A caravan of seventeen riders—seven Indians, nine Bhutanese, and one Chinese—vanished into the uninhabited region of the Himalayas. This was actually quite a normal occurrence; countless caravans had perished in that area since ancient times. However, this particular incident caused great alarm among the Indian authorities.

This anxiety seemed unfounded—of course, there must have been a reason, but it was too early to say at the time. The official explanation given by the Indian authorities was that Avery and Cooper were actually intelligence agents for the Indian government. They were carrying out a major operation, but suddenly both disappeared without a trace.

Charles Dean and his group had definitely entered the Himalayas and taken the wrong path. They did not emerge from any exit, but instead ventured deeper into the mountains, seemingly perishing within.

However, the truth was otherwise. Ten years later, two Bengali businessmen were discovered to be the very same two Indians from back then. They died in a brawl in Bengal—these two unlucky men were killed with a hoe by a loser during a gambling dispute. By that time, their identities had changed from impoverished caravan traders to a pair of extremely wealthy local brothers. At the end of that same year, someone in Sikkim recognized a low-profile local rich man as the former Bhutanese leader of the group—the bald one.

Charles Dean did not reappear, but the emergence of the other three clearly made the authorities realize that things were not so simple.

It seemed that the caravan from back then had not died in the Himalayas. They were all still alive, living under new names and identities. Moreover, they all shared a common trait: they had become extremely wealthy.

It was said that when the authorities arrested the bald Bhutanese man, it took ten truckloads to move all the property from his home, and even then it wasn’t finished.

During interrogation, the Bhutanese man revealed everything that had happened in the Himalayas.

After venturing deep into the mountains, the group encountered a terrifying landslide at a fork in the road and had no choice but to take another route. The wind and snow in the mountains were fierce, and they didn’t realize that after several twists and turns, they had returned to the site of the landslide. While climbing, they all fell off the cliff at the roadside.

Anyone who has seen related documentaries knows that to traverse that section, one must go on foot, and all pack animals are tied together with ropes. The way the ropes are tied is very particular, with different knots for different situations. On especially slippery sections, the ropes must be untied. Charles Dean and his group misjudged the road conditions, so when one person fell into the ravine, everyone else was dragged down by the ropes.

It was a tragic accident, with countless incidents occurring that could not all be recorded. Because of the ropes, their fall down the cliff was extremely complicated. Many were killed by being slammed into the rock face due to inertia after the rope caught, while others were strangled by the ropes—truly horrifying.

The accident cost them half their people and animals. After resting at the bottom of the cliff, they realized it was impossible to climb back up, so they tried to find another way to return to the cliff, but instead wandered into a region no one had ever entered before, where they discovered a strange place.

It was a valley, and oddly, the snow there was not deep. In the center of the valley stood a gigantic sphere, as tall as a three- or four-story building. The upper half was covered in snow, but the lower part clearly revealed a massive black metal ball.

Beside this giant metal sphere, in the thin layer of snow, they found countless small metal balls, each about the size of an egg—thousands upon thousands of them. The balls varied in size, and with the snow covering them, it was impossible to count them all. If all the snow were cleared away, the Bhutanese man guessed it would be like children playing in a ball pit.

They could no longer remember who first discovered that some of the balls were made of gold. They frantically collected them, exchanging all their goods for these golden balls.

During the collection, they found that the balls were made of many different metals—copper, iron, lead—it seemed as if every metal in the world was present.

Everyone went mad, as there were so many balls that finding the gold ones required patience. Eventually, fights broke out, and some were injured in the chaos.

After much hardship, they finally left the valley. In the end, only six survived: the two Indians, one Bhutanese, two porters, and Charles Dean. Charles Dean was the only one among them who took nothing. His gaze was fixed on the giant sphere, as if his soul had been stolen—he had no interest in the mountains of gold.

The Bhutanese man said that the enormous black sphere sat right in the middle of the valley, clearly man-made. But what purpose it served, or who had placed it there, he could not fathom. All the metal balls showed severe wear and oxidation, indicating they had been there for at least several thousand years.