69: Hallucination

As twilight deepened and the city lights flickered to life, Lu Jianchuan did not head directly toward West Mountain. Instead, following his plan, he scanned a shared electric bike near his residential complex and rode toward the East City Commercial District, the opposite direction of West Mountain.

He returned the bike at a crowded entrance of a large shopping mall, then lowered the brim of his hat and walked through two blocks to reach a bus hub.

He dropped a coin and boarded a bus bound for the suburbs, choosing a corner seat by the window. As the vehicle rattled away from the city center, he immediately took out his phone and typed "West Mountain Mine Shaft" into the search bar.

The results were cluttered. There were a few old posts from local outdoor forums with titles like "Exploring the old West Mountain mines, anyone want to team up?" The few scattered replies below were all advising the poster not to go, saying the tunnels inside were as numerous as a maze and there was absolutely no cell signal.

He clicked on the blog of a local history enthusiast, which read: "The West Mountain molybdenum mine was abandoned as early as the seventies. Later, in the Early Stage of the eighties, it was converted into a wartime civil defense fortification, with many bypasses and hidden exits excavated. Now the authorities have sealed the main entrance, but there are still many small openings around the perimeter that can be used to enter..."

Lu Jianchuan frowned, his finger continuing to swipe. On a Q&A platform, someone asked why the West Mountain mine was so dangerous, and the top-voted answer below was:

"That place is incredibly eerie! It was originally for mining, then converted into an air-raid shelter; the structure is lethally complex. My grandfather participated in the expansion. He said that to confuse potential enemies, many infinite loops and secret doors were designed, and the blueprints aren't even complete. Now that decades have passed, many places have collapsed. Plus, there's no cell signal once you go in; ordinary people basically can't get out once they enter."

Seeing this, Lu Jianchuan's heart sank. He turned off his phone and looked out the window at the night scenery receding rapidly.

It wasn't a simple mine shaft; it was an underground fortification deliberately designed as a maze. The missing streamer and their two colleagues were very likely lost inside, or... they had encountered something even more terrifying than getting lost.

After the vehicle reached the stop, he followed a few scattered passengers off the bus. The surroundings were already desolate countryside, and the silhouette of West Mountain in the distance looked like a crouching giant beast in the night.

He turned on his phone's flashlight and walked into the mountains along a weed-choked path. Based on the information he had just found, he located the first mine entrance under a slope at the foot of the mountain. The rusted iron gate stood crookedly open, and the words "Military Restricted Zone" could still be vaguely seen on it. A cold wind with a musty smell blew out from the cave.

He did not rush in blindly. Instead, using this entrance as a reference, he continued searching nearby. Sure enough, less than five hundred meters away, he discovered two more openings half-hidden by bushes, which looked like ventilation shafts or emergency exits from back then.

Three pitch-black entrances, like three mouths waiting for prey.

The night wind blew through the woods, making a sound like wailing. Lu Jianchuan stood before the last entrance, gripping the high-intensity flashlight in his hand. Every entrance could lead to that deadly maze, and every one could hide clues about the missing persons.

A slight pulsation came from the armband on his left wrist. He could no longer hesitate. He brightened the flashlight, took a deep breath, and stepped into the first and largest mine shaft.

Lu Jianchuan took a deep breath of the cold, turbid air in the mine and clicked on his high-intensity flashlight.

The beam of light was like a sharp sword, suddenly piercing the stagnant darkness and startling several bats roosting on the cave ceiling, which flapped their wings and vanished into deeper shadows. Before him was an extremely vast underground space, as if a portion of the mountain had been hollowed out. The air was thick with a heavy scent—a mixture of century-old dust, damp rock walls, and thoroughly rusted metal—that carried a chill and a grainy texture as he inhaled it into his lungs.

He stepped forward cautiously, his boot soles making a soft "crunch" as they stepped on gravel and wooden sleepers that had long since rotted into fragments.

The flashlight beam moved slowly, illuminating the rough marks of manual excavation on the rock walls. Occasionally, some long-faded, cryptic numbers or arrow symbols flashed by, like ancient passwords left by the maze.

Several massive mining hopper cars, like the skeletons of prehistoric beasts, lay overturned and rusted beside equally rusty iron rails, their wheels long since rusted solid to the ground.

He began to go deeper. The passage soon branched; one path led left and the other right, their depths unknown. He chose the left.

After walking less than fifty meters, a "Y" shaped fork appeared ahead.

This maze-like structure was exactly as described in the records. He could only rely on intuition and a vague memory of orientation to trek through these web-like tunnels with difficulty, his mind highly focused, not missing a single suspicious trace.

Just then, a sound amplified by the cave and appearing somewhat blurred and cluttered came from far behind—it was the sound of footsteps, more than one person, mixed with low talking and the light clatter of metal equipment. Multiple bright beams of light shook in the main passage he had just passed through, dispelling the shadows in that area.

Someone was coming! And it was a large group!

Lu Jianchuan's heart constricted suddenly. Almost by reflex, he clicked off the flashlight with a "snap," and the surroundings were instantly swallowed by absolute darkness. Relying on his memory and residual light perception, he quickly and silently slid to the side, curling up to hide behind the massive wheel of an overturned, rust-covered abandoned mine car, holding his breath tightly.

"Old Liu! Zhou Tao! Respond if you hear me!" A full-throated, anxious shout echoed in the cave. Lu Jianchuan recognized it as an old criminal police captain from the bureau known for his bravery. "Maintain formation! Don't let the gaps widen! Xiao Zhang, make the markings clear! This godforsaken place is like an ant nest; whoever falls behind is out of luck!" another voice commanded sternly.

Hiding behind the mine car, Lu Jianchuan could see at least a dozen high-intensity flashlight beams and figures wearing professional search and rescue suits through the gaps in the wheel.

They had adopted the safest and most correct strategy—gathering their strength and systematically advancing along the main passage they believed to be most likely, while marking every fork with conspicuous fluorescent marker tape.

He waited quietly, listening as their footsteps, shouts, and occasional commands gradually faded away, eventually being swallowed again by the silence of the cave, until even the residual light left by those piercing beams at the corner completely vanished.

The opportunity had come. He waited patiently for a few more minutes, and after confirming there was no more movement outside, he slipped out from behind the mine car like a ghost. He did not choose the path the search and rescue team had taken; instead, he turned his gaze toward the narrower, noticeably downward-sloping, pitch-black passage on the right that seemed to lead to the depths of Hell.

Perhaps danger and the truth were hidden on this rarely trodden path.

To prevent himself from becoming completely lost in this underground maze, he strictly followed his predetermined plan.

At every new fork, he would take a small glow stick from the side pocket of his backpack and snap it hard with both hands, allowing the internal chemicals to mix and emit a ghostly green light that was incredibly prominent in the absolute darkness.

He carefully wedged the glow stick into a crack in the rock, its tip pointing clearly toward the direction he had come from. These faint green lights were his only, fragile connection to the outside world.

He traversed through the intricate, seemingly endless passages.

Up, down, left, and right were all cold, rough, and similar rocks; a massive sense of oppression surged from all directions. Rounding bend after bend and climbing slope after slope, the repetitive scenery began to make him feel dizzy, and he even occasionally had the illusion that he was walking in circles, only able to rely on those distant, ghostly green glimmers behind him to confirm he was still moving forward.

Just as his mind experienced a moment of fatigue and laxity due to the high tension and monotonous environment, an extremely subtle, faint, sweet fragrance, like a cold venomous snake, quietly slipped into his nasal cavity.

At first, his Chaos-filled brain did not immediately process this abnormal signal, only instinctively feeling that this scent was out of place with the surroundings. But in the next second, a strong sense of dissonance exploded like an alarm bell—how could there be a floral fragrance deep in a mine shaft?!

However, this rational warning came too late. That sweet, strange fragrance seemed to possess life and magic, instantly seizing the opening of his relaxed nerves and surging to submerge his newly risen alertness. A strong, irresistible sense of grogginess surged into his brain like a tide; his thinking became as sluggish as if stuck in a mire, and his eyelids began to grow heavy. The outlines of the rocks illuminated by the flashlight began to distort and shake, as if separated by a layer of rippling water, and the edges of the light spots blurred and melted... His action of placing a glow stick stopped, and his eyes lost focus, becoming hollow and dazed. His body was no longer under his own control, as if being pulled by an invisible thread; his footsteps became unsteady, and he walked with uneven strides, like a sleepwalker, toward the deeper, darker core of the cave from which the fragrance originated.

After traveling through the Chaos for an unknown amount of time, a hazy, illogical glimmer of light actually appeared at the end of the dark tunnel ahead. Within the light stood a figure he could never possibly see in this place, yet one so familiar it made his heart instantly tighten—it was Li Ming, Uncle Li, wearing the jacket from his last memory and carrying a gentle, concerned smile on his face!

"Xiao Lu..." the Li Ming in the hallucination spoke, his voice steady as always and filled with an elder's affection. "Why did you run to a place like this? It's too dangerous. Listen to your uncle and go back quickly..."

That voice and figure were so real, filled with a reassuring power. A warm current was injected into Lu Jianchuan's numb heart, mixed with a massive sense of grief and dependency, almost making him completely abandon thought and indulge in this false warmth.

Suddenly, the smile on "Li Ming's" face instantly froze and vanished, replaced by an extreme urgency and sternness. He suddenly took a step forward, his voice no longer a gentle persuasion but like a bolt of thunder from a clear sky, carrying the power to tear through all vanity as it hacked fiercely into the depths of Lu Jianchuan's chaotic mind: "Lu Jianchuan! Wake up for me!!!"

This roar was like a massive cable thrown into a drowning abyss! Lu Jianchuan's whole body jolted violently, and his dilated pupils constricted suddenly! The tragic scene of Uncle Li's sacrifice instantly shattered all hallucinations! Uncle Li was no longer here!

The moment his consciousness regained clarity, his survival instinct and extreme reaction to danger left him almost no gap for thought! His right index finger, using all the strength and will in his body, pressed down fiercely and decisively on that crimson orb in the center of the left-wrist armband, which had suddenly become scalding as if it were about to ignite!

Buzz—!!!

A low rumble that seemed to originate from the depths of his Soul erupted from within him!

There was no longer the sound of clothing being torn apart. Instead, the moment his clothes touched his skin, they seemed like snow thrown into strong acid, being rapidly "consumed" and "decomposed" by a silver-white, living-metal-like biomass fluid, turning into basic particles that perfectly underwent Fusion into the armor structure that was frantically growing!

The process was swift and orderly: bracers, greaves, breastplate... a streamlined helmet covered his head from the bottom up, wrapping him completely!

When the visor suddenly lit up, emitting two azure, cold, and sharp beams of light, that sweet floral fragrance seemed to hit an invisible energy barrier and was instantly isolated! All the dizziness and Chaos in his brain vanished without a trace in an instant, like mist blown away by a gale!

Before him, the hallucination of "Li Ming" shattered like a broken mirror, piece by piece, finally turning into nothingness and revealing once again the original, dark, and cold rock walls of the mine.

Lu Jianchuan, in his armor form, stood as steady as a cold silver statue in the deadly maze, his azure visor locking onto the bottomless darkness ahead that emitted the eerie fragrance.