Before them lay a vast expanse of land, stretching beyond sight.
From outside, it had looked like nothing more than an unremarkable little hill. Who could have imagined an entire world hidden within it?
Beneath their feet lay blue-black mountain rock. Before them stretched endless plains, paths crisscrossing the fields, where farmers led oxen and followed dogs along the ridges.
In the distance, peach and mulberry groves rolled on and on. Willows grew beside a stream, where young children in red jackets rode white deer across the water, laughing and playing.
An old man rode a black donkey beneath the trees, the embers in his pipe flickering as he left a curling trail of bluish smoke-at first glance, it looked exactly like an idyllic haven beyond the world.
But on closer inspection, the scene before them became far less inviting.
The yellow ox looked sturdy, but only a thin layer of hide covered its head. From the neck back, it had neither skin nor flesh, only jutting white bones and stark, gray-white ribs, each distinctly visible. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed over bloodstains that had yet to dry, and its tail had become a whip of bone.
The peasant woman leading the yellow dog was a translucent remnant soul, yet she still giggled as she flung something far away-a humerus stained with blackened blood.
The yellow dog bounded out and returned with the bone in its mouth. When its jaws spread, they revealed two rows of sharp fangs.
The children riding the white deer looked innocent and carefree, and the deer were snow-white all over, like the mounts of immortals.
Only their heads and mouths were smeared with dark red blood. Whatever flesh they had eaten, the sight was chilling.
As for the old man riding the donkey beneath the trees,