Chapter 137: How About You Go Down And Try?
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Er Mazi walked over holding his gun with a ferocious grin on his face, looking like he would give a shot to whichever of the two dared to move.
Walking up to Lin Yan’s side, Er Mazi didn’t care that half of Wu Xie’s body was still in the water, reached out to grab Lin Yan’s arm: “Come on, young master! What the heck is this thing? I don’t know what you guys were thinking, bringing a pet out here? I’ve never seen this thing before, why does it look so much like a ball?”
He mockingly glanced at Xiao Bai Jiang, who met its gaze but showed no movement, which made Lin Yan secretly anxious inside, thinking: Aren’t you a zombie? Bite it! What are you hesitating for!
Lin Yan tensed his arm with force, and Er Mazi surprisingly couldn’t yank it at once, letting out a light surprised sound, but his other hand holding the gun still pointed at Wu Xie without moving: “Yo, young master, you’ve got some strength. What, don’t you care about your companion’s life anymore?”
Wu Xie panicked, wanting to stall for a bit more time, maybe the spring eye would erupt at any moment, and then they could escape in the chaos: “Lin Yan, you—” Before he could finish, he was glared at by Er Mazi, the dark gun barrel pointing at his forehead, scaring the rest of his words back, leaving him to unwillingly watch Lin Yan without daring to move.
He threatened Lin Yan with Wu Xie’s life, so Lin Yan naturally couldn’t stand idly by. He slowly relaxed his strength and stopped resisting, but regretfully glanced at the spring eye, thinking how it had been erupting so vigorously before, why was there no movement now? If it gave Er Mazi a backstab right now, this extra really wouldn’t last ten minutes.
Just as Lin Yan lifted his foot to let Er Mazi pull his arm toward the shore, not sure if it was because of what he had been thinking, the spring eye suddenly bulged upward and then plunged down sharply—this was clearly about to erupt! He was overjoyed and abruptly stopped in his tracks. When Er Mazi looked over puzzled, he reminded Wu Xie: “Dive down!”
Wu Xie’s view was obstructed and he couldn’t see the spring eye, but hearing Lin Yan say that, he knew the intermittent hot spring was coming to help, so he took a deep breath and disappeared underwater with his whole body and head.
Er Mazi reacted quickly, firing two shots toward Wu Xie’s approximate direction, then immediately turned back to point the gun at Lin Yan: “You bastards playing what with me—”
Before he could finish, the spring eye behind him spewed out a jet of white steam, followed by a water column that shot straight to the cave ceiling, knocking Uncle Tai and the others off balance too. Uncle Tai steadied himself and hurriedly warned the nearby Er Mazi: “Er Mazi, watch out behind you!”
Er Mazi had already heard the movement behind him, but when he turned his head, he saw the water column rushing toward him, with no time to dodge. In the instant he turned, Xiao Bai Jiang jumped onto his shoulder, bit him hard, and jumped back onto Lin Yan’s head. Er Mazi cursed loudly: “Fuck your mother’s, what the hell— ” Before he could finish, a torrent of water droplets fell toward him, nearly every one scalding a blister on his unprotected skin.
Lin Yan took the opportunity to hide behind him, dodging the first wave of falling droplets. After that, he broke free from Er Mazi’s grip—who was instinctively shielding his face with his other hand—ignored his screams of being scalded, snatched his handgun, kicked him once, then turned and headed toward Wu Xie.
Wu Xie happened to peek out at that moment and immediately saw Lin Yan wading over with the gun tucked into his waist. They exchanged a glance and simultaneously said: “Run fast!”
With that, they ignored the chaos behind them, took a breath, and dove underwater, half-flailing half-swimming away in the direction Lao Yang had gone.
Luckily, they seemed to be heading downstream, and the rising water temperature from behind hadn’t fully reached here yet, so the water here was still fairly warm, much better than near the spring eye before. As the water level rose, they no longer had to half-walk half-flail; their swimming speed was quite fast, and in just a few minutes, they left behind the few people who had just reacted and fired shots at them.
No more gunshots from Uncle Tai’s side could be heard in their ears. Wu Xie and Lin Yan’s heads surfaced one after the other. The flashlight Wu Xie was tightly gripping was still there, but Lin Yan didn’t know where his had gone. He looked at Wu Xie, who was looking around for Lao Yang: “Earlier I saw Er Mazi fire two shots in your direction, you didn’t get hit, right?”
Wu Xie shook his head: “Not sure, the water was too hot, I felt nothing. We’ll see if we can find a place to rest and check. But I think it didn’t hit me.”
Lin Yan swam to his side, and by the flashlight light, he didn’t seem to see any bloodstains either, so he half-relaxed, looked up and patted Xiao Bai Bai’s head: “I thought you weren’t going to do anything, well done!” Xiao Bai Bai rubbed against his hand: “Ying ying ying!”
“What happened?” Wu Xie turned back curiously to look at them; his head had been underwater before, so he saw nothing.
Lin Yan smiled at him: “Nothing much, just Xiao Bai Bai gave him a bite before leaving. I told you, this kind of arrogant extra doesn’t last ten minutes in a TV drama!”
Wu Xie didn’t quite understand what he was saying, but got the general idea: “No need to mind these small fries, but that Master Liang doesn’t seem simple. I originally thought Uncle Tai was accompanying those bosses, didn’t expect there’d be a Master Liang too. Do you think this Master Liang is the one whose family records mention a large tomb?”
Lin Yan thought so too: “From what I see, Lao Yang said he was heading to a cleared tomb, maybe he misjudged. If Master Liang’s group is also going to this tomb, how could it be a cleared tomb? Qing dynasty people digging up their own dynasty’s tomb, how is that possible? Maybe it’s really a Han tomb or something, Lao Yang just doesn’t recognize it.”
Wu Xie nodded too, not holding hope for Lao Yang’s judgment: “True. But where did that grandson Lao Yang swim off to? Doesn’t he worry we’ll take the wrong river path?”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than he saw Lao Yang grabbing something nearby and waving at them: “Don’t come over! Behind”
Wu Xie couldn’t quite hear what he was saying; the water noise here seemed louder, completely drowning out Lao Yang’s shouts. Lin Yan heard clearly though, stopped drifting downstream with Wu Xie, pulled Wu Xie sideways toward the nearby rock wall: “He says there’s a waterfall behind, don’t go over!”
“Ah?”
Wu Xie was startled, his hand shook and nearly dropped the flashlight. He looked around; the underground river here already had a strong current, if the waterfall had a big drop, it might smash him directly to death!
Luckily it was a false alarm. When they swam to the rock wall beside, they weren’t far from Lao Yang. Lao Yang for some reason could stay in the middle of the river channel. They were at the very edge of the channel, at least able to hear Lao Yang speak. Lao Yang was urging them over to grab the iron chain together.
Now the current was getting stronger. When leaving, Lin Yan glanced back; that fountain didn’t seem like it would just spray once like before—the water column surged up again as they left, probably to continue for a while. Better grab something or they’d be swept under the waterfall with no good coming of it.
Once they rendezvoused with Lao Yang, Lao Yang asked them: “You, what happened to you two? Why’d it take so long to get here?”
Mentioning this made Wu Xie angry: “You have the nerve to ask! You swam off fast, us two got caught red-handed by Uncle Tai’s group behind! If not for that fountain erupting again and us escaping in the chaos, you probably couldn’t even fish out our corpses!”
Lao Yang was shocked and hurriedly asked: “Th-then how was it when you came over? That fountain isn’t still spraying, is it?”
Lin Yan felt the water temperature; now this underground river was almost a warm river. He gestured to Lao Yang, looked back, and irritably said: “What do you think? That fountain seems unstoppable, it was still spraying when I left! Should we find a place to hide? Staying here forever isn’t a thing, what if the water temperature ends up cooking us?”
The three looked at each other, then all turned their gazes to the waterfall at the river’s end.
Lin Yan recalled the trope where the protagonist encounters a waterfall and there’s bound to be a cave below—maybe go down and try?
