Cruel Heart

I don’t know when I fell asleep in the icy cold or when I woke up. When one regains consciousness from chaos, the mind is at its weakest. As the events of the previous night flooded back into my brain, I silently prayed that it was all just a dream. But when I opened my eyes, I was still in the dim darkness lit only by a faint flashlight. I glanced at my watch; it was just before 5 AM. I shivered; I must have woken up from the cold and hunger. Food was scarce, and I hadn’t eaten last night, and today would only allow for one meal. This hunger would persist until we were rescued or until we died. I lay there, thinking. After a night’s rest, the cold stone floor had cleared my mind somewhat, but as Liang Yingwu had said yesterday, the situation was like a ping pong ball, completely ungraspable. At least thinking alone wouldn’t solve anything; we needed to explore more. But thinking back, once we entered the passage, we could no longer find our way back to the last part of the exit. Was this a one-way path, or had something triggered a change without us realizing it? I tried hard to remember if there was anything unusual during our journey yesterday. After entering the passage, everyone was cautious due to the unique terrain, and any strange occurrence would have been noticed immediately. Now, retracing our steps was futile. If nothing came to mind from after entering the passage, what about before? That seemingly ordinary large cave was also within the forbidden zone. Thinking of that cave, I felt a stir in my heart, as if I had grasped something. In that cave, especially when preparing to explore the passage, I had sensed an unusual atmosphere. But what was it? I closed my eyes, replaying the scene in the cave, and finally understood why I felt something was off. It was the stones. There were some large stones on the ground of that cave, around ten to twenty of them, each weighing at least several hundred pounds, scattered here and there. Originally, stones in a cave wouldn’t be too surprising, but upon closer inspection, this wasn’t a cave where stalactites might fall from the ceiling, and even if they did, they wouldn’t be this big, this intact, or this numerous. And these stones seemed to be arranged around the passage. Yes, they were near the entrance of the passage; everyone had to pass through these stones to enter. It was when I walked among these stones that I felt something strange. But what was the connection between these stones and our inability to exit the passage? Could it be that our inability to leave was somehow related to these stones outside the passage?
After deep contemplation, I couldn’t help but feel that my thoughts were somewhat far-fetched. Could the stones trapping people be part of some ancient formation? In ancient Eastern culture, formations are divided into two rather different categories. One type is used in military strategy, where soldiers are arranged in specific formations to break through enemy lines or lure them in, requiring regular practice and tactical application by commanders to maximize combat effectiveness. Many of these formations, after evolution, can still be seen in modern warfare. The other type of formation is much more mystical. It’s said that Zhuge Liang used the Eight Trigrams Formation to trap Lu Xun, which is an example of this kind. Such formations are set up according to the stars in the sky and the principles of the Book of Changes, causing ordinary people to experience hallucinations and become unable to escape. Although these formations frequently appear in legends and novels, I’ve never encountered one in reality. Could this be the first time I’ve encountered one? However, upon closer thought, it doesn’t quite fit. If those stones were part of a formation, we weren’t trapped inside; we passed through it and entered the corridor.