Chapter 105: Gu People, Mountain God, Second Pass
Everyone saw that there were many giant toads in the water, so they immediately gave up the raft and proceeded along the stone platform on one side of the cave.
Hu Ba Yi walked ahead, but suddenly shouted loudly:
“Master, there’s a sacrifice platform here!”
Su Mo and the others quickly walked over, and sure enough, they saw an ancient stone sacrifice platform ahead, with simple line drawings carved by ancient people on the stone wall.
Although it had endured two thousand years of weathering, because these murals were all chiseled first and then polished, with rough and deep lines, some murals were still relatively well preserved.
Xue Li Yang’s knowledge and ability in archaeology surpassed the others, so she looked at the murals while explaining:
“It looks like this is a mural of Ancient Dian Kingdom people sacrificing to the Mountain God. This Mountain God looks like a Mountain Demon, with a human face and long arms, covered in pitch-black fur, immensely strong and swift as the wind, able to tear apart tiger leopards alive!”
“This Mountain God lives inside the Gourd Cave, and the locals offer captured toads to it…”
At this point, Xue Li Yang saw the last mural and suddenly shut her mouth, her face full of terror.
In this last mural, a Mountain God with a face like black iron and entirely pitch-black body, enormous in size, stood there with an icy expression, surrounded by many women in strange poses!
These women were clearly all dead people, lying flat on the ground facing the sky, but their hands and feet crawled in a bizarre reverse-joint posture, with features exactly like the female corpse that everyone had seen earlier!
Wang Pang Zi couldn’t help but exclaim in shock:
“Could it be that this Mountain God is a thousands-of-years-old zombie, and these women are all his corpse pets?”
Hu Ba Yi thought for a moment and said:
“In my view, this Mountain God is very likely a thousands-of-years-old zombie, covered in corpse poison. In the mural, the Ancient Dian Kingdom people caught these large toads and dangled them in with long poles not to offer them to it, but to attack it using the toad venom!”
Xue Li Yang couldn’t help but frown:
“Then… how do we explain these female corpses?”
Hu Ba Yi was immediately speechless.
If this Mountain God was an old zombie, and the Ancient Dian Kingdom ancestors in the mural used toads to attack it, then what about those female corpses surrounding it?
And these female corpses all walked in eerie reverse-joint fashion, looking extremely strange. It couldn’t really be as Wang Pang Zi said, all corpse pets of the old zombie, could it?
They and Little Brother were all somewhat baffled and turned to look at Su Mo.
Su Mo looked at the murals here and smiled faintly:
“In the end, it’s Gu Technique!”
“Gu Technique?”
Su Mo nodded:
“Old Hu, you’re partly right. The Ancient Dian Kingdom ancestors in the mural did use toads to attack the Mountain God, but this Mountain God isn’t some thousands-of-years-old zombie; rather, as Xue Li Yang said, it’s a giant Mountain Demon!”
“The Gourd Cave in the mural is the cave we’re in now. It’s a cave wide at both ends and narrow in the middle. Xian Wang used giant toads to attack the Mountain Demon, and after capturing it, he raised it using Gu Technique!”
“Raised with Gu Technique?”
Hu Ba Yi and the others were even more baffled, feeling like Su Mo’s words left them in the clouds and fog.
“Do you still remember the Gu People figurines in She Pa River, the Tooth-Blade Viperfish, and that Green Scaled Giant Python? That was the first barrier set up by Xian Wang using Gu Technique, to guard Insect Valley and his own tomb!”
“This Gourd Cave is the second barrier Xian Wang set up to guard his tomb, still using Gu Technique!”
“Those female corpses are also Gu People! The oxygen content in this Gourd Cave is extremely high, so insects and toads are all enormous. Toads eat insects, and after death their corpses sink into the water to be eaten by the Gu People. After the Gu People devour the toads, they are eaten by the Mountain God in this cave, forming a perfect closed loop!”
After hearing Su Mo’s words, Hu Ba Yi, Xue Li Yang, and the others were all stunned with their mouths agape:
“Is there really a Mountain God in this cave?”
Su Mo nodded:
“We can call it the Mountain God for now. It’s deep in the cave!”
As they spoke, they heard the sound of water gradually growing louder in the distance.
Several people turned their heads to look, and saw several female corpses appearing on the water surface again.
These female corpses were exactly as depicted in the mural, all lying face-up on the water surface, with arms and legs bent downward, as if all their joints were reversely broken. Even more strangely, they seemed unaffected by the buoyancy in the water and could float on their own.
In no time, more and more female corpses emerged from the water. In just a few minutes, there were hundreds or even thousands of them floating up, emitting a ghostly blue glow from their bodies, like clusters of will-o’-the-wisps drifting on the water surface.
The originally dim space seemed to be illuminated by these will-o’-the-wisps, but the entire space was enveloped in an extremely cold aura.
These female corpses drifted with the current toward the deep water, gradually gathering in the depths of the cave.
And where the female corpses gathered, a patch of bright red mist actually appeared!
This bright red mist was as vivid as spray paint, surging and contracting rhythmically like breathing. Amid this surging and contracting, the female corpses were gradually swallowed by the mist, as if there was a bottomless pit deep in the mist, endlessly devouring these female corpses!
Xue Li Yang couldn’t help but widen her eyes and whispered as low as possible:
“You were right after all. These female corpses are used to feed something in the cave. Could that red mist inside be the Mountain God?”
Hu Ba Yi also exclaimed in shock:
“With so many female corpses and it eating like this, how big must this Mountain God be!”
Wang Pang Zi gritted his teeth and said:
“Whether it’s Mountain God or Water God, with so many zombies, we probably can’t beat them. Better to slip away from the side while we can!”
Su Mo shook his head:
“I said it already: this is the second barrier in the Tomb of King Xian to guard his tomb. There’s no way we can pass quietly!”
Hearing Su Mo’s words, Hu Ba Yi and the others’ hearts skipped a beat. They looked ahead along the edge of the cave and saw that the stone wall ahead indeed curved in an arc, ultimately shrouded in that red mist.
This place was indeed as Su Mo said, the second barrier Xian Wang set up to guard his tomb. Without killing that Mountain God hiding inside, no one could pass!
Wang Pang Zi immediately lost his patience, gritted his teeth, and jumped out, pulling back the gun bolt:
“Damn it, since a fight is inevitable, let’s just take it down directly!”
With that, he raised the Thompson Submachine Gun in his hand and fired at those dead drifters on the water surface.
Da da da…
The Thompson Submachine Gun’s shooting sound, like a typewriter hammering, instantly echoed through the cave. Bullets shot into the red thick fog like a string of fire snakes.
Instantly, the red thick fog shrouding the water surface surged like boiling water. Many female corpses in the fog suddenly leaped up from the water surface as if startled, like giant water spiders!
One by one, the slick naked corpses scurried across the water surface face-up using hands and feet in eerie reverse-joint postures, swarming chaotically like a pot exploding, with the ghostly blue glow on their bodies intensifying from the disturbance!
The entire Gourd Cave instantly turned into a disco-like chaos of darting lights and shadows, looking eerie and mad!
And at that moment, a low, heavy breathing sound came from deep in the red fog, like a giant awakening from sleep!
