"What's going on?" the fat man asked me, looking bewildered.
I wasn't sure either. I shared my guess: "Could something be stuck down there?"
"Possibly, what do we do now?" the fat man asked.
I looked at the other three and hesitated before saying, "How about I go down to check the situation."
"You go down?" the fat man was taken aback.
I gave a wry smile, "What else can we do? Of us, I reckon I'm the only one with good swimming skills."
The three of them were all from the north, so their swimming skills naturally couldn't match mine as a southerner.
When I was little, I used to play in the reservoir near my home. That reservoir was at least three hundred meters wide, and I could swim back and forth without even getting out of breath.
I decided to go down and check. The fat man then took out a rope from his backpack and tied it around my waist. I lit a glow stick and leaped into the water.
The water wasn't cold; it was just right, actually quite comfortable to be in.
Once in the water, I quickly saw something snagged beneath the boat. As I got closer, I realized it was a corpse.
Even though I had prepared myself mentally before going into the water, expecting that it was highly likely there would be a corpse, seeing it for real still made my heart pound.
I averted my gaze from the corpse, gritted my teeth, and used my knife to try and free the backpack that was snagging the boat.
However, I discovered I couldn't cut through it. Upon closer inspection, I realized there was a wire mesh underwater, and the boat was caught on it.
No wonder the corpse was stuck there without moving.
A single dagger wouldn't be enough to get through the wire mesh. I quickly grabbed the rope and went up.
But as I pushed off, my pants got snagged on something. I turned my head and saw a pair of eyes staring intently at me!
I was so scared I instantly lost my breath, nearly choking!
The corpse had somehow drifted behind me!
For a moment, my mind went blank. The sight was too terrifying.
I quickly pushed the corpse away with my hands, not caring about anything else. I gritted my teeth and gave a strong tug, tearing my pants. I then grabbed the rope and surfaced.
"Quick! Pull me up!"
My heart was pounding, and my whole body was trembling uncontrollably.
It was too damn scary!
The fat man quickly pulled me up and asked what was wrong.
I took a few breaths to calm myself before explaining the situation below.
"Wire mesh?" Jiang Lingxi said, "It seems this wire mesh was likely a protective measure set up by those Japanese devils earlier."
"Protective measure? Protecting what?" the fat man asked.
"Look at how strong the current is. Without the wire mesh below, if the boat lost control, it could have accelerated forward uncontrollably."
Jiang Lingxi paused and then said, "From what I can see, there's definitely a waterfall ahead."
"Then how do we proceed?" the fat man asked.
Jiang Lingxi replied, "We just need to go around the wire mesh. We'll pull on the chain and backtrack a bit."
"Alright."
Following Jiang Lingxi's plan, we pulled on the chain to move the boat back a bit. We changed direction and continued forward using the old method, thus bypassing the wire mesh.
After about an hour of moving forward, we heard the sound of rushing water.
Shining our flashlight, we saw that there was indeed a waterfall not far away. We didn't know how high it was because we stopped the boat before getting too close.
"We can't go any further," I said. "We don't know how high that waterfall is. If we rashly move forward, the boat could go over and capsize, and we'd all be in trouble."
The fat man, looking exhausted, asked, "Then should we head back now?"
I thought for a moment, "Yes, let's go back. When we get to the wire mesh area later, we'll find a way to pull up that corpse. We can take it back to report."
"Ah?" the fat man looked helpless. "Didn't we agree to look for an exit down here?"
"This is just a precaution. Let's get the corpse to where we came down, and then we'll check out the west side," I said.
The fat man replied, "Alright, let's go back."
Coming here only required one person to control the speed, but going back, even three people pulling the chain was strenuous.
Eventually, Jiang Lingxi also came to help. With the four of us working together, we were finally able to slowly head back.
By the time we finally reached the wire mesh area again, everyone was already quite exhausted.
The fat man said, "Let's rest for a bit. I can't pull anymore, my hands are about to break."
I nodded and took out some water and bread from my backpack, distributing them to everyone.
"Xiang Fei, you said this place isn't very dangerous, so how did the people who came down before..." Jiang Lingxi started to say, but then her pupils suddenly widened. Her eyes were fixed on me as if I had turned into a vengeful spirit.
Before I could react, the fat man yelled, "Damn it!"
"Bang!" A gunshot echoed through the cave.
The fat man's sudden shot stunned me.
As I turned my head, I heard a "sizzling" sound. It was faint, but it still hurt my eardrums.
With a "plop," something fell into the water.
"What's going on?!" I asked.
The fat man said, "Master Xiang, I'm afraid we've encountered the Bat King this time!"
Before I could understand what the fat man meant, the thing that had fallen into the water suddenly leaped out of it.
A bat over a meter tall flew out of the water. Its wingspan was at least three to four meters long, like a wall rising into the air!
Most importantly, the bat looked remarkably human-like, and its eyes glowed with green light!
The fat man didn't say another word and fired two shots at the giant bat.
Since the distance wasn't very far, both shots hit. The giant bat fell back into the water, thrashing, sending splashes all over us. I could faintly smell blood.
The bat thrashed in the water for a while before it finally calmed down and quickly drifted away with the current.
Just as I breathed a sigh of relief, the fat man suddenly shouted at me, "Master Xiang, get down!!"
Hearing this, I instinctively scrambled forward. I felt something fly over my head at an incredible speed.
As I dropped down, Jiang Feng wasn't quick enough and was instantly snatched up by the bat like a chick.
He was swinging the steel pipe in his hand, constantly poking the giant bat.
Unexpectedly, there was a pair of these bats!
This was terrible. The one the fat man had shot earlier was probably its mate, and it had returned for revenge!
In an instant, Jiang Feng was grabbed and flown more than ten meters away.
The bat, carrying Jiang Feng, flew towards the cave wall, clearly intending to smash him against it!