"What is this?" Fu Honglang asked, taking a deep breath.
"I don't know..." Mao Guizhi shook her head.
I snapped back to reality, staring at the "person" on the stone meditation cushion. For some reason, as I looked at him, everything around me seemed to slow down.
I didn't know if this feeling was an illusion or something else.
Mao Guizhi took a step forward, but Fu Honglang grabbed her arm: "What are you doing?"
"Going to take a look," Mao Guizhi replied.
Fu Honglang hesitated for a moment, then said, "Follow me."
With that, he led the way towards the center of the plaza.
Soon, the three of us reached the monster. It lay on the ground, completely still.
Passing by the monster, we entered the pavilion. The red light shone on the person on the stone cushion, making him appear somewhat sacred.
As we got closer, I saw clearly that this person had no hair at all, and it was impossible to tell if they were male or female.
A layer of crystal-clear liquid covered their body, slowly dripping downwards.
"This looks like a crystal corpse..." Mao Guizhi said. "But why is it inside that monster's belly?"
"Could that monster be its coffin?" Fu Honglang suggested.
Using a monster as a coffin? It was unheard of.
"Sister-in-law, could this altar have been built for him?" I speculated.
"Highly possible."
"You said earlier that this was an altar for worshipping a god, so does that mean he is..."
Before I could even utter the word "god," the scorpion-like creatures circling overhead began to stir.
They spun around the pavilion, quickly enveloping us within its confines.
Their flight speed was extremely fast, and their numbers were vast.
The "pitter-patter" sound grew louder, and the red light intensified, giving me the illusion of being in another world.
Fu Honglang pulled out his pistol and fired a few shots at the swarm of scorpion-like creatures, but it was as if he were shooting into thin air, with no effect whatsoever.
We looked at each other, while Mao Guizhi had already moved closer to the crystal corpse and was taking out a plastic test tube, intending to collect the liquid.
"We need to find a way out!" Fu Honglang said.
As he spoke, he took a Molotov cocktail from his backpack and was about to ignite it when Mao Guizhi said, "Wait!"
Fu Honglang looked at her in confusion. Mao Guizhi said, "These scorpion-like creatures have strong venom in their bodies. Don't act rashly!"
"Then what do we do now?" Fu Honglang asked, growing anxious.
"They seem to be performing some kind of ritual..."
As soon as Mao Guizhi finished speaking, the entire pavilion began to slowly rotate. Although the speed was very slow, I couldn't help but feel nervous.
What kind of place was this?
Considering the mechanisms encountered so far, how much manpower and resources would it have taken to build them in ancient times?
And that wasn't all; where did these mutated scorpion-like creatures and that monster come from?
Countless unanswerable questions filled my mind...
After about five or six minutes, the scorpion-like creatures' flight speed gradually slowed down.
Then, they dispersed and flew straight towards the ceiling. In a short while, the entire ceiling seemed to be embedded with red gemstones.
The pavilion stopped rotating, and the monster, which had been motionless, actually started to move!
My heart was pounding in my chest, a strong sense of powerlessness and fear spreading through my entire body.
If this monster attacked us, perhaps I would only feel nervous. But from the appearance of these scorpion-like creatures and the monster, they completely ignored the three of us. This feeling made it impossible to know what would happen next.
They were right in front of us, yet we had no idea what they intended to do. That sense of unknown dread was almost suffocating.
The monster slowly retreated into the previous pit, as if it had completed its mission.
At this moment, the liquid on the "person" on the stone cushion had completely receded, revealing skin as white as jade.
The skin was flawless, reminding me of the phrase "so delicate it could be broken by a touch."
As I stared at him, my vision suddenly blurred, and my head felt groggy.
I thought I might have inhaled some poisonous gas and was about to hold my breath when suddenly!
The "person" opened his eyes!
The moment he opened his eyes, all the pores on my body stood on end.
I found myself unable to move, even speaking became difficult.
As our eyes met, those magical eyes made the grogginess in my head worsen.
The scene before me suddenly changed, as if everything around me had been "frame-skipped," and the scene instantly transformed.
For some reason, at this moment, all the fear and shock in my heart disappeared, replaced by an unprecedented sense of peace.
I didn't know where I was; there were no reference points around me.
Even so, I could still think clearly. My thoughts were extremely sharp.
What was going on?
I felt as if I had entered a void, a distorted space.
I couldn't feel my own existence. In other words, my body had lost all sensation, except for my thoughts, I felt nothing.
No touch, no smell, no hearing. The only thing left was sight.
I could see everything around me but feel nothing. This feeling made me extremely uncomfortable.
After an unknown amount of time, I realized my thoughts were becoming chaotic. Finally, my vision went black, and even sight and thought vanished.
...
After another unknown period, I woke up to find light shining on my face.
It wasn't the light of a flashlight, but natural light.
A question suddenly popped into my mind: how could there be natural light?
Slowly opening my eyes, the first thing I saw was a vast blue sky.
I couldn't quite process it. Where was I?
"Brother Xiang!"
A familiar voice called out, and gradually, I regained sensation.
I was lying in a sleeping bag, my mouth dry and my throat burning as if scorched.
Fatty shoved a rubber tube into my mouth. As glucose entered my mouth, I slowly swallowed, and only then did I feel a bit better.
When I fully recovered, I realized I had already come out of the underground palace.
"What... what's going on?" My voice was hoarse beyond recognition.
Fatty looked at me with teary eyes: "Brother Xiang, you're finally awake..."
I turned and looked around. Not far away, Wang Yang was leaning against a tree, and Xiao Liu was applying medicine to him.
"Where are the others?" I asked.
I wanted to know where Fu Honglang and Mao Guizhi were, and how I had gotten out.
"They're still down there," Fatty replied.
"Still down there?" I was taken aback.
Fatty said, "We came out together initially, but then Boss Fu's wife said she forgot something, so they went back. But don't worry, they'll be fine."
"Why?"
Fatty grinned: "Because we found a secret passage that leads directly out, and it's very safe..."
As he was speaking, the entire ground suddenly began to shake, as if an earthquake had struck. Before I could react, a small mountain about a hundred meters away suddenly collapsed!