Chapter 102: Good News

The whole thing was so strange that even now, looking back, I feel utterly perplexed. I had no prior history of sleepwalking, yet the touch of that stone tower felt no different from reality. If that Lu Ayao who appeared out of thin air hadn’t been so different from the real person and blown his cover, what would have happened to me next?

A fit of coughing eventually jolted me awake.

I choked up mouthfuls of white mycelium. I was still lying in the same spot, but in a very uncomfortable position. Half of my back was pressed against the stone wall, and my lower body was nearly wrapped like a mummy in that white mycelium.

I snapped into full consciousness and realized that Tian Xiaoqi, not far away, hadn’t woken up yet. She might have been smothered into unconsciousness. Her situation was similar to mine, and the white mycelium crawling out of the cracks in the black stones was already trying to burrow into her mouth.

At that moment, three or four strands of mycelium seemed to realize I had regained my senses. They looped around from the back of my head to the front, coming eye-to-eye with me.

I desperately thrashed my body from side to side and managed to flip over onto the ground. However, I miscalculated my position and landed face-first. It was a brutal impact that brought both a nosebleed and involuntary tears. Without a moment to recover, I used the strength in my waist to roll violently toward the open space.

This happened to be a gentle slope. I rolled several times before finally snapping all the mycelium that had been entangled with the stone wall. These strands weren’t like the ones in the caves beneath Shennongjia; they moved slower, but their structure was incredibly tough.

Without a blade, I wouldn’t have been able to tear through them with brute force alone.

Both of my hands were bound inside three or four layers of mycelium. While rolling, I hit the claw knife at my waist several times but couldn’t manage to pull it out.

I continued crawling on the spot to adjust my posture, wriggling like a maggot for five minutes. The lifeless mycelium loosened slightly under my efforts, and my left hand finally reached the hilt. Then, I flipped my body to the right and, using the momentum, gave a hard tug. I successfully gripped the knife in my hand.

I used the tip of the claw knife to slice through the mycelium from the bottom up. When I looked up again, new mycelium crawling out of the rocks had already moved close to my head. I quickly pulled back, and my lower body felt lighter as I tore through most of the remaining strands.

But I didn’t have time to strip off the rest. Tian Xiaoqi’s situation looked dire. She was quite small and thin, and she was now almost completely covered by the mycelium. Once her airway was fully blocked, she would certainly suffocate.

Rushing over to save her with just a knife wouldn’t work. The mycelium’s reach had already extended to my area. If I only used the knife, I might not only fail to save her but end up trapped myself.

When exactly did this mycelium appear?

We had sat by the fire for so long without any issues. Now that the fire was out, these things had all come out to move around.

Thinking fast, I scrambled over to the extinguished fire and grabbed a stick. I pulled out the lighter from my pocket, but my hands had been bound for too long and were shaking violently. It took three tries before I got a flame. The wood caught fire instantly, and I used it to relight the main fire pit. Suddenly, our surroundings grew much brighter.

The mycelium seemed used to living deep underground and had never encountered such a bright light source. As soon as the fire flared up, they retreated back into the stone walls.

Looks like it worked!

Waving the torch in my hand to drive back the mycelium, I ran over to Tian Xiaoqi. I grabbed the mycelium clinging to her and dragged her back to the fire.

Her face had turned blue from suffocation. Suspecting something might have gotten into her windpipe, I quickly used the flame alongside my knife to clear the large patches of mycelium off her body. Then I supported her abdomen, flipped her over, and pounded her back hard.

She spat out several clumps of mycelium and dry-heaved a few times. Her complexion gradually began to improve, but she remained delirious. I didn’t know if she was trapped in an illusion like I had been.

I laid her flat on the ground and raised my torch to look around. What I saw made my legs go weak. Strands of mycelium were crawling out of every crack in the black rocks above us that the firelight didn’t reach. They were writhing together like hair, a horrifying sight.

The open chamber we were in wasn’t very large, but most of the jade ore surrounding us contained those black rocks. Wherever there were black rocks, that hair-like mycelium appeared.

I knew I had to move.

Although the fire could temporarily keep the hair-like mycelium at bay, staying in one place wasn’t a long-term solution. Our food and water would run out eventually.

I looked around with my torch and once again saw the pagoda that was partially embedded in the stone wall. Strangely, the area where the pagoda touched the wall had the fewest black rocks in the entire chamber.

The awful memories from earlier began to flood back. It felt as though the pagoda had come to life along with the cave, luring us inside for refuge. But right now, we had no other way to survive except to enter it.

With that thought, I lay down beside Tian Xiaoqi and pulled her arms and legs over me. Rolling over once, I stood back up with her on my back. I grabbed two burning sticks from the fire, snatched up our essential supplies, steeled my heart, and charged toward the pagoda door.

The hair-like mycelium spreading from both sides shrank away from my firelight. With one leg in a splint, it was difficult to forge ahead with Tian Xiaoqi on my back. Fortunately, the mycelium showed no intention of approaching the stone pagoda, so the rest of the way went smoothly.

Once inside, I shut the door and set the two torches into the carved hollows of the pagoda pillars, where candles were likely meant to go originally.

The interior of the stone pagoda looked exactly as I had seen it in the illusion. I was still a bit traumatized by the monster from my dream, and my skin was crawling. I couldn’t help feeling that using this place as a temporary shelter was a bad idea.

Just as I got Tian Xiaoqi settled, a burst of static suddenly erupted from my bag. My nerves were already stretched tight, and the sudden noise nearly made me jump out of my skin.

But I quickly realized what it was: this damn walkie-talkie actually had a signal!

Which meant we were probably very close to whoever else was carrying a walkie-talkie!

I hurriedly fished the radio out of my bag and paced around the entire first floor of the pagoda, finding the corner with the least noise. I pressed it to my ear, only to be nearly deafened by He Yu’s booming voice from the other end.

“Mayday, Mayday, SOS! Namo Amitabha! Fusheng Wuliang Tianzun^[1]! Winter Melon calling Potato for the eighty-eighth time! Is anyone there? Is there a ghost? Answer me, answer me! I fucking knew this piece of shit was useless in this godforsaken place…”

I hurriedly yelled into it, “Old He!”

The second I called out, the other end went dead silent. Then came He Yu muttering to himself, “Huh? What’s going on? Why does it sound like Gan Ji is talking right above my head? Am I hearing things?”

“You’re not hearing things! He Yu, it’s me! Where are you guys?” I pressed up against a window on the pagoda’s first floor and shouted into the walkie-talkie.

He Yu had clearly stopped in his tracks. His tone shifted from confusion to delight. “Hey! Wait! We’re at… uh, it’s a bit hard to describe. No, wait, tell us where you are first!”

I gathered my thoughts and gave him a brief description of the stone pagoda I was in, as well as the Hair Fungus crawling around everywhere outside.

As soon as he heard that, He Yu blurted out, “Fuck! You’re saying you’re inside the stone pagoda right now?!”

I sensed that something was wrong. Static flooded his end of the line again, but I realized this noise wasn’t from poor reception, it was caused by He Yu running. I could even hear the radio rubbing against his pants as he sprinted.

Whatever could force someone to run like that inside a cave was definitely no small matter.

I started to panic. “What’s happening on your end?”

He Yu was out of breath. “Damn it, Old Lu says he knows where you are. We’re rushing over to find you right now. Good lord, he’s running way too fast! Dammit, I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep up. Just stay in the pagoda for now. I’ve got to go!”

Before I could reply, the endless static returned. He must have tucked the walkie-talkie into his waistband; I couldn’t imagine how else it would make such a racket.

Although the walkie-talkie was finally working, there was likely still a significant distance between us. I placed the device by the window and walked to the center of the pagoda to check on Tian Xiaoqi.

Tian Xiaoqi was in bad shape. Her face had an unnatural bluish-purple tint, and a four-clawed bruise had appeared out of nowhere on her neck, looking as if someone had strangled her.

I didn’t know how dangerous the things in her illusion were, so I tried to wake her up. Shaking and shouting did nothing. I was about to resort to splashing water on her face, but our supply was pitifully low.

Just as I unscrewed the canteen cap to pour water over her head, a sharp crack echoed from the top of the pagoda. The sound came from outside, as if something had hooked onto the stones near the spire.

I quickly pulled my mountain-cleaving machete from my bag and stood up. Then I heard He Yu over the walkie-talkie: “Winter Melon calling Potato. We found a pagoda with firelight inside. Did you light that?”

The joy of finding the team exploded in my heart. Well, damn it, I was finally about to get out of this mess!

I grabbed my flashlight and leaned halfway out the window, scanning the stone wall. “It’s me! It’s me!” I shouted outside.

Then He Yu said over the walkie-talkie, “Alright, alright, we see you! Old Lu has already hooked the rope. He’s about to slide down to the top of the pagoda. Go up there and meet him!”

I reached for the ladder to climb up, but then I saw Tian Xiaoqi leaning against it. I pulled my leg back, returned to the window, and said to He Yu, “I forgot to tell you, besides me, there’s an unconscious casualty here.”

“I know, it’s Chen Canghai!”

“No,” I said. “It’s Tian Xiaoqi.”

“Huh?? How did you end up with her?”

I scratched my head. “It’s complicated. I’ll explain everything once you get here.”