The flashlight beams revealed a horrifying sight: the ground was covered with stark white human bones. This cave seemed larger than the previous one, but most of its floor was carpeted with human remains, an unknown number of bodies. Looking around, all one could see were pale skulls, ribs, or curled hand bones, including some bones of young children. These countless bones, who knew how many years old, were like mass graves from the time of the Japanese invasion of China.
Due to the abundance of bones and the confined space, a strange smell permeated the air, and in the darkness not illuminated by the flashlights, there were faint glimmers of phosphorescence. First, there were the villagers’ warnings, then the long passage through the tunnel, suddenly coming upon such a scene of scattered bones, which was far more horrifying than seeing mass graves in broad daylight in Nanjing. No wonder the delicate girls lost control, their high-pitched screams still echoing without end. They were letting out sharp, trembling cries, as if trying to expel their deep-seated fears into the surrounding darkness through this form of release. In such a situation, I believe that even the bravest would be overwhelmed by sudden fear, or rather, shock. The difference lies in whether one can mask it completely or control it better, allowing the brain to quickly recover from a brief blankness and resume thinking. For Liang Yingwu and me, seeing these bones strewn about, the shock might have outweighed the fear. Having experienced true terror, we understood that these bones themselves could not harm us; the fear they instilled was actually a natural human fear of death. For those who had brushed with death or returned from the battlefield, or for those whose curiosity extended even to the state of death, the initial shock could soon be calmed.
“Stop screaming,” Liang Yingwu shouted sternly.
“That’s right, they’re just some bones. You’ll end up like this too when you’re dead, what’s there to be afraid of?” He Yun Kai added loudly. Although his voice was louder than Liang Yingwu’s, I sensed a slight hollowness in his bravado.
“Pah.”
