Chapter 52: Gan Ji’s Risky Move

Hou Jinshan had made it pretty clear that he had no intention of letting me go any further. But I’ve always had a strong rebellious streak and hated playing by the rules. The more flatly he tried to keep me out, the more determined I became to stick with the team and keep moving forward.

We got back in the car. The rain had stopped, and the sun broke through quickly, causing the temperature to spike. One by one, we started peeling off our jackets. The mood in the car lightened considerably.

I sat in the back seat, eyes locked on Hou Jinshan. The moment he so much as looked like he was about to speak, I’d cut in and interrupt him. I kept it up until he forgot whatever it was he’d wanted to say, and all he could do was glare daggers at me.

We drove another half hour down the dirt road until there wasn’t even a trace of a path left. Then we got out and started hiking. The rain had left the ground a sticky mess, threatening to swallow our boots whole. I tried to step where there was grass, which made things a lot easier.

I didn’t bother looking at the path. The seven of us just followed Hou Jinshan and Li Wanchou. I had no idea how they were navigating. In a forest like this, there were few distinguishing landmarks. To me, every tree looked pretty much the same.

After another three hours of trekking, I started to notice a change in the scenery. The trees were denser, their canopies massive, blocking out the sun entirely. The ground was overgrown with wild grass. If we were here at night, I doubted even moonlight could reach us.

I was close to despair, using a branch to push aside waist-high grass for what felt like the hundredth time, when I heard the sound of running water. Hou Jinshan suddenly let out a surprised exclamation and bolted in one direction like a madman. I froze for a second, then took off after him.

I watched as he slashed through the hanging branches one by one with his knife. Right then, I felt as if a crack had opened in my dim, gray world.

I scrambled up the exposed rock behind him and watched as he pushed aside layers of leaves. Sunlight poured through the gap, and the sound of rushing water grew louder. I rubbed my eyes and peered through the leaves; suddenly, the view opened up wide before us.

We were standing on the edge of a cliff. A hundred meters away, a waterfall cascaded down like a jade ribbon. A thousand meters below our feet, a deep pool shimmered blue-green. Birds burst from the sun-blocking canopy, their long cries piercing the roar of the water.

I was stunned by the sight. It hit me that I might never see a view like this again in my life.

“Damn it, we finally found water. Just for this view alone, all that effort was worth it,” Hou Jinshan said, pulling a map from behind his waist. Then he called to me, “Get the box out. The spot should be somewhere around here.”

Li Wanchou immediately crouched down with Hou Jinshan, helping to spread the map flat on the grass and mark things with a pencil. I took off my backpack, knelt beside them, and handed Hou Jinshan the box wrapped in cloth.

Hou Jinshan held it with both hands and pulled out a small flashlight to shine on it, comparing the map with the water system map on the box. After two minutes, he handed it back to me:

“This has to be it. If there’s a fissure beneath that waterfall, it proves my theory is right.”

I packed the box away and asked, “There must be more than one waterfall around here. How can you be sure this is the one you’re looking for?”

He shot me a glance, stood up, and stomped on the ground. I heard a crisp clatter of stone. Looking down, I realized every inch of the ground under our feet was a road built from stone slabs. The path continued down along the slope of the cliff, and though it was broken beyond recognition, it was still enough to leave me stunned.

“Looks like you’ve got a lot to learn,” Hou Jinshan said, clapping me on the shoulder before leading the way down the slope.

What was he so smug about? So what if I had been blind to it?

We followed the broken stone path downhill. At first it wasn’t too bad, as we could manage to climb down using both hands and feet. But the farther we went, the narrower the path became. A single step on a slab would send dozens tumbling down below. Eventually, we were walking along a ledge barely half a meter wide, with a sheer drop just inches away if we strayed even slightly.

The roar of the waterfall was deafening. We were slipping and sliding underfoot, forced to yell just to communicate.

“It’s no good! We can’t go any farther!” Hou Jinshan clung frantically to a rock. “This side must have been connected to the other side originally! But something split the mountain later on, and the path broke off right here!”

I’d been down in a tomb once before, so I knew full well how vital safety ropes were for jungle expeditions. Last time, we ran into all kinds of trouble because we didn’t bring enough, so this time I made sure to prepare plenty. Everyone’s pack was filled with rope, heavy as hell.

We were very close to the waterfall now, only a few dozen meters from the cascade on the opposite side. A massive fissure, like a narrow slit of sky^[1], completely severed our cliff from the mountain across from us.

I wiped the water from my face and shouted, “Backtracking to circle around this fissure will take us days! We don’t have enough food for that! Given our situation, rappelling down is our only option!”

“You little brat! Don’t you care about your own life?! Look at this height! If you fall, they won’t even find your corpse! Rappelling, my ass!” Hou Jinshan cursed.

This cliff wasn’t much different from the Side Chamber we’d seen before, the one lined with iron chains and hanging corpses. It wasn’t terribly high, but the splashing water would be a distraction during the descent. The longest rope I brought was forty meters, so we’d need to find at least one foothold along the way down.

“If it’s really not going to work, we should just detour! Don’t waste time!” Li Wanchou said. He seemed a bit afraid of heights, clinging face-first against the inner slope the whole time.

I squinted and looked up at the nearest tree. Its roots were very thick, and its canopy slanted across the cliff, making it perfectly suitable as an anchor point for the first descent. Then I looked down to search below, noticing plenty of massive, protruding rocks beneath our feet.

“I’ve got a plan! Trust me, we really don’t need to take the long way around!” I shouted, stopping Lai Qi just as she was about to climb back.

First, I pulled off a short length of rope from the side of my pack and attached a makeshift grappling hook to anchor myself on the steep slope. With both hands free, I pulled out the main rope from my bag. Seeing this, Xiao Wu came over to help me hold it up.

Next, I raised the rope, looped one end around the thick tree root, and tied a knot the way I remembered Tian Tinghan doing it last time.

“Young Master, where’d you learn all this? Do they teach this stuff in college now?” Xiao Wu joked.

“They don’t teach it. It’s just a personal hobby,” I replied.

Once everything was ready, I said, “Don’t be afraid. There are plenty of footholds on the rocks below. Just descend to the limit of the rope, then we’ll set a new anchor point and keep going down.”

“Anyone want to try first? We have a safety rope.”

No one answered me. Li Wanchou was shivering from the water and didn’t utter a word. I knew how this went. For something where a single misstep meant fatal disaster, people usually looked for cannon fodder to test it out first, and big bosses like them would only use a method once it was proven foolproof.

From the looks of it, that cannon fodder was definitely going to be me.

So I took the lead, grabbing the rope and giving it a tug. But Xiao Wu suddenly snatched the rope from my hands. He grinned and said, “Young Master, I get what you’re saying. Let me go first. You’ve got plenty of ideas, so if something goes wrong, you can still figure out a way from up here.”

As I watched him loop the rope around himself, I suddenly wondered if I was being too reckless. My idea hadn’t been verified in practice; it relied entirely on a tiny sliver of past experience that barely even counted. Compared to a risky move like this, taking the long way around was definitely much safer.

While thinking this over, I pushed a walkie-talkie to Xiao Wu and tightened the rope again. Without hesitation, he pushed off the cliff face step by step as he descended.

I lay flat on the ground above, keeping a close eye on the rope anchored to the tree root. After a nerve-wracking ten minutes or so, seeing the rope stretched nearly taut, I quickly pulled out the walkie-talkie and asked, “That should be enough rope. Xiao Wu, can you reach the rocks?”

After a moment, Xiao Wu’s voice came back, “Young Master, I’ve stepped onto a rock. Release the rope to me.”

At his words, I immediately untied the rope from the tree root, crawled to the edge of the cliff, and shouted into the walkie-talkie, “Catch it! I’m throwing it down!”

I threw the rope over the edge, heart pounding so hard it felt like it might burst. Half a minute later, Xiao Wu’s voice came through again: “Got the rope. Getting ready to continue the descent.”

I let out a breath of relief and replied, “Be careful. Make sure that knot is tied dead tight!”

Li Wanchou scooted closer to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. He was all smiles now, though he hadn’t stepped up earlier. “Didn’t expect you to be so sharp, kid. If this works, we can save three or four days of travel.”

I held the walkie-talkie and shoved his arm off without hesitation, in no mood to give him any courtesy. I shot him a sideways glance and asked, “If you’re so afraid of dying, what the hell did you come to a place like this for? If something happens inside, I’ve got every reason to believe you’ll drag me down as a cushion to save yourself.”

Li Wanchou’s face darkened instantly. The next second, he pointed at me and exploded, lunging forward to grab me. “What the fuck did you just say?! Say that again, I dare you!”

“You’re afraid of dying! I fucking said it again, so what? You were acting like a mute earlier, not making a sound. Don’t fucking think having a bit of money lets you stop acting human!” I can safely say that was the first time in my life I had ever cursed someone so filthily.

I dodged backward so Li Wanchou missed, but he didn’t stop there. Instead, he got even worse, reaching out to yank at the safety rope strapped around me.

Seeing this, Hou Jinshan quickly stepped in from behind to hold Li Wanchou back. “Boss Li, Boss Li, calm down, calm down. The kid just doesn’t know how to talk, he was probably scared out of his wits earlier. Look at you, why lower yourself to argue with a kid?”

I rolled my eyes at him, and Li Wanchou pointed at me again, shouting, “Curse at me one more time and see if I don’t kill you!”

I didn’t have time to bother with him, because Xiao Wu’s voice came through the walkie-talkie again. He said he had reached the bottom.