Chapter Sixty-Five - A Ray of Hope Amid Despair (Part One)

“Coo, coo…” The persistent calls of birds roused me from my deep sleep. Opening my eyes, I saw nothing but an expanse of blue sky and a golden sun. Exhaustion had overtaken me so thoroughly that I had slept right through to noon. Perhaps, in this fathomless gorge, only the sun at its zenith could cast its light into this chasm ringed by sheer cliffs.

I sat up, shaking my dizzy head. Dazed, I gazed across the gorge, and what I saw left me utterly motionless. I was stunned—completely and utterly stunned.

Countless varieties of flowers bloomed just a few steps from my feet, their colors weaving a beautiful field that seemed to belong only in myth. This sea of blossoms stretched all the way up the canyon walls, covering several hundred square meters. Imagine a small plaza, every inch carpeted with flowers in full bloom; such a spectacle, such a feeling, is unimaginable in the modern world. Yet here, in this gorge, I saw it with my own eyes—and the scent! A rich fragrance filled the entire canyon, nearly overwhelming.

“Crack, crack!” Just as I stood transfixed by this ocean of flowers, a startling sound erupted from my body—a series of bone-snapping pops that sent me sitting back down in shock. What was happening? Alarmed, I stared at my hands. On instinct, I squeezed them; again, the sharp “crack, crack” sounded from within my fists. This time, I saw it clearly—my hands looked… larger than before?

“Gurgle…” Before I could ponder further, a sharp, spasmodic pain twisted in my stomach. With the experience of nearly thirty years from my previous life, I dashed into the flower field, stripped off my shredded trousers, and relieved myself with a fervor born of desperation.

“Mmm…” After a sigh of utter relief, I plucked the leaf of a flower taller than myself and cleaned up as best I could before tossing the leaf into the sea of blossoms. Only then did I pull my pants back on and stand up.

Suddenly, a rainbow arched just beyond where I had relieved myself. Looking closer, I realized it was the very hot spring into which I had fallen after tumbling from the cliff. Sure enough, as I hurried to the spring’s edge, the scene that met my eyes left me once again in awe.

A vibrant rainbow spanned the sky, white water as clear as crystal surged and frothed, issuing wisps of mist that hovered above the bubbling springs. It was like a scene from a paradise—the mist swirling like celestial vapors over the spring, the rainbow, the sea of flowers… This was a true earthly paradise.

Shaking my head in wonder, I murmured, “If I hadn’t fallen from the cliff, I would never have seen such beauty. Nothing here resembles the world I once knew. Is this the utopia Tao Yuanming wrote of?” As I spoke to myself, I noticed a patch of charred black in the flower field to my right—a barren, dark patch amidst the blooms. Curious, I hurried over, only to discover that this was no ordinary patch of bare earth—it was the wreckage of the Santana 2000! When the car had plummeted from the cliff, it had broken apart. Most of its pieces had vanished, but here lay a lone wheel and some fragments of the chassis.

My face turned ashen. If I hadn’t fallen into the hot spring but landed amidst the flowers, I would have been pulverized, just like the car.

“Thank heaven, thank heaven… You’ve given me another chance at life. Thank you, thank you.” Overcome with emotion, I clasped my hands and gave thanks to the heavens. But then, a new realization struck me: though my life was spared, how would I escape? There was water, but no food. If I couldn’t find a way out, I would die here all the same.

Surrounded on all sides by mountains, the dense field of flowers showed no trace of human activity. This paradise was also a prison. Without those mysterious hot springs, this place would be nothing but a graveyard. This thought crushed the fragile hope I had managed to gather.

“No, I absolutely cannot die! Since heaven has given me another chance, how could I let myself starve here?” I shook my head furiously, trying to banish despair. Gritting my teeth, I said, “Chu Qitong—she saw me fall. She’ll definitely send someone to rescue me… definitely…” My voice faltered. In a gorge ringed by cliffs, even a helicopter couldn't possibly land. The mountains all around were sheer, hundreds of meters tall. No one could possibly reach me. This must be some deep subterranean rift formed by crustal movement. That’s why it was hidden from the world, allowing the flowers and springs to remain unspoiled.

“Splash…” The more I thought, the more hopeless I felt. I collapsed into the sea of flowers, crushing countless blooms beneath me. At this moment, all the beauty around me meant nothing compared to my life. Loneliness, which I had not yet felt, now flooded my mind. I wandered in circles before lying down again, then stood, then lay down once more, until I was too bored to move and could only stare blankly at the clouds above.

“Am I really going to die here? If death was inevitable, why give me hope at all? It would’ve been better to die instantly from the fall!” Who knows how long I lay there, my mood darkening, until I suddenly sprang up in frustration and kicked a piece of broken car part lying on the ground. The poor fragment, serving as a target for my anger, flew into a clump of weeds at the cliff base.

But as the metal struck the cliff to my right, a sharp sound rang out, and dust began to spill from the wall—chunks of earth and rock crumbling down onto the weeds below. The noise drew my attention. The cliff should be solid enough to bear the weight of these mountains, yet the impact had produced a hollow, brittle echo, not the solid ring of stone. And the dust—how could there be loose earth on a sheer cliff? It made no sense.

Puzzled, I hurried through the field and weeds to the cliff’s base. I reached out to touch the spot I’d struck. It was indeed hard—unmistakably stone. So where had the dust and earth come from?

“It must have slid down from the mountaintop with melting snow or fish, perhaps. But why did the sound seem so off?” Frowning, I instinctively picked up a large stone and hurled it at the cliff.

“Clang…” The echo rang out. To anyone else, it might have seemed unremarkable, but I, whose brain had been enhanced by alien beings and was packed with the sum of earthly knowledge, recognized the sound immediately. It was the distinct resonance of a hollow space! Excitement flickered through my despair—this discovery brought a sliver of hope.

I hurried to another section of the cliff and struck it; the solid thud only reinforced my conviction that this particular spot concealed a secret. But even knowing there was a hollow within, the thick rock wall could not simply be broken through. Barring explosives, there was no way brute force could break it down.

Sitting on the ground, gazing at the cliff, I pondered how I might penetrate such a solid barrier. According to my knowledge, the hollow inside the rock could only have been carved out by an underground stream or by magma from the mantle seeping through a fault in the crust. Only these two possibilities could explain the vacuum within the cliff.