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 toward them, “Hey! Over here! Xiao Wu! I’m right here!”

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

Hou Jinshan recoiled in shock, but once he realized what was happening, he cursed from the water, “You little bastard! How the hell did you suddenly pop up over there? We’ve been searching for you underwater forever, and it turns out you swam ahead without even telling us!”

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

Counting from the moment I stopped, Hou Jinshan and the others were far more than just a couple of meters behind me; they were at least ten meters back. On top of that, I’d been dawdling underwater for quite a while. Factoring that in, the distance between us was likely approaching a hundred meters.

I wasn’t a fish, so how could I have moved that fast?

But now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. I steadied myself as they swam toward the stone platform. I grabbed Xiao Wu’s hand and pulled him up, noticing as he surfaced that his wetsuit was 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 attracted fish lying dormant at the bottom, which 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, tossed his flippers 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 to walk for a bit.”

I ignored Li Wanchou, and Xiao Wu continued, “Strangely enough, past that stretch, the fish stopped swimming deeper. Based on our past experience, when animals act like that, it’s usually because the water quality is different, or there’s something down there they’re afraid of.”

“Don’t start with that alarmist 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 froze for a second, then burst out laughing. “Just one statue? Try hundreds! All along the way, it was like a forest of stone statues underwater: big ones, small ones, in all kinds of shapes!”

Hearing those words, every hair on my body stood on end. The way they described it, it was as if we hadn’t even swum through the same river channel. My eyesight might not be great, but there was no way I would’ve missed a dense mass of stone statues sitting at the bottom of the water. And those fish, that rushing current, I hadn’t encountered any of that either!

So, where exactly had I swum just now? If I hadn’t chosen to climb ashore back then, where would I be right now?

Xiao Wu patted me on the back, sensing that something was wrong with me. “Young Master,” he said, “don’t overthink it. Maybe you accidentally took a fork underwater. Whatever happened, we’ve regrouped now, and sticking with the team is safe enough.”

“Yeah, we’ve already wasted too much time, so let’s fucking get moving.” Li Wanchou replaced the bandage on his head with a clean piece of gauze and took the lead along the stone path, muttering, “Damn it, why won’t this blood stop?”

Hou Jinshan looked me up and down, then walked over and asked, “Did you bring something with you?”

I didn’t know what he specifically meant by that, so I didn’t answer. Finding himself ignored, Hou Jinshan waved his hand, turned around, and followed the rest of the group forward.

Xiao Wu and I walked one behind the other at the very back of the line. I turned to talk to him from time to time, giving him a rough summary of what I’d just gone through. We were in ancient ruins deep in the mountains, and Xiao Wu had never encountered such a bizarre thing either. Neither of us could come up with any useful ideas, so as we talked, the conversation eventually petered out.

After walking for another half hour, the team suddenly came to a halt. I raised my flashlight and shone it forward, faintly spotting the head of a stone statue jutting out from the middle of the river channel in the distance.

Li Wanchou immediately squeezed his way from the lead position all the way to the back.

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

I edged my way to the front of the group and finally got a clear look at what was in the water. To be exact, it was half the head of a stone statue. The statue didn’t seem to be very large, with everything above the nose exposed to the air and its mouth submerged in the water.

However, the design of this stone statue was completely different from any we had seen before. It was extremely strange, with its palms resting facedown flat on the surface of the water and its eyes staring intently ahead, looking just like someone hiding underwater to secretly spy on people walking along the stone path. I couldn’t accurately describe its gaze, only that its smile carried a sense of malice.

Moving my flashlight away, I noticed that the stone statues along the path ahead had changed their posture. They were now standing sideways, but their faces were turned straight toward us, giving them a welcoming appearance.

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

I pointed my flashlight at the statue in front of us and asked him, “What’s the point of putting doormen in a sewer? The locals in that place you’re looking for sure had peculiar 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 terrified of dying, which annoyed me. Sure, after being in here for so long, I’d grown almost immune to these stone statues, but I still didn’t like facing the darkness ahead all by myself.

Full of complaints, I still took a few steps forward. Honestly, I didn’t care much about the statues ahead turning sideways; compared to those, I was much more concerned about the one in the water.

So I turned sideways, practically brushing past the statue as I moved along. 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 had walked completely past 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, so when the light hit it, the whole door shimmered brilliantly.

Flanking the door were two bowing statues, one on each side. Their heads were slightly tilted, wearing the same smiling faces.

I stopped and turned around, 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 grab 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 come blow on it!”

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! What’s that sound?”

The cave fell into sudden stillness. The rustling sounds around us seemed to amplify dozens of times inside the cave. Not just right beside us, but inside the stone path, within the statues, and from the ceiling above, came the crawling sound of insects.

“W-what’s going on?” Lai Qi was so terrified his legs nearly gave out.

Li Wanchou was still clawing at his eye, nearly drawing blood. “Stop damn well listening! Get me some water, quick! 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 whirlwind, he fell on his butt in terror and scrambled off, without even glancing at Hou Jinshan.

My mind raced. Leaving Li Wanchou behind wasn’t an option. Hou Jinshan had said the guy had suddenly taken an interest in the Ghost Market Map. How much did he know about it? How much information did he actually hold? I didn’t know yet.

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

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

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

I clenched my teeth, glanced at the approaching swarm, and made up my mind. Without a moment’s hesitation, I ran back down the stone steps. I moved so fast that Xiao Wu tried to grab me but missed.

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

He heard my voice and started paddling frantically toward the edge. I looked back, and for some reason, the butterfly swarm had suddenly picked up speed. They were only a step away from me. Things had completely spiraled out of control.

The falling scales kicked up a massive wave. As the butterflies lunged at me, I instinctively shut my eyes and covered them with my arms. My mind went blank. This was truly the end. Dying halfway through the enterprise, taken down by butterflies, was a pathetic way to go. I just hoped someone would come collect my body.