“Smart people are so cute. I find you much more pleasing to the eye now.”
Ye Chan couldn’t help rolling her eyes at the woman’s expression. She still carried a deep psychological shadow from her time under Sister Xun’s thumb and didn’t dare engage her much even now. After observing for a long moment, it was clear Xiao Sanxiao had no intention of returning to back them up. They were on their own.
“Look, if you’ve got something to say, just say it nicely. We’re about to talk business here—why don’t you put the gun down first?”
“Yo, no can do.” Sister Xun took a couple of steps closer and glanced at the backpacks behind them. “Your sister here’s got some real skills. I’m a timid sort—can’t handle a scare—so let’s keep a little distance, yeah?”
Gu Xianwang smiled. “No worries, I was thinking the same thing. Let me guess: the deal Sister Xun wants to make with us is to have us dive in and scout the depths for you?”
“Heavens, don’t say it’s for me.” Sister Xun shrugged. “We’re all after the same destination. These days, you call it rational resource allocation—friendly exchange of goods and services. I’m no swimmer, and I’m not much good with fiddling around with these bottles and tanks either.”
Her words had barely trailed off in that leisurely drawl when she suddenly lashed out with a brutal kick to Clinic Brother’s shoulder. He’d already been half-unconscious, but the impact sent him curling into a ball. He gritted his teeth, groaning in agony for what felt like ages before forcing one eye open a crack. In a raspy voice, he demanded, “You… what the hell… do you want?”
“Nothing much. Just afraid you’d sleep too soundly. This’ll wake you right up. Oh, and while you’re at it, repeat what you told me earlier for these two lovely ladies.”
Clinic Brother craned his neck back with pure hatred in his eyes, staring at Longevity Eye Lake. “This is our… Golden Hook Town’s sacred lake. It helps… us wash away… every sin.”
“Keep it simple.”
Clinic Brother let out a heavy breath and flopped back down. “All… outsiders’ corpses… we toss ’em in there. The sacred lake… devours… everything.”
Gu Xianwang watched their little performance with cold eyes. Now she understood why Sister Xun had been waiting. “I see. Then it really does need a proper look.”
“See?” Sister Xun let out a tinkling laugh like wind chimes. “Hehe, great minds really do think alike.”
“Here you go—perfect timing. There’s just two sets of diving gear. I checked the tanks; they’re not full, but judging by the lake’s depth, they should be enough for you two.”
Ye Chan froze. “Not full—how much is left?”
Sister Xun waved it off. “Eh… half? Something like that.”
Ye Chan’s heart sank at the words. Half a tank—in 12L bottles, that would suffice if Longevity Eye Lake was only around ten meters deep. But while it might work for her, it was far from certain for Sister Gu. Everyone’s experience differed, and first-time divers could never accurately gauge their oxygen consumption underwater. What if the lake proved deeper than they imagined, or hid tricky underwater features like hidden currents? Diving in blindly would be asking for trouble.
And if the previous team had entered from here and still hadn’t resurfaced, didn’t that scream massive dangers lurking at the bottom?
This damn old witch might as well tell them to drop dead, the way she sugarcoated it.
“Let me inspect the gear first, alright?”
Sister Xun shrugged and stepped aside. “Sure, help yourself.”
“But don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’ve got the patience to wait, but those folks from Golden Hook Town? Not so much.”
Gu Xianwang shot Ye Chan a meaningful glance, urging her to go take a look without fear, then added, “Sister Xun, no need to scare me like that. I’m not exactly the bravest soul myself. If the Golden Hook Town crew catches up, your situation won’t be much different from ours. Isn’t your patience right now tied directly to how long it takes them to get here?”
Sister Xun arched a delicate brow but made no reply, simply waiting as Ye Chan thoroughly checked both oxygen tanks.
“Well?”
Ye Chan frowned and whispered, “Less than half. These look like used replacements. I’ve got experience—I can go down myself.”
Sister Xun would have loved another hostage on shore, but this one was proving far trickier to handle than expected. After a moment’s thought, she shook her head. “No can do. The underwater environment’s way too complex. What if something happens to you? Nah, you two good sisters should go together. That’s the safer bet, don’t you think?”
“As for me, I’ll stay up here, guard your packs, and send some prayers your way. Now that’s a sensible division of labor.”
Ye Chan was starting to lose her patience. “What kind of division of labor is this? Do you realize that with the air left in just these two tanks, if anything happens down there—”
Gu Xianwang grabbed her wrist and shook her head, steadying her before turning back with a smile. “Sister Xun’s arrangement makes perfect sense. Let’s do it this way—the two of us will go down, and we’ll trouble you to watch the backpack on shore for us.”
For her, the current situation left few options. Diving with this gear was the quickest way. Even if Sister Xun hadn’t been here today, that’s what she would have done anyway. The folks in Golden Hook Town wouldn’t give them another chance to come and go. Hauling in fresh equipment would be next to impossible. And if there really was an entrance at the bottom, she had no plans to come back up from it anyway. Unfortunately, she’d originally hoped to keep Ye Chan safe with a more secure approach, but now she had no choice but to drag her into the risk.
As for the gear—those books—they’d just have to leave it to fate, placing their hopes on Xiao Sanxiao.
Ye Chan fell silent, her face twisting bitterly as she squatted down in frustration and yanked the complete set of wetsuits out of the pack. Gu Xianwang patted her back and unzipped her own jacket. “What, is Sister Xun planning to watch us change right here?”
Sister Xun shrugged. “We’re all women. What’s there to be shy about?”
Gu Xianwang straightened up at once and went still. “Sorry, it’s a personal habit. I don’t like getting too close to people—even visually.”
The two of them locked eyes for a moment before Sister Xun finally waved her off and kicked Clinic Brother a few times, sending him tumbling straight into the bushes. “Fine. I’ll wait behind the bushes. That shouldn’t offend, right?”
“Thanks.”
~~~
Once they had their wetsuits on, Ye Chan meticulously walked Gu Xianwang through how to use the underwater gear. But it was clear this was her first dive—every motion felt awkward and unpracticed. Ye Chan just couldn’t shake her worry. She double- and triple-checked the masks and oxygen hoses, her face scrunched up like a little old man, as if they were marching off to a mountain of swords and a sea of flames.
Gu Xianwang gave a soft smile and patted her head. “It’s fine. If anything happens down there, don’t worry about me—look after yourself first. You’ve got the experience; just stay calm. I’ll stick right behind you.”
Ye Chan felt like a pathetic little pup right now, clinging for dear life to her even more pitiful Sister Gu. She stewed in silence for a long moment, at a total loss for words beyond a nod.
“Well? You sisters ready to get going? My feet are going numb standing here.”
Sister Xun brandished the gun and roughly hauled Clinic Brother back out. “Got any last words of wisdom for them?”
Clinic Brother shot a cold glance at the lake’s surface, his voice a hoarse rasp. “You… won’t come back.”
“Tch. Can’t expect ivory from a dog’s mouth.”
Gu Xianwang shrugged and flippered her way to the water’s edge, easing herself down to sit on the shore. The lake water hit like ice—colder than she’d anticipated, hovering right around freezing. She kicked her legs a couple times to get used to it, then nodded to Ye Chan. Their eyes met, and with a shared motion, they pushed off and dove.
Splash. The world went instantly quiet, swallowed up by the muffled roar of the water.
The moment they submerged, they churned up clouds of murky silt around them. The crystal-clear surface turned gray and soupy in seconds. Their body heat drained away fast. Even with her mental prep, Gu Xianwang felt a flicker of panic. But Ye Chan, seasoned as she was, reached out and clasped her hand, giving it two firm squeezes to signal calm. As they swam deeper, the silt settled once more, and the water shifted to a pristine pale green. The ecosystem beneath Longevity Eye Lake was far richer than they’d imagined. If they’d just been tourists out for some snorkeling, it would have been spectacular—swaths of swaying water plants and schools of darting fish everywhere, nothing at all like the corpse-devouring pit Clinic Brother had described. It was more like some underwater fairyland.
A bit more at ease, Gu Xianwang regulated her breathing to conserve oxygen. She kept a close eye on her pressure gauge. Ye Chan had given her the tank with the most air left, but it was still only half full. Pinning their hopes on finding the Dragon Lair entrance in one go was a huge gamble.
Underwater, every sound felt distant and hollow, save for the steady glug-glug of bubbles escaping with each breath. Ye Chan picked a direction and pointed toward the depths. They kicked straight down, descending eight meters in a smooth drop. But even then, the lake bottom’s white sands still looked impossibly far off. That’s when Ye Chan realized something was wrong. This little lake was barely ten meters across—way deeper than she’d figured.
Anxiety crept in, and she subconsciously picked up the pace with her fins.
Gradually, the water ahead shifted from light green to deep green. The rocky walls along the lake’s edge widened further. The underwater terrain resembled an inverted funnel—broad at the bottom and narrow at the top. At around twenty-three or twenty-four meters deep, amid the broader layer of mud and sand nearby, decayed logs wrapped in algae began to emerge. Some had eerie shapes, resembling crucifixes thrust diagonally into the sediment.
Ye Chan paused briefly, giving Gu Xianwang time to adjust to the increasing water pressure. The light filtering from above had faded to a dim haze. She switched on her flashlight and scanned the jagged landscape. They were now roughly at the center point directly below the lake surface. The space around them opened up, revealing numerous rock caves along the edges of the submerged walls. Directly beneath them, the lake floor rose in a bulge, suggesting a mound of rock had accumulated at the base of this funnel-like depression, creating an inverted concave channel.
Choosing which rock cave to explore next was now critical. The deeper channels might be blocked by this rocky layer at the bottom, preventing connections between them—a major risk given their limited air supply. As Ye Chan hesitated, Gu Xianwang tapped her shoulder and pointed toward the lake bottom to the left. Peering closely, Ye Chan spotted something dangling from a protruding wooden post. Swimming down for a better look, they saw it was an expensive wooden plaque tied with red cord.
This was… Long Li’s marker.
Ye Chan lit up with joy and nodded vigorously to Gu Xianwang before leading the way into the karst cave on that side.
It was clear that at this depth, underwater life had all but vanished. The karst cave was enormous, evoking the flush hole of a toilet—a vast circular maw that seemed poised to suck them in. Their flashlight beams sliced through the water, carving a luminous path from the murky green. Diving down another dozen meters or so, the water color changed abruptly from green to crystal clear, as if it had ceased to exist.
This glass-like water was pristine as a heavenly mirror. Ye Chan halted, treading water vertically, her body seemingly suspended in the open sky. For a moment, she forgot their mission entirely, overwhelmed by the miraculous vista. An indescribable surge of emotion welled up within her. It was too beautiful—utterly, breathtakingly beautiful. Nature’s artistry unfurled before her like a living scroll.
Even Gu Xianwang couldn’t hold back a sigh of wonder. Who could have imagined that amid these perilous wild mountains lay such a divine paradise? But wonder aside, she checked her pressure gauge. Reality asserted itself swiftly; her oxygen was dwindling. They couldn’t afford to linger. She signaled to Ye Chan, and the pair pressed on with their deep dive.
Skimming the underwater rock wall, they descended another five or six meters, reaching about forty-two meters. The sudden shift erased their awe, replaced by a chill of primal dread. There, before them… was the prow of a wooden ship crushed into the rocky shell, like the rotten skull of a long-dead whale reared skyward. Along the ship’s gunwale dangled countless slender copper chains, each entwined with two or three skeletal remains that bobbed and drifted like festive balloons in the transparent depths.
It was impossible to capture the instant horror that gripped them—like a hammer blow plummeting them from paradise into hell. Shivering despite herself, Gu Xianwang propelled forward through the macabre thicket of bones. Beyond the lattice of skeletons, the adjoining rock face bore clear signs of human carving, pocked with small cave openings reminiscent of grottoes. These rock caves felt profoundly unnatural—no grand Buddhist reliefs like those in the Dunhuang Grottoes, merely long tunnels bored deep into the stone. If they resembled anything, it was capsule pits, sized just for a single bed. But now, they stood empty.
Utterly empty. No fish, no shrimp, no water weeds—not even traces of plankton.
Ye Chan’s heart lurched. Circling the wreck from outside, she noted how the wood had rotted almost to dust; a mere touch crumbled off huge chunks. Midway down to the keel, facing the lake bottom, her eyes caught an inscription—crudely knife-carved, the script so sloppy it defied attribution. The instant she deciphered it, panic seized her—
A single word: Escape.
Gurgle, gurgle. Tense and jittery, she exhaled several mouthfuls of stale air in quick succession. A string of bubbles rose from beside her face. She instinctively peered downward, following the direction indicated by the text. Beneath them, the lakebed seemed shrouded in drifting mist. The very bottom was a murky white, strikingly like a river—its waters flowing solitarily through deep subterranean channels, mysterious and chilling.
This seemed to be… a subterranean river.
