Chapter 58: Enlightenment in the Pond Water

  "Boom..."

  "Boom, boom......"

  "Boom, crackle..."

  When Liu Yi and his companions rushed into the empty land, first those stone soldier statues collapsed with a loud noise, followed by the sheep-headed human sculptures collapsing one after another, just like competing to see who could collapse faster. One after another, they all fell down, colliding with each other, breaking apart, and falling to the ground, amazingly punching out hole after hole.

  The ground shook violently, and after the large and small holes on the ground surface, cracks appeared. The stone pillar on the altar cracked open, and black water gushed out even more fiercely. Professor Zhou Tao saw this situation and exclaimed: "Isn't this underground a huge black pool?"

  As soon as the words fell, the entire Stone Forest within a radius of six miles suddenly collapsed. In the face of sudden change, no matter how strong your martial arts are, it's hard to escape the fate of falling down. Amidst the screams of the crowd, they fell along with the stunned Ma family soldiers and dropped down together...

  In fact, this depression was originally a deep pool. The "Ancient Qiang People" built the Shilin Array on the water of the pool. It is precisely because of the abundance of water that the wild grass around the stone forest grows so high and dense and luxuriant.

  After the fall, the forbidden land, everything on the ground fell into the pool of water below, and suddenly the dark water filled the sky. The people who fell discovered that there were countless stone pillars supporting everything above ground.

  At the moment Liu Yi fell into the water, he felt a chill in his legs, and then his calf suddenly cramped. He let out an "ah" and sank to the bottom of the water. His heart was filled with sudden fear, and a childhood scene suddenly appeared in his mind:

  A young man, after his mother's death, became silent and often sat by a pond in a daze. This time, he was so absorbed that he fell asleep without realizing it, and his body tilted over and fell into the water.

  When the water in the pond submerged his nose and he couldn't breathe smoothly, he woke up to find himself falling into the water. His small hands grasped randomly, but there was nothing to rely on, not even a legendary life-saving straw.

  He wanted to open his mouth and shout loudly, but it was blocked by water and almost choked to death.

  Suffocation, fear, darkness, powerlessness, panic, all these feelings struck his fragile heart.

  At that time he thought, is this how I'm going to die?

  Of course, he did not die at that time, but was rescued by his father who arrived in time. His strong and powerful hands picked him up and put him on his shoulders. He suddenly faced the dazzling sunlight, tears streaming down his face.

  It was at that time that he had an inexplicable fear of water, rooted in his heart. As he grew older, the shadow gradually dissipated and he no longer feared water.

  However, the water he is not afraid of refers to shallow water that he can control, rather than deep water that he cannot control. This feeling is similar to how ordinary people are willing to do things they can control, but are unwilling to do things they cannot control.

  ……

  Surrounding is water, endless water. Surrounding is darkness, a darkness without a single ray of light.

  Liu Yi held his breath and closed his eyes as he sank down.

  At that time when the scene of his youth appeared in his mind, he knew that the heart demon was coming, and if he was controlled by this fear, he would surely die. At this moment, he remembered the words of Xuan Yun Dao Zhang:

  The reason people produce fear is that the inner shadow "embodiment" silently solidifies, just like the composition of the two words "fear", "巩、具、心". This kind of fear lurks in the body like a gene, you can't see it, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just like some people are afraid of darkness, some people are afraid of snakes, and some people don't know what they're afraid of while being afraid, all of which comes from "heart demons", and this heart demon basically accompanies a person's whole life.

  Some people say that as long as I can control it, I will not be afraid of anything. In fact, this view is wrong, because you want to control it, which proves that in your subconscious mind, you are actually afraid of it. The best way to overcome fear is to open your heart and understand, feel, and embrace what you are afraid of, then you won't be afraid.

  At that time, Liu Yi was in college, although he understood the literal meaning of the sentence, but not deeply appreciated its connotation. At this moment, Liu Yi, who had dived deep into the dark water, suddenly thoroughly understood the painstaking efforts of Xuan Yun Dao Chang, wasn't what he said the truth?

  Embracing the universe, I am a variant of all objects in the universe, and all variants seem to be myself. Everything originates from nature and merges into nature, existing in the present, yet seemingly living in the past, seemingly seeing the future.

  He then entered a state of meditation:

  He held his breath and stopped struggling.

  In his mind's eye, a picture suddenly appeared, and he seemed to have turned into a small tadpole, shaking its tail in the water, while his feet were also involuntarily shaking unconsciously.

  Suddenly, a shadow appeared behind the tadpole, and a large cluster of dark shadows enveloped it. The tadpole struggled to run away, but no matter how hard it tried, it couldn't escape the shadow. It was as if its own heart demon was controlling itself, wandering aimlessly and helplessly.

  Running, running, and running hard...

  After a long time, the tadpole gradually underwent metamorphosis and did not become a frog, but instead became a huge fish. When the tadpole turned into a big fish, it looked around in confusion, found that the shadow had disappeared, and then turned its head to look back, only to see a small fish that now looked extremely small in front of itself trembling with fear, forgetting to escape...

  The big fish swallowed the small one in one gulp, as if it had swallowed its own demon. Then it shook its head and tail happily, swimming joyfully in the water, the water smiling and kissing it, embracing it, just like embracing its own loved ones...

  "Liu Yi, Liu Yi..." Professor Zhou Tao on the water's surface looked around and shouted loudly, with a face full of anxiety.

  "Over there!" Malacca pointed to a place far away from them.

  As expected, Liu Yi smiled and stepped into the deep water with one foot, waving his hands as if beckoning them.

  "This guy can't swim, right? That's weird!" Malacca muttered.

  After everyone gathered, they moved forward in the dark water. Since the current was flowing downwards, it wasn't too laborious for everyone to swim. Of course, the most laborious one had to be Ma Liuji, after all, he was still carrying Keke's corpse.

  It is often said that when a person dies, they become stiff, and then hard, and finally heavy. Especially in water, it's even harder to pull them up.

  Behind them were the miserable cries of Ma's drowned army and the splashing sounds of people waking up.

  Liu Yi and others deliberately leaned to one side, guarding against these people, but those living Ma family soldiers at this time also couldn't bother to disturb Liu Yi and others, instead they were busy desperately rowing the boat, looking for a way to escape, presumably because they were scared by the strange fish in the underground dark river.

  They swam quickly, overtaking Liu Yi and the others. When Liu Yi saw this, he immediately put his mind at ease. After that group of people gradually went far away, they only then paddled with all their might.

  They went along in one direction for some time on the winding road when two forks appeared ahead.

  The left fork of the road faintly echoes with the sound of flowing water, while the right fork is relatively quiet.

  Malacca said: "It seems that the remnants of the Ma family army went to the left, let's go to the right, following the bad guys is not good!"

  Professor Zhou asked, "Why no good?"

  Malacca said with a smile: "According to the TV series, as long as the villain walks on that road, there will be danger!"

  Liu Yi was speechless about this and really couldn't understand what was going on in the mind of that little rascal from Malacca!

  But a shrill cry suddenly came from the cave on the left fork. Everyone was stunned, and in silence, they quickly scurried into the passage on the right side.

  The water is getting shallower, from waist-deep black water, gradually becoming ankle-deep black water, making it much easier to walk.

  They didn't know how long they had walked when they came across another turn. Malacca was walking in front, carrying the corpse of Korkok. As he turned the corner, he suddenly saw someone crouching on a platform protruding from the stone wall not far ahead, carefully examining something with a flashlight.

  "Bang! Whoa!" Kork's body slid down. Malacca then became a double-handed grip, gun-holding posture, and shouted: "Who goes there? Halt!"

  After he instinctively made a quick shooting pose, the two goods only discovered that there was no gun in their hands, and they suddenly became very embarrassed. However, they still stubbornly supported themselves, shouting in their hearts, "Don't look back at all costs."

  That man put what he was looking at into his bosom, then turned around and cursed: "Damn it!"

  "Lu Zonghan?" Liu Yi exclaimed with surprise, then asked: "Where did you go? What about Mèn Húlù?"

  ……

  Everyone went up onto the platform and sat down for a temporary rest.

  Lu Zonghan said: "When you were observing the formation, I found that Mian Hulu was sneaking around, wanting to slip away. So I quietly followed him... Can you guess what I discovered?"

  "Come on, spit it out!" Koxing said impatiently, his mood extremely bad due to the loss of his father.

  "Ugh, I found that the Muffled Gourd actually went back down along the Heavenly Tree we climbed up, returning to the underground palace. I reckon he must be going back to look for something! I was afraid of being discovered, so I didn't continue following him. When I got back to the Stone Forest, I got lost inside and accidentally stepped on a mechanism, falling into this underground water pool!"

  Liu Yi let out an "oh" and didn't say anything else.

  Lu Zonghan said disdainfully, "I've disliked him for a long time. Look at that cold and arrogant expression of his, as if someone owed him two million..."

  Liu Wei said, "Don't have that kind of preconceived notion. Although I don't understand Miao Hu Lu, he's not a bad person. This time, he came alone to take risks and avenge his deceased colleagues in Death Valley, which shows that he's still a man!"

  Lu Zonghan spread his hands and stopped talking.

  Liu Yi thought to himself: "It seems that this mysterious person is no ordinary individual, but I don't know what his identity is. He's definitely not just a member of the Protection Station!"

  The calabash is gone, although it's not good to deal with the big beard, but I think this calabash won't be in any danger, self-protection should be no problem.

  The crowd stopped thinking and rested for a while before continuing on their journey. After walking for an unknown amount of time, they finally saw an opening in the distance with light emanating from it, and they suddenly cheered up.

  The moment they stepped out of the cave entrance, a huge buoyancy suddenly lifted everyone up.

  They were like hydrogen balloons set free, involuntarily soaring upwards...