Chapter 22: Shamanic Altar (2)

  After listening to Lao Mo's narrative, Qin Zhong felt that this trip was not in vain. Things seemed to have become more interesting, and there were even more things he wanted to find out about.

  Just as the two people were talking, someone at the door dropped something and it scattered all over the floor.

  Qin Zhong rushed out of the door and saw that it was the boss's wife. The boss's wife's face was deathly pale, her mouth uncontrollably chattering, her upper and lower teeth clicking loudly.

  "What's wrong with you, boss?"

  The boss's wife wiped the sweat from her forehead, pretending to be calm as she picked up a few pieces of fruit from the ground and put them on a plate: "I'll bring you some fruit to eat, here!"

  He hastily handed those fruits to Qin Zhong and tried to get up with the support of the wall.

  Qin Zhong stretched out his hand to help the boss's wife up, and with a low voice asked her: "Sister, did you see something you shouldn't have just now?"

  In the boss's wife's eyes, you could clearly see his pupils slowly enlarging in that fear: "No, no!" But after she finished speaking, she repeated another sentence: "Yes, I saw it, that person's head was eaten by a wooden bench."

  Qin Zhong smiled gently and said in a soft voice, "You're mistaken, it's just your illusion." He deliberately drew out his words, and the boss's wife couldn't bear her inner fear anymore. She muttered to herself that she hadn't seen anything and suddenly found the strength to turn around and run away.

  Qin Zhong smiled secretly, and he had a profound definition for the boss's wife, which in Northeastern dialect was called "hǔ yòu bù lǎo shí". Hǔ meant having no backbone or ability, and bù lǎo shí meant still daring to do some underhanded things.

  As soon as Qin Zhong entered the house, he found that the old mushroom and Guo Dafu's English son were staring at him straight. The old mushroom said: "We are about to set off, it is time to go find those Shaman gathering places hundreds of years ago."

  "That's fine, but I need to take a nap first. You all have had enough rest, but I haven't." Qin Zhong actually valued sleep very much. He didn't care about the others and went into the house, jumping onto his bed and falling asleep immediately. He slept until nightfall, and when he got up, it was already quiet outside the inn. After all, this small town had few people even during the day, so it was even more suitable for him to travel at night.

  Three people and a ghost in one row, after leaving the inn, they opened up the clothes on the dead man's head, revealing the two eyes on his head, this dead man's head was like a compass.

  On the road, only Old Mushroom said a sentence to be prepared, it's possible that the man would take them to where the body was located, if something went wrong, run quickly, others didn't say a word.

  Outside the town, in the due north direction of the whole town, there are still dense forests near the sea with lush mountains. The big trees here are basically all pine trees, cypress trees and other evergreen trees.

  As soon as they entered the forest, there was no longer the kind of road lamp light that could be seen clearly on the roads in the town. All things had to rely solely on Qin Zhong's flashlight and the bright moonlight in the sky.

  They were gradually led deeper into the forest by the skull, where the sound of running water, the mournful hooting of owls in the treetops, and the fluttering of several bats flying about, all blended together to create a lively atmosphere.

  A patch of white mist emerged from a nearby clearing, which was quite strange, as in such a dense forest, there was actually such a large clearing. With the moonlight, everything here seemed to be particularly clear at night.

  "Look, there's a river over there!" said Old Toad first.

  Qin Zhong fixed his eyes on it, and the white gas should be coming from the surface of the river. This proves that the water in this river has a temperature, could it be a hot spring? He couldn't help but quicken his pace, rushing to the riverbank first, stretching out his hand to feel the temperature of the water, and indeed it was warm. As he looked upstream along the river, the river became narrower and narrower.

  "Go, go upwards!" The old mushroom said with a glance at the dead man's head.

  Qin Zhong followed closely behind, and several people walked until the sky was almost bright. The dead man's head was still facing upstream of the river. When the river water had become a stream, and then became a small pool, there were at least a dozen springs in the pool that were constantly gushing out warm springs.

  "What a wonder, it's really a wonder, I don't know how many things humans haven't discovered yet." Qin Zhong couldn't help but sigh, and when he raised his head again, he suddenly saw that there was actually a hole on the edge of the small pool, no wonder there were bats, it turned out to be because of this hole.

  Guo Dafu curiously looked into the cave, with the dazzling sunlight emitted by the rising sun, the entrance of the cave could be seen clearly.

  "Boss, that cave doesn't seem too deep, it seems like we can see something inside."

  Yingzi habitually took out her several flags, and the old mushroom looked at the dead man's head again. Sure enough, the dead man's head was still staring motionlessly into the cave.

  Qin Zhong scratched his head and strode towards the entrance of the cave, only to find that there was indeed an underground river inside, with two paths on either side of it that seemed to have been trodden by someone. Moreover, from where he stood at the entrance, he could see the end of the tunnel not far away.

  "Go, go in and take a look. The size of this hot spring is really huge. It seems that this area is just a volcanic group, but it hasn't been discovered yet. At the speed we were going last night, the distance to that small town is at least 30 or 40 kilometers away. It's basically considered deep in the mountains and old forest."

  Qin Zhong led the way, first entering the cave and shining his flashlight towards the exit at the other end. The cave seemed to be only a few hundred meters long, but just then, a wave of pungent and sour smells wafted out from within, a smell that Qin Zhong was all too familiar with.

  At that time in Cave 137, those corpses had this smell, but the smell here seems to be much thicker than the one in Cave 137.

  A flock of bats flew up, hanging upside down on the top of the cave, possibly because Qin Zhong and others came, making them feel threatened.

  But Qin Zhong hadn't walked a few steps when he found that on both sides of the dark river, there seemed to be some sticky and rotten things on the ground. When Qin Zhong looked over, he discovered that they should all be newly deceased corpses, but the bones of these corpses seemed to have been exposed.

  "Boss, how can there still be corpses here?"

  "I don't know, it's very possible that there is a bigger secret here, and these people might be here to search for treasure."

  Whoosh, a large group of bats flew to the dark riverbank opposite Qin Zhong and others, suddenly all swooping onto another corpse. Watching them frantically pecking at that corpse, Qin Zhong looked somewhat surprised. He shone his flashlight over, and Guo Dafu abruptly took a step back.

  "My goodness, why are all these bats green?"

  Qin Zhong furrowed his brow, seemingly deep in thought. After a moment, he asked Old Mushroom, "You've handled animals before, I want to know if these green bats are the legendary carrion bats?"

  "Uh-huh, that's all there is to it. Don't worry, these bats don't like the living, they only like to eat rotten flesh and won't harm people, they just look a bit ugly." Old Mushroom was indeed an expert, he could tell where these bats came from at a glance.

  But Qin Zhong had also seen this creature in a book on supernatural animals left behind by his grandfather, and what the old mushroom said was indeed true. What worried him were these dead people. Looking around, there were at least thirty corpses lying on the ground, all of which were freshly dead, which was very strange.

  He searched around the body closest to them and found that apart from the holes bitten out by bats, there were no other injuries, which proved that they did not die from injury. Looking at the bones of the corpse again, they had not turned black, nor was it a poisoning death, which made things even stranger - how did these people die?

  Qin Zhong was astonished, he carefully looked around at the environment here, and it seemed that there was nothing out of place.

  He tried to move forward, slowing down his pace unconsciously, letting the others follow behind him. He carefully observed his surroundings with every step, and all he saw were rocky walls, occasionally some stalactites, which was already not bad.

  But when he saw those stalactites, Qin Zhong's heart tensed up.