Ethan Brooks said, “It’s pitch black up ahead—how do you know? Maybe if we walk another fifteen minutes, we’ll be out.”

I thought about it and realized he had a point. If I could avoid sleeping here, I wouldn’t want to force myself to act brave either. At this moment, Charles Bennett said, “No need to argue. Listen to the sound—the water ahead is very steady, which means there’s no major change in the current. I estimate that even if we’ve reached the edge, it’ll still take us two to three hours to get out. As our strength fades, we won’t be able to keep up the same pace as before, and the road ahead will only get harder. Pushing on would just be a waste of energy.” His tone was calm and persuasive. “Resting here is the wisest choice. I support spending the night here, but we can shorten our rest time.”

Edward Foster truly didn’t care—he was already exhausted and immediately said, “Three votes to one. Minority obeys the majority.”

I thought to myself that Charles Bennett really had a knack for this. I hadn’t considered that point, so I quickly agreed, “Little Bennett is a top student—he sees things differently from us country bumpkins. I agree with his analysis.”

Ethan Brooks still wanted to protest, but Edward Foster made a few gestures, and the soldiers had already put down all their gear. Ethan Brooks was furious but helpless, his face dark. But no one paid him any mind. We started looking around for a suitable campsite and soon found a dry, flat slab of rock.

We climbed up, and the engineers cleared a spot for us. Once we dropped our gear, we all felt much lighter. Charles Bennett took a young soldier with some simple equipment to scout ahead, saying he wanted to see how much more of this kind of terrain there was. If it was all like this, we’d have to abandon some equipment, or we’d never reach our destination in this lifetime.

I didn’t think much of it at the time—just told him to be careful. The squad leader, just like in the movies, told the young soldier, “Take care of Engineer Bennett!” The young soldier snapped to attention and said yes! We agreed that if anything happened, they’d fire a shot as a signal, and then the two of them set off.

We had things to do ourselves. After clearing the area, we lit a fire and cooked our field rations. Even though we were all wearing raincoats, we were soaked through, so we took them off to dry. My sleeping bag was brought from the team—supposedly captured American gear from the Korean War, with “U.S.” letters on it. I wasn’t too picky, but as soon as I started drying it, a musty smell came out, and Edward Foster quickly told me to take it away.

Ethan Brooks sulked and ignored us, and we ignored him too. I just chatted and joked with Edward Foster. That was just how people were back then—teams changed all the time, so if you got along, great; if not, no one forced it. After the project, everyone would go back to their own places, and who knew when we’d meet again.

The field rations were compressed, dry food with salt and sugar—about the size of a finger, and one piece made a whole pot, but it tasted terrible, like medicine. Still, we made do. Edward Foster went to fetch water, looked under the rock, and saw black sacks and wire. He said we’d better use our own water. In the end, the two of us pooled enough for a pot, then poured it into a basin to eat the mush.

While eating, I wondered what we’d do when our water ran out. But thinking about it just made me anxious. If it really came down to dying of thirst, I’d drink urine if I had to—wouldn’t be picky then. So I just stopped thinking about it.

After we finished eating, Charles Bennett and the others still hadn’t returned. We all lit up cigarettes. I was smoking a mix of Hengda and Harbin, my own blend. Edward Foster didn’t have as good connections as me, so he smoked Albanian cigarettes—one jiao eight a pack. I saw that the army didn’t have good cigarettes, just white sticks, so I handed the squad leader a pack of Hengda. Not kidding—he was so happy his face turned red.

After a few puffs, we all started to feel uneasy. No one said much, just smoked in silence.

To be honest, I could really understand Ethan Brooks. In a way, he was braver than us—he dared to show his fear. The rest of us weren’t as scared as him, but it’s not like we felt nothing. Especially eating in a place like that—it was really uncomfortable. I could tell everyone was pretending to be unfazed, but in reality, it was like sitting on pins and needles. It always felt like eyes were watching us from all directions, and we kept wanting to look over our shoulders. Before long, our shoulders were stiff.

To distract ourselves, Edward Foster asked me to tell a few jokes. I’d spent a lot of time in survey teams, often with soldiers, and the young guys always asked me for jokes. I’d made up quite a few, and Edward Foster had heard them when we lived together—he knew I had a knack for storytelling.

But being asked to tell a joke out of the blue felt a bit silly. Usually, you’d start by talking about work, and as the conversation went on, you’d segue into a story and then a joke. The atmosphere here wasn’t right for ghost stories. I had a go-to routine about a geological surveyor in Yunnan getting into a funny situation with a local minority girl—very entertaining, with romance and punchlines. I figured I’d go with that. These soldiers probably hadn’t seen a woman in years—this would definitely take their minds off things.

I was just thinking about how to start when, suddenly—“Bang! Bang! Bang!”—a string of gunshots, like thunder, rang out from the distance.