Chapter 15: Flesh Cauldron

Hero! Great hero!

Tears welled up in Ye Chan’s eyes as she swung her flashlight and smacked the cave cricket in front of her flying away. She tilted her head back and shouted at the top of her lungs, “Sister Gu! I’m here! I’m Ye Chan! I got separated from Senior Brother Yao and Little Hei!”

Moments later, a waist knife skewered with several cave crickets thrust out from the rock wall. Gu Xianwang’s head poked out, and she exclaimed in shock, “How did you end up down there?”

The moment Ye Chan saw her face, she nearly burst into tears, whining in grievance, “I don’t know! It was so scary—really, so scary…”

“Okay, okay, just stay put.” Gu Xianwang soothed her before pulling back and saying to Long Li, “There’s rope in that backpack of Senior Brother Yao’s. Ye Chan’s right below us.”

Soon, a climbing rope came snaking down. Peering through a gap in the rock wall, Ye Chan saw a cloud of white mist erupt from above—likely the bottle of insect spray Sister Long had brought. Once the mist cleared, she rubbed the wet mud from her palms on the rock wall, stuffed her flashlight into her pocket, and grabbed the rope to haul herself up.

Half her body emerged from the black mud pool, but her sodden weight suddenly dragged like an iron anchor. Ye Chan made it halfway up before her arms started to give out. She kicked hard against the rock wall twice, only to slip and nearly tumble back down.

Luckily, an arm shot down just in time and clamped onto her wrist. Moments later, Long Li leaned out from the other side, bending down to grab Ye Chan’s other hand. Ye Chan let go of the rope and dangled in midair like a helpless grub. Long Li secured her grip and yanked with explosive strength, like some bodybuilder incarnate, hauling her up at an angle using just one arm.

Gu Xianwang eyed Ye Chan—now covered head to toe in reeking black mud, kneeling on the ground and gasping for breath—with an anxious frown. “How did you all get separated? How on earth did you end up alone in a rock cave this far in?”

“Huh? This far?” Ye Chan blinked in confusion, sitting up. “I thought we hadn’t gone that far.”

Long Li sprayed a ring of insect repellent around them as a protective barrier, then stood outside it, watching the exchange like a bystander. “Walk us through what happened.”

Ye Chan gathered her scattered thoughts and began. “At first, we bolted into that side path Sister Gu mentioned. It was super narrow—Senior Brother Yao figured bats couldn’t squeeze through—so we planned to wait for you guys. But Little Hei was at the rear, and he kept insisting something was grabbing at him from behind, pushing us to keep moving.”

“We didn’t dare stop, so we ran ahead. After a bit, Senior Brother Yao got worried since the flashlight wasn’t with us. He switched on his phone’s light, and holy crap, we almost died of fright. You should’ve seen it—a huge swarm of cave crickets packed tight behind Little Hei. They weren’t huge and didn’t attack, just chased us relentlessly.”

“The passage was so tight, a big guy like Senior Brother Yao could barely turn around, so we just charged forward. Somehow we veered into another branch, and those cave crickets wouldn’t quit. Little Hei was getting loopy, muttering nonstop, but I was up front and couldn’t make out what he was saying.”

“Senior Brother Yao saw they weren’t attacking, so he eased up a little. That’s when we realized we were lost—all the stone tunnels looked identical, like a maze. Senior Brother Yao had an idea: carve marks on the rocks so Sister Gu could track us when she caught up.”

“Oh yeah, Senior Brother Yao also flipped his phone to video mode—probably hit it by accident—recording as we went. Anyway, he crouched to etch a mark, then suddenly went ‘Huh?’ He yelled that a giant cave cricket had some kind of marking on its belly and it had leaped off. I was like, what marking? But Senior Brother Yao got super excited, saying he might’ve caught it on video and needed to review.”

Ye Chan swallowed hard. “That’s when shit hit the fan.”

“Senior Brother Yao was just about to pull up the clip when Little Hei lost it, like he was possessed. His eyes went blood-red. He looked up and scared the hell out of me, then lunged and sank his teeth into the back of Senior Brother Yao’s neck.”

“It was vicious—blood everywhere. Damn, I legit thought he’d turned into a zombie, growling low and clawing like mad. I grabbed Senior Brother Yao and we bolted.”

She trailed off here, looking lost. Gu Xianwang prompted, “And then?”

Ye Chan shook her head. “After that, it’s a blur. Like my brain blacked out—only fragments. I vaguely heard bells, copper bells, and it felt like we were back in that abandoned village. I even glimpsed a few white zombies hopping around.”

“When I came to, I was already stuck in this black mud pool.”

It was too strange. Gu Xianwang frowned in thought. Ye Chan’s memories leading up to Hei Wa’s mutation were mostly intact, but afterward, they seemed like a page had been ripped out, jumbled together haphazardly with fragments of her prior consciousness.

Ye Chan lowered her head to examine her hands, then suddenly remembered something. “Oh, right—I found a person down in that stinking mud pit, wearing a gas mask. This is his flashlight.”

Gu Xianwang glanced at it. It was a standard outdoor model, matte black with no distinctive markings.

Long Li spoke up abruptly. “That’s our standard gear.”

Gu Xianwang’s gaze sharpened as she turned to her. “One of yours?”

Long Li nodded. Just then, the Ghost-Head Bat had devoured a few Giant Cave Crickets from the mud pit and seemed half-sated, but it shifted its attention back to them, circling toward Gu Xianwang. Long Li switched off the flashlight and waited silently for it to approach. This time, she didn’t resort to her previous trick. As the Ghost-Head Bat drew near, she flung out an iron hook with deadly precision. It pierced the creature’s back, and with a sharp yank, she dragged it down to her feet.

Before it could thrash, Long Li severed its head with a single knife stroke.

Ye Chan stared in stunned silence. Long Li flipped the Ghost-Head Bat over, inspected its belly and wings, then tossed it aside.

“There’s more than one person down here,” she said.

Gu Xianwang wasn’t sure whether to call this good news or bad. Sara’s group had lost several members, which suggested that this hellish place harbored threats even worse than Ghost-Head Bats and Stove Horses. Even fully equipped and outnumbering them, those people had been utterly annihilated.

Ye Chan paused, then—seemingly out of nowhere—held out the flashlight she’d found with both hands, offering it like a tribute. “Um… Sister Long, don’t be too upset. My condolences.”

Long Li paused. “…Keep it.”

Truth be told, she wasn’t all that grief-stricken.

The situation was grim. With even more terrifying enemies lurking in the shadows, they had become separated. Hei Wa was probably succumbing to a Gu Worm, while Yao Cuo had lost his pack and was lost in this bottomless Karst Cave, all but defenseless.

The weight on Gu Xianwang’s shoulders was crushing. She had been reluctant to bring anyone along from the start, precisely to avoid a scenario like this. Senior Brother was like family to her, and the Tour Guide was someone she had brought in herself—neither could be abandoned.

But how were they supposed to find them?

They had reached this chamber by following Yao Cuo’s markers at first, then discovering his backpack and navigating several dead ends before groping their way here.

Now the trail had gone cold.

Gu Xianwang glanced at Ye Chan, as if only just remembering. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

Ye Chan shook her head, then pointed downward. “Oh yeah—I spotted some carvings along the edge of this mud pit. Listen, this pit isn’t natural. It doesn’t look like regular rock walls. It’s more like… like a bowl.”

The image of a rice bowl flashed in her mind, and she corrected herself. “No, not a bowl. A cauldron.”

Gu Xianwang blinked in surprise. “A cauldron? You mean like the Simuwu Ding, that kind of bronze vessel?”

“Exactly!” Ye Chan leaped to her feet, her eyes alight with fanatic zeal. She cupped her hands in front of her chest to mimic its shape. “A massive one. These chunks of corpses and the black mud are pooled inside it, embedded right into the rock wall.”

Gu Xianwang’s face twisted in a mix of disbelief and revulsion; the imagery was grotesque. “How could a bronze cauldron end up in a place like this? And one that huge—how would they even cast something like that?”

Ye Chan knew her words sounded far-fetched, so she lunged to grab Gu Xianwang and drag her down for a look. “It’s real, sister! I swear, I felt it with my own hands. This is my expertise—I’m an archaeologist!”

Gu Xianwang sidestepped her filthy hands and retreated a step. “All right, calm down. Even supposing it is a cauldron, what would one be doing here?”

“Cauldrons!” Ye Chan launched into a torrent of explanation. “They started as cookware, then became ritual vessels. The Records of the Grand Historian records how Yu the Great gathered metal from the nine shepherds and cast the Nine Tripods beneath Jing Mountain, symbolizing the Nine Provinces. From then on, they evolved into regalia of state. Starting with the Zhou Dynasty, there was the custom: ‘The Son of Heaven possesses nine tripods, dukes seven, high ministers five, and lesser nobles three.’ After the Qin—”

“Ye Chan.” Gu Xianwang tried to cut her off.

Ye Chan waved her away. “Hold on, just a sec. The cauldrons unearthed from the Zhou era fall into three main categories: Stew Cauldrons, Rising Cauldrons, and Presentation Cauldrons. The early ones were basically cookware—like the Stew Cauldron for simmering pale meat. Enormous, lidless. Hey, just like the one down there.”

She trailed off into thought. “But no, that doesn’t quite fit. Stew Cauldrons generally lack inscriptions, only taotie masks and coiling dragon motifs, and they don’t have this kind of texture…”

Gu Xianwang’s brows furrowed even deeper. “Are you saying the cauldron down there is for stewing meat?”

Ye Chan nodded absentmindedly. “Mm, that’s a possibility. Ah, if only we could dive down and check whether the bottom of that cauldron has three legs or four.”

Gu Xianwang shot a glance at the mud pit below, which looked like a vat of toxic potion, and fell silent.

“Miss Gu.” Long Li suddenly called out to her.

“What is it?”

Long Li stretched out her hand and pointed toward the rock wall opposite them. Then she swept her arm in a full circle before stopping not far from where they stood. “See it?”

Under the faint glow from the cave ceiling, Gu Xianwang narrowed her eyes and peered carefully at the spots Long Li had indicated. The rock wall appeared to bear some very shallow etchings—quite large ones. She took a few steps closer to the nearest section and finally discerned that it was a rock carving, roughly twice the height of an average person and heavily scarred by water erosion.

“Is that a person carved there?” she asked.

Long Li shook her head. “More like a god.”

“A god?”

“Yeah, it really looks like one of the deities worshipped by the Witch Clan.”