He watched helplessly as Xuanmin seized him and then grabbed the panicking Lu Nianqi so he could carry them forward with long strides.
The water surged ever higher, and the dark waves showed no sign of abating. Xuanmin wove between the towering swells, never stopping for a moment, his steps brisk and steady.
“It’s not enough!” Lu Shijiu shouted from up ahead. “We need to move faster! The water is rising too quickly, much faster than last time. I don’t know if we can reach the end! Hurry!”
Before he could finish speaking, another massive wave crashed down. Lu Nianqi swallowed several mouthfuls of water, his body completely drenched. The stench of damp decay clung to his nose. The waves persisted, crashing relentlessly. In no time at all, the water line crept up to his feet, then to his calves.
Just as he was wiping the water from his face, another wave swept over him. It was as though he would never be dry again, trapped in an inescapable deluge and fated to drown within it. The sensation was hauntingly familiar, bringing with it a rush of disorientation, sending him back seven or eight years to that moment in the river…
Xuanmin glowered at the youth struggling in his hands. The rolling waves seemed to have triggered some traumatic memories in Lu Nianqi; he was screaming like a man gone mad and dragging them down. Xuanmin raised his hand, poised to strike the back of Lu Nianqi’s neck.
Bang!
The dazed Xue Xian jerked awake again. He felt a mysterious sensation spreading through his soul, as if he had drawn up something familiar from the depths, then absorbed it. It flowed through his nonexistent blood vessels, swelling and growing hot.
What the hell, Xue Xian grumbled to himself: What is this? Rising dough? It was like he was about to burst out of the marble.
Bang! Bang!
The sounds echoed in succession, and this time, it wasn’t just Xue Xian who noticed. The group rushing toward the opposite bank also heard it.
“What’s happening?” Even Lu Shijiu, who’d taken this path before, seemed astonished. “Something is striking the stone platform!”
Xuanmin paused briefly before quickening his pace even more. “Hurry.”
Lu Shijiu was correct: Something had awakened in the depths of the inky water and was slamming against the base of the stone platform. With each impact, the platform shuddered and grew increasingly unstable. The tremors were so violent the group could barely keep their footing.
Wham!
An even louder crash echoed, and the stone platforms groaned in unison, followed by the sound of cracking stone. Not just the platform beneath them, either—for some reason, every single platform in front of and behind them crumbled at that very moment. They didn’t even have the time to struggle before falling into the water.
As the water flooded over his head, Xuanmin just barely heard something from the pouch at his waist. A sizzling noise, like a spoonful of water splashing onto hot iron.
This murky lake was filled with no ordinary water. It stung his eyes, making opening them unbearable. He tried anyway, and after he blinked a couple of times, his vision recovered just in time for him to see a smooth object rolling from the pouch at his waist. Upon hitting the water, it plummeted straight down as if it weighed a thousand pounds.
Losing his hands and feet hadn’t made this evil spirit any less of a pain. Xuanmin reached out to grab the marble at once.
However, just as his palm wrapped around it, an enormous weight bore down upon Xuanmin’s hand, like he wasn’t holding a marble, but Mount Tai itself. Before he could react, the marble sent him plunging toward the depths.
The water was astonishingly deep and cold. In seconds, the chill pierced his skin and filled his bones.
The freezing water also jolted Xue Xian’s mind, clearing it, though he had yet to figure out what was going on. In his confusion, he had the audacity to ask Xuanmin, “Bald donkey, why am I in the water?”
Hell if I know, Xuanmin thought.
“And why are you here as well?”
Xuanmin didn’t say a word. Even hell wouldn’t know the answer to that question.
Ignorant inside the golden marble, Xue Xian had nothing to fear and was free to speak as he pleased, but the moment Xuanmin opened his mouth, he’d swallow water. Choking was the least of his worries; his main issue was that he had no idea where this water came from or how long it’d just been sitting here. He didn’t need a brain to know it wouldn’t be too clean. He’d rather drown than drink it.
The marble plunged down at full speed, dragging them along, until it crashed into the bottom of the pool. Despite the thick layer of mud to cushion the impact, Xuanmin’s fingers still spasmed and curled from the pain. Anyone else would probably have found their fingers shattered.
In his daze, Xue Xian could sense that something was insulating him, and he tried to speak. But the burning heat of his expanding body consumed his senses, and the constant tremors left him dizzy and nauseous. He flailed aimlessly in the mud, driven by some instinct, urgently searching for something. However, his thrashing only disturbed the dirt, turning the entire depths murky. Never mind finding anything—it’d be a miracle if he didn’t end up lost himself.
“I’m sick of all this mud!” Xue Xian spat in his daze. His naturally irritable disposition had worsened, turning his tone thick with hostility.
Where is it, where is it, where is it…
He didn’t even know what he was searching for, yet that phrase looped endlessly within his mind.
Bang!
With every thunderous impact, Xue Xian grew more frustrated. The muck churned into a frenzy and the water grew increasingly turbid.
Xuanmin lost track of the golden marble after pulling his hand back. The sheer depths of this pool, combined with their endless descent—no ordinary person could endure it, and even Xuanmin was no exception.
Lu Nianqi was the first to succumb to the water. He’d escaped Xuanmin’s strike but not the suffocating sensation of drowning. After thrashing around madly in Xuanmin’s grasp and swallowing several mouthfuls of water, he gradually fell silent.
Next was Jiang Shining, who’d reverted to paper form. As he was a ghost, he didn’t need to breathe, but the relentless tremors and the stirring of the water were threatening to turn his body into pulp.
Finally, there was Xuanmin, who was frowning.
Just as the world began to fade with his consciousness, an earsplitting noise pierced through the muddy depths from not far away. The sound sliced like a blade in the dark, turbid waters and echoed throughout the tomb.
For a brief moment, the dazed Xuanmin was dragged back to clarity. That distant roar was familiar. He was certain he’d heard it somewhere before.