Chapter 13: There is a beauty

  Not far from running out, I felt a faint sound of searching for something behind me. I thought it was over, I must have been discovered by those monsters. If I'm caught again, I'll definitely die. Regardless of where the front leads, I kept running desperately forward.

  This underground city is really like a maze, I encounter forks and drill in, encounter bends and turn immediately, with no purpose, just gritting my teeth and sprinting wildly, never discovering that I have such an explosive force beyond imagination, the torches were almost blown out by my speed several times.

  I kept running and running, later when I was completely dizzy, I felt a black shadow flashing beside me, before I could understand what was happening, I felt a severe blow to the back of my neck, and everything went black.

  When I woke up in a daze, I felt that there was no place on my body that didn't hurt. I lay on the ground, rubbing my neck and head with my hands, thinking about which bastard had knocked me out. After opening my eyes, I found that the surroundings were no longer pitch black, but rather a dim red light that seemed to be moving. When I tried to sit up for the first time, I surprisingly failed, it seems that the fall just now really wasn't light.

  After struggling to prop my body up into a push-up position for the second time, I looked up with my neck raised and saw a very beautiful woman squatting in front of me, laughing at me with a surprised expression. I was stunned for a moment, couldn't hold my breath, and fell to the ground again with a thud. I thought to myself, forget it, I'm not running away anymore. Today is just going terribly wrong. I ran out of the snake's nest only to encounter a monster, and after avoiding the monster, I encountered this damn fox spirit.

  Thinking of this, I fell to the ground panting heavily and cursed loudly: "You'd better not try to deceive me with your beauty, this trick has been used by your kind before. Let me tell you, it was I who took your family's treasured painting, and it was also I who killed that ugly monster with five eyes. What tricks do you have up your sleeve? Come on, give me a good show."

  The more I scold, the more energetic I become. At my age, there's probably nothing to be afraid of anymore. Just then, a female voice above my head said, "Is this person stupid from being hit on the head? What kind of nonsense is he talking about?"

  I listened to her finish and also felt that something was off, so I lifted my head again to look around. This should have been another empty room, but the woman in front of me was wearing a windbreaker, frowning at me, and there were at least six or seven men nearby, each holding a lantern emitting a red glow.

  I finally understand, these people must be the same as the four corpses I encountered. Thinking that there's hope now, but then thinking that they must have been the ones who knocked me out, I use force to climb up and sit on the ground, angrily saying to the woman: "No matter who you are or what you're doing here, whoever knocked me out earlier come out quickly, don't think that just because you're a few stinky mountain climbers, even if there were thousands of snakes I wouldn't care."

  I finally felt a bit more at ease after speaking my mind, only to see the woman staring straight at me and saying: "You're really a strange person. We clearly saved your life, but you're acting out of sorts here. If I had known it would be like this, I wouldn't have bothered with you."

  Save a life? How did I save a life? Just as I was about to continue making excuses, the woman said: "Let me ask you, what do you do and why are you here?"

  "What are you doing again? Why should I tell you?" I replied directly without even lifting my head.

  Right after that, I heard a "click" sound, and a black thing was pressed against my forehead. I looked up and saw that it was a gun, with the barrel pointing directly at me. I had never touched a gun before, and in today's society, it's impossible to even get close to one. Although I didn't know how they got their hands on a gun, I immediately gave in and didn't dare move a muscle.

  At this time, the man who was holding a gun and pointing at me said coldly: "You were knocked unconscious by me. If you want to settle accounts, it can be done anytime. Now answer her previous question."

  I took a look at this and couldn't help but say that we were originally four people who came to the mountain to play, but then accidentally fell into this hole, and then I briefly told them what happened afterwards.

  The woman pushed away the man's gun and gave me a brief introduction. She said they were an international archaeological team from Beijing, she was the deputy leader named Zhou Huan, they entered this underground labyrinth when they were attacked by unknown creatures, four members were captured and then got lost, and then met me.

  Although I didn't quite believe what Zhou Huan said, you are an archaeological team and we are a treasure hunting team, but thinking that they had guns, he asked: "You said it was you who saved me, why did you knock me out?"

  "That's because those creatures that attack humans are extremely sensitive to heat sources, your torch will attract them, and we don't know who you are, no time to explain, can only knock you out first." Zhou Huan replied directly.

  As soon as she mentioned the torch, I suddenly looked down at my own body, and I was actually wearing a vest and shorts chatting with a beautiful woman. This feeling is simply embarrassing to death. Hurriedly finding a topic to say: "Then won't your lanterns attract them over?"

  Zhou smiled and said, "It's quite a coincidence when you think about it. We were originally using flashlights to light our way, but after we were attacked, we couldn't shake them off no matter what. So I felt that these monsters should be sensitive to heat sources. Later on, we discovered this strange tree root in the underground palace, which can emit a red glow without any temperature. We collected some and made simple lanterns with cloth strips. I don't know what this tree root is called, so let's just call it 'ghost wood'!"

  "Guimu" I thought there was such a wonderful thing, so I borrowed a lantern to take a look, and found that the cloth wrapped around it was indeed a kind of withered tree root, the root body was crimson and emitted a dim light, although I didn't know what principle it was, but I can confirm that Zhou Huan's words were true.

  I suddenly remembered those dead people and told her about it. Zhou Huan's face turned particularly ugly after hearing me, and then she discussed something with the people around her before telling me that we need to continue on our way now, as this place will be attacked at any time, and then she had someone hand me a set of combat uniforms.

  I finally got some rest, and when I put on my clothes, I couldn't help but laugh. In the past few days, I've changed into three sets of clothes. Then I noticed that Zhou Huan's group consisted of seven people, with only her being a woman. The one holding the gun was probably the leader, walking in front to lead the way. Zhou Huan and I followed closely behind him, then there were two older men who looked like they were around Old Lu's age, wearing glasses, and finally, there were three young, robust men carrying guns as well.

  This does look like an archaeological team, but the equipment doesn't seem to match. Although I don't know much about guns, they're clearly using very modernized weapons. The gun is short and has a deep black body, no archaeological team would be equipped with such weapons.

  I don't care about anything else anymore, as long as I can survive. Having so many weapons is great, and now I won't have to be too afraid of the monsters that attack me.

  Everyone just kept walking forward like that, and the two older men seemed to be holding something similar to a map in their hands, occasionally going to discuss with the team leader for a few words. I think this underground maze is much larger than I imagined, really don't know who built it, even if it's really an ancient tomb, it's completely different from what I imagined or saw before, here it's like a miniature Great Wall, every section of road has a small stone room, although the size is different, but all the stone rooms we passed have a very special common point, that is, there are many human-shaped recesses on the wall of each stone room, don't know what they are for.

  After walking for about an hour, we arrived at a much larger room than before. The lanterns made of 'ghost wood' couldn't even see the walls around us. At this time, the captain told everyone to rest in place and then asked the three armed men to check around.

  The captain and Zhou Huan stood talking, while I sat on the ground resting with those two older men. These two people were very easy-going, and when they chatted with me, they had a very kind smile, unlike that cold-blooded captain who always had a gloomy face and would curse at any moment.

  We had just rested for a short while when we saw the three people who went out running back, panting. Captain Hei asked them what they found. One of them said with some terror: "C-Captain, this space is especially big, we haven't seen any walls yet, but all around us are dense skeletons, human and animal alike, numbering in the tens of thousands, too many to count."

  The black-faced captain's face turned darker and darker after listening, I also felt extremely surprised. Is this place a tomb or something? But whose grave would bury so many people and animals, even the emperors of past dynasties were not as extravagant as this.

  At this time, Zhou Huan called us to get up quickly and said that there was something strange here and we had to leave immediately. I also felt that it was not suitable to rest among these bones. As soon as everyone got up and was about to leave, I suddenly heard a woman's mournful cry coming from behind me. The sound was particularly terrifying, and I immediately got goosebumps all over my body.

  Others also clearly heard it. The black-faced captain held his gun and took a few steps back, shouting loudly: "Who is there? If you don't come out, I'll shoot!"

  As soon as his voice fell, I saw something slowly coming out of the dark shadow where we entered. Its body looked like a monkey's, with a pointed head and mouth, small eyes that were hard to see clearly, and it seemed to have no hair at all, its whole body was pitch black. The strangest thing was that its legs were very short, its body was stout and plump, about half a meter in length, and now it was using its two long arms to support the ground, those arms were thin and long, completely replacing the function of its legs.

  At this time, although I didn't understand what kind of monster it was, it can be confirmed that this thing must be the one who took me flying in the sky before. Those two arms are conclusive evidence. I really wanted to go up and kick it a couple of times, but at this moment, I saw the monster's upper lip lift, and it actually made a woman's crying sound "Woo Woo Woo".

  The black-faced captain didn't say a word and directly opened fire, the gun's attack power was very strong, instantly blasting that strange monkey into the darkness. He just wanted to go over and take a look when we heard all sorts of wailing sounds coming from all directions, like a large group of men, women, old and young people mourning together, it was simply inhumane.