Sometimes when we are sleepy, we take turns resting with Dorjee, and when we rest, Dorjee is our watchman, and when he rests, we act as guards.

In such a place, it is impossible to count time, and beyond the light of the fire is darkness except darkness. I don't know how long we walked, the meal was all grilled fish, which caused me to want to vomit as soon as I smelled the fish, and the food we brought in before had already been eaten by us, and one morning when I woke up, I saw the white monster sleeping not far from us, and I suddenly had a very sinful thought, I wanted to kill it and eat it, I felt that its meat must be more delicious than the fish in the water.

I later learned that I was not the first person to have this kind of thought, and Liang Houzai and Liu Shangang later mentioned their experience during that time and said that they had the same idea as me, but fortunately we just had this kind of thought, and we didn't really do it.

Fortunately, we didn't covet Dorjee.

Every day is a long journey, when you are tired, you sleep, when you are hungry, you eat, and there is almost no communication between us, but I can see that Liu Shangang and Liang Houzai's eyes are changing, and there is no firmness in that kind of eyes, only frustration and disappointment. I know everybody's going to crash.

Then I took the initiative to talk to them, and every time I stopped to eat, I would tell the stories that my master had told me in great detail, and this storytelling experience also made me know that we had indeed been in this dark area for a long time.

Because one day I found that I had no story to tell, so I began to make up nonsense, combining my experience over the years, plus some of my own fantasies, to adapt my master's deeds into a mess.

In fact, looking back, Liu Shangang and Liang Houzai should have known that I was talking nonsense at that time, but they still liked to hear me tell these stories. At that time, these stories I made up without bright spots were already their only spiritual sustenance.

The monster seemed to like to listen to my stories, and I knew he didn't understand them, but every time I told a story, it would come around. After a period of time, it dispelled its vigilance against us, and it began to ask us for cooked fish, and sometimes, it would touch Dorjee with its pale right hand, feeling the soft fur on Dorjee's body, and that touch seemed to be a very novel experience for it.

We also found that this monster that lives in the dark, despite its hideous face, is not offensive at all as long as it does not invade its home. Not so long ago, a few of us wanted to eat its meat.

Sometimes I can't even tell who is more like a human and who is more like a beast than this monster.

The area on this side of the gate is much larger than depicted on the map, we have left the area covered by the Bagua map, but still no spring has been found, Liang Houzai said, we are not only far away from the Bagua map at this time, but also a long distance from the canyon above the Jizo tomb, and we can't find the spring if we go down.

But I decided to continue along the veins, and I had a hunch that the spring was at the source of the river.

I had always been convinced of Liang's ability to speculate, and Liang rarely questioned my decision, so he didn't say anything more, and we continued along the river.

After another long time, a corner appeared in the river, and we reversed the direction along the corner and headed towards the area where the Bagua map was located again.

This has become our new hope, at least it shows that the distance between the source of the river and the Bagua map is not as far as imagined.

And for the rest of the journey, we could clearly feel that there was a gentle slope on the road, and we were heading higher, and as we went higher, there were fewer and fewer fish in the water.

The monster that was with us became more vigilant than before, he would often stop and listen, and again, I heard a strange "buzzing" sound in the darkness in the distance, and the monster's whole body was shaking when the sound appeared.

Thankfully, the sound died down quickly, and when the vigilance on the monster's face was gone, we were able to move on.

But not long after, the monster that had followed us for a long distance suddenly disappeared.

As soon as we finished eating that day, we sat on the ground to rest, Dorjee was supposed to help us on guard, but after a long continuous trek, Dorjee was also tired, it could not hold on, and after we fell asleep, it also fell asleep.

When we woke up, we found that the monster was gone, and we tried to find it, but to no avail.

It was not until we had walked along the river for a long time that we found its body on the bank, something had bitten its neck, torn off a large piece of flesh from its throat, severely fractured one of its hands and one leg, and its body had emitted a heavy putrid stench due to the humidity of the air.

The reason why we were able to recognize it as the monster that had been following us was because Liu Shangang found Dorjee's dog hair on its wrist when he examined its corpse.

Its death made me feel a little more guilty, and I wasn't sure where that guilt came from, perhaps because we had killed its people and failed to protect it.

We dug a big pit near the river with a sapper shovel and buried it in it, and Liu Shangang roasted some fish and buried it with it, which can be regarded as his burial goods.

In addition, Liang Houzai also found a palm-sized stone from the river, stood in front of the monster's grave, and carved a very simple word on the stone: "He." ”

Having disposed of his body, we continued on our way.

While walking on the road, Liu Shangang asked, "Why did he die?" We were all there when it disappeared, but why was he dead and we were all right? ”

I said, "Don't think about it so much, let's go." ”

Liang Houzai did not speak.

In fact, I also thought about the question asked by Liu Shangang, and I thought that maybe when we were resting at the same time as Dorjee, he noticed that something was quietly approaching us, and he led that thing away and saved us, but he couldn't escape the catastrophe.

But I'm not going to say that, I'm afraid I'll lose the guilt and break down.

Not long after we buried him, a strange "buzzing" sound reappeared.

The sound sounded like some kind of huge insect wing vibrating rapidly, and as the sound appeared, the ground also shook at a rapid frequency, and I felt something in the distance approaching us at a very fast speed, so I quickly drew the green steel sword.

After so long in the dark, we all really crave a battle to relieve the stress in our hearts.

Liu Shangang deliberately made a lot of movement when he took out the Tibetan knife, as if he was trying to attract the attention of that thing.

After a minute, the strange hum was almost in front of us, and the tremor of the ground became clearer.

Liang Houzai held the sapper shovel in one hand, and took out the evil charm from his pocket with the other, and I also felt that as that thing got closer and closer to us, a faint yin qi had appeared in the air.

Immediately after, a black shadow was seen rushing into the firelight, approaching us at a great speed.

Outwardly, it was a shadow clinging to the ground, the size of an adult's chest, and the buzzing sound came from the shadow.

Sure enough, it was the sound that Liu Shangang made just now that attracted its attention, and as soon as it entered the area covered by the firelight, it rushed towards Liu Shangang.

Liu Shangang hurriedly dodged, and I saw that the shadow suddenly flew up from the ground, Liu Shangang had not stabilized his center of gravity, so he could only roll on the spot, and the shadow flew over his head.

I immediately took out my sword, and stabbed the "shadow" with a sword, and when the blade touched it, there was a very hard touch at first, but with the hardness and sharpness of the green steel sword, it still pierced it, and a large stream of blood ran down its wound.

When I saw the blood, I knew it was a living thing.

After being stabbed, it writhed its body and quickly escaped the green steel sword. After landing, it seems to want to escape back into the darkness.

I took a quick step forward, stabbed the bluesteel sword, and pinned it to the ground first.

Liang Houzai also rushed up at this time and pasted an evil charm on its body. The yin qi on its body was quickly dispelled, and then even the temperature on its body quickly dropped.

At this point, I couldn't feel the anger in this thing.

Liang Houzai said: "It seems that it relies on the yin qi in its body to maintain its life. ”

As he spoke, Liang Houzai turned over the black thing on the ground, and saw that it had a palm-sized mouth on its body, which should not be called a mouth, but "mouthparts", because it had no lips, only four rows of fangs like killing fish.

In addition to being dark throughout, the thing in front of him is similar in appearance to a manta ray, with a flat body and a long tail dragging behind it.

There are a lot of tentacles in the belly of this thing, but we don't find eyes or ears on it.

Liang Houzai studied it for a while before he said to me: "It seems that this thing relies on the vibration of the ground to identify our position, and the reason why Liu Shangang was able to attract it just now was not because of the loud sound it made, but because of the frequent movement." ”

Liu Shangang said very indifferently: "So what, it hasn't been killed by us yet." Speaking of which, this thing doesn't seem to be a very powerful monster. ”

Liang Houzai shook his head: "If this thing appears alone, of course it can't pose any threat to us." But its body surface is hard, and its speed is also very fast, when it pounced on you just now, fortunately you completely dodged, otherwise with its speed and hardness, it would be enough for you to rub you. And its teeth are unusually sharp, and if they show up in groups next time, we'll be in big trouble. ”

I looked at the corpse and showed a relaxed smile at Liu Shangang and Liang Houzai: "It's not so exaggerated, since this kind of shadow monster has yin qi on its body, it can be suppressed by walking down with a set of steps." ”

Liu Shangang had already become very nervous when he heard Liang Houzai's words just now, and when he heard me say this, he breathed a long sigh of relief.