Chapter 33: Abyssal Dragon Pillars

As soon as he finished speaking, I saw He Yu clinging to the smooth Dragon-Coiled Pillar like a toad, his arms like iron pincers locking tightly around it as he climbed upward. Lu A’yao quickly reached a spot diagonally above me, while I was pitifully dangling from the iron chain.

I didn’t have the upper body strength He Yu did, and just hanging here was clearly a massive waste of energy. If either of them were in my position, with their strength, they’d probably have already climbed up the chain.

Climbing the chain was undoubtedly the simplest route—but even that was too difficult for me.

I swung in midair, the motion making me nauseous. I couldn’t just hang here forever waiting for Lu A’yao to pull me up, so I clenched my eyes shut, forced down the wave of nausea, switched arms on the chain, and tried to push myself upward.

Lu A’yao must have felt the movement, because he stopped and looked down at me. I gave it everything I had, straining to pull myself up. My hands barely reached higher, but with no foothold, I couldn’t get any leverage. Not only did I fail to climb up, I nearly slipped and fell.

“Alright, alright, Little Yao! Stop squirming around! If you slip, you’ll drag Old Lu down with you!” He Yu, clinging to the pillar like a leech, was drenched in sweat but still found the energy to mock me.

I rolled my eyes at him, then suddenly felt the Soft Whip at my waist tug upward. Looking up, I saw Lu A’yao had looped his spare rope around the pillar, threading the knot through the hollow of the Dragon’s Mouth to secure it.

He tightened the rope, made sure the knot was locked in place, then wrapped the Soft Whip several times around his left hand. A powerful force began pulling me upward.

I immediately caught on and gripped the chain harder, kicked my legs up, and managed to flip myself onto the chain. I made it up, but ended up face-down, clinging to the chain like a giant roast pig—definitely not the most graceful pose.

Still hugging the pillar, He Yu gave Lu A’yao a big thumbs-up. “Old Lu, you’re the man!”

“Gan Ji, I can only pull you up like that three more times, tops,” Lu A’yao said, letting go of the rope. From the sound of his voice, it hadn’t been easy.

I lifted my head with effort. The climb hadn’t felt too strenuous on my end, which meant Lu A’yao must’ve used a lot of force. But no matter how strong he was, he couldn’t haul me all the way up by himself—not when this Side Chamber was so deep our flashlights couldn’t even reach the top.

So I quickly came up with another plan.

“Don’t waste your strength pulling me up. I’m fine hanging here for now. You two climb ahead and see if there’s a place to stand. Once you find something solid, drop the rope back down for me,” I called out.

He Yu and Lu A’yao exchanged a glance, probably weighing the idea. Not long after, He Yu said, “That’s actually the best plan we’ve got right now. Little Yao, hold tight. Once we’re up, we’ll come back for you!”

The moment he finished speaking, the tension at my waist suddenly vanished. Lu A’yao had somehow retrieved the whip. When I looked down, the Soft Whip was already gone. My palms instantly broke out in sweat.

There’s a big difference between hanging with support and hanging without it. My whole body went rigid. The chamber fell deathly silent. When I looked up again, He Yu’s flashlight was no longer where it had been. With their speed, they were probably already far above.

Darkness swallowed everything within arm’s reach. The chain swayed now and then. Sweat poured from my forehead—I knew that if I fell now, there’d be no saving me. I started to question whether my decision had been the right one.

I stayed still for a while longer, dimmed my flashlight to save power, and tried to keep my balance. Suddenly, I felt a sharp sting on my cheek, like an ant bite, and then something wet began to trickle down my face.

I lowered my head and wiped at it. A strong, metallic scent hit my nose—blood. Panic surged through me. Nothing here should’ve been sharp enough to break skin. In my peripheral vision, I spotted the stone door of the Side Chamber.

The Quicksand had surged too fast earlier and collapsed half the stone door.

My heart dropped. I instinctively looked up and shouted, “He Yu! Lu A’yao! Are you guys up there? Can you hear me?!”

Only my own echo answered back. No response.

Before I could react, a swarm of Human-faced Bats suddenly burst up from below, attacking like mad. My body was instantly shredded, blood pouring from countless cuts. Every bone in my body screamed in pain.

I cursed nonstop, imagining my fate—would I be drained dry and strung up like a desiccated rabbit corpse, just like those hanging bodies? Or torn apart until not even my skin remained? Maybe it’d be better to just fall—I was terrified of heights anyway.

Blood spread across the chain. I tried to shield myself with my arms. At the same time, I saw massive Centipede-like creatures crawling toward me from every direction along the walls—dozens of them. A single sweep of my flashlight revealed at least twenty.

Terrified, I lost my grip. The chain spun, and I couldn’t hold on. I plummeted from dozens of meters up, crashing into the Quicksand pit and creating a crater. But the yellow sand quickly closed in around me.

“Anyone there?! He Yu!”

I got a mouthful of sand. Half my body was already buried.

It was terrifying—like countless hands were dragging me down from beneath the sand. The Quicksand was dense and strangely heavy. My legs were completely immobilized. Even though I tried to stay still, I kept sinking.

All around me, within the sand, tens of thousands of Terracotta Figures began to emerge. They must’ve been buried beneath the surface all along. I reached out and touched one of their water-eroded heads.

The sand pressed in against my chest. In less than two minutes, it had reached my nose and mouth. I couldn’t stay still any longer. I thrashed desperately, stretching out my arms, trying to reach the nearest Dragon-Coiled Pillar.

But the Quicksand didn’t wait. The next moment, I was completely buried. Suffocating, I inhaled sand through my nose and mouth. My fear surged to its peak, magnified by my own panic.

I felt the sand around me—cold, damp, and sharp. I could barely feel my body anymore. My legs were numb. Something flickered in my mind, a flash of insight, but the suffocation made it impossible to focus.

“Gan Ji! Gan Ji!”

I choked on my own saliva and suddenly sat up, coughing violently. My throat felt stuffed with sand. He Yu’s flashlight was shining directly in my face, the glare so blinding I had to shield my eyes.

“You awake now? You were gone for one second and started crawling into the sand like you were possessed!” He Yu moved the light away and splashed my face with water from a half-empty bottle. Lu A’yao stood beside him.

“Bats! So many bats!” I looked around at the pitch-black walls, grabbing Lu A’yao’s sleeve like a lifeline. “And Centipede-like creatures! And moving Terracotta Figures!”

“What the hell are you talking about? Bats, centipedes, Terracotta Figures?” He Yu glanced over his shoulder warily.

Lu A’yao crouched beside me and asked quietly, “Were you hallucinating?”

I looked past him at the walls—clean and bare. No bats in the air. My throat felt like it was clogged with sand, unbearably uncomfortable.

I dry-heaved on the ground for a while but couldn’t bring anything up. Instead, dizziness washed over me. Lu A’yao held my shoulders and helped me lean back. The cold glazed tiles pressed against my back, and after a moment, I started to come to.

I gradually realized I was sitting on a slope—more like the corner of a flying eave. He Yu stood in front of me, one hand resting on the dragon head coiled around the pillar. Broken glazed tiles littered the ground beneath me. One wrong move and they’d slide off in sheets.

I cleared my throat. “Where are we?”

Lu A’yao replied, “One of the Flying Eaves and Dou Gong Brackets on the Dragon-Coiled Pillar. We think there are many more like it above.”

I leaned on Lu A’yao and lifted my hips slightly to look down. By the light of He Yu’s flashlight, I could see the chain I’d been hanging from earlier—at least a hundred meters below.

“What happened to you? There should be more brackets above. We were going to keep climbing, but Old Lu said the chain was shaking weirdly. I called out to you, and just as I did, you let go. Scared the hell out of us—we had to rappel down to catch you,” He Yu said, taking a swig of water.

He held up a frayed rope. “Look at this! You’ve got some strength, huh? We were pulling you up, and you were fighting to dive into the Quicksand. You wrecked my favorite rope, man. You owe me when we get out of here!”

I was speechless, my mind still foggy. I couldn’t process everything He Yu had just said, but I caught the key points. No doubt, things had gotten dangerously close.

These ropes weren’t very long. I had no idea how they’d managed to haul me up with just two spares. Must’ve been some seriously awkward maneuvering.

But the pain and suffocation I’d felt had been real. I rolled up my sleeves to check my arms—no wounds at all. If this had happened when we first entered, I might’ve lost it completely. But by now, nothing seemed too strange anymore.

After ten minutes of sorting through my scrambled thoughts, I said, “I think I found the Underground River in this tomb.”

———

—Flying eaves are the upturned edges of traditional Chinese roofs, adding elegance, protection from rain, and symbolic grandeur.

—Dou gong brackets are interlocking wooden supports on top of pillars, distributing roof weight, strengthening the structure, and serving as decoration.