Volume 2: The Ancient Country of Lando Chapter 32: Strange Shadow

  I saw Su Qin rushing towards the altar, thinking that her archaeological obsession had relapsed again, worried that she would make a mistake, so I called on everyone to follow up.

  Su Qin walked to the front of the altar, squatted down and pointed to the side of the altar: "You see, this altar is no longer engraved with the word 'barbarian', but rather that orchid."

  I hastily lowered my head and indeed saw that the side of the altar was carved with strange flower patterns, similar to those depicted in the murals inside the Witch King's tomb. They were probably the same pattern as on top of the Orchid Palace. However, the orchids carved here were more realistic, each one had a different posture, giving people a strange feeling - these flowers were not ordinary plants, but some kind of flower that could run and jump like animals.

  Yóu zǐ kàn dé liè liè chēng qí, shuō zhè yà shén zú guǒ rán zài dà hóng shuǐ lái lín zhī qián gǎi biàn le xìn yǎng, zhè zhǒng lán huā jū jìng shì shén me dōng xi? Yòu cún zhe zěn yang de lì liang? Nán dào zhēn shì chuán shuō zhōng nà xī wáng mǔ de fà jīn huàn huà chū lái de lán tuó gǔ huā?

  I said to Oil, "No matter what kind of flower this is, it's definitely not going to make you immortal just by eating it, and it's even more impossible to revive the entire Ya Shen tribe. However, before the Great Flood arrived, something earth-shattering must have happened to the Ya Shen tribe, otherwise they wouldn't easily change their totem of faith."

  As they spoke, the flashlight beams of the crowd had unknowingly gathered together. At this moment, a "Woo" cry suddenly came from afar, and everyone was startled. They hastily raised their flashlights to shine in the direction of the sound, and the objects in their hands were already pointing towards that place.

  However, there was no living thing there, and a crack opened on the stone wall. The sound seemed to come from inside. Liu Dabao said that the thing that made this sound was still far away, but he didn't know what it was. This underground palace on the snowy mountain had existed for thousands of years, and what kind of living things could be deep inside?

  "Youzi said: 'This is uncertain, it may be some kind of creature living underground, or perhaps a wild animal that accidentally fell from a crack in the ice, but it can't be a ghost, right?'"

  Liu Dapao shook his head and said: "This sound is definitely not made by a wild animal, it sounds like a human voice to me. Who knows, you might be right, this sound could be made by a ghost."

  I know that Liu Dapao, being of this age, is quite superstitious, but it's not a good time to refute him now. So he said to the crowd: "Let's go and take a look, maybe those 'Black Button' people also entered from some entrance. But normal people won't shout like that, so everyone should be careful."

  So everyone stopped hesitating and cautiously made their way into the crack in front of them.

  What was in front of us was a narrow and long ice abyss, with ice pillars standing at the bottom. The reflected light was very weak, indicating that it was extremely deep. On the ice wall, there were many thick ropes made from twisted vines, which seemed to be left by the Ya Shen tribe when they built the Lan Palace. However, after several thousand years, these ropes had all been frozen into ice strips and would shatter at a touch. We could only replace them with two climbing ropes, letting Xue Python climb down along the ice wall first, and then everyone else followed one by one to the bottom of the ice abyss.

  What Su Qin said earlier was correct, and indeed some geological changes have occurred within this "Jade Heaven" land. The mountain body has opened up many spaces inside, and the ice abyss in front of us is connected to the deep along the rock layer, probably formed thousands of years ago. The sub-god tribe may know that the structure here is in a subtle balance, so they did not excavate this ice abyss too much, everything here is the natural result of tectonic movement.

  The cry that had just been let out has stopped, and it is not known where the thing that made the cry is. The sound was extremely faint when it reached our ears earlier, so everyone inferred that the source of the sound should still be in the depths of the ice abyss.

  We proceeded along the terrain, gradually going deeper, and saw that this ice gorge seemed calm, but was actually extremely unstable. It had been transformed by the ingenuity of nature and was in a state of relative stillness. People didn't dare make too much noise, fearing that the ice layer above would shatter and collapse, burying everyone alive.

  "Look at the two ice walls above us, they seem to be pressing down on us. This place is too dangerous, let's hurry up and get out of this icy abyss. If something unexpected happens here, I'm afraid we'll all be in trouble."

  The others also walked with bated breath, Su Qin walking while recalling Youzi's words, saying that this icy gorge shouldn't be too long, otherwise it wouldn't have been able to maintain its stability for tens of thousands of years, they should be able to get out soon.

  As he spoke, they indeed reached the end of the path ahead, and in front of them was a much larger underground space, supported by many large stone pillars, just like the several altars before.

  As they walked into a relatively stable space, everyone's heart finally put down. The space in front of them was similar to an air-raid shelter that had been enlarged dozens of times, but it was divided by many stone walls, on which were carved the stories of the Ya Shen tribe people building the Lan Palace, only the patterns were very messy and couldn't see the overall structure of the Lan Palace.

  Liu Dapao reminded everyone at this time, saying: "Everyone be careful, the thing that made the noise might be nearby, let's all keep an eye on each other and absolutely do not take any more unauthorized actions."

  Liu's words were hinting at Su Qin's actions on the altar, and Su Qin couldn't help but hear it, yet she herself knew that she had been a bit careless earlier, so she didn't say anything. At this moment, the team fell into temporary silence, and I couldn't help but notice Zhou Xing again, only to see him still absent-minded, completely different from his previous calm and composed behavior.

  I don't even know what this enigmatic man is thinking about at the moment, why he's becoming more and more bizarre. It seems that from now on I need to pay extra attention to him, otherwise who knows what kind of big trouble might happen.

  Everyone was moving forward slowly at this time, searching for the road that might lead to the underground palace. Suddenly, I heard a loud "ah" sound from around me, and I was startled. My heart sank immediately, thinking that the thing that made the call was indeed nearby. I quickly raised my flashlight and shone it around.

  The rest of us were also looking around at the same time, and the shout just now came suddenly. The echo here was loud, so we didn't know where the sound came from for a while. Everyone took a step forward, not daring to take their eyes off the guns in their hands. The stone walls ahead became more and more visible, and everyone was getting anxious.

  At present, the enemy is dark and I am bright. If that thing hiding in the dark corner suddenly jumps out to make trouble, people really don't know how to deal with it in such a terrain.

  You Zi cautiously scanned the surroundings, muttering in a low voice: "What the hell is this thing pretending to be? If I catch his shadow, watch me not shoot him with one bullet!"

  I knew he was trying to reassure himself, and I was about to echo him when suddenly I felt a strange chill on my side, as if there was an evil gaze lurking in the darkness watching me. My heart tightened involuntarily, and I didn't care about saying anything anymore, hastily turning the flashlight to sweep the light over.

  Everyone saw my movements and was startled, they all stopped to look, who knew that there were only a few bare stone slabs, apart from the dust floating in the flashlight beam, nothing else. Everyone felt strange, asking me what I had discovered, I said: "It seems we've been fooled, I always feel... something is hiding in the dark and peeking at us."

  Liu Dapao said to me: "Young master, it seems like something bad is going to happen."

  "I asked: 'Uncle Liu, what do you think we should do now?'"

  Liu Dapao said: "If this is an ambush, we can't delay any longer. In my opinion, instead of waiting anxiously here, it's better to take the initiative and attack. Let's see what that thing really is. If it's a wild beast, we have plenty of bullets. Even if it's a ghost, with so many people, we don't need to be afraid of it."

  Su Qin didn't quite agree with Liu Dapao's view, and said to us: "The situation is unclear now, let's be cautious, rushing around blindly might just fall into the enemy's trap, even if..."

  She hadn't finished speaking when I suddenly felt a hint of danger approaching from above. In the next instant, I pushed Su Qin to the ground beside me and we both fell to one side as I loudly shouted to the crowd: "Be careful, quickly get out of the way!"

  The rest of them were all highly skilled, and as soon as I reminded them, they had already realized that something was coming down from above, and quickly dodged to the side. In this instant, only one figure rushed down and landed on the spot where everyone was standing earlier. Before I could see the person's appearance clearly, the figure suddenly darted to the side again. The crowd chased after him with guns in hand, but unexpectedly, this figure's speed was extremely fast. Only a glimpse of his shadow quickly fled into the distance, and soon disappeared into the darkness.

  Everyone looked at each other in confusion, unsure what the figure from just now was or how it could move so fast. Even a cheetah couldn't match its speed, which far exceeded human limits.

  I knew that the enemy had already appeared under my eyes, so I immediately chased after him. If not, he would hide in a hidden place and might launch another surprise attack. How could everyone bear it? So I quickly called on everyone to chase forward.

  Liu Dapao worried that the flashlight was too weak, so he ran and pulled out a signal gun, firing a flare forward. I just felt a bright light in front of me, and suddenly I could see clearly what was ahead. There were several more large caves connected in front, with strange-shaped pillars in between, most of which were tilted. Between the giant pillars, there were several stone beams, which were also uneven due to the irregularity of the pillars. From a distance, it looked like a large net stretched out horizontally in front of us.

  Oil child sharp eyes, pointed to a place and shouted to the crowd to look quickly, just saw a person's shadow behind a stone pillar, but soon flashed back into the shadow of the pillar. We knew that thing would not run far, it was probably trying to lure the crowd over and wait for an opportunity to sneak out and hurt people. How could we let it play such tricks, and we rushed to that place with guns in hand.

  Everyone walked around the pillar, but couldn't find any trace of that thing. Oilzi looked around and pointed to a large stone pillar in the distance: "Let's go there and take a look."

  I nodded, just about to call out to the crowd to hurry over, when I suddenly felt something was off. I quickly turned my head to look back at the stone beam behind me. As soon as I turned around, I saw a dark shadow crouching on the dimly lit stone beam. Most of its body was hidden behind the beam, only half of its head and shoulders were exposed, peeking out to observe this place. Its skin was dry and cracked, but its eyes were a dull white, without any pupils.

  I thought that thing had hidden itself again, but unexpectedly there was a stone beam at the high place behind us, which was exactly the blind spot of everyone's line of sight. However, this thing looked almost like a human being, except that from its appearance, even if it were a person, it would have to be a dead person, otherwise how could it still be alive with such a dry face?

  The snow python also discovered the peeping tom on the stone beam at the first time, and saw it quickly turn over its body. The white scales flashed and had already slipped away. When that thing saw the snow python chasing after it, it turned around to run, but unexpectedly the snow python's speed was extremely fast, and in the blink of an eye it had climbed up the pillar onto the stone beam, opening its big mouth to bite at that thing.

  That thing dodged and weaved, but was bitten on the shoulder by a snow python. I thought it would be finished at this moment, but unexpectedly, it let out a loud cry and grabbed the python's head with one hand, pulling its mouth off its shoulder. With a swift movement, it leapt away and disappeared into the darkness again.

  Everyone was terrified, what kind of monster was this thing that looked like a corpse? Even the giant python with supernatural strength couldn't hold it down. Oil lamp relied on his good marksmanship and fired two shots before the figure escaped, both hitting its feet, but seemingly having no effect. The crowd grew even more frightened, thinking that this person hiding in the dark was probably no longer human.

  Now this thing has hidden itself in the dark again, and no one dares to chase after it easily, fearing that the enemy will suddenly counterattack, and someone will inevitably fall into its poisonous hands. The snow python didn't dare to disperse with everyone, so it didn't go chasing either, and it flipped its body and scurried back to our side. Su Qin thought for half a day but couldn't figure out what this thing was, so she asked me: "This monster looks like a dead person to me, could it be the 'big rice ball' that you grave robbers talk about?"

  I shook my head and said, "It's definitely not a giant dumpling. Although the giant dumpling can move quickly, it's not as agile as this thing. It's probably some kind of wild beast that lives under the glacier, but just looks like a human."

  Actually, I said that just to make you guys feel at ease. When the oil kid fired his gun earlier, I saw it clearly - the bullet hit that thing's leg, but there was no blood at all. This thing must not be a living creature. I thought to myself, damn it, this time we've really encountered something authentic and valuable - a big rice dumpling! But since it's just a dead person who has stiffened up, how could it move so fast, with joints that bend and flex freely? Could it be that this is one of the Ya Shen tribe people who died in the Orchid Palace, and after several thousand years have passed, this rice dumpling has become a spirit?

  Youzi said that this time it's good, the thing didn't catch it, but instead let it hide in the dark again. Now the terrain here is complex, if there's another sudden situation, I'm afraid everyone will have a hard time dealing with it. What should we do now?

  "I said, 'The pillars in this place are crooked and twisted, and the top is pressed by millions of tons of ice and snow. It may collapse in a few years. Let's not use guns easily for now, the gunshot is too loud, it's easy to cause mountain resonance. I think we should take advantage of this gap and hurry up to find a safe place to sit down and figure out our strategy.'"

  As they spoke, they suddenly heard a lot of faint noises coming from afar, as if a large group of things were chasing towards them. Everyone was already on high alert at this time, and upon hearing these sounds, their hearts skipped another beat. They hastily raised their flashlights to shine down the road.