??

  I've already forgotten the process, from the moment I fell into the water, I was completely trapped in a struggle. Looking at those fragmented corpses, and then looking at myself, is it that my luck is particularly good? The answer is no, what can be explained is that these people tightly hugged me after falling into the water, they were like protective covers wrapped outside, shattered only for the sake of the inner layer of heart.

  I fell silent, and slowly stood up. I've never been a sentimental person, but at this moment, I want to salute them!

  The world has never been fair, someone lives and someone dies. Maybe I shouldn't be the one who died, so I lived on. Cha Wenbin never asked why, he just calmly said a sentence: "I will let them go well."

  This isn't the exit we came out of before, I remember that platform, the explosion shattered the surrounding rocks at that time, logically even if the internal space didn't completely collapse, there should be some damage. But everything here seems to have never been damaged, the smooth black rock still has moss with dew drops, under the intense pain no one wants to take the first step easily.

  "I said: 'This is not the place we used to come.'"

  Ye Qiu touched the surrounding rocks with his hand, took a bit of water from his fingers and put it in his mouth, saying: "No, I feel very strange here."

  I remember when he first came with me, he said he had been here before, and later events proved that it was indeed the case. I no longer doubt Ye Qiu's sixth sense, his intuition has always been more accurate than Cao Wenbin's divination.

  Cha Wenbin comforted me by saying: "I don't know where it is either, but it shouldn't be too far off."

  "I feel like I've been dragged down, all the way to this place. Not dying is a blessing in itself. Since we're here, let's make do with it." This isn't my first time facing such a situation either. Time and again, I fall into desperate straits only to crawl back out once more. These past few years with Cha Wenbin have been anything but peaceful. Honestly, there haven't been many days when I've felt at ease. Sometimes even I find it laughable. It's as if the fates of these people are somehow tied together."

  "Xia Lao Di is now quite open-minded, help me out, pull all the brothers in the water." Long Ye struggled to get up, and we several people together lifted the incomplete corpses one by one from the water. These people cannot stay here, they need to return to their hometown. "My men, not afraid of death, but death must be dignified." This was the last sentence Long Ye said after covering their faces.

  Ye Qiu squatted down and flipped over one of the corpses, saying: "There's no such large water flow here. This person was tied up by something around their foot."

  "He's called Shuǐ Guǐ (Water Ghost), one of the best divers."

  "Look at this." Ye Qiu lifted the man's pant leg, revealing a distinct ring of bruising around his ankle. The color was still a deep purple from the short time spent in the water.

  Looking at the shocking wound, I was startled. It's like that water ghost is a fish bait, and we are the line above it. A big fish bit him and pulled the entire fishing rod along with the angler into the water. "Wow, this must be incredibly powerful! There hasn't been any news of large fish in this area, at most just otters, which wouldn't have such strength."

  "It's not a water monkey." Zhang Wenbin said: "The water monkey is just a water ghost, it can't pull so many people at once. In short, the farther away from this water, the better. Let's see if there's any land to walk on."

  Looking at the water ripples below, it's very quiet, and no one knows what's hidden underneath. This river winds its way along the Tianmu Mountains and eventually merges with Cao Creek to flow into the East China Sea. When I was a kid, during summer, children would often play in the river, and the old folks would say that there were water monkeys in this river, describing them as aquatic monsters that could drag people underwater. Every summer, several people would drown in this big river, with many bodies never found. A long time ago, there was a Dragon King Temple on the riverbank, where a lone dragon king statue was worshipped, but unfortunately, it was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and even the temple foundation was pushed into the river. Probably from then on, the number of people drowning in this river increased year by year; just among those we knew, there were four people who fell into the water and never returned in a single year.

  Ye Qiu got up and said: "Let's take a walk over there, I sense some signs of wind."

  He said that on the other side, we had to cross a stone, and on the other side of the stone, it looked like a dry underground riverbed. The light from the flashlight was also pitch black over there. The temperature down here is very low. Just now I was dizzy from the collision, and only after a while did I start to feel better. This coldness made me realize that the pain on my body was real.

  The stones underfoot are big and small, when I pass through this ancient riverbed, I always have a feeling in my heart that there is something I want at the other end of this passage...

  If it wasn't for the tinnitus, I must have been hallucinating. When the sound of a baby crying first appeared beside my ear, I actually shook my head and ridiculed myself for being crazy, thinking I had misheard - how could there possibly be the sound of a child's cry here?

  "Uh-huh, uh-huh..." A few more sounds, and just as I was about to say something, Zhang Wenbin covered my mouth with his hand. He whispered in my ear, "Keep walking, pretend you don't know anything."

  This great god, my goodness, how can you be so calm?! I looked at Ye Qiu and Long Jie, these two are just like nothing's wrong, whether it's their pace or direction, there's no sign of hesitation at all, are you guys deaf?!

  "Uh-huh, uh-huh..." The sound was getting louder and louder, as if a doll would pop out from the stone seam next door at any moment. My head was about to explode. At this time, those two guys were becoming more and more calm. I finally couldn't bear it: "Hey, didn't you guys hear that?!" I shouted.

  At that moment, I saw the cobblestones on the ground rise one after another, a feeling of earthquake came from all directions in an instant. The first reaction in my mind was: Landslide!

  "Here!" Ye Qiu said seriously.

  The three of them seemed to know in advance that it was generally okay, and Cha Wenbin shouted at me: "Stand firm, shoot two shots towards the ground."

  What kind of medicine is being sold in this gourd? I'm already unstable, and if I don't run away, it's considered heroic. I hastily took off five or six half-finished calabazas from my back, and on the ground about three or four meters away from me, a huge black thing suddenly appeared with a loud "boom". At that moment, I couldn't see clearly what it was, but a strong stench rushed towards me. Just as I was still thinking, Cha Wenbin shouted: "Fight!"

  "Bang", I saw a burst of blood mist exploding in front of me, my god, this thing is actually still flesh and blood!

  It was enraged, and when it pounced on me, I had already been pulled back by someone and ran away at a speed of about 40 km/h. Thanks to this, I was able to appreciate what I had hit from close range while my butt was on the ground.

  That was a gigantic mouth, have you seen tadpoles? It was like a giant tadpole opening its mouth to bite towards me, its mouth was so big that it could almost swallow three fat men in one gulp, the upper and lower jaws were covered with dense triangular teeth, I think if I got bitten, some of my organs would be separated from me forever.

  At this time, I saw a small black thing flying over my head, and the big mouth didn't notice it, so it flew into its mouth. The big mouth closed, seemingly satisfied with the thing, and suddenly my body lost its backward force, then I heard Dragon King shouting: "Get down!"

  There was a loud "boom" sound, and suddenly my surroundings started to be hit by sticky things non-stop, just like it had rained. My ears only heard a "buzzing" sound at that moment. The shock was so great that I could hardly describe it - the sky was falling apart.

  It wasn't until afterwards that I found out that Dragon had lost a hand grenade, and the thing that had been blown to smithereens was even more incredible.

  "Dragon Lord measured the giant brain that had been blown open and said, 'Giant Salamander, the four of us should just about fill its stomach.'"

  "I heard the child crying..."

  "It's this thing," Zhang Wenbin said to me: "This thing is also called a 'doll fish', its cry sounds just like a child, I encountered it once before with them in Zhangjiajie, but not as big as this."

  "Pull it." I looked at the head on the ground and said in disbelief, "We also have big catfish there, at most five or six kilograms, this is more than ten times that." My god, this head was really as big as a small truck. Even though half of its mouth had been blown off, what was left still measured up to one and a half times my body length.

  "Tell him yourself," said Longye with a nonchalant shrug.

  "Also taking the opportunity to sit down and rest, Cha Wenbin said to me: 'One year I went with them to a mountainous area in Guizhou, also an underground cave. At first, I heard the sound of a baby crying, and you reacted immediately. This thing's vision is very poor, almost degenerated, but its hearing is extremely sensitive. At that time, we not only encountered one, but also had companions whose feet were bitten off. This thing only lives in deep caves far from the ground surface. In fact, there are records of it since ancient times. Ancient people called it 'Jiuying'. In our Taoist teachings, this thing is said to have nine heads and a snake-like body. Its cry sounds like a baby wailing, each head representing one life. Since it was born directly from heaven and earth, it has no soul or spirit, its body is extremely strong, already an immortal body, and with nine lives, as long as one life remains, it can recover by gathering spiritual energy between heaven and earth. Later, I went to consult experts, and the conclusion was that it's a mutated giant salamander, extremely ferocious. So when I heard its cry, I immediately knew we had encountered the same thing here.'"

  I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead and said, "Is this what dragged us down?"

  "No!" This answer was given by Ye Qiu and Cha Wenbin at the same time. I saw Ye Qiu's expression of wanting to say something but stopping himself, and Cha Wenbin seemed unwilling to continue talking about it either. They both looked a bit strange, as if they knew the answer but didn't want to tell me. This was the first time this had happened between us...