We'd stumbled into what looked like an underground temple. The chamber soared nearly a hundred feet high with a natural rock ceiling, but walls polished to an unnatural smoothness. The vast space felt oppressively empty except for its centerpiece—a colossal mushroom that defied description.

The thing towered thirty feet high, its massive cap glowing with a sickly purple luminescence that lit the entire chamber. In its eerie light, we could see countless purple spores drifting through the air like toxic snow.


"Don't breathe!" Leo's face contorted with terror. "It's a 'Grudge Mushroom'! Ancient texts describe it as a monstrosity that feeds on the flesh and hatred of those who died unjustly in battle! The spores invade your mind and manifest your deepest fears!"

He clawed at his shirt, desperately trying to cover his mouth and nose.

But it was too late.


The luminescent spores had already infiltrated our lungs.

Mike broke first. His face twisted in horror as he clawed at his clothes, screaming incoherently: "Get them off! GET THEM OFF!" In his mind, those Black Aquatic Centipedes from the river were swarming over him, their cold appendages probing his skin, their feeding organs seeking purchase.


Leo froze in place, his entire body shaking uncontrollably. His vacant eyes streamed tears as he mumbled: "I'm so sorry… it was my fault… I got you both killed…" In his nightmare, Mike and I had become corpses, our dead eyes accusing him as the man who'd led his friends to slaughter.

My hallucination took a different form entirely.

I saw no monsters or death. Instead, the mushroom vanished, replaced by a woman in elaborate Qin dynasty royal robes. She stood with her back to me, her raven-black hair held by a simple phoenix pin, revealing the pale elegance of her neck. I couldn't see her face—only her delicate shoulders trembling slightly as though she were weeping in silence.

A piercing ache stabbed through my chest. I had no idea who she was or why she wept, but I felt an overwhelming urge to approach her, to comfort her, to somehow ease her sorrow.

My feet moved of their own accord, drawing me toward her. One step. Two steps.

When I was just feet away, close enough to catch the faint, cool fragrance of her body, I felt a hand caress my cheek.

This was no hallucination!

The touch was undeniably real—cold and delicate, smoother than human skin, with a chill that penetrated to the bone. A woman's hand, its fingertips trailing across my face with a strange tenderness and bottomless sorrow.

As the fingers traced my skin, a crystal-clear feminine voice sighed—not through my ears, but directly within my mind.

"…Not you… Go back…"

The voice was ethereal yet commanding, carrying undeniable authority. Like ice water poured over my head, it instantly shattered the hallucination and washed away that strange melancholy.

Reality crashed back. The royal woman vanished, replaced once more by the towering mushroom with its sickly purple glow.

And my friends were in mortal danger!

Mike had lost his mind completely—he was smashing his head against the stone wall, his forehead already slick with blood. Leo knelt on the ground, eyes unfocused, all fight drained from his body.

"Shit!"

I had no time to wonder about the mysterious voice. Survival instinct took over. I lunged toward Mike, raised my elbow, and struck the base of his skull with all my strength. He grunted and collapsed, finally stopping his self-destruction.

I spun toward Leo and slapped him hard across the face.

"WAKE UP!"

The crack echoed through the chamber. Leo jerked as if electrocuted, his eyes finally focusing. He looked at me, then at Mike's crumpled form, his face showing the raw terror of someone yanked back from the abyss.

"MOVE!" I shouted.

We didn't waste another second. I hoisted Mike's unconscious bulk while Leo limped alongside, and we bolted toward the dark passage at the far end of the chamber, not daring to look back.

We stumbled out of the mushroom chamber in a desperate scramble. Mike remained unconscious, Leo and I dragging him between us like a sack of cement.

After navigating a long, narrow passage, we emerged into an enormous domed chamber. The ceiling soared so high our flashlight beams couldn't reach it, revealing only patches of darkness like the night sky.

From this "sky" hung thousands of hair-thin black threads. At the end of each thread dangled a meticulously crafted puppet about eighteen inches tall. They wore various clothes—male and female, young and old—all with closed eyes and serene smiles, swaying gently in the faint currents of air.

The scene was both beautiful and deeply unsettling, like peering into a massive music box built for demons.

"A puppet formation," Leo gasped, leaning against the wall, eyes wide with dread. "Don't touch the threads. According to 'Lu Ban's Secret Book,' they're made from human hair mixed with tendons from subterranean beasts. They're incredibly strong and… they're alive."

Just then, a puppet directly above us opened its eyes. It mimicked Leo's posture, leaning against an invisible wall, then grinned and emitted a high-pitched "hee-hee-hee" that echoed throughout the dome, sending chills down my spine.

The laughter jolted Mike awake. He blinked groggily, then spotted the puppets hanging overhead. His eyes widened as he cursed: "What the fuck? Where are we? Why are there creepy-ass dolls everywhere?"

"Stay still and keep your voice down!" I hissed.

We all understood this place was far from safe. We needed to cross this chamber of hanging puppets to reach the exit visible on the far side.

The black threads formed a deadly barrier across our path. They looked delicate but radiated malevolence.

Leo was right—the threads were alive. As we cautiously moved forward, the nearest ones stirred, silently reaching toward us with predatory intent, like venomous snakes testing the air.

But something even stranger happened to me.

When a thread reached for Mike, I instinctively shoved him aside. In that exact moment, another thread—with uncanny precision, as if it had been waiting for this opportunity—wrapped around my wrist.

Mike and Leo froze. "Ethan! Watch out!"

Strangely, I wasn't yanked upward or immobilized. The thread simply coiled around my wrist with deliberate slowness, and then came the most bizarre sensation.

It was… caressing me.

The thread, cold as a fingertip, glided along my wrist and up my forearm, then slipped beneath my sleeve. It traced patterns across my skin with an almost playful touch. The sensation was both ticklish and numbing, like gentle electrical currents dancing across my flesh.

"What the hell is this thing?!" My skin crawled with revulsion. I shook my arm violently, but the thread clung like steel wire fused to my skin. It grew bolder, slithering upward toward my neck.

"Stay back!" I shouted as Mike and Leo moved to help. "Don't come closer! I'll handle it!"

As I cursed aloud, I silently damned the tomb builder to hell: Two thousand years dead and still playing these sick games? What kind of twisted bastard were you?

Meanwhile, Mike and Leo's situation deteriorated rapidly.

"These fucking things are choking me!" Mike bellowed. Multiple threads had wrapped around his arms and neck, constricting like garrotes and leaving angry red welts. His face turned purple, veins bulging as he fought for breath.

Leo fared even worse. A thread had targeted his wounded arm, tightening with cruel precision. He bit back a scream, nearly collapsing to his knees.

They faced genuine mortal danger, while my threads, though equally entangling, showed no lethal intent. Instead, they behaved like mischievous spirits, wandering across my body, occasionally tickling my earlobe or tracing patterns on the nape of my neck.

I broke into a cold sweat, cursing through gritted teeth: "Get off my neck, you creepy bastard!"

"Hang in there, Ethan!" Mike shouted, assuming I faced the same torture. "These things are strong as steel cable! They're trying to string us up like goddamn puppets!"

Only I knew our situations couldn't be more different!

Just as the bizarre caresses threatened to drive me mad, I remembered the voice from the mushroom chamber. I forced myself to calm down, focused my thoughts, and mentally reached out to that presence.

To my shock, a cool presence bloomed in my mind. Like an invisible guide, it revealed the patterns of the threads—showing safe passages, highlighting traps, marking dead ends with perfect clarity.

"Follow me!" I called to the others. "Ignore the threads already on you—just stay in my footsteps and you won't trigger more!"

Guided by the presence in my mind, I navigated through the web. Remarkably, as I followed the "safe" path, the threads on me didn't release, but they ceased their strange caresses, hanging limply like docile pets. Mike and Leo still suffered their painful bonds, but as long as they matched my steps exactly, no new threads attacked them.

Through this nerve-wracking dance, we made it halfway across the chamber. The exit was just thirty feet away.

Suddenly Mike yelped as something pulled at his back wound. His body jerked violently.

The motion triggered dormant threads nearby. Like sharks scenting blood, they lashed out, wrapping around his limbs and torso, yanking him upward with violent force!

"FUCK!" Mike dangled in midair, thrashing wildly.

"Hold still!" I shouted, drawing my knife and lunging forward to hack at the threads suspending him!

The threads, for all their strength, parted cleanly under my blade.

But I'd just kicked a hornet's nest.

Cutting the threads violated some fundamental rule. Throughout the entire chamber, thousands of puppets simultaneously opened their eyes.

Click-click-click-click-click—

Shrill, maniacal laughter erupted from all directions, building into a maddening cacophony. The puppets began to dance and spin wildly while the black threads above descended like a living spider web!

"RUN!"

I abandoned all caution, grabbed Leo's arm, and hauled Mike to his feet. We charged toward the exit, plowing through the chaos of dancing puppets and writhing threads.

We burst through the exit and tumbled into yet another chamber.

Unlike the nightmarish spaces we'd traversed, this one could only be described as… beautiful.