Chapter Thirty-Four: The Cavern Beneath the Lake

“Am I... really going to die like this? Drowned, smothered by mud? I can’t accept it!”

Fu Yang was filled with unwillingness. In the final moment before death, for some inexplicable reason, the image of Dong Weike flashed through his mind—that fierce, intimidating female ghost who was always so harsh with him.

“How strange that, at the brink of death, she’s the first person I think of. That’s right, I promised to offer her a feast of three animals next month on the first. A man’s word must be kept. No, I can’t die yet!”

Just as his consciousness was about to slip away completely—his death seeming almost certain—the image of Dong Weike rose before his eyes. The thought of his promise filled him with strength once more!

“I want to live! I don’t want to die!”

With a roar, Fu Yang exerted every ounce of willpower—and in that instant, something extraordinary happened.

Right in the center of his forehead, between his brows, a complex and ancient sigil materialized! Black lines formed a face that seemed to be both laughing and crying, a visage not quite human, more like a ghost. Though the mark was black, it shone with a brilliant light, radiating an aura of overwhelming power and violent dominance.

It was the very same sigil that Dong Weike had once left in his body during their first encounter—a fleeting, unnoticed mark of ghostly energy!

The moment it appeared, Fu Yang felt a searing pain in his soul, and his consciousness was snuffed out.

The malevolent spirits that had swarmed and enveloped him, along with the countless rotting corpses in the lakebed’s mud, were all frozen by the light and aura emitted from the ghostly sigil on his brow. In an instant, they became as still as ordinary corpses.

His body, wrapped in black light, sank deeper into the mire—down, down...

Fu Yang felt as if he were dreaming.

It was as though he’d entered a chaotic realm shrouded in mist, with neither up nor down, left nor right—only endless, roiling fog. Shadows flitted within, spectral forms and sinister spirits lurking everywhere.

Suddenly, a roar filled with violent dominance reverberated through the mist, sending the evil presences fleeing in panic.

“My head... it hurts...”

Fu Yang awoke from this bizarre dream.

Propping one hand against the cold, damp stone, the other massaging his brow, he felt as if he’d been tossed into a spinning washing machine—his head throbbed from the wild tumbling.

“Wait... I’m not dead? Damn, I’m still alive! Ha ha ha!”

He was, admittedly, not the sharpest tool in the shed. It took him a moment to process what had happened and recall the events leading up to this.

“Where am I now? Oh no, did I just transmigrate? Looks like my body came with me.” Fu Yang checked himself—arms, legs, everything intact.

Only then did he begin to take in his surroundings.

One glance, and his jaw dropped. He realized he hadn’t transmigrated after all.

“Incredible!”

He was in an underground cavern as large as a university lecture hall. Looking up, he could see the bottom of Linxin Lake about thirty meters above him!

The base of the artificial lake was made entirely of some kind of transparent, mystical stone. Through it, he could see heaps of decaying corpses layered on top of one another, and above them, thick deposits of mud...

He himself was sprawled in a shallow puddle, his clothes and pants soaked through, a sorry sight. But it didn’t matter—surviving the onslaught of those ghostly entities was already a blessing.

“Damn! This place is incredible, but it feels oddly familiar.”

Astonished, Fu Yang frowned, thinking hard.

It soon dawned on him—the layout resembled the prison beneath the lake from “The Smiling, Proud Wanderer,” that classic novel by Master Jin Yong.

“Could this have been built by one of that ghost lord’s cronies? Are they fans of Jin Yong too?”

Fu Yang mused to himself.

From the day he and Zhao Shanshan visited the city archives to research the forestry records for Jiang University—only to find crucial documents mysteriously torn out, and to sense someone spying on them—they’d been certain the culprit wasn’t just the ghost lord child. There had to be living accomplices involved.

Perhaps the ghost lord’s servants, or perhaps fellow conspirators.

Their goal was singular: to reunite the boy’s soul with his body, creating a terrifying corpse-soul demon.

Aside from the structure overhead, so reminiscent of Jin Yong’s work, the rest of the cavern was even stranger.

Countless plant roots snaked in from all directions, some suspending half in the air. From a distance, they looked like a swarm of hanging serpents, swaying gently—enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine—a true nightmare for anyone with trypophobia.

Strange subterranean plants grew on the stone walls, emitting a faint blue glow.

Fu Yang marveled. This lake was fifty meters deep—could the roots from the forest above really extend that far down?

“I never would have thought it—such a vast cavern beneath Linxin Lake. Was it man-made, or natural?”

He resolved to explore the place carefully and see if there was any exit.

Though the glowing plants on the walls provided some illumination, it was limited. The cavern was huge, and the farther reaches faded into darkness.

“Could this be a completely sealed cave?”

Fu Yang felt a twinge of unease and forced himself to stay alert. In an eerie, subterranean world like this, who knew what kind of evil spirits might be lurking in the shadows—perhaps swarms of water wraiths, vengeful ghosts, or walking corpses.

After circling the cavern once, he found nothing of note.

“Damn it! There really might not be an exit. Am I going to die here, trapped like a rat?”

Frustrated and anxious, Fu Yang raked his hair with trembling hands.

He was irritated—deeply irritated!

He picked up a few stones and hurled them at the wall, venting his anger and fear.

One stone struck a glowing subterranean plant, causing it to emit an even brighter light—a natural reaction, it seemed.

But it was this sudden burst of light that made Fu Yang notice something he hadn’t seen before: not far ahead, a large section of the cave wall was indented, forming a deep, rounded alcove!

It was arch-shaped, nearly twenty meters high, a black void whose depth he couldn’t gauge from where he stood.

He hadn’t noticed it earlier, thanks to the dim light and his own nervousness.

“There’s something in that alcove... I can just make out a shadow inside!”

Fu Yang’s heart pounded—he could vaguely sense a silhouette within.

He had to see for himself!

Steeling his nerves, he hurried over.

As he drew near, he finally saw what lay inside the alcove—and his jaw dropped in astonishment, unable to close for a long while.

“Amazing! This... this is...”