Chapter 25: Sinkhole

After being trapped in the karst cave for an entire day, the moment they stepped out through the cave mouth, lush greenery filled their vision. For an instant, it stirred a surge of emotion in them.

Gu Xianwang drew in several deep breaths to steady her mind, then carefully surveyed the sinkhole from top to bottom. Steep rock walls enclosed it like an iron barrel, soaring over a hundred meters high. The mouth of their exit cave sat roughly below the midline, still a good twenty or thirty meters above the pit bottom.

No one knew if this sinkhole had been carved out by an ancient meteor strike or formed by some crustal shift collapsing inward, but its scale wasn’t all that grand. From above, via aerial shot, it probably wouldn’t draw much notice, ringed as it was by untouched wilderness that bore no signs of outside intrusion.

Sure, it was only twenty or thirty meters down, but there were no trails whatsoever. The sheer, untouched cliffs dropped away vertically, hewn sharp as if by ax and blade. Even just standing flush against the wall, the fierce gusts whipping between the peaks made them sway unsteadily. Free-climbing down from here? That would be asking for death.

Ye Chan brought up the rear, clutching Gu Xianwang’s wrist with trembling hands, too terrified to take another step.

“N-No way… We’re not seriously climbing down from here, are we?”

Sara led the way, already edging sideways along a rock fissure barely wide enough for half a sole, five or six meters out. She whipped her head back with an impatient shout. “No one’s babysitting you. If you’ve got the chops, fly your ass out. Quit dawdling—you’re just in the way.”

Gu Xianwang steadied her footing and frowned to a halt, murmuring softly, “None of us have any rock-climbing experience. Trying to descend from here is way too risky.”

She addressed Long Li directly. Gu Xianwang wasn’t so arrogant as to imagine herself bounding across sheer walls like some acrobat. Better to split off now and seek another route than blunder halfway and get stuck.

They’d barely caught a break so far, and Long Li knew exactly how such exertion drained ordinary folks. She eyed the cliff’s contours, then pointed to a spot nearby. “Hold on. Hand me the packs first and wait here. I’ll set up top-rope protection.”

Her calm, patient explanation drew a massive eye-roll from Sara. “Tch. I told you not to drag along dead weight. What is this, a kindergarten outing?”

Surrendering their gear right now carried huge risks—especially with Sara in the mix, quietly fracturing the group into camps. Gu Xianwang pressed her lips together, then unshouldered her pack and passed it over anyway.

Long Li gave a slight nod. One hand on the strap, the other clamped to a jutting rock, she moved with swift precision. In a few bounds, she dropped onto a small platform seven meters out alongside Sara.

The platform was a diagonally recessed fissure, roughly two meters across—flat enough to work with, thankfully. Long Li rummaged in the pack and unpacked a full array of rigging, far more pro-grade than what they’d brought.

She picked out promising crevices in the rock, tested their solidity, then drove in rock pegs with a powered hammer and secured the protection plate. After that, she fed down the ropes—both the main line and backup were standard fifty-meter lengths. Barring mishaps, they ought to reach the bottom just fine.

Ye Chan peeked out from behind Gu Xianwang, watching the operation, and whispered in her ear, “Whoa, Sister Gu, their gear is seriously pro. Looks badass.”

Gu Xianwang: “…”

No denying it. When they’d first run into Long Li, she’d been going barehanded on raw skill alone—the gap hadn’t seemed so wide. But now that she’d regrouped and geared up? The disparity was night and day. It made them look like rank amateur backpackers who’d hiked into the wilds just to die.

Humiliating. For a moment, Gu Xianwang even found herself nodding along with Sara’s griping. If they made it out alive, she’d damn well bone up on this stuff properly.

Over there, Long Li finished rigging the top anchor and conferred briefly with Sara on the descent route. Whatever came next clearly didn’t sit well—Sara looked far from thrilled.

Long Li didn’t bother arguing. She frowned faintly, tossed out a couple words, and turned back toward them.

Reaching Gu Xianwang, she didn’t offer a hand, just pointed to a broader rock at their feet. “Follow exactly in my footsteps. Don’t miss a step—some of these fissures are weathered and unstable. Grip with your hands, drive down with your soles. And don’t hold onto each other. It’ll throw off your balance.”

Gu Xianwang nodded. From the corner of her eye, she caught Sara already harnessing up with flat webbing, gearing to drop first.

“Ye Chan, don’t look down. Just follow me.” She gave the instruction, then boldly stepped forward, matching Long Li’s pace.

It felt just like walking a high-wire without any safety harness. Gu Xianwang wasn’t afraid of heights in general, but a place like this was something only those who tried it could truly understand—the body trembled involuntarily. She controlled her breathing as she walked, trying her best to seem unafraid. After all, there was an even more timid Ye Chan right behind her. If the girl got startled, they might both go tumbling down in a tangle.

“Miss Gu, look at me.” Amid her panic, Long Li’s steady voice reached her.

Her composure wasn’t an act. From the firm lines of her face to the focused light in her eyes, everything radiated a resolute calm. This calm held a potent force, capable of sparking a courage that didn’t even belong to you in the first place.

Gu Xianwang had never studied Long Li’s face so openly before. Her bone structure was refined, her features sharp—hardly the soft ideal favored in Eastern aesthetics. As a woman, she came across as too aggressive, the kind of look that could intimidate at first glance.

It was unfair, really. On a man, those same features would earn praise for their commanding presence, evoking the imperial aura of ancient emperors.

With her attention diverted, Gu Xianwang’s steps grew far more natural.

Long Li wasn’t as aloof as she appeared. If anything, she had a touch of gentleness.

Gentle? Gu Xianwang still wasn’t sure about that word. She couldn’t quite pin this woman down. Beneath that cool exterior, too many secrets seemed to lurk.

By the time the thought crossed her mind, her foot had already landed on the platform. Long Li gave her elbow a light, steadying touch before letting go.

Sara let out a timely snort. “Yo, the babysitter’s back.”

Ye Chan wobbled onto the platform and collapsed onto her backside, gasping for breath. “Holy shit, that scared the hell out of me. Quick, snap a photo. I can brag about this for the rest of my life.”

No one paid her the slightest attention.

The backpack from Old Dog held gear for a single person’s SRT rope setup: spare rock pegs and safety locks, but the descender and quickdraws couldn’t handle so many people rappelling down.

With the equipment split up like that, the risks only went up.

Long Li laid out the plan. “There’s a node five meters up the static rope. This main line can only support two people rappelling at once, max. For safety, I’ll go first. I’ll place rock pegs along the route in segments. When you descend, don’t put your full weight on them—the cracks here might not hold.”

There were two harness sets, one helmet, and two pairs of gloves. Sara clearly needed a full kit. For the rest, Gu Xianwang thought it over and handed them to Ye Chan. She could make do with just the shoulder straps and foot loops.

“Miss Gu, over here.”

Before heading down the cliff, Long Li pulled Gu Xianwang aside and carefully wrapped several layers of bandage around the main load-bearing parts of her hands.

“No turning back once we start the descent. Gear’s limited, so stay cautious.”

As she focused on the bandages, her long hair spilled over her shoulders. Her lashes were long, the outer corners of her eyes tilting slightly upward. From this angle, the sharpness softened into something almost alluring.

Alluring?

Caught off guard by the stray thought, Gu Xianwang jerked her head away and drew in two deep breaths. Right—dangerous situations played tricks on the mind. Adrenaline’s side effect.

Bandages secure, she yanked her hand back, steeling herself: Contact with others was forbidden. She couldn’t let her guard slip, no matter what. It would only hurt them.

“You’ve got almost no gear. You sure you can manage?”

Long Li glanced up, noting the rapid blinking, the quicker breaths. She offered reassurance. “Relax. One step at a time. I’ll be waiting below.”

Gu Xianwang stared at her feet and nodded silently.

~~~

Rappelling a thirty-meter sheer drop was tough enough for most people even with full protection—let alone like this. And Long Li bore the extra burden of picking the route and placing pegs, every move safeguarding those who’d follow.

Time stretched out endlessly on the way down. Ye Chan didn’t dare glance below, terrified her voice might distract her. Sara, by contrast, lounged at the edge with her legs dangling, even trading words with Long Li from above. Clearly, they’d navigated spots like this before.

Gu Xianwang kept her eyes fixed on the figure shrinking smaller, then vanishing from view. Her heart pounded wildly for no reason she could name, even as she forced an indifferent mask onto her face. It was utter torment.

“Alright, my turn.” Seeing the main rope flicked twice below, Sara flipped onto the rock wall and tossed out casually, “Hope you two make it down in one piece.”

With that, she kicked off the rock wall and descended rapidly.

Thanks to Long Li’s preparations ahead of her, Sara went down much faster, pausing only briefly midway before vanishing from sight.

By the time it was Gu Xianwang’s turn, she was completely calm. To keep Ye Chan from getting too nervous, she simply said, “Stay safe,” then leaped down the first rope segment.

Her movements were clumsy at first, but she adapted quickly. Long Li’s rock pegs were solidly anchored, and even though Gu Xianwang only occasionally pushed off them for momentum, each landing provided a reassuring moment of stability.

Halfway down, her confidence was sky-high. Aside from the unavoidable pain in her wounded right palm when she bore weight on it, everything else was tolerable.

A cool, fresh breeze blew past, and she even had the leisure to glance at the scenery on either side.

The backpacks they carried seemed to have been snatched from Long Li’s team, so how had those three made it down the cliff?

Without proper gear, what about Senior Brother? That foreigner named Chak didn’t strike her as the generous type who’d hand over equipment.

Pondering this, Gu Xianwang eyed the position of the next rock peg, planning to pause there and scan the rock wall for any traces of their descent route.

But as her toe touched the peg and she shifted half her weight onto it, the rock peg suddenly popped loose from the crevice with a clink-clank and tumbled away.

Gu Xianwang’s balance lurched violently, and the descender shot downward in a sudden surge, teetering on the edge of uncontrolled freefall.

Disrupting the rhythm while bounding along a rock wall made it all too easy for inertia to take over—either yanking her into a straight plunge or slamming her into the wall mid-fall. She had no helmet or safety harness; her entire body weight depended on the delicate balance between the flat strap and her arm strength.

She was still at least dozens of meters from the sinkhole bottom. The treetops looked dense below, but a fall like that would leave her crippled at best, dead at worst. Gu Xianwang gritted her teeth, urgently grabbing the main rope loosely with her left hand to use the bandage for extra braking friction. Arching her lower back, she scraped her heels against the rock crevices several times and finally managed a precarious halt.

From above, Ye Chan watched in horror, her heart nearly bursting from her chest. She didn’t dare call out, her eyes reddening with panic.

Gu Xianwang caught her breath and rolled her stiff shoulders, glancing back at the previous landing spot. She suddenly realized the loose peg was right where Sara had paused earlier and glared downward involuntarily.

No one was visible below; the foliage blocked her view completely. Even if she accused Sara, the woman would probably just deny it.

Steadying her nerves, Gu Xianwang regained her descent rhythm. This time, she didn’t pause again, sliding straight down to the bottom in one go.

“Yo, you got nine lives or something?”

The words dripped with sarcasm the moment she touched down.

Gu Xianwang said nothing, unfastening her shoulder straps on her own. Long Li handed her a bottle of water, glanced at her palm, and stayed silent.

By the time Ye Chan made it down, dusk was falling. They had pushed themselves to the limit for nearly a full day and night of extreme exertion, and their bodies were nearing collapse.

Worse still, the sinkhole floor collected rainwater year-round and funneled in underground streams, creating a full-blown rainforest landscape choked with underbrush. It wasn’t visible from above, but down here, the trees towered skyward in fierce competition, their roots twisting together in coils thicker than forearms.

Ye Chan had barely sat down for two minutes when a prickling itch started on her legs. She looked down and froze.

“Holy crap, why are there so many leeches down here!”