The hand had none of a living person's warmth. It was covered in calluses and hard scabs.
Dirt clung to its fingers. The nails looked as though they had been bitten, their edges ragged with uneven cracks.
In the absolute darkness and dead silence, that hand became the only thing that could give Gao Ming any information.
Without hearing or sight, the madman in the Black Pit used those hands to feel the world, even if his world was nothing more than an abandoned cellar.
The fingers suddenly closed around his hand. Gao Ming felt as though a wild beast had bitten him, and an immense force dragged him deeper into the Black Pit.
Protecting his head, Gao Ming could no longer tell which direction he was facing. Several minutes later, he fell into the mud.
His surroundings were still pitch-black and utterly silent. Gao Ming climbed to his feet and picked a direction at random. Even after several steps, he hadn't touched a stone wall.
Where am I?
Retracing his steps, Gao Ming crouched on the ground. Accustomed to understanding the world through sight and hearing, he couldn't help feeling a flicker of panic now. It was human nature.
The owner of that hand didn't kill me outright. He might need me to do something.
Refusing to give up, Gao Ming grabbed a handful of mud from the ground, rubbed it between his fingers, and held it beneath his nose.
He smelled the fresh scent of earth after rain, and as he caught that scent, his fingers also touched a blade of grass.
The Black Pit is underground, full of rotten mud. The soil here shouldn't smell like this.
He couldn't see or hear, but Gao Ming still had his senses of touch and smell.
Kneeling on the ground,