Yi Yun's Tomb

In this era, surviving was no easy feat. Yi Yun understood this deeply, but he never imagined that in the prime of his life, he would face his own death.

That morning, Yi Yun had planned to go hiking with two friends, including a pretty girl. It was supposed to be a wonderful outing.

Young people always sought excitement, and Yi Yun was no exception. He found it boring to hike on ordinary tourist trails. Instead, they chose a deserted, remote mountain.

Halfway up the mountain, they discovered a cave.

The girl with them became instantly interested and insisted on exploring it. But who could have predicted that their curiosity would lead to disaster?

Inside the cave, Yi Yun found a square purple crystal card. It resembled a data card from a sci-fi movie. Just as Yi Yun, mistaking it for a natural amethyst, reached out to touch it, the cave began to tremble and then collapsed!

It's hard to describe the feeling Yi Yun experienced when tens of thousands of tons of rock came crashing down. If he had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be: You don't know what it means to die until you're about to die.

He was young, reasonably good-looking, healthy, and still a virgin...

His future should have held countless beautiful moments, but now, they were all gone.

The sorrow and despair were suffocating.

The falling rocks didn't hit Yi Yun directly, but they sealed off his only way out.

Trapped in a confined space within the mountain, with no food, no water, and even limited air, Yi Yun knew with certainty that this place was likely to be his grave.

Yi Yun stared blankly at the thick rock wall. Illuminated by his phone's flashlight, the rough stone surface looked like the faces of demons and monsters. The cold touch made his heart sink further.

He didn't know where his companions had gone. Logically, they had followed him closely into the cave, and they should have been trapped with him when it collapsed. But... they were nowhere to be seen.

It was as if they had never entered the cave with Yi Yun. Yet, he clearly remembered hearing the girl behind him speak just half a minute before the cave-in, nervously asking if there might be snakes inside.

How could two living people just vanish?

Why did the cave collapse out of the blue?

With no signal in the cave and his friends' fates unknown, Yi Yun felt utterly helpless. He didn't want to sit and wait for death. He even considered digging his way out. If only a small portion of the rocks had fallen, there might have been a sliver of hope.

When facing death, people can unleash immense willpower and strength. Even the smallest hope is worth pursuing.

Yi Yun decided to act immediately. Digging with his bare hands was impossible, and he hadn't brought any tools like a dagger. Just then, a flash of inspiration struck him – the crystal card.

It looked somewhat like a small shovel. Though small and lacking a handle, it was still better than using his hands.

Turning to look at the mysterious crystal card in the cave, Yi Yun's heart skipped a beat. Thinking back, the cave had collapsed the very instant he touched the card.

What a coincidence!

Even more baffling was the inexplicable disappearance of his two friends.

The combination of these incredible phenomena sparked a strange thought in Yi Yun's mind: Could everything that happened today be caused by this crystal card?

He looked at the purple crystal card. It was a slightly raised, perfectly flat stone. Upon this stone lay the nightmarish purple crystal card, emitting a faint glow.

Yi Yun hesitated, then turned off his phone's flashlight. In the pitch-black cave, he found that he could vaguely see by the dim light of the purple card.

Yi Yun realized this crystal card was likely not amethyst; crystals don't glow. In nature, some minerals containing radioactive elements do emit light.

At this point, Yi Yun didn't care about the potential harm from radioactive elements. He picked up the purple crystal card, intending to study it. If this card had caused the collapse, could it also be the key to his escape?

Yi Yun knew the odds were slim, but facing death, he was willing to try anything.

The crystal card felt ice-cold in his hand. The chill seemed to travel up his arm, aiming for his heart. It was slightly larger than an adult's palm and thinner than his palm.

The card was entirely purple, etched with mysterious patterns. These patterns were clearly not natural; they looked deliberately carved.

Who could have carved them? Were these patterns an ancient totem, or perhaps a form of secret language?

Could it even be from beyond Earth, from an extraterrestrial civilization?

With such bizarre events unfolding, Yi Yun's imagination ran wild. He was convinced the cave-in was related to the purple crystal card. Otherwise, without an earthquake, how could a natural cave suddenly collapse?

Holding the crystal card, Yi Yun noticed that its edges were as sharp as a blade. This sparked a flicker of hope; at least he could use it to dig with less effort.

Without further hesitation, Yi Yun approached the thick wall of earth and stone, holding the crystal card.

He gripped the edges of the card with both hands and dug in. Then, something incredible happened. The once-hard earth and stone yielded like tofu under the palm-sized card, slicing through with ease. Yi Yun, having put too much force into it, lost his balance as the earth gave way and stumbled onto the rock face.

Yi Yun was stunned. Ignoring the scraped skin on his forehead, he stared blankly at the purple crystal card in his hand. After the initial shock, immense joy washed over him.

This was like a laser knife from a sci-fi movie.

At that moment, he had no time to ponder how it could be so sharp. His sole focus was escaping.

Clutching the crystal card, Yi Yun began to dig frantically like a mole. The card was unstoppable, slicing through even hard granite as if it were butter.

Yi Yun's excitement grew. He felt like he had found a treasure!

If he could truly escape, this thing might change his destiny. It could possibly contain alien technology!

Yi Yun didn't know how long he had been digging, or if it was his imagination. Whenever he felt exhausted, a faint, almost imperceptible coolness emanated from the crystal card in his hand, giving him just enough strength to continue his relentless excavation.

Unaware of day or night in the cave, Yi Yun dug without rest. The instinct for survival drove him forward, and forward.

His phone had long since died, rendering time meaningless. Three days? Five days? Seven days?

Yi Yun didn't know. He hadn't eaten or drunk anything, yet miraculously, he was still alive. It seemed the mysterious power from the crystal card sustained his life.

If one were to look back at the path Yi Yun had dug, it would be a terrifying sight. But Yi Yun paid no mind to it; his vision was blurred.

He couldn't see clearly ahead, couldn't see the earth and stone, only the icy coldness from the purple crystal card in his hand remained vividly clear.

He seemed to have gradually lost his senses, digging blindly with sheer willpower and tenacity. Then, at a certain moment, he suddenly felt a slight brightness before his eyes, as if a faint light had penetrated the gaps in the soil and shone on his face.

Like a person in a coma being doused with cold water, Yi Yun jolted awake!

Light!

There was light!

Yi Yun had never imagined that one day, light would be so beautiful. He couldn't help but burst into tears. The strength he had lost seemed to have returned to his body. Gritting his teeth, he dug frantically.

Finally!

Yi Yun felt a sudden emptiness before him, followed by a bright, dazzling light that shone down, almost blinding him.

He had climbed out from underground!

"I succeeded!"

"I'm alive!"

Yi Yun desperately wanted to shout three times. Without experiencing darkness, one cannot appreciate the rarity of light; without experiencing death, one cannot understand the preciousness of life.

Yi Yun lay on the ground, gasping for air. He looked at the azure sky and the leisurely white clouds, never before finding the blue sky so beautiful.

Although his body was extremely exhausted and desperately thirsty, Yi Yun did not rest for too long. Gritting his teeth, he got up. He needed to contact his two friends now.

Yi Yun had narrowly escaped death. He had no idea how his friends were doing.

But... his phone was dead.

Yi Yun looked around, searching for any sign of human habitation. As he scanned the surroundings, Yi Yun froze.

This... how was this possible?

Yi Yun clearly remembered being buried alive in a cave while climbing a mountain. The cave was on the mountainside, so he should have emerged on the mountainside as well.

However, Yi Yun actually found himself on a vast plain. Although there were mountains in the distance, the distance to them was so great that a horse would die of exhaustion trying to reach them. Yi Yun absolutely did not believe he could have dug a tunnel this far.

Around him, there were several raised mounds of earth. In front of each mound, a wooden stick was casually planted, with strange, crude writing etched onto it in charcoal...

Were these... graves?

Yi Yun was stunned. How could he have appeared among several graves! Having experienced a near-death situation before, Yi Yun's nerves had become much stronger. Even when faced with such an unreasonable situation, he could still calm down and carefully observe these mounds.

These mounds were nothing like modern cemeteries. In modern cities, which cemetery had tombstones made of marble or granite, arranged so neatly?

But the mounds before him... even the graves in the most remote mountain villages were better than this.

Wait...

Yi Yun suddenly noticed something and looked down. The "tunnel" he had just crawled out of was still there, and its exit was in front of a mound. Beside the mound, a wooden plank served as a tombstone.

The wooden plank also bore strange writing. However, for some reason, a flash of inspiration struck Yi Yun, and he understood the characters.

It read: "To my beloved brother, Tomb of Yi Yun."

Next to it were five characters: "Eldest Sister Jiang Xiaorou."

Yi... Yi Yun... the tomb!?

Yi Yun was completely dumbfounded. What kind of supernatural event was this? He had clearly just been buried alive in a cave on a desolate mountain, yet he had dug his way out of a grave, and it was his own grave!

What a joke!

Moreover, the writing wasn't Chinese or English. How could he understand such inexplicable characters?

This must be a dream...

Yes, it must be a dream. This dream is quite realistic... It feels like... Yi Yun looked around again, feeling a little guilty. It was too realistic!

He pinched himself hard, and the result... it hurt.

He pinched again, and it still hurt!

"Not a dream? This is actually not a dream?"

Yi Yun felt like ten thousand mythical creatures were stampeding through his mind. Who could tell him what was going on?

Yi Yun was cursing inwardly.

Had he died when he was buried alive in the cave? And then he was dug up and buried, and the events of digging the tunnel were just hallucinations before his death?

But... what did the words "beloved brother" mean? He didn't have a sister. If he had to count, there was only a cousin who lived in another city, whom he rarely interacted with and had only met a few times. There was no way she would erect a tombstone for him!

If the "Yi Yun" on the tombstone was just someone with the same name, another person, then that was impossible. How could it be such a coincidence that he just happened to dig out of the grave of someone named "Yi Yun"?

Yi Yun felt completely confused. Just then, he suddenly froze, staring blankly into the distance. On a muddy country road, a young girl in coarse cloth clothes, carrying a bamboo basket on her back, was walking towards him