?

  In the German narrative, he belonged to the second team, and on that encrypted telegram from Germany, it was recorded that Hitler personally issued the mission objective.

  Their goal is: to find the axis of time, to find the secret of eternal life of Aryans.

  The German smiled wryly and said, "So I led my troops on a secret march to Qinghai, avoiding the armies of various countries along the way. Every step was very difficult, and things were far beyond our expectations. By the time we reached Qinghai, our equipment and food had been almost completely consumed. We had no choice but to go to the local Tibetan homes to steal. At that time, the Tibetans living here were scattered and often moved around. We wasted two or three days before finding a household, and what we looted was not much. By then, we were already dizzy with hunger."

  Then, all my subordinates asked me to give up, they begged me to take them back home, but at that time, I only thought about completing the task, thinking about the leader's praise, thinking about future honors, and nothing else mattered. So I took them into the mountains. We walked in the snowy mountains for a long time, as if we were going to walk to the end of the world. In the following process, people kept falling down, and the original team of 15 people was left with only 9 partners. I still didn't give up, honor was too important to me, and at that time, we had already walked a long distance, food was exhausted, and there was no chance to turn back. Just when everyone felt desperate, we encountered a pack of wolves.

  I was shocked to realize that he had traveled a much longer distance than we are now.

  The German looked at us and smiled, "At first, we were also driven to a dead end by them, but fortunately, we found one of their weaknesses. They are not afraid of light, nor fire, but they are afraid of smoke. Maybe it's because of evolutionary reasons, their noses are very sensitive, they are extremely afraid of smoke, so we set our clothes on fire and escaped from the wolf pack with that little trick, then...then..."

  He seems to be recalling something, his lips are trembling slightly, and I notice that his fingertips are shaking.

  After a long time, he said intermittently: "Then we finally walked out of the canyon. Next, one of our companions suddenly went blind... He cried out in fear in the snowy ground and begged: 'Don't abandon me, please take me home, take me back to my country.' But we were all too weak and couldn't bring a blind man with us, so we gave up on him."

  He said up to this point, and I suddenly didn't want to listen anymore, because what happened next, I had heard from Xiu Xiu.

  But the German continued, covering his face and saying: "Then we left him alone and moved on. We kept walking forward, forward, but eventually got lost. All of us were starving, and could only desperately eat snow. Can you understand the feeling of having a stomach that's cramping with hunger, yet constantly shoving cold snow into it? At that time, I forgot about our mission, our glory... all I could think about was food: mashed potatoes, duck liver soup, beef patties, pizza... we had lost all sense of conviction."

  The Germans still had their faces covered, and their voices were full of fear: "Just then, we saw something in the distance. We walked closer to take a look and found that it was our blind companion. He was already dead, his eyes wide open as if he wanted to see something clearly. He must have been trying to get out of this snowy area, so even though he was blind, he still made an effort to open his eyes. But he had frozen stiff. It's strange, the wind and snow were so heavy, but his body wasn't covered in snow at all. I went to touch his face, wanting him to close his eyes, but as soon as I touched his face, my hand couldn't move again."

  "That feeling was too wonderful, I touched the flesh, although it was stiff, but it was full of temptation. I imagined the wonderful taste of the meat and couldn't move my hand away. I continued to touch downwards, touching his chest muscles, beautiful muscles that must have been very elastic when he was alive. Below that, there was no greasy fat, only lean meat, like the flavor of a steak. In my mind, I fantasized about these things, and my whole stomach twisted in pain. My hand was completely stuck to his skin, I touched all over his body, just then, I discovered other people were also caressing this corpse. I looked into their eyes... Oh god! Blood red, blood red! Eyes that seemed to want to devour a person."

  What I heard sent shivers down my spine. I had never experienced that kind of hunger, but now, my stomach seemed to be in agony as well.

  The German's face suddenly broke into a strange smile, he stared at me and said: "Next, do you know what we did? We cut him up, piece by piece, and ate him, leaving only his intestines and bones. His intestines were emitting a foul odor, empty inside, not even water was left. Now that I think about it, I feel like vomiting." As he spoke, he turned his head and started dry-heaving.

  "I gritted my teeth and said, 'Don't say another word.'"

  The German smiled wryly, his eyes moistening as he covered his face with both hands trembling and his voice choked with emotion. This time, he spoke in German, I didn't know what he was saying, perhaps it was a confession.

  After a long time, he calmed down and continued to recall. He said: "We kept walking, still walking, but we never reached the end. Each of our eyes was bloodshot, always on guard against being eaten by our teammates. Of course, we didn't eat people again; we ate other things. The surface of this snowy mountain is cold and unfeeling, but inside it hides many living things that ordinary people can't discover, but we did. During this time, my memories are all chaotic, I completely forgot what happened in the middle, I only know that when I finally arrived at a strange place, I lowered my head and saw a huge coffin."

  My heart skipped a beat, what a huge coffin, how big is it?

  He looked at my shocked expression and smiled: "I don't know if I walked into that coffin, because I forgot everything that happened afterwards. My memory stopped there. The next thing I remember is walking back on the return road, but all my teammates were dead. I was dragging their bodies back and forth, thinking I would die on the way too, but I survived. When I finally returned to Mount Nyima Snow, I suddenly didn't dare go out because I wasn't sure if I was still human."

  The German's flabby skin was quivering, his whole body was trembling, but if you didn't look closely, it was almost imperceptible.

  The German continued: "Then, I put their corpses into a pit, and wandered among the snow-capped mountains of Nima, not daring to go down or move forward. I stayed there, but from then on, I repeated my previous experiences every day. I was tormented by recurring hallucinations. Later, I realized that I had encountered ghosts - the vengeful spirits of my comrades. I went mad, truly mad. For sixty years, I had no memory at all, until your arrival awakened me."

  "He then asked another question: 'Want to know why I saved you?'"

  This is indeed no longer personal, I stiffly shook my head and said: "I've made a guess, but now it seems that my guess may be wrong." The German smiled and said: "Because you are the weakest."

  He burst out laughing and said, "I found that I have never aged, and I've lived for over 80 years. I think this must be related to that huge coffin, but I've already forgotten the way. So when I heard your goal and the legend of longevity, I knew we were fellow travelers. I want to figure out why I'm still alive while my teammates are dead. I want to know if I've ever entered that coffin. I want to know what happened in there."

  I have calmed down by now, and followed his words: "You think we know that coffin, so you need us to lead the way, but others are too dangerous, so you chose me, the weakest and easiest to control."

  The German nodded and said: "Yes, we cooperate, maybe... you can also get the same ability as me, just like what that Tibetan said, to obtain the power of Kula Jie."

  I took a deep breath and asked the last question: "What about my teammates, what happened to them?"

  The German shrugged and said, "I only dug you out, the others, I didn't go to dig them up, nor did I add a knife, whether they're dead or alive, it's all up to their fate." I put my mind at ease, as long as this madman hadn't added a knife to Xiaohua and the others, then everything that followed could only be left to heaven's will.

  "Where are we now?"

  The German said: "At the place where he first ate. From then on, I forgot all the way I walked, I only knew that I kept walking and finally saw a huge coffin."

  I furrowed my brow and asked persistently: "How big is that coffin? Where did it appear? What's its specific appearance?"

  The German thought for a moment, then rubbed his forehead and groaned: "I don't know, I only know it's a very big coffin, but I can't remember what it looks like." I stared at him for a while, couldn't see any clue, but the words he said, I wouldn't believe them all, could only use them as reference. At least now, I had to cooperate with him, and that coffin he mentioned, would it be the Tianyuan Coffin we were looking for?

  No matter what, now the road ahead can only be walked one step at a time.

  We all had no sleepiness, I subconsciously looked at my watch, it was 4 o'clock in the morning, two people leaned against the wall of the cave, neither of us spoke, each thinking about things. After about two hours or so, the dark night outside faded away, although it wasn't bright yet, but a grayish color had already appeared, that was the fog formed by the swirling snow, which was already vague and changeable.

  The German gave me a small package of equipment, which was full of tools and ropes, without heavy firepower and food. In this way, the two of us set out at dawn, when the sky was just getting light.