Chapter 136: A Narrow Escape

When people are in a state of panic, their consciousness is also affected by the surrounding environment, leading to fear and tension. Under normal circumstances, the brain fails to focus or think clearly, but some people remain even calmer the greater the obstacles they face.

Chi Tan looked anxiously at Zhang Qinglin and said, "There is no way out, Brother Xiaolin. We can't escape this time. What should we do?"

Zhang Qinglin tightly gripped the long saber in his hand, turned his face to look at the arrow carved on the stone wall, and suddenly heard a woman's shout coming from overhead. Zhang Qinglin knew this voice all too well; it belonged to Jiang Xinyue.

"It's Sister Xinyue! They are up there!" Chi Tan said, joyfully raising his head and pointing toward the cave ceiling.

The two of them then searched for an exit at the end of the underground river, but to no avail. Hearing the footsteps on the cave ceiling fading away, Chi Tan leaned against the stone wall, looked up at the ceiling in despair, and said to Zhang Qinglin, "Brother Xiaolin, actually, I did something to let you down..."

Before Chi Tan could finish his sentence, Zhang Qinglin discovered a circular button on the stone wall marked with the arrow. He pressed it, and a stone door slid upward.

Not hearing the rest of Chi Tan's words, Zhang Qinglin exclaimed, "Chi Tan, we need to catch up with them quickly."

The two-headed snake had already poked its head out of the underground river. Zhang Qinglin grabbed the backpack from Chi Tan's hand and pulled him into the cave entrance.

The two-headed snake lunged fiercely forward. Stumbling, the two ran ahead as the stone door behind them slammed shut with a heavy crash, followed by the sound of a violent impact.

Zhang Qinglin and Chi Tan did not know how long they had been running. In the pitch-black cave, they never seemed to reach the end, which struck Zhang Qinglin as highly unusual. Breathing heavily, he told Chi Tan to find the flashlight.

Chi Tan replied that the flashlight had been dropped while running, but there was still a box of matches in the bag.

The two struck a match and illuminated the path ahead—long and silent.

Chi Tan glanced back in the direction they had come from and said, bewildered, "Did we take the wrong turn? Judging by Sister Xinyue's voice, they were above the cave, but aren't we walking further and further away now?"

Zhang Qinglin had no idea what was going on either.

With a faint smile, he said, "Once we get out of this cave, we'll find them."

Not daring to linger, Zhang Qinglin found a stick in the cave, made a torch, and lit their way forward.

After walking for half an hour, a brightly lit cavern appeared within the lengthy cave.

Extinguishing the torch, Zhang Qinglin and Chi Tan walked inside. The walls of this cave were made entirely of rock, and to their astonishment, the surface of the rock walls was covered with mysterious, blue-glowing bio-organisms.

Clinging tightly to the surface of the rock wall were blue, pearl-like spheres the size of soybeans, emitting a faint blue light. Some of the spheres were turbid, but together their numbers added up.

The rock walls on both sides were densely packed with them; even someone without trypophobia would feel their skin crawl at the sight.

While these glowing blue pearls could hardly be described as picturesque, seeing them arranged in rows or lines felt like countless intricate blue circuits.

Staring at Zhang Qinglin, Chi Tan asked, "What kind of biomass is this? Did these things grow out of the rock?"

Zhang Qinglin felt like he had some impression of this in his mind. After pondering for a moment, he said, "I haven't seen this in real life, but I once heard Uncle Jiang talk about some magical underground experiences of tomb raiders."

Zhang Qinglin then began to recount a bizarre anecdote told by Uncle Jiang.

During the Ming Dynasty, there was a tomb raider named Zhang Wu. He had a friend who was particularly passionate about studying soil and geology. This friend had also assisted high-ranking officials and nobles in surveying and selecting burial sites, as well as researching useful geographical materials, and had descended into quite a few mine shafts and tombs.

However, his very last job was working for the imperial palace, which was extremely rigorous. From entering the palace to reaching the designated survey site, the entire process was arranged by a eunuch close to the emperor, along with a total of eight underground work masters, including his friend.

Following the underground passage managed by the eunuch, they entered that dim underground world. As soon as they caught sight of the dark space, they smelled a strange, unfamiliar scent of soil. They began their survey, just as they started picking up their tools.

Suddenly, from the dug-out dark hole behind them, a blue-glowing, python-like creature stretched out a long limb, fiercely entangling three of them and dragging them inside. Those three never came out again.

This sudden turn of events terrified the rest of the group out of their wits. Meanwhile, his friend noticed some dark blue, sparkling, sand-like particles left behind where the long limb had dragged the victims.

This was a major discovery; he had never seen such a substance above ground or in mine shafts. He slowly approached the dark hole, and the bolder members of the group followed closely behind.

Following those sparkling, dark blue sand particles along the stone wall, they arrived at a very large space. What met their eyes on the stone walls were things just like these blue pearls, when suddenly someone shouted from behind, "It's a monster!"

Before that person could turn around, he was already ensnared by a tentacle growing from the head of the colossal beast and dragged away.

The remaining people were too terrified to make a sound, holding their breath and staring with wide eyes at the giant monster before them.

Judging by what his friend saw and deduced, it was a colossal creature with countless long limbs, possessing subphyla of jaws and two sharp tooth-horns. Its body was covered in a layer of dark blue substance, adsorbing onto the creature like sand grains. The person who had been ensnared was already delivered right to the monster's mouth.

However, it did not eat him; instead, it used its tooth-horns to split the person in two and placed him before the gigantic blue pearls beside it. Before long, the person was absorbed by the entities inside the pearls.

Seeing the bloody intestines still hanging from those tooth-horns, the faces of the few remaining people turned as pale as earth, and they all desperately wanted to escape this extremely dangerous place.

"Chi Tan, I suddenly feel that the creature we are looking at right now is just like the one seen by that person in the strange tale Uncle Jiang told," Zhang Qinglin signaled to Chi Tan with a look, letting him know they were likely in a very dangerous situation.

Chi Tan, completely engrossed in the story, was mentally sketching the shape of the giant monster.

Then, startled back to reality, he blurted out, "Brother Xiaolin, you don't mean a mutated giant house centipede!"

Just as Zhang Qinglin was deep in thought, a strange "slashing, tearing" sound came from directly overhead.

"Plop," a blob of viscous liquid landed right on his hair. Zhang Qinglin rolled his eyes upward and reached out to grab a handful. It was sticky, laced with blue blood filaments, and reeked with a nauseating stench.

Almost vomiting, Zhang Qinglin flung the sticky liquid off his hand.

Chi Tan's expression shifted slightly. As he had been completely engrossed in Zhang Qinglin's story just moments before, his heel had brushed against a blue pearl on the rock wall, causing it to slide down to the ground, where Chi Tan accidentally stepped on it.

Feeling a sticky sensation beneath his sole, he glanced down at his feet just as he heard movement behind him.

His gaze then locked onto those blue pearls, and he slowly raised his head to look at the rock walls on both sides once more. The higher he looked, the larger the blue pearls became, and the turbid blue objects inside slowly began to take shape.

When Zhang Qinglin slowly raised his head to look upward, both he and Chi Tan were struck with horror.

At the very top of the rock wall, those oversized blue pearls were crawling rapidly one by one. All of these blue pearls were converging toward a single focal point, emitting a fluctuating blue light reminiscent of jellyfish in the deep ocean.

When their gazes shifted to the middle of the cave ceiling, a moving, dark blue, miniature monster was slowly crawling downward along the rock wall.

Squinting sideways, Chi Tan looked at Zhang Qinglin, who was not far away, and said, "Brother Xiaolin, this thing is moving!"

Watching the dark blue, writhing monster creep toward them, Zhang Qinglin patted Chi Tan, signaling him not to speak and to follow him in retreating from the cave immediately.

Terrified and trembling at the rapid crawling speed of the monster, Chi Tan watched as the creeping miniature monster grew larger and larger, about to crawl right beside him.

Looking away to avoid seeing it, Chi Tan took trembling steps backward.

At that moment, a strange sound—"gurgle, gurgle, gurgle"—erupted from behind the writhing dark blue monster.

A long, furry tentacle shot out like lightning right next to Chi Tan, wrapping around his waist from behind and instantly dragging him forward. Chi Tan screamed in terror, "Ah..."

Turning his head abruptly, Zhang Qinglin saw a colossal blue monster suddenly surging out from the rock wall before him. The monster's jaw subphylum and two sharp tooth-horns extended from the rock face, while countless long limbs swung and danced wildly.

Suspended mid-air, Chi Tan struggled incessantly.

Following that, countless large blue pearls on the cave ceiling were slowly gliding toward the giant monster.

The giant monster slowly detached itself from the stone wall, leaving its body's blue viscous liquid smeared all over the ground, and lunged toward Zhang Qinglin with its countless extending limbs.

Dodging the giant monster's limbs, Zhang Qinglin saw Chi Tan about to be dragged into the giant monster's maw.

With a rolling motion, Zhang Qinglin twisted and leaped to the right, gripping his long saber, intending to sever the long limb holding Chi Tan.

Just then, however, a long limb slithered across the ground and suddenly coiled around Zhang Qinglin's thigh, hoisting him entirely into the air.

"It's so disgusting! Brother Xiaolin, how are you?" Chi Tan asked, hanging near the monster's mouth after being splattered all over with the monster's revolting blue fluid, as he opened his eyes and saw Zhang Qinglin suspended on the side.

Waving his long saber, Zhang Qinglin shouted, "Chi Tan, does this monster's secretion have a special smell?"

Shaking his head, Chi Tan replied, "Brother Xiaolin, when is it, and you're still worrying about that?"

Swinging the long saber in his hand, Zhang Qinglin hacked at the giant monster's long limb. When the blade struck, blue liquid sprayed from the cut. Unable to care about anything else, he slashed with all his might, cleaving the limb wrapped around his leg cleanly in two.

The giant house centipede flailed from side to side and abruptly released its grip on Zhang Qinglin's leg.

With a shudder, Zhang Qinglin broke free from the tentacle, then flipped and leaped directly in front of the giant centipede, engaging it in a head-to-head battle.

With a single strike of his blade, he batted an incoming long limb heavily against the side rock wall, shattering rows of blue pearls and sending them cascading to the ground. The giant centipede, however, showed no weakness despite being slashed countless times by the flurry of blows.

Constriction tightening around Chi Tan, the centipede whipped out dozens of its legs to attack Zhang Qinglin.

Defending with his left hand and attacking with his right, Zhang Qinglin had expected this disgusting giant centipede to release Chi Tan, but instead, it hurled Chi Tan violently against the rock wall.

Bouncing off the rock wall and crashing onto the ground, Chi Tan spat a mouthful of fresh blood, his eyes rolling back as he was dragged away on the verge of death.

"Chi Tan, how are you? Pull yourself together! Don't you dare fall asleep! This thing is afraid of fire—where are the matches?!" Panicking, Zhang Qinglin rushed toward the backpack to rummage through it for the box of matches.

As Chi Tan was slammed against the ground yet again, Zhang Qinglin struck a match with trembling hands. Looking up, he saw countless long limbs swaying and flailing before him.

Momentarily dazed by the sight, Zhang Qinglin watched as a long limb lunged straight toward his chest. He hurled the nearly burned-out matchstick directly at those writhing appendages.

The moment the dying spark touched the blue tentacles, the formed blue pearls instantly exploded and splattered like shattering brains, countless gathered blue pearls erupting into a blinding flash of light.

Zhang Qinglin felt only a sheet of pure white before his eyes; rocks, walls, and everything else in the cave were completely swallowed by the whiteness.

He plunged into a blank void of absolute silence, devoid of any sound, so much so that even his own breathing became faint.

Suddenly, right in the center of the whiteness, a small black hole appeared, accompanied by the return of sound.

"Brother Xiaolin, wake up! Sister Xinyue, what should we do?" Chi Tan's voice echoed in Zhang Qinglin's ears.

In an instant, Zhang Qinglin felt a wave of intense discomfort in his head and a surge of sour fluid rising in his chest.

Leaning forward, he opened his eyes and retched a couple of times, though nothing came out. Surrounded by bright light, he found himself leaning against the stone wall in a corner.

"Brother, how do you feel?" Jiang Xinyue asked with concern.

Seeing that Zhang Qinglin had regained consciousness, Chi Tan hurriedly rushed to his side, handed him a pouch of water, and said happily, "Brother Xiaolin, you're finally awake! That fall of yours scared the soul right out of me!"

"I'm fine, don't worry!"

Taking a couple of sips of water, Zhang Qinglin looked at Jiang Xinyue and Chi Tan and said.