Chapter 17

Chapter 17

I signaled to Hua Yuling.

“This Ancestral Hall won’t hold out for long. We need to slip out through the back door.”

Hua Yuling understood immediately. The few of us bypassed the crowd, took advantage of the chaos to slip to the back of the courtyard, and climbed over the wall.

That ancient pool wouldn’t have appeared in the booklet for no reason. There had to be something strange about it; it might even be the key to defeating the Ghost Mother.

The sky was already bright. Not long after we ran out, screams and cries once again echoed from the direction of the Ancestral Hall.

My heart tightened, and I quickened my pace.

After running for about a mile, the surrounding mountains began to close in. Dense forests lined both sides, sandwiching a deep, emerald-green pool in the middle.

The water was profound and dark, with a thin, transparent mist rising from the surface. While the scenery was beautiful, there didn’t seem to be anything particularly special about it.

The few of us stood by the water’s edge, panting for breath. Hua Yuling rested her hands on her knees.

“This thing is supposed to counter the Ghost Mother? How? By pushing her in and drowning her?”

She found her own suggestion hilarious, laughing as she reached out to pat Jiang Haoyan’s shoulder.

“Hahaha, can this little pond really drown the Ghost Mother?”

Jiang Haoyan took a large, disgusted step back.

“Again? What is wrong with you? Don’t you know about boundaries between men and women?”

Hua Yuling’s laughter vanished instantly, and she gritted her teeth.

“What, are you from the Qing Dynasty? For heaven’s sake!”

I stepped in to play peacemaker.

“Forget it, forget it. Jiang Haoyan, be more generous. It’s not like you’ll lose a limb if she touches you a couple of times.”

Jiang Haoyan replied, “I don’t want to.”

Hua Yuling snapped, “I don’t want to either! I don’t even want to touch him, hmph!”

The two argued for a few moments, but just then, a pillar of water ten feet high suddenly erupted from the pool. Startled, we all scrambled backward.

The water column sprayed for about a minute before a plume of green smoke rose from the surface. It was so misty that we couldn’t see a thing.

Jiang Haoyan suddenly slapped his forehead.

“Ah, it’s this pool! I remember now!”

Before coming here, Jiang Haoyan had researched information on Shennongjia. Besides the Wild Man, there was also a legend of a water monster in these mountains.

In the ancient pool located between Maogou Village and Shiwutou Village, a water monster had been sighted six times during the 1980s.

According to eyewitness descriptions, the water monster looked very much like a toad, but it was massive-about two to three meters long, dozens of times the size of a normal toad.

This toad had a flat, round head and two large eyes that looked like “giant light bulbs.” Its skin was grayish-white, covered in many wart-like bumps, and it even had a tail.

Some experts claimed it was a Taimen fish, while other scholars judged it to be a Mastodonsaurus-a creature that had survived the Quaternary glaciation by hiding in the long pools.

No one knew for sure what it really was.

We backed away a few more steps and crouched nearby, staring blankly at the water. Hua Yuling summoned some nearby snakes and insects, but as soon as they approached the pool, a massive red tongue darted out with a sharp “swish,” dragging the creatures inside. The water’s surface quickly returned to its calm state.

Hua Yuling stood up.

“Forget it, Qiao Moyu. Don’t you still have a few Heavenly Tribulation Tokens stored in your Thunderstruck Wood Talisman? Just use those to deal with the Ghost Mother. Let’s pretend we never came to this pool.”

“I only have four left. Besides, my talisman is meant to be passed down to my descendants. I can’t let the number of Heavenly Tribulation Tokens inside fall below three, so I can’t use any more.”

“If you die here, you won’t have any damn descendants!”

“No means no! You can have my life, but you can’t have my tokens!”

I stiffened my neck, ready to keep arguing with Hua Yuling, when the surrounding trees and grass suddenly began to shake. A large flock of birds took flight from the forest as dozens of infant spirits emerged from the undergrowth, waving their fleshy wings.

No, they could hardly be called infant spirits anymore. After consuming who knows how many people, these little ghosts had already grown to the size of four- or five-year-old children.

Wang Cuiping followed behind them, her head and body covered in blood, giggling girlishly.

“A Heavenly Tribulation Token? That sounds like something quite powerful.”

I let out a cold snort and tightened my grip on the Seven-Star Sword.

“You’re not qualified to know.”