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She glanced at it and said to me and Fatty, "According to you, the Cold Essence Soul Gathering Coffin should be returned to the Dolphin King."

Fatty and I ran into the shallow sea, puffing out our chests and bellies, and giggled at the distance, making Shirley Yang laugh.

In the sunlight, a small dolphin leaped gracefully from the distant sea, gurgling as it swam swiftly toward us. Behind it, a large pod of long-absent dolphins emerged, arrayed in formation, surrounding the king of dolphins with deep purplish-red scars as it swam towards us.

Shirley Yang, clutching the Frost Essence Soul Gathering Coffin, jumped onto the beach and stood beside us. The King of Dolphins slowly swam closer to us and stopped motionless in the deep water a few feet away.

The little dolphin hopped closer to us, swimming and darting around the three of us, calling sweetly.

Shirley Yang gently placed the Cold Essence Gathering Soul Coffin into the little dolphin's mouth and patted its cute little head.

The baby dolphin happily wagged its tail, uttered a soft murmur, and turned to swim back into the sea.

The King of Dolphins used its long snout to press against the Frost Essence Gathering Coffin, and the other dolphins lifted it up. Suddenly, a beam of orange-red sunset light shot from the King of Dolphins' deep purple scar, resembling the Northern Lights. The light struck the Frost Essence Gathering Coffin, which opened with a soft crack. The bones, transformed from the spirits imprisoned within, swayed like wisps of multicolored true energy, and were drawn into the King of Dolphins' seven orifices.

The dolphin king's deep purplish-red scars became even more pronounced, and its body suddenly grew to more than twice its original size. It looked like a majestic, jade-colored mountain, which crushed the dolphin formation and sank into the sea.

A moment later, the King of Dolphins surfaced, swimming freely in the deep sea. He nodded to us, and two large teardrops rolled down his cheeks, instantly transforming into two shimmering, jade-colored beads. The baby dolphin carried them to Shirley Yang.

The dolphins roared to the sky in unison, their calls echoing like horns, as they escorted the dolphin king as he slowly retreated, swimming further and further away until he disappeared into the sea.

Shirley Yang, Fatty Wang, and I were all stunned. When we came to our senses, all that remained were the two sparkling beads in Shirley Yang's palm, radiating seven colors in the setting sun.

This is clearly a luminous pearl. According to the "Records of Searching for the Supernatural," "Beyond the South Sea live mermaids who live in the water like fish. They do not neglect weaving, and when they weep, pearls come out of their eyes." However, here, it has become the tear of the king of the ocean primates, the dolphin.

That puts a weight off my mind.

Shirley Yang handed the two beads to me and Fatty, saying, "This is your achievement, it should belong to you two."

The fat man looked at the bead over and over, then suddenly exclaimed, "Why do we need the bead? We should have the King of Dolphins take us back to the mainland!"

Shirley Yang and I exchanged a stunned glance. We were so caught up in our surprise that we completely forgot about this matter that concerned people's livelihoods.

We walked back to the beach campsite dejectedly, speechless for a moment.

Dusk enveloped the earth, the setting sun losing its last rays before disappearing into the boundless sea. Shadows flickered on the beach. In the distance, the wind rustled through the dense forest, mingling with the calls of birds and the roars of animals, reminding us that we were now on this desolate, isolated island.

While we were cleaning up after dinner, Shirley Yang encouraged us to use the trees on the island to make a raft to cross the sea. At the very least, we should take some measures to signal for help and wait for passing ships to find us.

That's true, a living person can't die from holding their pee. Fatty and I, clinging to a sliver of hope, cheered up.

Fatty missed the sashimi he had while rafting and strongly suggested that we go into the sea to catch some fish and grill them.

We ran into the shallow sea, made harpoon shapes out of tree branches, and excitedly fiddled with them for half an hour, actually managing to stab a few half-pound sea fish.

Shirley Yang lit the fire, and we gutted and scaled the fish, washed it, skewered it on branches, and grilled it over the fire, then soaked it in seawater brine. It was actually quite good; we enjoyed a delicious and hearty whole grilled fish.

The fat man smacked his lips as he ate. We chatted idly over dinner, discussing tomorrow's plan to build a raft for the sea crossing. Later, the fat man complained that he wasn't satisfied and asked me to tell him a ghost story. With Shirley Yang's permission, I began:

In the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties, years of war ravaged the land, leaving the people destitute and the air thick with the cries of ghosts. In northern Hebei, there lived a family. The patriarch, a farmer, fled the chaos of war with his wife, three sons, and two daughters, hoping to find refuge in the deep mountains and forests and survive. Heading south, they encountered only devastation and carnage, with countless starving people. Plague, hunger, and cold further compounded their suffering, leaving behind mounds of corpses and countless bones. Tragically, the farmer's youngest son, only two years old, contracted the plague and succumbed to his illness, barely clinging to life. Fearing he would spread the disease, the family, weeping and wailing, placed him in a sloping hole in a large tomb along the way, covering the entrance with corpses to prevent him from being eaten by wild animals. The family continued their southward journey.

Fortunately, fate intervened. A year later, Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, issuing an edict to restore farming, allowing people to return to their original homes. Local officials along the way provided assistance, and social order gradually stabilized. The farmer's family returned to their hometown, passing a large tomb. They decided to retrieve their youngest son's remains and bring them home for burial. Upon opening the tomb, they were horrified to find their son still alive, but his eyes were completely red, his body covered in green fur, and two fangs protruded from his mouth. He was crawling on all fours, eating raw meat and drinking blood, and had a particular fondness for tearing apart and eating human corpses, resembling a wild beast. Their companions were horrified and beat him to death with stones and wood, then burned him and buried him on the spot.

The fat man, finding the conversation utterly boring, repeatedly complained of how tedious it was before collapsing into a deep sleep. I smothered the fire and lay down under the palm-leaf-covered wooden shed to keep watch. The early summer night was refreshing, with a slight chill in the air, and before I knew it, I had fallen asleep too.

Another day dawned. We woke up early, ate breakfast, and prepared to cut down trees to make a raft. Suddenly, we heard the roar of a motor. Turning around, we saw a large cargo ship emerging from behind the cliffs, heading straight for us. We were overjoyed! Fatty and I waved our hands and raced towards the cargo ship.

The cargo ship was anchored in the deep sea, about two arrow-lengths away from us. Suddenly, a group of white-skinned foreigners appeared at the bow, armed with guns, and all pointed their weapons at us.

Suddenly, gunfire erupted, bullets whizzing around us, riddling the beach like a sieve. The sudden turn of events terrified us, and we raised our hands in surrender, too afraid to move.

Book One: The Ancient Tomb at the Cape, Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Crisis of the Giant Spider in the Deadly Forest Again

A small boat was lowered from the starboard side of the cargo ship, and a dozen or so people quickly jumped aboard, sailed to the shore, and pressed submachine guns against the backs of me and Fatty.

Then, five or six more people waded ashore in the small boat. One of them was very familiar—it was Jack, the big, curly-haired black guy who had brought us food on Robert's submarine. It seems we've run into each other again. Damn it, looks like we've fallen into Robert's clutches once more.

Blackjack started babbling on and on to Shirley Yang. Fatty turned to me and asked, "Guess what nonsense this charcoal-headed guy is spouting?"

I said nonchalantly, "Damn, of course it's English, you're spewing nonsense."

Blackjack turned his head and gestured to the group. The bastards then sandwiched us between them and headed into the dense forest of the cliffs. Clearly, their objective was extremely clear.

I said to Shirley Yang, "Didn't you tell them that it's easy to get lost in the dense forest, and that there are man-eating pets like spider demons, vipers, and termites?"

Shirley Yang shrugged and said, "There's nothing I can do. They won't listen, so I'll just have to go through another round of 'Infernal Affairs' intimate contact."

The fat man interjected, "What are they planning to do?"

"Of course, it's our old profession, grave robbing," Shirley Yang said.

The fat man exclaimed in surprise, "There's still a tomb? Didn't we destroy the Thousand-Year Ice Tomb?"

I curled my lip and said, "Tch. There's more than one thousand-year-old ice tomb in the world. It seems they must possess a very important secret; we need to be careful not to be silenced. But it shouldn't be now; we need to be more vigilant after we raid the tomb."

The foreigner behind us couldn't understand our Chinese. He poked our backs with the muzzle of his gun and whispered, "Don't speak."

As we spoke, we had reached the edge of the dense forest at the cliff edge. Blackjack waved for everyone to load their guns, then pulled out a theodolite and pretended to test an angle before directing his men to break into the dense forest from the side closest to the cliff edge.

The forest floor was covered with fallen leaves, filled with a putrid smell, making it extremely difficult to walk. It was indeed as Shirley Yang had described—gloomy and deathly silent.

Blackjack would occasionally pull out his theodolite to set the angle, and we walked around one after another large pothole more than ten feet wide, bent over and passed through the continuous green vine net overhead, and continued into the depths of the dense forest.

Along the way, these foreign devils were incredibly disciplined, each one keeping their mouths shut like a mute. Except for Blackjack occasionally making gestures, the rest of them moved forward in a line around the three of us like puppets. So far, I hadn't heard a single one of them speak. They all communicated using a strange kind of hand gestures, somewhat like the code words I used in the Vietnam War.

I asked Shirley Yang what the big black guy had said to her earlier.

Shirley Yang said that Black Jack relayed Robert's message: after the submarine wreck, Robert used a satellite positioning system to find Black Jack, but not the three of us. We were fortunate enough to find them this time through the cult's psychic abilities. Therefore, the old man sent Black Jack to lead this cargo ship here, and they discovered an ancient tomb on the island.

I curled my lip, thinking to myself, "This old man can't possibly be that kind."

Just as we were thinking this, we suddenly heard a hoarse hissing sound behind us. We turned around and, holy crap, a huge, dark brown spider with a human face was coiled in mid-air on a green vine web, spinning a thick, long white silk thread that instantly wrapped the foreigner at the back of the group up like a silkworm cocoon, pulling him under its giant claws. That hoarse hissing sound was the foreigner's scream of agony.

The giant spider with a human face raised its front claws, as thick as a roof beam, and stabbed down fiercely. The foreign man, who looked like a silkworm pupa, was instantly mashed into a bloody mess. The giant spider used its two front claws to clamp the pupa into its lotus petal-like mouth and chewed it up. With screams of agony, blood droplets splattered everywhere, and the pupa was swallowed whole.

The crowd was terrified and immediately raised their guns, unleashing a furious barrage of fire at the giant spider. The spider leaped through the air, soaring over ten feet, landing on another vine web. In the blink of an eye, it jumped to the ground, creating a gust of wind as it charged into the front of the column. With a flurry of its eight claws, several foreigners were swept away by its kicks, their skin torn and bleeding. They were sent flying far into the air, crashing into tree trunks, landing with blood trickling from their mouths, half-dead.

At that moment, I pulled Shirley Yang and Fatty aside, and we ducked behind a large tree. These guys were too busy dealing with themselves to pay attention to us. Fatty suggested we take this opportunity to escape, but Shirley Yang shook her head, saying we were unarmed and it would be safer to stay. After all, these guys were all equipped with powerful submachine guns and grenades.

We hid behind the tree and examined it carefully. I said to Shirley Yang, "No, this giant spider with a human face is as hard as iron. Let the big black guy shoot it in the abdomen."

Shirley Yang pointed loudly in English at Blackjack, who was already rolling on the ground. Blackjack yelled and waved his hands, and everyone opened fire. The giant spider was forced back by the overwhelming force, and with a backward thud, its soft white abdomen was riddled with bullets, spraying its indistinct internal organs and bodily fluids all over the ground, leaving only an empty shell the size of a roof. It weakly waved its eight legs a few times and collapsed to the ground with a thud. Its blood-red eyes still gleamed with ferocity, turning and turning, its eyes wide open in death.

The group huddled together, and Blackjack counted the number of men. In the blink of an eye, four or five of the thirty-odd people had been killed. An ominous atmosphere hung over the entire group. Everyone was ragged and dejected; clearly, none of them had expected such a powerful wild monster to appear. Shirley Yang, Fatty, and I grabbed a few folding submachine guns, magazines, and grenades from beside the corpses and slung them over our shoulders.

Before I could even react, I suddenly saw dark shadows flashing on the tree webs all around me. I looked up and was stunned. A dozen or so large black spiders had surrounded me, forming a menacing encirclement, and were perched on the vines in mid-air.

Everyone was so frightened that they dared not move, remaining frozen in place. The group of giant spiders with human faces also remained motionless. Time seemed to stand still at that moment.

Suddenly, a dark shadow darted out from the tree burl—a startled night owl. Before it could even fly over the branch, a nearby giant spider pounced on it, spitting out thick white silk that bound its wings. The silk slowly retreated to the edge of its massive mouth, and the spider opened its jaws, stuffing the still-fluttering creature into its mouth and crunching it down like a candy bean.

This little incident only added to the terrifying atmosphere. In the unbearable silence, Blackjack suddenly shouted, and the men lined up, firing more than twenty submachine guns at the same time, causing smoke and fire to rise everywhere, and leaving broken branches and fallen leaves all over the ground.

The giant spiders with human faces swarmed from the vine web, some leaping into the air only to be riddled with bullets, their disgusting brownish-yellow fluids splattering everywhere, soaking everyone. Everyone was bloodthirsty, frantically firing their submachine guns in all directions.

Shirley Yang, Fatty, and I stood back to back against a large cypress tree, forming a triangular defensive formation. Each of us held a submachine gun and fiercely fired at the giant spiders with human faces that had jumped nearby.

Around them, people were constantly being attacked by the giant spiders, either being impaled to death or swept into the air, stuck in the spider silk and eaten as snacks, their blood splattering across the sky, a scene of extreme carnage.

Fatty and I were both in a frenzy, our heads spinning and our limbs swollen. With a swing of our three submachine guns, we smashed a giant spider that charged at us to the ground. Its massive pincers were still struggling and twitching when another giant spider leaped over its companion's corpse and rushed towards us. In the blink of an eye, we had taken down three or four giant spiders with human faces. The fourth one fell just three steps away from Fatty and me, its massive pincers barely reaching my nose before slumping down weakly and embedding themselves diagonally in the fallen leaves on the ground.

Shirley Yang called out in English, and everyone fought and retreated, slowly gathering in one place. In the distance, the remaining four or five giant spiders did not back down. They jumped and leaped like giant fleas, leaping onto the vines with great elasticity, using the crooked tree burls as footholds, jumping over the large pot pits, and landing on the fallen leaves, creating large craters. They bounced and jumped, and soon caught up like a gust of wind.

We all aimed our submachine guns at the giant spiders that were leaping towards us. Every time a giant spider jumped into the air, we would fire wildly at its abdomen, and soon we had wiped out the remaining ones.

Looking back at the battlefield, the giant spider's bodily fluids almost completely covered the large pit in the woodland, mixed with the bright red blood of the dead and wounded soldiers, making the entire woodland look like a giant dye shop.

Blackjack counted the men again. After this battle between humans and spiders, only sixteen people remained, even those with minor injuries—more than half the crew had been killed or wounded. Fatty had a cut under his right eye, and I had a cut on my right arm, thankfully minor. Shirley Yang helped us bandage ourselves.

Whether to advance or retreat, everyone looked to Blackjack. Blackjack gritted his teeth, waved his hand, and the team members successively entered deeper into the dense forest. Damn it, who would have thought these foreign devils actually had the spirit of a suicide squad? Fatty and I secretly gave him a thumbs up, somewhat admiring Blackjack.

Unfortunately, what happened next quickly made us lose our admiration.

Black Jack, who was walking behind, waved his hand, and the last two white-haired devils walked across the battlefield, firing one shot at a time, killing the seriously wounded team members on the spot in the blink of an eye.

Upon hearing the gunshot, the three of us, who were being held hostage in the middle of the line, were all stunned.

"Fuck your mother!" the fat man roared, about to charge forward. The moment he moved, a submachine gun was pressed against our spines from behind. We froze at the sound of a bullet being chambered.

Shirley Yang loudly questioned Black Jack. Blackjack turned away expressionlessly, waving for his team to continue. Perhaps it was because his face was too dark, too dark to see his expression. Or perhaps it was because this guy was ruthless and unscrupulous.

Shirley Yang comforted us, saying, "Forget it, a wise man doesn't fight a losing battle. They're killing their own people. We're like clay bodhisattvas crossing the river—we can barely save ourselves, what's the point? Look at these people, not one of them is actually against us."

Fatty and I turned to look, and damn it, it really was true; everyone was expressionless, acting like nothing had happened.

Shirley Yang gently reminded us to be extra careful of the people around us on this journey, and also to try not to get injured.

Unfortunately, the road ahead was fraught with peril. They hadn't gone far when one of the team members was struck by a jet of black liquid that sprayed all over his face and head. He thrashed about, screaming in agony, rolling on the ground in agony, emitting heart-wrenching cries. In an instant, he dug his own hands open his face, tearing off half his skin. His voice grew increasingly hoarse, and soon his entire body turned a purplish-black, and he lay lifeless on the ground.

Everyone was stunned. They jumped back, grabbed their submachine guns, and fired wildly at the bushes. After the leaves fell and branches broke, a pair of cold, black eyes appeared behind the bushes.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Black Widow of the Dead Forest Again

Book 1, The Ancient Tomb at the Cape, Chapter 29: The Black Widow of the Dead Forest Again

The black eye was attached to an even larger spider. However, this super black spider was quite different from the human-faced spider from before. Its claws were longer and sharper, and it had a pair of long antennae added to its mouth. Most strikingly, a large saddle-shaped fiery red spot was faintly visible on its abdomen.

"It's a male Black Widow!" Shirley Yang exclaimed.

This thing was entirely shiny black, even its eight large feet were the same color, making it comparable to Black Jack in the group. That barrage of bullets just now seemed to have no effect on it at all. From a distance, it was clearly a super armored tank equipped with thick steel plates.

Suddenly, it tilted its head back, its antennae snapped, and its abdomen twitched and contracted, spewing out a large glob of black, foul-smelling liquid from its mouth. The black liquid flowed through the bushes, and at the point of contact, flowers and leaves immediately fell, white smoke hissed, and everything was scorched and withered.

Everyone fled in panic. One of the team members who was a little slower got splashed on his clothes. Immediately, white smoke rose from his clothes, and then a piece of rotten clothing the size of a palm fell down, scaring him so much that he turned pale.

Seeing that her poison spray had failed, the Black Widow flew into a rage. Wielding her eight legs and two whiskers, she scrambled out of the charcoal pit in the bushes with incredible speed, sending branches and leaves flying wherever she went, unstoppable. Instantly, a wide runway was cleared through the woods.

At Blackjack's command, everyone retreated into the dense forest and opened fire. Bullets struck Black Widow, sparks flying, clanging and clattering like rain before bouncing off unharmed. This only fueled her ferocious nature; with a single kick, she knocked several more men to the ground, then opened her mouth and bit down, tearing off half her body in one go—a truly bloody and terrifying sight.

The Black Widow drew ever closer, spraying venom everywhere. We gradually became overwhelmed and retreated into the dense thicket.

First, I stood in front of Shirley Yang and Fatty, and ran out of bullets in less than five minutes. Fatty stepped in front of me and followed up with a barrage of fire. I changed magazines, and as soon as I looked up, this mountain-like guy was already within five feet of me.

Seeing someone in the bushes below, Black Widow brandished her eight legs and charged forward. Her enormous figure loomed over the three of us like a nightmare.

I unleashed a barrage of submachine gun fire overhead, propelling Shirley Yang and Fatty backward between the two trees. Black Widow, enraged, leaped up and dove, only to find herself wedged between the trees, unable to move. Her struggles intensified, and she spat a glob of phlegm at us.

Damn it, I rolled quickly to the right to avoid the huge cloud of venom. Shirley Yang and Fatty rushed out from both sides and fired wildly at it. Several bullets hit the shiny red spots on its abdomen, causing juice to gush out and making the Black Widow scream in pain.

Overjoyed, I brandished my submachine gun and charged out from the side, shouting, "Shoot the red spot!" The group fired wildly at the red spot, instantly eliminating the rabid beast between two trees.

Before they could catch their breath, the branches and leaves behind the bushes trembled, and in the blink of an eye, seven or eight large black spiders emerged. The lead black widow was larger than the male she had just killed, dragging her bloated belly and moving slightly slower. The seven black widows that jumped out from either side of her were noticeably smaller, their tender mouthparts still a dark yellow, translucent color—they were small spiders. Some of them lacked the red spots on their abdomens.

The fat man yelled, "Damn it, this is a Black Widow family! We killed their leader!"

The lead black spider hissed and snarled around the male black widow's corpse, pulling it backward. Unfortunately, it was stuck too tightly, even pulling the trees backward, and the corpse was still not pulled out.

Seeing that it couldn't tear the corpse off, the enormous black spider became even more frenzied, kicking the smaller black spider beside it far away. It circled around to the front of the male black widow, bit down on her head, and ripped it off alive, then devoured it in a few crunching bites.