As the flatboat drifted slowly into the yawning crevice known to locals as "The Devil’s Mouth," the last sliver of the setting sun was severed by the jagged, tooth-like rocks behind us. The light vanished with a terrifying speed, as if we weren’t entering a cave, but sliding down the esophagus of a gargantuan beast.

  I gripped the damp gunwale instinctively. Despite being a Yale PhD in Architectural History—trained in the most rigorous schools of rationalism—all logic and civilization felt pathetically fragile in the face of this absolute, oppressive darkness. I could hear my own heartbeat echoing through the narrow cavern, a dull, rhythmic thud like a broken drum.

  "Kill all unnecessary lights," Uncle Arthur’s voice dropped to a whisper, echoing off the slick walls with a distorted rasp. "In the Meridian Council records, light in this place invites eyes that should stay closed."

  The boatman, a man with a heavy, brutish face, caught my eye. I noticed the thick calluses on the webs of his hands—not the kind earned from a lifetime of poling a boat, but the marks of someone accustomed to heavy firearms or industrial excavation tools. He remained eerily silent, the oar cutting through the viscous water with a long, heavy shhh-laaa sound.

  At the bow, Caspian remained as still as a tombstone. The black-wrapped bundle lay across his knees, his eyes half-closed as if he had already merged with the darkness. Looking at his silhouette, a chill crept up my spine. What had this man—this "Echo"—survived to be able to maintain such a morbid composure in a place like this?

  I rubbed my eyes, sore from years of squinting at microfiche, and reached into the inner pocket of my waterproof jacket, clutching the ancestral brass compass.

  "Uncle Arthur... the needle. It’s stopped." My voice was a hushed tremor.

  I leaned over, using the last fading glint of moonlight to check the dial. The magnetic needle, which had been spinning frantically just moments ago, had suddenly frozen. It looked as if some massive gravitational force from the bowels of the earth was pulling it down, pinning it vertically toward the pitch-black water.

  In Feng Shui, this phenomenon is called ‘Zhen Chan’ (The Sunken Needle).

  In my grandfather’s journals—those pages filled with the ravings of a madman—this sign bore a horrific meaning: "A hundred feet deep, a mountain of corpses becomes an abyss. The Qi congeals and will not disperse. This is the Sunken Needle." In terms of modern physics, it suggested that beneath this water lay a massive, ferromagnetic anomaly—or perhaps a staggering number of skeletal remains whose minerals had been replaced by magnetic crystals over centuries.

  "Shh," Arthur signaled for silence, his eyes scanning the water like a predator.

  My mind began to spiral. If the "Corpse-Tomb" from my grandfather's notes was real, what was hiding in this waterway leading to the Tomb of the Iron Prince?

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  Then, I saw it—a flicker of abnormal reflection beneath the surface.

  It was a flash of light, gone in an instant, like the scales of a rotting fish. Curiosity overrode my fear. I clicked my high-powered flashlight on just a crack, keeping the beam low, but in this absolute void, it cut through the thick water like a scalpel.

  In that second, my stomach did a violent somersault. I nearly screamed.

  Beneath the clear yet heavy water lay a dense, sprawling carpet of white. They weren’t rocks. They were thousands upon thousands of human remains.

  The bodies weren't just dumped; they were arranged in a revolting, kneeling posture, lined up in perfect ranks on either side of the channel. Each ribcage had been pierced by a thick bronze spear, pinning them forever to the riverbed rock. Due to centuries of mineral seepage, a waxy, crystalline film covered their skin, reflecting the flashlight with a sickly, translucent pallor.

  "It’s the 'Ji Shi Di ' (Corpse Field)," I whispered to Arthur, my tongue feeling thick and clumsy with terror. "It’s an extreme form of architectural execution. A way to forcibly lock the 'Qi' of this vein. We’re... we’re rowing over the concentrated malice of ten thousand souls."

  Arthur didn't answer. His hand had already drifted to the Colt semi-auto at his hip.

  The boat drifted deeper. The air grew colder, the scent of mildew from the depths now mingling with an incredibly delicate, yet hair-raising fragrance—a sweet, floral perfume.

  Scritch... scritch... scritch...

  A sharp, piercing sound of friction tore through the darkness ahead.

  It sounded like fingernails clawing at a rusted metal plate, or perhaps... someone using an ivory comb to stroke through dry, stiff hair.

  My heart nearly stopped. How could there be the sound of someone combing their hair in a deep-sea abyss a hundred meters below the surface?

  I slowly panned the flashlight beam. As the boat rounded a protruding stalactite, I saw it through the rolling, fragrant mist: a white figure sitting on a jagged rock jutting out of the water.

  It was the silhouette of a woman in a white silk shroud. Her hair was a black waterfall, dripping wet and trailing into the dark river. Her back was to us, her movements mechanical and slow as she combed her long hair, stroke after rhythmic stroke.

  "Hey, lady?" Panos had his finger on the carbine's safety, his eyes turning stone-cold. "This isn't exactly the place for a spa day."

  The white figure didn't answer. The combing motion stopped dead.

  My brain was suddenly flooded with a massive, illusory dread. I thought of the video tape—the woman in the asylum, the endless combing. The shadow before me overlapped with that image, creating a suffocating, cross-temporal horror.

  "Don't look into her eyes!"

  Caspian, who had been as silent as a corpse, finally spoke. His voice was like cracking ice, sending shivers of echoes through the hollow cave.

  Almost before he finished, the white figure let out a sound.

  It wasn't a language, nor was it a scream. It was a high-frequency electronic screech, like radio static from hell. A sharp pain stabbed my eardrums. Crack! The glass face of my compass split open.

  In that same heartbeat, I realized something that shattered my remaining sanity.

  The old guide and the brutish boatman, who had been standing at the stern just a second ago, had vanished. Without a sound. Without a splash.

  The stern was empty, save for the long pole still swaying slowly with the boat's momentum.

  "They're gone!" I gasped, nearly sliding off my seat.

  Arthur spun around, his face turning deathly pale. He realized this wasn't just a geological anomaly. We had fallen into a blood-red trap woven fifty years ago—a trap designed specifically to harvest the Vance family.

  And the white figure was now turning its head, inch by agonizing inch, through the veil of long, black hair.