We circled around to the other side, the place where we had last seen Xu Qiuyan and the others appear.
"They were out of our sight for less than five minutes. The last time I looked this way, they were right here. They went to the right, moving counterclockwise just like us. If there was some kind of passage, it shouldn't have been more than five minutes away."
Ye Jinghong pointed to the right, and we followed the edge of the mountain hollow in that direction.
We did not move quickly, because we had to keep a careful watch on our surroundings.
But even at our slow pace, we had walked for nearly ten minutes without seeing any other passage, let alone an entrance leading underground.
Ye Jinghong stopped, her expression turning grave.
"It looks like they were taken into another time and space," I said.
Ye Jinghong said nothing and turned back the way we had come.
I stayed close behind her, afraid of getting separated from her again. If she disappeared too, I would be left all alone.
"No, that's not right!" Ye Jinghong muttered, as if speaking to herself.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
Ye Jinghong pointed at a clump of weeds more than a meter tall by the roadside. "Look at that patch of grass. Was it there when we passed by earlier?"
"It was... wasn't it?" I was not entirely sure, but she shook her head. "No. I was watching the surroundings earlier. There were weeds here, but they couldn't possibly have been this tall. Come on, let's take a look."
I could not help admiring Ye Jinghong. The mountain hollow was full of weeds everywhere. Who would deliberately pay attention to how tall they were? Yet she had remembered.
I cleared my throat. "You mean