Yu Xi wasn’t familiar with the terrain of the valley below the cliff. The area was dense with forest, and she worried that taking another route might cause them to get lost and miss the crash site. So, she chose the same method as before.
She directed Lin Wu to park the car at the cliffside where she had climbed up last time. The slope there was gentler, so they wouldn’t need climbing ropes; they just had to descend slowly to reach the bottom of the valley.
Yu Xi stored the car away, and the three of them spent about twenty minutes hiking down to the bus’s crash site.
The burned-out bus frame had been dismantled and removed — probably to erase any potential clues. The people responsible likely never expected that someone had not only witnessed the entire crash but had also climbed down a hundred-meter cliff half an hour later and discovered that everyone aboard the bus had disappeared long before the fire was set to cover it up.
So where did those people go?
With backpacks on, sun hats and masks to disguise themselves, and trekking poles in hand, they circled around the scorched ground, searching for the pool from which firefighters had drawn water.
Yu Xi remembered reading about this area:
“A mountain waterfall cascades into a deep pool in the valley below. Behind the falls lies a cave network, popular among adventurers for hiking and exploration. Some say a hidden underground river flows from the cave directly to the sea, though no one has found proof.”
So the pool, cave, and river were all connected. If the rumors were true, that cave might lead them to some answers.
They followed the sound of flowing water and soon found a pool at the base of a steep cliff, about a kilometer from the crash site.
The pool wasn’t large but was enclosed on three sides by sheer rock walls, making it a shaded, cool, and perpetually shadowed spot. The water was a deep green, hinting at its considerable depth. Above, a wide waterfall cascaded down from the cliff’s peak, breaking across ledges before it reached the pool in a misty veil.
Yu Xi realized why she hadn’t heard the waterfall that night — the sound of the heavy rain had masked it entirely.
The place was eerily empty. No tourists, no locals, just the pool, the waterfall, and the oppressive quiet.
“I’ll go check it out,” Lin Wu said as he took off his hat, mask, and shoes. He strapped on a snorkel mask and a mini oxygen tank, then dove in with a splash.
Ya Tong sat down on a nearby rock and exhaled. “It’s great having a guy in the group, huh? You really haven’t considered it?”
Yu Xi blinked. “Considered what?”
Ya Tong gave her a look of disbelief. “Seriously? You haven’t noticed?”
Yu Xi just shrugged.
Ya Tong rubbed her forehead. “Forget it.”
When she reached for her cigarettes, Yu Xi quickly handed her a few individually wrapped chocolates. “Smoking’s bad for you.”
Ya Tong opened her mouth to retort, then stopped when she saw Yu Xi’s concerned expression. She sighed, took the chocolates, and pinched Yu Xi’s cheek. “Bossy little kid.”
Yu Xi rubbed her face and muttered something about being a mature adult.
While Ya Tong settled in with her chocolate, Yu Xi decided to search behind the waterfall for the rumored cave entrance. After about five minutes, she found it: a narrow opening hidden in the rock face.
Just as she turned back to the find, Lin Wu resurfaced.
“The pool’s just a regular pool. No tunnels, no hidden currents,” he said as he swam toward the rocky bank. He pulled out a towel from his storage space and dried off before ducking behind a boulder to change into dry clothes.
Ya Tong handed him his backpack and hat when he emerged. “Little Yu found the cave. Ready to go?”
“Of course.”
They were about to head toward the waterfall when Yu Xi suddenly gasped.
“What’s wrong?!” Lin Wu immediately sprinted across the rocks, ignoring the waterfall and plunging through the cascading water.
Yu Xi stepped out of the cave entrance with a smile. “Relax, it’s nothing bad. I tried confirming the station location with my phone — and it worked! This is the hidden train station!”
Ya Tong appeared moments later, taking the drier path around the waterfall. She gave Lin Wu’s soaked clothes a once-over. “Well, that was a waste of fresh clothes.”
Lin Wu glanced down at himself. “It’s just water. It’ll dry soon.” He grabbed his flashlight. “Let’s go.”
**
Lin Wu had explored many caves before, but this one was unusual. The entrance was narrow and low, but the cavern opened up into a much larger space beyond. The floor sloped steadily upward as they walked, though they were technically moving deeper into the mountainside.
The valley sat higher than the coastal areas of the island, which explained the uphill path.
The further they ventured into the cave, the colder the air grew. At first, it was a refreshing coolness, but soon the temperature dropped enough to make their breath mist.
The passage twisted and turned through the bedrock, untouched by human development. The ground was uneven but free of cracks or debris. They walked cautiously, but the cave was surprisingly easy to navigate.
Strangely, despite the natural conditions, they didn’t encounter a single insect, spider, or rodent.
The silence weighed heavier with each step.
The surroundings were eerily silent and completely dark, with only the beams of their flashlights cutting through the blackness. At the first fork in the tunnel, they saw a sign hanging from rusted wires. The sign warned of a collapsed section ahead, with a large red danger symbol scrawled across it.
But since their phones had already confirmed this cave as the hidden train station, something had to be wrong with this place. Moreover, Yu Xi had already picked up a faint scent of blood lingering in the air.
Ignoring the warning sign, they pressed forward, following the direction Yu Xi chose.
At each subsequent fork, she continued leading the way, her decision based on one thing—water. Deep within the cave, she could hear the faint sound of flowing water.
After the fifth fork, Ya Tong and Lin Wu finally picked up on it too—two distinct water sounds. One was the splashing of falling water, the other a steady current moving through the underground.
Finally, after two more turns, the tunnel opened up into a vast underground chamber. Across from them, water cascaded down the far rock wall in a narrow waterfall, catching faint beams of light that filtered in from a crevice high above.
The scent of blood was stronger here. The air had become colder—an unnatural, penetrating chill that seemed to seep into their bones, rather than something caused by mere temperature.
“It’s not just cold,” Yu Xi murmured, rubbing the goosebumps rising on her arm. “It feels like that same dense, heavy energy we sensed around Tide Island yesterday.”
Lin Wu frowned. “Seems like this station has something beyond just biological mutations.”
The three of them approached the waterfall. A shallow pool had formed beneath it, with the water continuing to flow forward into a winding underground river. The current looked strong, swirling around before vanishing into the darkness beneath a rock ledge.
“An underground river?” Lin Wu crouched down, shining his flashlight toward the base of the waterfall. “If we’re mapping this out, the flow is moving west to east. If it continues underground and passes beneath the ocean floor, it could very well end up under Tide Island.”
“Come take a look at this.” Ya Tong stood at another part of the cave, directing her flashlight toward a nearby rock wall. “There are drawings here.”
As they scanned the cave, they quickly realized that the drawings weren’t isolated to just one section—the entire chamber was covered in strange, primitive paintings. They were drawn in black pigment, rough and abstract, resembling ancient depictions.
Some seemed to illustrate a large event, with groups of small black figures gathered around a massive, dark shape, kneeling as if in worship.
Others showed repeated symbols—patterns that might be some form of totem.
Some paintings appeared to depict waves rising from the ocean, towering over the shoreline where human-like figures stood.
And then there were those that displayed a particular scene—small black figures carrying another figure toward the enormous dark mass, placing them inside a gaping hole drawn at its center.
“This looks like a record of some kind,” Yu Xi muttered as she studied the walls. “Disasters, prayers, rituals. If I had to guess, I’d say these people were performing sacrifices.” She pointed toward one recurring symbol. “And this totem—we’ve seen it before, haven’t we?”
“Not just in the Black Bora village,” Ya Tong recalled. “Those stone pillars in the city, around the fountains and plazas—they had similar carvings.”
“What about this?” Ya Tong raised her flashlight higher. One part of the wall depicted only a single entity—a massive, towering black shape. It resembled the large figure from the sacrificial paintings, but this time, it was drawn alone, greatly enlarged.
Yu Xi stepped closer, examining it. “This is likely their god… but I can’t tell what kind of creature it’s supposed to be.”
Even with all her knowledge of mythical beasts and ancient drawings, she couldn’t determine what species it might be. The silhouette was featureless—just two uneven, towering black shapes fused together, without any recognizable head, limbs, or wings.
Lin Wu suddenly spoke in a low voice. “The island…”
“What?”
“This massive black shape—it looks exactly like the island we’re standing on.”
If the being in the paintings was actually the island itself, that meant the people who created these murals believed that this place was alive.
And if the murals were to be taken literally, it also meant they had been sacrificing living people to feed it.
Ya Tong shuddered and turned toward the underground river.
The water surged forward, carrying its contents into the darkness beneath the rock ledge. No light, no sign of air—just the rapid current, sweeping away whatever was dropped into it.
A tampered bus, a missing group of passengers, and a cave just over a kilometer away.
The scent of blood, the oppressive energy in the air, the presence of sacrificial murals.
The strange, heavy substance that filled the waters around Tide Island, the eerie chill that made it unbearable to linger too long.
The creatures that had begun to emerge from the cracks in the reefs, as if awakened by the tides.
They had spent so much time searching for the origin of the “Blood Men,” thinking that if they found where those creatures came from, they would find the missing people—perhaps even the bus passengers.
But now, it seemed like they had uncovered something far worse.
It was no longer just about missing individuals.
What if the people who vanished near the beach, the ones captured in blurry videos and half-witnessed disappearances, weren’t part of the same mystery as the bus passengers?
For a moment, all three of them thought the same thing.
What if they had been looking in the wrong place?
The entire platform was empty—no creatures, no people—just the platform itself and the blood splattered across every surface. In other words, this time, the platform wasn’t just a location; it was the monster itself.
And it was a metaphor for the station’s true nature: Paradise Island was the monster, and the “Blood People” were merely extensions of its ongoing tragedy.
Confirming this theory was simple.
Yu Xi exhaled softly, then spoke with absolute certainty: “The Blood People were formed because of the island’s sacrificial rituals.”
Almost simultaneously, the phones in their pockets vibrated.
Congratulations! You have discovered the cause of the “Blood People.”
Hidden reward (choose one):
Train Ticket (1 station)
Item: Invisibility Patch (Duration: 1 hour)
Yu Xi selected the train ticket without hesitation.
Congratulations! Your ticket validity has been extended by one station (remaining: 2 stations).
Lin Wu and Ya Tong received the same options, though their secondary choices varied: Lin Wu could choose an Easter Egg Locator, while Ya Tong was offered two additional inventory slots. Both chose the train ticket.
This reward was clearly more valuable than the one from the bus crash; after all, train tickets were scarce and difficult to acquire.
Moments later, their phones vibrated again.
New task: Investigate the reason for the island’s sacrificial rituals and the method by which the “Blood People” leave the altar (Tide Island). Hidden reward available upon completion.
The three of them exchanged glances, their eyes drawn to the underground river.
No one moved to step closer.
This wasn’t just any waterway; it was a sacrificial channel. The same route where countless people—still alive—were likely tossed into the cold, unyielding darkness. They would have been dragged along by the icy current, trapped in endless blackness, perhaps occasionally encountering a fleeting air pocket. But in a submerged, pitch-black tunnel with no visible escape, breathing would only prolong the nightmare.
No wonder the breathing bubble’s duration was set at four hours.
“Forget it,” Ya Tong said, stepping back. “We’ve got tickets now and more supplies than we’ll need. I say we leave it at that.”
The others agreed. They turned to leave—only to notice an unfamiliar passage.
The corridor sloped upward. Yu Xi stepped closer and inhaled deeply. “There’s fresh air.”
Following the faint air currents, they chose the most promising route. After half an hour of navigating winding paths and slick rocks, they emerged from the cave’s mouth.
The entrance was concealed beneath thick green vines, half-hidden by tall grass, suggesting it hadn’t been used in a long time.
They crouched near the exit. Across the valley below, they saw the familiar wooden structures of the Black Bora tribe’s village.
Unlike their last visit, the village was devoid of tourists. Instead, the villagers clustered in the main square, gathered around a stretcher holding a wounded teenage boy. A woman, likely his mother, knelt beside him, sobbing into her hands. Several elders stood nearby, pleading with a man dressed differently from the rest of the tribe.
“I remember now,” Ya Tong said. “The missing child ed last night wasn’t a tourist—it was a local kid.”
Yu Xi’s eyes narrowed. “So… it’s starting to backfire?”
Lin Wu scanned the surroundings and found a safe route down the hill. “Let’s head back to the villa.”
**
An hour later, they left the mountainous area and circled toward the western coastline.
As they passed the airport, they hit traffic. The chaos from yesterday had intensified.
Tourists crowded the terminal’s exterior, shouting at overwhelmed staff. Some tried to force their way through security barriers. Others stood in line with despair etched across their faces.
Yu Xi leaned against the passenger seat window and unlocked her phone. Earlier, she’d posted a warning online about Paradise Island’s monstrous secret, hoping to dissuade others from coming here.
The post had been sent thirty minutes ago.
It still had zero views.
Yu Xi’s fingers tightened around the phone.
This station wasn’t just physically enclosed by a boundary line—it was digitally isolated too. Communication with the outside world had been severed. They weren’t merely trapped on an island; the entire station existed like a sealed-off fragment of reality.
Her skin prickled.
If everything here functioned like the real world, except for the isolated communications…
Was this place truly part of the real world at all?
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