Chapter 107: The Spiral Path

Ghost-Face Zhang frowned as he looked at the corpses sprawled on the floor inside the doorway. "Why do these look so familiar?"

I didn't dare to look as closely as he did; I had already been given quite a scare earlier and had no desire for a repeat performance. Mengya, however, walked over and used the toe of her shoe to flip the two bodies over. I immediately spat on the ground and said, "Ugh, make sure you throw those shoes away when we get back. They’re cursed."

Mengya ignored me. She stared at the two corpses, let out a startled "Ah?", and stood there speechless for a long time. After a while, she exchanged a look of equal bewilderment with Ghost-Face Zhang.

Their reaction made my skin crawl. Mustering my courage, I crept over to take a look, and the sight sent a chill straight down my spine.

"Fa-Fatty Xu? Xu Yang!" I gasped. The two men lying there were none other than Xu Yang and the sole surviving associate he had brought from his faction.

Ghost-Face Zhang clicked his tongue. "Xu Yang might not have been much, but for him and his man to be taken out at the same time... this is unbelievable. Besides, in a situation like this, it’s unlikely they would be the only ones to die."

"It’s not impossible," Mengya whispered. She nudged Xu Yang’s body with her foot and pointed to his face. Although it had begun to turn green and decay, the terrifying, frozen grin on his face remained perfectly clear. "Third Master, look. Aside from the dent where you hit his head with that stone earlier, there isn't a single mark on his body, from top to bottom."

She turned the other man’s body over. "Same here. No wounds at all, let alone anything fatal."

"How is that possible?" Ghost-Face Zhang looked equally incredulous, yet he had to accept the facts. It was clear he was struggling to process it. "Then what do you think happened?"

Mengya heaved a long sigh. "Prepare yourselves. There might be a creature in here capable of causing supernatural deaths."

"A monster?" Ghost-Face Zhang asked.

"Yes, a monster," Mengya said quietly. "Third Master, does the sound of this water seem familiar to you?"

Ghost-Face Zhang tilted his head, listening intently for half a minute. "A Loach Dragon?"

Mengya let out a cold laugh. "Precisely. I suspect this Fish-Bone Cave was built specifically to worship the original entity of that Loach Dragon. In other words, this tomb wasn't built to bury the dead, but to appease this monster."

"A sacrificial altar for a monster?" Ghost-Face Zhang muttered.

"Mengya, the monster you’re talking about, could it be..." Before I could finish my sentence, the three of us turned in unison toward the massive red-copper tomb gate. A chill settled deep into our marrow, as if we had just been handed our death warrants.

"Are we still going in?" I asked hesitantly.

Mengya and Ghost-Face Zhang exchanged a look. Ghost-Face Zhang lit a cigarette and said, "You two take the rear; I’ll lead."

Mengya looked down at herself, seemingly hesitant, then sighed as she looked at me. "Third Master, I’m fine. Let Qiu Tong take the rear alone. We can’t get through this place with only one person watching our backs."

Ghost-Face Zhang raised an eyebrow and eyed her sideways. "Do you not trust my skills?"

"It’s not that I don't trust you, but even if our entire team were here, it would be a struggle to survive, let alone escape unscathed."

Ghost-Face Zhang didn't argue. He took a deep drag of his cigarette, then crushed the cherry out with his fingers—his skin hissed at the heat, but he didn't seem to feel it. He snorted coldly. "Then I’ll leave that to you."

With Ghost-Face Zhang’s grim resolve, the three of us stepped into the depths behind the "Monster Fish" copper gate. The moment we crossed the threshold, the temperature plummeted by five or six degrees, sending a shiver through all of us.

*Thud!*

Just as we were reeling from the sudden drop in temperature, a deafening sound echoed out, and the gate slammed shut.

"Just as I thought," Ghost-Face Zhang muttered. He didn't look back; instead, he drew the long blade from his back and weighed it in his hand. "Keep close."

We moved in a triangular formation, two in front and one behind. The path inside was carved from jagged mountain rock, spiraling gently downward with a wide, open shaft in the center. The deeper we went, the colder it became. Within minutes, we were trembling, and the frigid air blowing up from below felt like it was piercing our very bones.

*Splash!*

As we navigated the freezing passage, a heavy sound of crashing waves echoed from the bottom of the shaft. A gust of wind, like a sudden atmospheric pressure shift, nearly knocked me off my feet. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the rhythmic surging of the tide stopped.

"Watch out!" Ghost-Face Zhang hissed. He picked up a pebble the size of a fingertip and hurled it into the shaft. Two seconds later, a faint *plop* broke the silence, followed immediately by the sound of churning water—like a pot of dumplings coming to a boil—a frantic, bubbling *shush-shush-shush* that was truly terrifying.

Ghost-Face Zhang frowned and looked at me and Mengya. "We should be at the bottom in half a lap. Stay sharp; don't say I didn't warn you if something goes wrong."

I acknowledged him, adjusting my pants as I prepared for a potential fight or flight. Mengya looked grave, consciously edging closer to me.

Ghost-Face Zhang knelt to tighten his boots and the belt of his leather trousers. He shook out his long black coat, reached back to adjust his scabbard, and then, without hesitation, drew his blade across his own arm, slicing a small cut. *Sss.*

We stared at him in shock. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"Keeping myself sharp. I don't need any sluggishness right now." He licked the blood from the edge of his blade, a truly unsettling sight.

*Clack, clack...*

Just then, the shaft seemed to react to some summons, shaking violently. Then came a loud *whoosh* as another blast of icy wind rushed up from below, just as fierce as the last.

*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!*

Before we could regain our footing, the rock ceiling of the spiral passage began to emit a bizarre sound. We looked up at the edges of the path, and a gasp escaped us. The ceiling was covered in the same mimetic spiders we had seen in the "Endless Corridor," but these were even larger and far more numerous. In an instant, several of them began to drop like rain. Most fell into the dark water of the shaft, but a few landed on the walls of our path. Down in the pit, though we couldn't see anything, we could hear the sound of tearing and shredding, a primal terror rising in our chests.

Ghost-Face Zhang clicked his tongue, lit another cigarette, and cursed, "Damn it, I miscalculated!"

As he exhaled the smoke, the spiders in the tunnel began to screech and chitter. I cursed him under my breath—he knew perfectly well these spiders went berserk at the smell of tobacco, yet he couldn't resist a smoke. Fortunately, the spiral path wasn't too wide, and the spiders that landed near us were small enough for me to handle.