Chapter 43: A Few Thousand-year-old Hag, Fat Master Has No Interest
Professor Chen and the others were full of admiration for Hu Ba Yi’s Gold Splitting and Hole Fixing.
Hu Ba Yi said humbly:
“This of mine isn’t much. Compared to Master, I’m far inferior. He can tell at a glance that this stone pillar is the real location hiding the mechanism!”
Su Mo just smiled faintly and didn’t say anything.
Hu Ba Yi’s Sixteen-Character Yin Yang Feng Shui Secret Technique was still very impressive. He had only learned a few moves of Gold Splitting and Hole Fixing, yet he could activate the mechanism from the Transground Sixteen Dragons. It showed that the wisdom condensed in this book was extremely powerful.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have it with him. Otherwise, if he took it out and looked through it once, who knows how much enlightenment there would be!
However, now that Su Mo had taken him as a disciple, there would naturally be opportunities after returning to the Capital City!
Hu Ba Yi then shone his flashlight into the tunnel.
Below the tunnel was a sloping stone steps. The flashlight’s illumination distance was limited, only able to light up a few meters below. Further away was a bottomless darkness.
Wang Pang Zi saw that the flashlight’s reach was too short, so he lit two flares and threw them down. Sure enough, there seemed to be a dark passage below the stone steps.
After the turbid air in the tunnel had dispersed, everyone slowly descended inside, walking slowly along the stone steps. Before long, the path ahead suddenly opened up, and a corridor appeared before everyone’s eyes.
The corridor walls were all built with Western Regions Sky Bricks, but the top was a dome, covered with colorful murals featuring bizarre patterns.
The murals depicted many eyes of various sizes, countless open and closed ones. It was filled with the Jing Jue Culture’s worship of eyes.
Some murals clearly depicted sacrifice scenes, including those fleshy balls full of black strange snakes like giant eyes. The Ghost Cave people sacrificed bound slaves to these strange snakes. The scenes were extremely cruel.
The corridor ahead wasn’t very long. At the end was only a single stone pillar. It looked like a dead end.
Hu Ba Yi carefully examined the stone pillar and discovered it was exactly the dragon tail from the Transground Sixteen Dragons. He then used the Dragon Shaking Formula from the Sixteen-Character Yin Yang Secret Technique to turn the stone pillar.
“Dragon qi enters the hole, yang only converges along one meridian, yin does not unfold without five parts…”
Hu Ba Yi chanted softly in his mouth while turning the stone pillar with Wang Pang Zi.
His voice was low, but he didn’t avoid Wang Pang Zi and Su Mo nearby, because Su Mo was his master, and Wang Pang Zi was straightforward with no interest or talent in these things.
Soon, the last slot of the stone disc turned into place. A wall built of Western Regions Sky Bricks in front of everyone suddenly emitted a rumbling sound, then slowly opened to both sides.
A grand and magnificent underground palace great hall appeared before everyone!
The throne and even the floor in the great hall were all made of jade, but many things in the hall were already damaged. A few sand rats crawled in the corners.
Clearly, there was no problem with air circulation here, but the items in the underground palace were severely damaged. Some scattered Jing Jue Ancient Kingdom armor and weapons had rotted and shattered. They crumbled with just a touch.
Wang Pang Zi saw that many pottery and bronze ware here were already damaged, and couldn’t help feeling regretful. He then set his sights on the jade throne over there:
“Old Hu, do you think if we carry this jade throne back, it could sell for a million US dollars?”
Hu Ba Yi couldn’t help laughing:
“Dead Fatty, you’ve fallen into the money pit. Never mind whether you can carry it— even if you could, this throne was sat on by the Queen of Jing Jue. Her ghost might still be lingering on it. Are you planning to bring her back with it?”
Fatty heard this and couldn’t help pouting:
“Then forget it. This old lady from thousands of years ago—Fatty has no interest!”
The two were used to fooling around and could banter anywhere, but Hu Ba Yi’s joking words scared Ye Yi Xin badly.
She had just woken up and was already very weak, plus the oppressive air in the underground palace. Hearing Hu Ba Yi’s words, she fainted again in fright.
Xue Li Yang couldn’t help glaring angrily at the two:
“Can’t you two act properly? Still fooling around at a time like this!”
Hu Ba Yi and Wang Pang Zi saw they had caused trouble again and didn’t dare banter anymore.
Wang Pang Zi looked at Ye Yi Xin and couldn’t help scratching his head:
“Good grief, this Ye classmate is too fragile—practically Lin Daiyu, the weak willow in the wind. Fainted from a single joke!”
Su Mo glanced at Ye Yi Xin, then placed his hand on her wrist pulse. He found her qi and blood circulation was still very weak; clearly, the dehydration was still severe.
“There are no valuable things here. Let’s find a water source first!”
Everyone now followed Su Mo’s lead completely. Hearing his words, they no longer lingered in the great hall and moved forward together.
After walking a while, Su Mo heard the sound of gurgling water in the distance.
“There’s water ahead!”
His hearing far exceeded ordinary people, so Hu Ba Yi and the others naturally couldn’t hear it. After everyone walked another ten meters or so, Hu Ba Yi and the others finally heard the sound of flowing water, and their admiration for Su Mo deepened another layer.
Following the sound of water, everyone arrived at a cave behind the great hall.
This cave was at a low elevation, sloping downward for a long stretch. After walking a bit further, they reached a natural rock cave the size of a basketball court, with a small underground lake inside.
Everyone had been trekking, drinking only the minimal ration of water each day, just enough for survival. Now their throats were parched and smoking.
Seeing the water in the underground lake was very clear, they all rushed over to drink their fill.
Xue Li Yang quickly stopped everyone:
“We don’t know yet if the water here is poisonous. Don’t rush!”
Su Mo looked at the lake water and saw faint colorful small fish swimming in it.
With live fish, the water was absolutely non-toxic and naturally drinkable.
Hearing Su Mo say this, everyone couldn’t care about anything else. They all lay by the water’s edge and drank deeply from the lake, soon filling their bellies round.
Ye Yi Xin had dehydration and couldn’t drink plain water directly. Xue Li Yang took salt from the backpack, mixed it into saline in the water, and gave it to her.
Everyone rested briefly by the water. After drinking the saline, Ye Yi Xin also woke up clearly.
After resting enough, everyone walked forward along the water’s edge. The further they went, the thicker the water vapor ahead became. After walking another few hundred meters, a dark river lay across in front of the cave entrance.
This dark river was exactly the Zi Du Dark River that had completely disappeared from the surface!
On the opposite bank was a gigantic cave, connected to this side by a black stone bridge. In front of the cave on the opposite side of the stone bridge was a thousand-jin giant gate, suspended in mid-air by an arm-thick iron chain.
Below the gate was a bottomless pit, with wisps of cold wind occasionally blowing out from the cave, carrying faint whistling sounds like the sighs of hungry ghosts from the depths of the underworld.
No one knew where below it actually led!
