Chapter 242

Chapter 242

“Old Cao, you’re widely traveled and experienced. Have you ever seen humanoid figures hanging upside down like these?”

I asked him.

He answered hesitantly,

“When I was young, I traveled all over with Master… I did see something similar, but there were still differences. After all, there are quite a few methods capable of creating humanoid figures like these.”

Roundy was more direct. It flapped its wings and flew up to the cavern ceiling, moving close to one of the upside-down figures for a better look.

“Hey! Be careful, fat bird. You should be a little more cautious around something we’ve never seen before.”

I warned it quietly.

“All right, all right, I know. You’re such a nag!”

Roundy muttered and lightly swept a wing.

Whoosh!

An extremely thin wind blade shot out and actually circled the humanoid figure once. It cut away several strands of white thread, which slowly drifted downward.

I had not expected the fat bird’s control over its demonic wind blade technique to have become so refined!

“Heh, isn’t Lord Bird impressive? Wu, Old Cao, catch those threads and see if you can find any clues.”

I reached out and caught one.

At first glance, the white thread resembled spider silk. When I gently pinched it, it did indeed feel slightly sticky.

I tugged it gently with both hands, but it did not break. It seemed even tougher than spider silk.

I frowned.

“Could this be the lair of a spider demon? Are these figures its food?”

Old Cao pinched the white thread and pondered for a while. He agreed that this was very possible.

Roundy folded its wings, landed on my shoulder, and said,

“Let’s leave these strange hanging figures alone for now and think about how to get out. This damned place is even more troublesome than the large cavern covered in Corpseglow Moss. There’s no dry exit at all! Apart from the fork in the underground river, everything is solid subterranean rock. Are we supposed to jump back into the underground river and try again?”

I spread my hands helplessly.

“Then our lung capacity will be put to the test. We’ll truly have to hold our own breath. When we were swept down here, all the talisman paper on me got soaked… It’s unusable now.”

“Damn! Didn’t you know to buy a waterproof backpack and keep your talisman paper inside?”

Roundy irritably tried to smack my head with a wing, but I caught it.

“Your hindsight does make some sense. Once we get back, I’ll spend good money on a waterproof bag.”

Seeing that the two of us were about to start bickering again, Old Cao quickly waved a hand.

“All right. Since these hanging figures haven’t attacked us, let’s not provoke them yet. We should carefully inspect this cavern first. That branch of Yellow Springs water that washed us in here must flow somewhere. It couldn’t simply vanish.”

That’s right!

Since it was a branch splitting from the underground river’s main current, it had to have a destination even if its flow was weaker than the main channel.

If this cavern was completely sealed, where did the water from that underground tributary go?

So we began searching carefully…

Only then did we discover that the floor of the underground cavern actually sloped slightly. After the small branch current that had swept us in thundered onto the ground, all its water flowed in one direction toward a particular spot in the cavern.

“Come on, Xiao Wu. Let’s go take a look!”

Holding his phoenix pole, Old Cao strode forward with me.

Whoosh!

A white blur swept over our heads, passed us in an instant, and flew on ahead.

“Wahaha! Humans are such weaklings. Lord Bird is still the best–I flew all the way over here in the blink of an eye.”

The damned fat bird was smug as could be, its expression downright obnoxious.

It looked down, then called out again,

“It’s a pool! It looks really deep.”

The cavern was not large to begin with, so by the time Roundy had called out a few times, Old Cao and I had already reached the pool.

It was roughly circular and not very large, perhaps only about ten feet across.

I gave Roundy a speechless look.

“The water is all muddy yellow. How can you tell it’s deep?”

“Are you stupid, Wu? That muddy yellow underground water keeps pouring in, but it can’t fill the pool and none of it spills out. It must be deep, and it might even connect to cracks in the underground rock or the mountain itself.”

“Mm, the fat bird is pretty clever. I only said that on purpose to test you.”

I said it with a perfectly straight face.

Roundy’s bird eyes instantly went round.

“Damn, Wu! When did you become so shameless?”

“I learned it from you. Anyone who spends time around a rotten bird as obnoxious as you is bound to go bad.”

Bickering with Roundy had practically become a habit. Neither of us felt right unless we took a jab at the other…

Old Cao could only smile wryly.

He walked once around the pool, felt along its edge, and said gravely,

“This pool appears to bear signs of having been excavated by hand.”

I crouched down as well and examined it carefully. Sure enough, I could see marks along the edge where tools had ground against the stone.

“Old Cao has a sharp eye! This place really is different from the completely natural cavern we were just in. The signs of excavation are obvious. But whoever did it probably modified a preexisting collapse in a lower underground stratum. Digging a pool this deep underground by hand alone would have been far too difficult.”

Exactly!

Old Cao clearly agreed with me.

He glanced back at the roaring underground river behind us, where a small tributary split off as the current passed through the cavern. Pointing toward the outlet, he said,
“And judging by the looks of it, someone carved a tiny side channel into the rock where the underground river flows in. In other words, they deliberately diverted Yellow Springs water into this pool. We happened to get swept along with it.”

As Old Cao and I analyzed the scene, the outlines of the truth gradually emerged…

Huh?

At that moment, I suddenly noticed a problem.

“This deep pool filled with Yellow Springs water seems to lie in a position of extreme yin. A cavern deep underground is naturally yin to begin with. Add the Yellow Springs water and its feng shui position… Three forms of yin converge here. I’m afraid some yin-baleful thing may be gestating inside this pool.”

This absolutely could not be a coincidence!

Although the mountain’s underground caverns and river had formed naturally for the most part, no human effort could ever have created anything on this scale.

Yet by altering a few details, someone could make the natural terrain of the mountains and rivers produce a wondrous power suited to their needs!

It was clear that whoever had built this place beneath the hill behind Lianghe District Middle School, making use of the natural cavern and underground river, must have been highly proficient in feng shui and possessed formidable magical abilities.

This also supported the theory Old Cao and I had just proposed!

I stared with a frown at the deep pool of churning, muddy yellow underground water that reeked of sulfur and said gravely,

“There must be something strange under this water. Everything here may well have been arranged for whatever is inside the pool. Old Cao, why don’t you lower your phoenix rope into the water and see if you can fish something–”

All of a sudden!

Roundy, perched on my shoulder, beat its wings violently and flew into the air. It stared warily at the cavern ceiling.

“What’s wrong, fat bird?”

“Those figures hanging from the ceiling moved! Looks like we’ll have to fight them before we can study this pool and look for a way out.”

Hmm?

I followed Roundy’s gaze.

Sure enough!

The dozen or so humanoid figures wrapped tightly in white thread and hanging upside down from the cavern ceiling had begun to writhe. Beneath the white thread, their limbs visibly struggled, setting them swaying from side to side like some eerie, sinister row of swings.

I shrugged and forced a cheerful smile despite our predicament.

“Fine! Guess we’ll have to fight these damned things. This is a secret space deep underground. There’s nowhere to run even if we wanted to.”

Old Cao swept the phoenix pole in his hands through the air with a whoosh and glanced at me.

“Xiao Wu, want to see which of us can destroy more of these things?”

Before I could answer, Roundy immediately chimed in.

“Sure, sure! Lord Bird is joining too. The three of us can compete together. Now that we’ve decided to fight, the first to strike wins! Wahahaha…”

The stupid bird cooed loudly and flew straight toward the closest hanging figure.

We had left these things alone earlier because we did not want to invite further trouble. But now that trouble had come knocking, we might as well beat the hell out of it!

Screech!

Roundy let out a piercing cry that seemed capable of splitting metal and stone. Its wings spread fully into crescent arcs, every feather clearly defined and glimmering with a metallic white light.

At first glance, it looked like a round ball of fluff with two sharp steel blades stuck into its sides!

Uh… I could not tell whether it looked intimidating or simply ridiculous.

But the power was tremendous!

Roundy swept directly past a humanoid figure that had not yet fully broken from its cocoon, its wing slicing through like a steel blade.

With a wet ripping sound, the wing cleaved through most of the figure, leaving half its body hanging limp. It still had not fully emerged from the white threads, however, so we could not make out its true appearance.

Ghostly green fluid dripped from the split half of its body, giving off a foul, nauseating stench!

“Oh yeah! Lord Bird got the first one. I’m in the lead for now! Wahahaha!”

Roundy wheeled through the air, cooing smugly–in our minds, the sound became its arrogant laughter.

Old Cao and I could not fly. The figures hung rather high above the ground, so unless they broke free of their cocoons and dropped down to attack us, there was no way for us to reach them. We could only fret from below…

Rip, rip! Tear, tear!

A succession of sounds like cloth ripping rang out. At last, the white threads wound around the figures tore apart completely. The white strands suspending them from the ceiling snapped as well, and the figures thudded to the ground one after another.

Only then did these bizarre humanoid figures finally reveal their true forms!

Their bodies were still roughly human in shape, but many parts had already mutated. Their noses and mouths had disappeared, while each face held six or seven eyes arranged haphazardly across it!

They were clearly human eyes, yet they bulged outward with the eerie appearance of an insect’s eyes.

Where their mouths should have been was a round hole like an insect’s mouthpart, ringed with sharp white teeth.

Their limbs had mutated too, marked by ring upon ring like the segments of an arthropod, and had become exceptionally thin and elongated. Compared with the rest of their bodies, they were unnaturally long.

Dense black hairs covered their arms and legs. Near the joints, sharp, bone-spur-like projections jutted outward.

Their hands and feet had also transformed, tapering into sharp points like the ends of an insect’s limbs.

I drew a sharp breath at the sight.

“What the hell are these things? They’re too ugly–too disgusting! They’re like…”

“Humanoid spider creatures!”

Old Cao finished for me, his tone grave.