Chapter 63: The Ghost Copper Pillar

The term “counterfeit” didn’t quite sit right with me at first. I pressed Yu Jingzi about it a few more times, eventually realizing that what she called a “counterfeit” was more akin to what we would call a model home, a replica built for display.

We continued climbing the stone steps, making our way to the end of the small waterfall. The rushing underground river had worn the stone smooth and slick, so I had to watch every step with extreme caution.

Yu Jingzi came to a stop, and we all followed suit. Ahead of us was nothing but pitch blackness. Aside from the roar of the water in our ears, the beams of our flashlights could barely pierce the dark.

Someone fired a flare into the air above the waterfall. In an instant, red light flooded the cavern, and the scene that unfolded before us left everyone, including me, frozen in place. Compared to what we saw here, the jungle outside felt like child’s play.

This chamber was unlike any cave I had seen before. The space was absurdly vast, as if the entire mountain had been hollowed out. The flare couldn’t even reach the far edges. What I had assumed was a “small” waterfall was easily over a hundred meters wide, stretching across the entire visible area.

But that wasn’t the most terrifying part.

What truly chilled me was the massive grotesque face carved in relief before us. It hovered in the air, an owl-like face on a human body. Its brows and eyes were curved and pupil-less, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was smiling at us, smiling and staring.

I instinctively took a step back, heart pounding. After a moment, I realized the relief wasn’t floating. It was carved into a towering copper pillar that rose straight into the air. The pillar was so massive and dark that it blended almost seamlessly into the surrounding shadows. That’s why I had only noticed the protruding face at first.

The relief on the copper pillar was crudely made. Aside from the owl-faced humanoid, I couldn’t make out any other figures.

“It’s the Shadow Pillar! We’ve found the Shadow Pillar,” someone whispered excitedly in the group.

I edged closer to Yu Jingzi and asked, “W-what’s the Shadow Pillar?”

“It’s a legendary copper pillar said to connect to the underworld,” she explained, her eyes fixed on the massive structure. “The base of the pillar leads to the Ghost Realm, suppressing a hundred spirits. The top reaches the Celestial Palace, overseeing the dead below and watching all living beings above.”

“Overseeing the dead below, watching all living beings above…” I repeated the phrase to myself. I had heard the latter half of it once before, back in Gansu. It had been hidden in a coded message, translated by He Yu. I never expected to find a direct reference to it here.

Yu Jingzi didn’t seem to notice my reaction. Maybe she just thought I was stunned speechless by the sight. She raised her flashlight and motioned for me to look at the base of the pillar.

What I saw nearly made my jaw hit the floor.

Just above the waterline, where the copper pillar met the surface, a mass of twisted, snarling ghostly faces emerged. Under the red glow of the flare, they looked like demons clawing their way out of the fires of the underworld, crowding across the water’s surface.

This eerie “Ghost Horde Mural” was clearly visible on the water, though the limited light only revealed about half of it.

“Now do you understand why it’s called the Shadow Pillar?” Yu Jingzi glanced at me, then turned away before I could answer. Her expression didn’t ease up in the slightest, even after finding the pillar. If anything, she looked even more tense, her grip on her blade tightening.

“We’re about to enter the Ghost Copper Pillar’s range,” she announced. “Things may get strange from here on out. Everyone switch to peachwood whistles^[1] for communication. Stay alert, and report anything unusual immediately.”

The moment she finished speaking, I heard the sound of blades scraping against sheaths behind me. Almost everyone had drawn their knives or guns.

A sudden wave of unease washed over me. I realized Yu Jingzi had stopped calling it the “Shadow Pillar” and had switched to a new term: “Ghost Copper Pillar.” That name alone sent a chill down my spine, making me even more nervous.

Yu Jingzi believed that this cave couldn’t possibly be the real Nine-Bend Corridor Ruins. But for it to produce a scene like this, it must have been modeled after the real thing. Most likely, this was a miniature replica of the Nine-Bend Corridor Ruins.

The first flare faded and dropped into the water, briefly illuminating a forest of stone statues beneath the waterfall before going out.

Darkness swallowed the cave once more, leaving only the narrow beams of our flashlights. My instincts screamed at me not to move forward. Somewhere ahead, suspended in the dark, that owl-faced creature was still watching me. Even if it was just a carving, the feeling of being stared at was unbearable.

Yu Jingzi led the way, her flashlight beam cutting through the gloom. The oppressive darkness made every step feel like a struggle. I gritted my teeth and followed her down the steps. If a girl like her wasn’t afraid, what was I so scared of?

The stone steps eventually curved, hugging the smooth rock wall. The path narrowed sharply, with a sheer drop into the pool below. We had to press ourselves sideways against the wall, inching along with only our flashlights to guide us.

Yu Jingzi had said we’d be using whistles for communication, so no one had spoken a word for over ten minutes.

I was terrified of both the dark and heights. At that moment, I missed He Yu terribly. If he were here, he’d be cursing up a storm, and somehow that would’ve made me feel better. Now we were all clinging to the rock face, surrounded by nothing but the faint glow from the flashlights clipped to our waists. After a while, it felt like we were trapped in a void with no way out, and my anxiety started to spiral again.

I had no idea how long we’d been walking. In the end, I was practically feeling my way forward with my eyes shut. My mind was frozen, unable to process anything but one desperate thought: let us reach the bottom, let us reach the bottom, just let us reach the bottom so I can breathe again.

Instead of reaching solid ground, I was startled by a sharp whistle. The sudden sound jolted me so hard I shivered from head to toe. I quickly opened my eyes and saw that Yu Jingzi had already stopped ahead. She blew her whistle again in short, urgent bursts.

Another flare shot into the air, bursting into red light right before my eyes. I looked around, but the stone steps we had descended were completely gone from view. We were stuck midway, with no idea how much farther we had to go to reach the ground.

Yu Jingzi checked her watch, then raised the whistle hanging at her chest and blew a few more blasts toward the back. Her expression looked grim, so I edged closer and asked under my breath, “What’s wrong?”

She said, “We can’t go any farther.”

My mind went blank for a second. I couldn’t quite grasp what she meant.

Yu Jingzi showed me her watch and added, “It’s already been two hours. Those fish that fell into the water earlier reached the bottom in just a few seconds. No matter how many steps this staircase has, we should have hit bottom by now. We’ve just been walking in circles.”

She took a sip from her canteen and said to me, “Something wants to trap us all here.”

Her voice was completely calm, devoid of emotion. But I was already drenched in cold sweat. Forcing myself to stay composed, I tried to recall the bits and pieces of knowledge I had picked up before. “You mean we’re caught in a ghost maze?”

Yu Jingzi nodded. “That’s one way to put it.”

I swallowed hard. “But there don’t seem to be any corpses or anything here. You said the bronze pillar was cursed, but we’re still dozens of meters away from it. And we’ve been walking straight down without any forks in the path. How is this even possible?”

Yu Jingzi capped her canteen and looked up at me. She tapped the stone wall in front of us with her fingers and asked, “And how are you so sure there aren’t any corpses here?”

I watched her gesture and instinctively turned to look at the stone wall directly in front of me. The flare descended slowly, casting a flickering red light. And then I saw it: wedged in a crack in the stone facing me, a blood-red eyeball suddenly jutted out, staring from within the crevice with a lifeless, unblinking glare.