, following the whistle left and right, and later up a slope. The dirt slope was covered in loose gravel, and Jiang Ye was extremely careful, afraid of falling. A fall here would surely tear open his knees. From time to time, a few stones would roll down the slope due to his movements. Jiang Ye listened intently; after walking for a long time, there was no sound of falling gravel ahead of him, let alone footsteps or heavy breathing like his own.

There was only the whistle.

Jiang Ye didn’t understand. Could it be that there was no person or thing whistling up ahead? Was it a ghost?

He followed the whistle for about an hour and finally left the underground tunnel. A vast brightness appeared before his eyelids; he must have reached the surface. There were low shrubs at his feet, and vines and branches frequently snagged his steps. Blinded as he was, the journey was incredibly arduous.

Continuing to follow the whistle, his head suddenly bumped into a solid, flat surface. Jiang Ye frowned and reached out to feel it. It was a smooth, fine wooden board, very large. Was it a door? Jiang Ye felt his way along its edge until he reached a ninety-degree corner. Turning the corner, the surface became uneven, covered with intricate carvings. Jiang Ye smelled a strong stench of rot, mixed with the smell of decaying wood. What was this?

The whistle suddenly grew urgent, as if hurrying him along.

A gurgling sound came from behind the wooden board, like something squirming in there. The whistle quickened, sounding like a death summons. Jiang Ye suddenly realized what was in front of him: it was the red coffin his mother had seen near Taisui Village in 2005. When they first arrived in the village, they hadn’t found any traces of an archaeological site, let alone the red coffin his mother had described. He never expected it to be here. His mother’s experiences hadn’t been hallucinations at all; everything had actually happened. So that person named “Jiang Ran” must have been real too?

The gurgling inside the coffin grew louder, as if something was trying to climb out. The whistle was incredibly urgent, sounding extremely anxious. Jiang Ye didn’t dare to delay and followed the sound away. The whistle’s pace suddenly became very fast. Afraid of losing it, Jiang Ye broke into a run. Running with his eyes closed was practically suicide. He finally slammed into a large tree with a loud thud, and he and Jin Feize fell to the ground together.

His forehead throbbed with pain, and he shook his head hard. The whistling sound moved rapidly ahead, quickly fading into the distance. Behind him came a series of cracking sounds, as if something had split open, followed by the sound of a heavy wooden board being moved. A chill ran down Jiang Ye’s spine. Was the coffin lid being pushed open?

At this point, he had to open his eyes. Jiang Ye decisively opened them. He was deep in a jungle, surrounded by tall Sal trees. The trees cast a dense canopy, with sunlight filtering through in sparse patches. There were no strange Taisui shadows. He turned his head and saw the remains of a campsite behind him. On the ground were three blood-stained rifles, and in the center, a number of coffins were placed under a rain canopy. One of the vermilion coffins was particularly massive, exuding a creepy, malevolent aura that sent shivers down one’s spine just looking at it. Its lid, which should have been nailed shut, now had a crack in one corner and had been pushed open, revealing a dark, ominous gap. In that gap, Jiang Ye thought he saw a black mask. The shape was more or less as Shen Duo had described; it seemed to be the same kind of mask worn by the men on his mother’s team.

His mother’s team must have entered the forbidden zone of Taisui Village and cut off the so-called “Taisui flesh.” They had lost three companions—could it have been here? There were three assault rifles on the ground, the number matched perfectly. But how did those three people end up in a coffin? And they seemed very eager to get out.

Intuition told Jiang Ye that these people were extremely dangerous. He scrambled to his feet, hoisted Jin Feize onto his back, and sprinted in the direction the whistle had disappeared. In the distance, he heard three consecutive thuds of heavy objects hitting the ground. It was probably those three people climbing out of the coffin. A rustling sound rapidly approached from behind—“they” were moving with astonishing speed. The sound of their movement was truly not human. Jiang Ye didn’t dare to look back, gritting his teeth as he ran for his life.

The path was nothing but forest, without even a cave to hide in. Jiang Ye was drenched in sweat, but he didn’t dare to stop. Jin Feize was a tall man of 188cm, and Jiang Ye had never trained for a weighted run. Perhaps it was the urgency of the situation that unlocked his potential, because he managed to carry Jin Feize and run continuously for half an hour. The whistle had vanished, and Jiang Ye had no idea if he was even going in the right direction. In his mother’s memoir, she had encountered a ghost wall, returning to the campsite no matter which way she went. Jiang Ye was terrified of the same thing happening to him.

“Turn left,” Jin Feize suddenly spoke from his back.

“You know the way?” Jiang Ye quickly changed direction.

“The whistle is still there,” his voice was extremely faint. 

“Five hundred meters.”

The guy’s hearing was that good. A spark of hope ignited in Jiang Ye’s heart, and he gritted his teeth to chase after the whistle.

Suddenly, Jiang Ye heard the whistle again, exactly in the direction Jin Feize had indicated! He ran toward it. At the end of the treeline, there was a glimmer of light and what looked like a dark figure. Was that the person who was whistling? He used every last bit of strength and sprinted forward. Only after running out of the forest did he realize that he was on the edge of a low cliff, with a turbulent river below. The whistling was gone, and he couldn’t stop his momentum. He and Jin Feize tumbled over the edge together.

His body was caught by the wind like a kite, the vast river spread out beneath him. White waves rolled and crashed, like shattered jade splashing in all directions. The wind was like a knife against his face as he and Jin Feize plunged headfirst into the river. The moment he hit the water, he shrugged off his backpack and went after Jin Feize, who was sinking deep into the water.

The guy had passed out again; even the sudden weightlessness hadn’t woken him. He continued to sink, the dappled sunlight in the water piercing through around him, his ice-sculpted face appearing almost transparent. Like a fish, Jiang Ye caught up to him, wrapped an arm around his narrow waist, and pulled him toward the surface. He coughed violently, his delicate brows furrowed as if he were suffocating. Anxious, Jiang Ye dragged him upward with increasing speed, finally breaking the surface.

The river was very wide. Jiang Ye kept himself and Jin Feize floating on their backs, conserving energy and letting the current carry them. Fortunately, they weren’t submerged for long, and Jin Feize coughed up the water on his own. Seeing that his breathing was steady, Jiang Ye felt slightly relieved. He looked around; they seemed to have returned to the normal world. Aside from the people who had climbed out of the coffins, he hadn’t seen anything strange during their escape, and the surrounding scenery was no different from what they had passed through before. The frantic run had consumed too much of his energy; Jiang Ye didn’t have the strength to swim them both back to shore. He took deep breaths, trying to recover his strength, waiting until they drifted closer to the bank before attempting to get Jin Feize ashore.

As he floated, an overwhelming drowsiness washed over him, and he almost fell asleep. In a daze, he thought he heard Huo Ang’s voice—

“Damn, I found Little Jiang and Little Jin’s bodies. They’re floating down the river, holding hands.”

Shen Duo’s voice came through the walkie-talkie: “What? They’re both dead?!”

Jiang Ye: “…”

He floated past Huo Ang with a blank expression, their eyes meeting. Huo Ang stood on a rescue boat, his tone grief-stricken, “Little Jiang died with his eyes open…”

As if reanimated, Jiang Ye shot up, climbed onto the rescue boat, and then turned to pull Jin Feize up.

Huo Ang was shocked. 

“Holy shit, you’re not dead!”

He quickly reached out to help haul Jin Feize aboard.

“Are you okay?” Huo Ang looked Jiang Ye up and down. 

“When you fell, I was about to jump in and save you, but that Shen guy wouldn’t let me. Said if I went in, I wouldn’t come back. What nonsense, didn’t you come back just fine?”

“My bag… is in the river,” Jiang Ye said, panting. 

“Help me get it…”

“Okay, okay, I’ll definitely get it back for you.”

The exhaustion in his body finally caught up with him, a delayed reaction. All his senses were retreating; he didn’t even have the strength to speak. A medic on the rescue boat took out a first-aid kit and started treating Jin Feize’s wounds. Jiang Ye finally felt at ease. He closed his eyes and slipped into unconsciousness.