The Twelfth Chapter: The Cannibalistic Text

  The atmosphere around us was eerie, and in the deathly silence, a faint sense of foreboding seeped through. We all felt that something extremely dangerous was lurking nearby, but no matter how empty the corridor was in front of and behind us, nothing seemed to be approaching us.

  Youzi's heart was racing with anticipation, and he couldn't help but grab Zhou Xing and ask: "Hey, what was that thing you mentioned earlier, the 'Quxie Jing'? What is it?"

  Obviously, Zhou Xing didn't like to talk much, but at this moment, he had no choice but to speak. After all, except for him, we didn't know what was strange about the characters on the stone wall. If he didn't tell us and let us have a mental preparation beforehand, I'm afraid that when the anomaly suddenly occurred later, everyone would inevitably make mistakes.

  After listening to his brief introduction, we finally learned that the so-called "Huang Chong Jing" was a kind of "Jue", and later the "Yiwen" of ancient Dian Kingdom evolved from this "Huang Chong Jing".

  To put it bluntly, the characters carved on the stone wall are not simply used for recording things, but a kind of evil technique. Specifically, how evil and what kind of evil method, Zhou Xing doesn't know. It is said that people who have encountered the "Centipede Classic" in ancient tombs rarely come out alive. Moreover, the way these people die is very strange, after death, only a layer of skin remains, all bones and flesh disappear, and even no blood is left.

  Some people say that the "Chong Er Jing" is not a human text, but rather a ghostly text from hell. In fact, these texts hide many man-eating evil spirits. As long as someone passes by these texts, the evil spirits hidden in the words will pounce out and eat people, leaving only a piece of skin behind.

  We listened to what Zhou Xing said, and our hearts began to feel a little hairy. We've heard of ferocious beasts that eat people, we've heard of flowers and grasses that eat people, and we've even heard of zombies that eat people, but we've never heard that in this world there are actually words that can eat people, and they can eat people until only one skin is left!

  Oil's cold sweat all came out, suspiciously scanning the stone wall, perhaps to relieve the tension in his heart, he pretended to be relaxed and said to us: "Damn it, really long-sighted! In these years on the road, I've seen the most people eating people, but this character eats people, I haven't seen it before. Let's stand here now and see how they eat, where is the mouth."

  I said to Oil, "Don't be too impulsive, you and I are both people who have been through the struggles, and we also understand that some legends can't be taken as mere legends. It's better to believe they exist. Let's withdraw first and talk about it later."

  Aixia said: "If we retreat now, we may never be able to enter the underground palace again. Let's take advantage of the situation and rush forward quickly. As long as we rush out of this passage, we should be safe."

  I shook my head and said: "No way, nobody knows what's ahead, we can't rush forward, the safest thing to do is to retreat."

  Just as everyone was arguing, I suddenly felt a chill rising from the soles of my feet. Before I knew it, I let out a loud cry and hastily lowered the flashlight to shine it at the bottom of my feet.

  Suddenly, another shadow appeared on the ground!

  This shadow stretched out from the corner of the wall, a vague black mass that looked like a person, extremely long. Its head was very large, but upon closer inspection, it seemed to be a woman with her hair tied up. The shadow of this "woman" was now stretching out one hand in a strange, twisted pose, stealthily reaching for my ankle!

  What have I ever seen such a scene? Only then did I realize that there was indeed a fierce ghost lurking here, and as soon as I said let everyone retreat, it quietly emerged, wanting to pull my ankle, clearly unwilling to let us go!

  At this moment, I feel like my scalp is about to explode. In a state of panic, I quickly pull everyone back and retreat to the other side. As the lanterns sway, the others also see the ghostly shadow and shout in surprise as they retreat. Oil lamp suppresses his hunting rifle and fires at the ghostly shadow, but this shot has no effect, and it continues to approach us.

  As I panicked, Ai Xia behind me suddenly let out another shrill cry. Everyone turned their heads to look, and saw that the other corner of the wall had also produced several strange shadows. These shadows were long and short, all silent, quietly closing in on everyone. My heart went cold as I watched, these ghostly things dividing into two groups to surround us, clearly a premeditated move. If we didn't retreat now, our fate would probably be just like Zhou Xing said - being eaten until only a layer of human skin was left!

  I was about to call out to the crowd to retreat, but Zhou Xing grabbed me and said that the rear path had been blocked by those shadows. I took a look and indeed it was so, only to see the ground behind us pitch black, what else could it be if not those ghostly shadows? At this point, we couldn't care about much, our only hope for survival lay in continuing to run towards the underground palace.

  Everyone had no choice but to rush towards the depths of the ancient tomb, and those ghostly shadows seemed to know that we were going to escape, and they actually accelerated their pursuit.

  I didn't dare turn my head back, all I could hear was the sound of wind whistling in my ears, and the chill behind me was like a festering wound, stimulating the pores on my skin, not even cold sweat could break out.

  The ghostly shadows emerging from both sides of the stone wall grew more and more numerous, with an aura of malevolence emanating from them. I thought to myself that the walls on either side of this passageway were covered in those "centipede scriptures", and if the ghosts blocked our path ahead, we'd have no way out unless we could turn into birds. It would be better to shine my flashlight at the stone wall up ahead and see if there were any changes, just in case.

  As I turned my head to look around, my heart jumped into my throat. The characters carved on the stone wall seemed to have been possessed by some kind of evil spirit and were slowly moving along the wall. Upon closer inspection, I saw that these ancient words were slowly gathering together and forming ghostly shadows.

  It turns out that these ghosts are not coming out of the text, but rather they are formed by the gathering of these words. I finally understand why it is said that words can devour people - these characters are actually alive! The ancient tribe's technique is indeed mysterious and unpredictable, and I don't know why it allows words to come to life and devour people. Is the queen who created this technique a monster? Otherwise, how could she be so formidable?

  My mind is racing with thoughts, but my feet dare not stay still for a moment, and I regret that my parents didn't give me two more legs.

  At this time, the ghostly shadow behind us was getting closer and closer. The "Centipede Scripture" on the stone wall in front of us seemed to have been affected and accelerated its speed towards the middle, some dark shadows had merged together, forming a "barrier line" in front of us. A chilling aura rushed towards us like a tidal wave, catching us off guard, making our whole body tremble with fear, we hastily made a quick dash forward, leaping over it.

  I'm running at the front now, carefully paying attention to the situation in front of me, worried that I'll be surrounded by those things. At this moment, Oil suddenly urged me: "Hurry up and run, don't stop, those things are emerging from the floor behind us."

  As I heard this, I knew something was wrong and quickly turned my head to look back. All I saw was a blurry shadow behind me, with countless twisting and turning shadows struggling to crawl out from the floorboards, constantly rushing towards us at an alarming speed. In the darkness, all I could see was a surging black tide behind me, emitting waves of death-like breath that seemed to swallow even the light from our flashlights.

  I was just about to continue struggling to speed up, but then I saw the black shadow in front of me also starting to surge out from the ground, and one area had already been submerged by the black tide, leaving no room to even jump over.

  At this moment, I almost have nowhere to go, and in my heart, I secretly scolded the ancient characters on the wall. What kind of thing are they? They actually let us encounter each other here.

  Just as I didn't know what to do, Zhou Xing suddenly took out two small bottles from his pocket. I took a look and it was the strong acid he used to deal with that metal monster last night! I don't know if these ghostly shadows are afraid of it or not, but in the heat of the moment, without time to think twice, I shouted at Zhou Xing: "Quick, throw it! Open up a path for us!"

  Actually, there was no need for me to give orders. Zhou Xing had already locked onto the position and thrown the two bottles towards the gathering of dark shadows in front. Suddenly, a hissing sound was heard, and the ground in front immediately emitted a pungent black smoke. Unexpectedly, the strong acid bottles had an unexpectedly good effect, and those dark shadows seemed to be extremely afraid of the strong acid, struggling and retreating back into the floorboards, moving towards the wall.

  Youzi was overjoyed at the sight and hastily said to Zhou Xing: "Quick! Throw some for those in the back too!"

  Unexpectedly, Zhou Xing ran while shaking his head and said to You Zi: "There's only one bottle left, we must keep it for emergency use."

  I almost went to crash into the wall upon hearing this, and hastily said: "Isn't it a matter of life and death now? Hurry up and throw it backwards, maybe we can still escape from here."

  Zhou Xing remained calm and composed, his feet moving swiftly but his face expressionless, as if he wasn't worried about his own safety at all. After a brief moment of deadly silence, he suddenly pointed ahead and said to us, "The exit is up front, let's run out first."

  I hastened to look ahead and saw that the passage was only twenty or so meters long before it came to an end, and from outside came the sound of rushing water. To our surprise, a river stretched out before us, but we had no idea where we were.

  Youzi was overjoyed and said, "Let's jump into the river and swim to the other side. Those things will definitely not be able to catch up with us. I don't believe these intangible things can also swim. If they're not washed away by the river water, that's already good enough."

  Everyone thought Oil's words made sense, knowing that their lives were at stake, and they didn't dare to slack off. They continued to speed up and charge forward, determined to jump into the river and escape before being caught by these dark shadows. The ominous aura behind us was suffocating, and the icy breath emanating from the dark shadows made our scalps tingle.

  I don't know what these things are, nor do I know how they eat people. However, even if you kill me, I don't want to verify these things. The exit is in front of us, but there are many "interception lines" on the way that slow down everyone's pace. The four of them rushed forward and jumped over these things, which was shocking to the extreme.

  Fortunately, everyone ran very fast, perhaps even faster than a 100-meter dash. After all, this was a matter of life and death. We jumped over the last "interception line" and rushed out in a swarm, not even having time to catch our breath as we continued to charge forward into the underground river.

  Zhou Xing only used the last bottle of strong acid at this time, he turned around and heavily smashed the bottle to the ground at the exit of the passage, and saw that a burst of smoke came out again, and the black shadows dodged in all directions. Indeed, these things blocked for a while, giving us a little time to escape to the river.

  I knew this little bottle wouldn't last long, and I didn't have time to think about whether the underground river was dangerous or not. I rushed forward first and jumped into the water with a splash. The other three followed closely behind me and also jumped down one after another. But as soon as I landed in the water, I suddenly felt a strong current pulling me down.

  At first, I only thought that jumping into the river could save my life, but I didn't consider the rapid flow of this river. Now seeing myself being washed away by the water and struggling to get free, my heart suddenly turned cold. The underground river here winds through the mountains, with countless rivers intersecting like a maze. This time we fell into the water like dead dogs, where will we be washed away again?

  The other three people apparently did not expect the river water to flow so fast, and they all struggled to paddle with their hands and feet to avoid drowning. Youzi, who was relatively good at swimming, raised his flashlight in the midst of the chaos and shone it downstream. Suddenly, he saw a huge circular mouth about ten meters ahead, which looked like a monster's mouth swallowing all the river water. It turned out to be an artificially excavated inlet!

  This inlet slopes downward, and the river water falls down like a waterfall, rumbling loudly, with an extremely large drop. I didn't expect this underground river to be like this, and in my anxiety, I almost cursed out loud. In my haste, I adjusted my body position and shouted to everyone: "Be careful, absolutely do not let yourselves be washed in headfirst!"

  The three of them were all seasoned veterans who didn't need me to remind them, and they all adjusted their positions to the best possible posture, waiting for this deadly torrent to rush into the cave entrance.

  In the midst of a deafening roar, I felt my center of gravity suddenly empty, and my entire body wildly plummeted downwards. The water slapped me so hard that I was on the verge of losing consciousness, and I had no idea how many meters I had fallen before I felt myself being plunged into extremely deep water.

  Until this moment, my hanging heart finally fell to the ground. Fortunately, there is deep water below, otherwise, if I had fallen on the rocks like this, I would have gone to see my ancestors immediately.

  Due to the instinct of survival, I was full of energy from head to toe. As soon as I fell into the water, I held my breath and swam upwards with all my might. After rising about three or four meters, my head broke through the surface of the water. The oil man had already floated up, shining his flashlight to search for us. Fortunately, none of the four of us were injured, and after a few struggles in the water, we all gathered together again.

  Youzi held up his flashlight and swept it around, and everyone understood the situation here.

  This is a large underground water pool, and not far ahead there is a shore. The shore is pitch black, obviously indicating that there is still a large space inside. I thought to myself that since this place was artificially excavated and intentionally introduced river water to gather into an underground water pool, it was probably also part of the Witch King's tomb layout. For now, the situation in the water is unclear, so I should quickly swim ashore and get a foothold before doing anything else.

  Then we were about to call everyone to swim ashore, but at this moment, a strong light suddenly shone from the shore and landed on our heads. I narrowed my eyes and looked forward, and was shocked to find that there were actually several people standing on the shore!

  Youzi was also shocked and worried that he had encountered a "black button", so he quickly raised his flashlight to shine it over.

  This time it's really clear, but my pupils suddenly contracted.

  All I saw was the person holding the flashlight, a young woman with a ponytail, wearing white sportswear, staring at us in surprise with wide eyes. However, this woman was none other than the archaeology expert - Su Qin!