The search and rescue effort on Ox Head Mountain ended after three weeks. The outcome was heartbreaking: Ji Yuan, a promising young man of twenty-four, ultimately could not be saved. The primary cause of death was dehydration—in other words, he had died of thirst.
According to the two rescue workers who found Ji Yuan, the sky had been somewhat dim and they could not see clearly at the time. But when they first found him, he had still been able to speak. He had been rushed to the hospital after fainting, yet he had already breathed his last on the way there and could not be revived.
This incident had a considerable impact on both Ox Head Mountain and Ji Yuan's company, but those struck the hardest were still Ji Yuan's parents and family.
Only, Ji Yuan could no longer see any of it.
His whole body ached unbearably... He could not move...
Those were Ji Yuan's first sensations when his consciousness awakened.
His mind was muddled, his thoughts sluggish. The few thoughts he had were filled entirely with pain that seemed to prick every inch of his body like needles.
He could not move, could not speak, could not see. Even his awareness of the outside world was extremely vague. All he felt was pain growing ever more intense.
He did not know how much time had passed before that tormenting pain finally began to fade.
Once the ordeal had passed, Ji Yuan lay sprawled on the ground like a puddle of mud, gasping for breath. After relaxing for a short while, he began to feel that something was wrong.
The surface beneath him was hard, cold, and fairly level. He was definitely not lying in a bed; it felt more like he was on a floor. The temperature around him was rather low, and a faint chilly breeze occasionally swept past, making Ji Yuan shiver.
Yet all he could do was shiver involuntarily. Ji Yuan found that he still could not move. Other than breathing, he could not even open his eyes. The sensation was somewhat like the legendary Ghost Pressing Bed, yet also different. At least, he did not feel any particular pressure bearing down on his body.
Once the clarity of his thoughts and the sensations in his body returned, Ji Yuan remained in a constant state of panic.
He was clearly not at home or in a hospital. There were no human voices nearby. If there were any sounds, they were only the chirping of insects and the occasional call of birds, while his nose caught a faint scent of mildew.
This made Ji Yuan unable to stop himself from wondering whether he was lying on some road in the wilderness, or somewhere even worse.
It was even possible that he had been kidnapped, drugged, and dumped in some desolate warehouse.
He did not know how long passed amid his unease. No one came, no vehicles passed by; there was only unchanging silence.
Gradually, Ji Yuan discovered that his hearing seemed to have become exceptionally keen. The insect chirps and bird calls, high and low, became extraordinarily clear.
Sometimes, if Ji Yuan just happened not to be disturbed by distracting thoughts and the unease in his heart, he could fairly accurately tell where the insects and birds were when he heard them. He could even vaguely sense how far apart they were.
Although this outstanding hearing felt miraculous, Ji Yuan only grew more panicked and more irritable.
Ji Yuan did not know how much time had passed, but he felt that a very, very long time had gone by. During this period, not a single person had appeared by his side. Even if kidnappers really came, that would be fine!
With his body unable to move and his eyes unable to open, this felt even more terrifying than being locked in a little dark room. To keep himself from being driven mad, Ji Yuan could only keep thinking, recalling and pondering what exactly had happened.
Skipping over the time when he had been unconscious, his last memory stopped at the two people he had encountered by the creek. When he fainted back then, he could still hear their startled cries.
The two had said they were searching for a missing person and that it had already been more than half a month. Judging by the uniforms they wore, they might have been rescue workers. But why was he here instead of in a hospital?
Had something happened in between, or was there something wrong with those two rescue workers themselves?
Ji Yuan could only ponder and guess at these questions, before turning his thoughts elsewhere.
Before all else, the most impossible thing to ignore—and the most crucial thing—was naturally that bizarre chess game. Without that chess game, none of this would have happened.
If the former Ji Yuan had been an atheist, then the current Ji Yuan had clearly changed his view.
Whether it was the disappearance of the company campsite after he emerged, the words of the two rescue workers, or the changes that had occurred in his body within a short time, all were facts Ji Yuan had personally experienced. The first two might perhaps have been faked, but the changes in his body were undeniably real.
That meant that, in the eyes of outsiders, he had indeed been missing for more than half a month, while to him personally, only a few minutes—or perhaps even less—had passed.
This could not help but remind Ji Yuan of a story Grandpa had told him when he was little:
Legend had it that in ancient times, there was a woodcutter who went up the mountain to gather firewood one day and had a chance encounter with two old men playing chess in the mountains.
The woodcutter set his firewood and axe beside a tree, then stood nearby to watch the two old men's game for a while. One of the old men even smilingly broke off half a peach for him, to quench his thirst and ease his hunger.
After watching for quite some time, one old man suddenly turned to the woodcutter and said, "You should go home."
Only then did the woodcutter realize that it was already late. He reached for his firewood yoke and axe, only to discover in shock that the dry firewood had long since vanished, while even the axe handle had rotted away, leaving only a rust-eaten axe head.
Bewildered and astonished, the woodcutter hurried home along the familiar yet unfamiliar Mountain Path. The village had changed greatly, and not a single familiar face could be easily found within it.
After asking around carefully, the woodcutter learned that he had spent sixty years in the mountains. His family had all believed that he had died in the jaws of a beast that year, and his parents and elders had long since passed away...
This had been one of Ji Yuan's favorite stories when he was young. The two old men in the tale were said to be immortals, and at the story's place of origin stood a famous Rotten Axe Mountain.
The mountain where Ji Yuan and his colleagues had gone camping was naturally not Rotten Axe Mountain, but Ox Head Mountain. Yet the Ancient Tree, the chess game, and the rusty axe he had seen all matched the legend of the Rotten Axe Chess Game.
With that, it was not hard to explain why Ji Yuan felt that only a brief moment had passed, while outside, time had shifted and the world had changed over more than half a month.
Furthermore, Ji Yuan's luck was both better and worse than the woodcutter's. Better, because he had emerged not long afterward, and only more than half a month had passed outside, so his life had not yet been greatly affected. Worse, because no immortal had given him any Miracle Elixir to eat. Thus, he had effectively gone without food or water for more than half a month. That he had not died outright was Old Man Heaven's blessing.
As Ji Yuan thought this, he still did not know that his original self had actually died long ago.
But even so, connecting all these pieces had not taken much time. Ji Yuan was soon swallowed once more by loneliness, fear, and agitation. Even when he forced himself to think more, to consider more questions, that oppressive feeling only grew worse.
No one spoke. No footsteps sounded. No one came...
Time stretched on endlessly. No one. Still no one...
As his anxiety mounted, Ji Yuan had already lost all sense of time. He did not know whether an hour or a day had passed, and forcing himself could no longer make him calm down.
No wonder prisons in some Western countries treated solitary confinement in a little dark room as a severe punishment for prisoners. It was brutal mental torment.
Ji Yuan was no longer worried about who had kidnapped him. He had completely changed into hoping that the kidnappers would hurry up and come. Even hearing their curses, or having them kick him once, would be fine.
Still no one. Still nobody came!
Come, someone, please! Come, someone, please! Anyone will do!
Ji Yuan roared these words in his heart countless times. What he feared most was that there were no kidnappers at all, and that he was simply lying alone in some desolate wilderness, where no one would ever come apart from wild beasts, snakes, and insects...
A new book is out—don't miss it if you pass by! If you have votes, please throw a few my way; if not, please save it and show some support!