Chapter 56: A Misstep in the Dark

I had too many questions, but there was no time to dwell on them. I quickly stepped onto the stone platform and shouted, “Hey! Over here! Xiao Wu! I’m right here!”

Xiao Wu heard my voice and froze for a second in the water. He quickly pulled off his diving mask, and his flashlight swung in my direction. In an instant, all six of them saw me.

Hou Jinshan recoiled in shock, then recovered and started cursing from the water. “You little bastard! What the hell—how’d you suddenly pop up over there? We’ve been searching for you underwater forever! Turns out you swam ahead without even telling us?”

I couldn’t help but feel confused. Ever since we entered this cave, I’d been swimming straight ahead. Sure, in water with such low visibility, it’s easy to lose your sense of direction. But I’d never heard of anyone getting so turned around they ended up ahead of the team.

Judging from the time I’d stopped, Hou Jinshan and the others were more than just a few meters behind me—at least ten meters, if not more. And I’d been dawdling underwater for quite a while. By that estimate, the distance between us could easily have stretched to nearly a hundred meters.

I’m not a fish—how could I have moved that fast?

But now wasn’t the time to get caught up in that. I steadied myself as they swam toward the stone platform. I grabbed Xiao Wu’s hand and helped pull him up. As he surfaced, I saw his wetsuit had been torn in several places.

Before I could ask, Xiao Wu said, “We realized pretty early on that you weren’t with the group. We weren’t far from the waterfall at the time, so we searched the whole area, but we couldn’t find you. In the end, we had no choice but to keep moving forward. The deeper we went, the stronger the current got. Boss Li’s bandage came off, and the blood started attracting fish that had been lying dormant at the bottom. That slowed us down a lot.”

“Fish?” I asked, puzzled. I hadn’t seen so much as a shrimp on my way here.

Li Wanchou, clutching his bleeding head, flung his fins onto the stone platform and cursed, “Damn it! Those fish looked freakish—and they were carnivorous. Good thing we reacted fast and climbed onto land for a bit.”

I ignored Li Wanchou. Xiao Wu went on, “What’s strange is, once we passed that area, the fish didn’t follow us any deeper. Based on our past experience, when animals act like that, it’s usually because the water’s different—or there’s something down there they’re afraid of.”

“Don’t start with that ominous crap!” Li Wanchou snapped. “If whatever it is could get in here, we’d be nothing but bones by now!”

I turned to Hou Jinshan and asked, “Did you guys see a huge stone statue underwater?”

Hou Jinshan blinked, then burst out laughing. “A statue? Try hundreds! The whole way here, it was like a forest of stone statues underwater—big ones, small ones, all kinds of shapes and poses!”

At that, a chill ran down my spine. The way he described it, it was like we’d swum through two completely different river channels. My eyesight isn’t perfect, but if there had been a dense forest of statues down there, I couldn’t have missed them. And those fish, that strong current—I didn’t encounter any of it!

So… where exactly had I been swimming just now? If I hadn’t chosen to climb ashore when I did, where would I be now?

Xiao Wu patted me on the back, sensing something was off with me. “Young Master,” he said, “don’t overthink it. Maybe you accidentally swam into a side passage underwater. Whatever happened, we’ve regrouped now. As long as we stick with the team, we’ll be safe.”

“Yeah, we’ve already wasted too much time. Let’s get moving,” Li Wanchou grumbled, pressing a clean bandage to his head as he took the lead along the stone path. “Damn it, why won’t this bleeding stop?”

Hou Jinshan gave me a once-over, then came over and asked, “Did you bring something with you?”

I wasn’t sure what he meant, so I didn’t respond. Seeing he wasn’t getting an answer, Hou Jinshan just waved me off and turned to follow the others.

Xiao Wu and I brought up the rear. I kept glancing back to talk to him, giving him a rough account of what I’d just experienced. We were deep in ancient mountain ruins, and even Xiao Wu had never seen anything like this. We couldn’t make sense of it, and eventually, the conversation just petered out.

After another half hour of walking, the group suddenly stopped. I raised my flashlight and saw something faintly jutting out from the center of the river channel ahead—a stone head.

Li Wanchou immediately pushed his way from the front to the back of the group.

“Young Master Gan, this thing’s kinda interesting. Come take a look!” Hou Jinshan called out to me.

I stepped forward and finally got a clear look at what was in the water. It was the top half of a stone statue’s head. Judging by its size, the statue wasn’t very large. Everything above the nose was exposed to the air, while its mouth was submerged.

But this statue looked nothing like the ones we’d seen before. It was bizarre—its palms were facedown, flat against the surface of the water, and its eyes stared straight ahead, as if spying on anyone walking along the stone path. I couldn’t quite describe its expression, only that its smile carried a hint of malice.

I moved my flashlight away and noticed that the stone statues lining the path ahead had changed their posture. They were now turned sideways, but their faces were angled directly toward us—almost like they were welcoming us in.

“It’s like they’re inviting us in,” Hou Jinshan said.

I shone my light on the statue in front of us and asked, “What’s the deal with putting doormen in a sewer? That place you’re looking for—local folks sure have some strange tastes.”

Hou Jinshan shot me a glare and warned, “Everyone move slowly. Something’s not right here. Try not to touch any of the statues.”

Then he gave me a shove, signaling for me to take the lead. Typical—this coward was scared for his life. I was a bit annoyed. Sure, after being in here so long, I’d grown almost numb to these stone statues, but that didn’t mean I liked facing the darkness ahead all by myself.

Grumbling inwardly, I still took a few steps forward. Honestly, the statues that had turned sideways didn’t bother me much anymore. What I was really concerned about was the one in the water.

So I turned sideways, practically brushing past the statue as I moved along the narrow path. The entire time, I kept my flashlight trained on the head of the statue in the water. It didn’t move at all—not even a twitch. Only when I’d fully passed it did I finally let out a slow breath.

I kept walking. The slope ahead grew steeper, and soon I saw a flight of stone steps rising sharply. At the top, they connected to a platform, and on that platform stood an ornate stone door. The stone seemed to have been laced with gold dust—when the light hit it, the whole door shimmered brilliantly.

Flanking the door were two statues, one on each side, both bowing slightly, heads tilted with the same eerie smile.

I stopped and turned back, just about to tell Hou Jinshan what I’d seen ahead, when I caught sight of Li Wanchou. He was curiously reaching out to pinch the wing of a butterfly that had crawled out from one of the statues.

“Don’t touch it!”

I shouted to stop him, but he was faster. He caught the butterfly between two fingers, holding it by the wings, and shrugged at me. “Relax, it’s just a regular butterfly.”

The moment he let go, the butterfly flapped its wings hard and flew off.

Before I could even react, Li Wanchou suddenly cried out, “Ow!” and started rubbing his left eye furiously. “Quick, quick! Something got in my eye—someone blow it out for me!”

Hou Jinshan looked annoyed and was about to step forward, but I grabbed both him and Xiao Wu, making a silencing gesture. “Don’t move! Listen—do you hear that?”

The cave fell into sudden stillness. The faint rustling sounds around us seemed to amplify tenfold, echoing from the ground beneath our feet, from inside the statues, and from the ceiling above. It was the unmistakable sound of insects crawling.

“What the hell is going on?” Lai Qi’s legs were shaking so badly he could barely stand.

Li Wanchou was still clawing at his eye, nearly drawing blood. “Screw listening! Just get me some water! My eye’s killing me!”

I bolted up a few steps, finally able to see past the people who had been blocking my view. What I saw made my blood run cold. From every statue we had passed, from every crack and crevice, white butterflies were crawling out—dozens, hundreds of them—all flapping their wings and swarming straight toward us.

“Don’t just stand there! Run!”

Xiao Wu reacted first, sprinting up to me in a few quick strides, followed by Hou Jinshan. The three of us were just about to head up when I looked back—and saw the others still frozen in place, staring blankly.

I shouted in frustration, “Do you idiots want to die?! Run!”

Li Wanchou, blinded by the scales in his eye, stumbled in the wrong direction and fell into the water with a splash. Lai Qi reached out to help him, but when he turned and saw the butterfly swarm closing in like a tornado, he screamed, fell on his butt, and took off without even glancing at Hou Jinshan.

My mind raced. Leaving Li Wanchou behind wasn’t an option. Hou Jinshan had said the guy suddenly became interested in the Ghost Market Map—how much did he know? How much had he figured out? I couldn’t afford to lose him now.

As the others scrambled up the steps, leaving Li Wanchou thrashing in the water, I grabbed Chou Zai and shouted, “Help me get him!”

Chou Zai gave me a look. “You want to save him, then you go.”

“Help! Somebody give me a hand!” Li Wanchou was trying to swim toward the steps on his own. His eye was bleeding—he was probably already blind.

I clenched my jaw, glanced at how close the butterflies were, and made a snap decision. No hesitation—I dashed back down the steps. I moved so fast that Xiao Wu tried to stop me but couldn’t.

Sliding to my knees on the stone platform, I slapped the ground to make noise and stretched my hand out toward Li Wanchou, yelling, “Hurry! Swim over here!”

He heard me and started paddling frantically toward the edge. I turned back to check—the butterfly swarm had suddenly picked up speed for some reason, and they were just a step away from me. Things had completely spiraled out of control.

The air exploded with a cloud of shimmering scales. As the butterflies lunged at me, I instinctively shut my eyes and threw my arms up to shield them. My mind went blank. This was it—I was really going to die here, halfway through the mission, taken out by a swarm of butterflies. What a pathetic way to go. I just hoped someone would at least come back to collect my body.