South of the Cloud Ridge lies the dividing line between the Eastern Yunnan Plateau and the Hengduan Mountains.
Cretaceous crustal movements caused this area to fold and uplift, forming a continuous mountain range with an average elevation of over two thousand meters.
Due to the complex geographical environment and dense fog, there are large areas of primitive mountain forests here, rarely visited by humans.
Water vapor permeated the forest, and even the sunlight was obscured by the dense vegetation, leaving only a deep, dark green and a damp tranquility.
At this moment, a university student, leaning on an alloy trekking pole, emerged from the depths of the dense forest, treading on thick layers of rotten fallen leaves, walking alone with faltering steps, stopping at a slightly flatter spot, his face pale.
On the third of last month, news broke that the Linchuan City Orphan Welfare Institute had used substandard renovation materials, causing several orphans to suffer from leukemia.
Therefore, the local adventurer's club decided to organize a livestream of a Transmigration through an uninhabited area, planning to use the internet's popularity to raise funds for these children.
As it was summer vacation, the university student signed up for this activity.
Initially, their Transmigration was relatively smooth.
After all, most of the club members were exploration experts, and they were fully equipped, so they chatted and laughed along the way, without the urgency of entering an uninhabited area.
But as a strange mountain fog suddenly swept in, everyone in the team got separated.
In fact, before setting off, they had already devised detailed survival and return routes, and made maps for each person, so even if they got separated, they just needed to stay put and wait for the fog to clear.
The problem was that after the fog cleared, the university student found his compass spinning faster than Doraemon's bamboo copter, and his satellite phone had crashed, making it impossible to determine direction or contact the outside world.
And this mountain forest, both the ground and the tree trunks, were covered in moss, and all he could see was a deep, dense green; forget about direction, looking at it for too long would even make one's mind hazy.
Coupled with the persistent thick fog, no sunlight could penetrate, making it all too easy to trap someone to death.
"I'll throw a shoe..." the university student mumbled, standing among the dark green ancient trees, and tossed his trekking pole.
Throwing a shoe is a "professional technique" in exploration activities, used for orientation, but it doesn't have to be a shoe; anything will do, it's a last resort.
No scientist has yet been able to explain its scientific principle, but its greatest effect is to perfectly demonstrate a person's despair when lost.
At this moment, the mountain fog rose again, visibility rapidly decreased, and the dampness even penetrated his jacket, adhering to his skin and taking away his remaining body temperature.
Even more bizarrely, as he moved forward step by step, the thick fog floating in the mountain forest gradually turned blood-red.
The university student paid no attention to this, walking down the damp slope, passing through hanging old vines and branches, until he stepped onto a stone path that should not have been in this place.
Then he saw a stone carved lamp in front of him, with flickering blue flames dancing within, seemingly unextinguished for a thousand years.
"I knew it, I shouldn't have eaten those cute-colored mushrooms."
"Now I've ended up in Hyrule."
The university student's mouth twitched.
He had been lost for two days, and his supplies were almost completely depleted.
The good news was that this primitive mountain forest had nothing else, but mushrooms grew everywhere; he had previously cooked a pot of mushroom soup over his stove, so he attributed everything before his eyes to mushroom poisoning.
However, after walking so long on mountain roads, the desire for flat ground urged him to continue forward.
Passing through layers of vines and ancient trees, stepping on damp, heavily rotted leaves, surprisingly, a larger area of flat stone ground appeared ahead, very neatly constructed.
However, the water vapor in the forest was too high, coupled with the effect of moss, making the footing very slippery.
This stone ground was not empty; there were also some collapsed broken walls and ruins around, vaguely discernible as arched bridges, green-tiled roofs, square stone platforms... and various broken bricks and tiles.
Everything was covered in moss, looking ancient and desolate; if a ruined temple were added, it would be identical to the ancient temples in Liaozhai.
But what was most striking were the two gigantic statues standing behind the broken walls and ruins.
One statue wore strange clothing, neither robe nor garment, sitting on the ground, head lowered, neither a Buddha nor a Daoist master, looking expressionlessly at the ground.
The university student, being 1.83 meters tall, could only barely reach its feet, like an ant beneath it.
The fallen leaves in the primitive mountain forest were very thick, but only on the statue were there none, instead accumulated around it, and even moss did not grow on the statue.
Turning to look at the other statue, it was even more bizarre.
It was not human-shaped, only barely humanoid, standing upright like a towering ancient tree, with a mouth full of sharp teeth, upturned pupils, seeming to smile and cry, and it was emaciated, with eight fingers intertwined and twisted, its posture seeming to be one of extreme pain, yet also one of extreme joy.
These two statues, one on the left and one on the right, faced each other, as if they had just fought, and now the victor had been decided.
If viewed from a human aesthetic perspective, where beauty is good and ugliness is evil, then evil had triumphed over good.
The university student looked up at these two giant statues, feeling completely uncomfortable, so he pulled his jacket tighter and walked past them, heading straight into the depths, wanting to see if there was a dry clearing ahead where he could pitch his tent.
And just as he quickened his steps, he kicked something, and something flew out from under his foot with a "whoosh."
When he caught up and picked it up, he found it was a severely damaged, half-rolled ancient book.
Because the object felt real in his hand, indicating that this book was not a hallucination from eating mushrooms, the university student couldn't help but shiver.
In such a damp environment, an ancient book surviving for so long without rotting was inherently problematic.
Human fear sometimes doesn't come from seeing or hearing something, but from feeling an extreme unreasonableness.
Moreover, this was a deep mountain forest rarely visited by humans.
He didn't know where he had walked to, so he began to hesitate.
But before he could pause for too long, the university student discovered a narrow crevice between the mountain walls ahead, barely wide enough for a person to pass through; through this crevice, what was revealed behind the mountain wall was no longer dense mountain forest, but large areas of farmland.
"Hey, I made it out?"
"I told you, throwing a shoe is science!"
The university student immediately stuffed the book into his pocket and eagerly ran over, skillfully squeezing through the crevice in the mountain wall.
There were people working in the fields, which made him very happy.
Once he borrowed a phone to call the police, this fragile university student's life would be saved.
But when the relieved university student ran closer, he found that all the people were sallow and emaciated, their bodies hunched.
Moreover, they wore coarse brown linen clothes, wide, crotchless trousers, and all had long beards and wrapped their heads in cloth.
The people working in the fields also noticed him at this moment, and after a slight stunned, their faces immediately showed surprise, and they rushed over, speaking in an obscure, difficult-to-understand dialect, one of them even seeming somewhat joyful.
Before the university student could react, he suddenly felt a dizzying sensation and uncontrollably fainted on the field ridge.
"Ancient... ancient people..."
"How can a person get so lost..."
Amidst his murmuring, the walkie-talkie on the university student's arm crackled, and then a voice he had never heard before appeared, speaking a string of syllables he had never heard.
(I've switched to a Hell track and become a novice again! Please like, collect, and subscribe!)