Ye Tiancheng and the little fox waited by the lake for a while. Fortunately, they eventually saw Fatty gradually swimming back. They could clearly see Fatty's figure underwater from the lakeshore.
However, before Ye Tiancheng and the little fox could completely relax, their expressions changed drastically in an instant. "Fatty, hurry up and get out! Be careful of danger behind you, don't look back!"
"Brother Fatty, swim faster, hurry up and get out! Something is following you, don't look back, swim quickly! Oh my god! It's so big, what is that thing? Are there such terrifying fish underwater!"
The little fox also anxiously shouted towards Fatty's reflection in the water. They couldn't help him in any way now. The best thing was for Fatty to swim quickly. Fortunately, Fatty himself didn't encounter any accidents. With a little more effort, he quickly broke the surface and returned to the lakeshore.
After swimming out of the water, Fatty collapsed on the lakeshore, gasping for breath. As for the black shadow that had been chasing him underwater, it had turned around and swam back underwater when it was still some distance from the surface, then disappeared without a trace.
Ye Tiancheng and the little fox were both on the lakeshore. Neither of them could clearly see what kind of creature the black shadow was. They only knew that the black shadow was of that size. Judging from its shadow underwater, it was more than ten times larger than Fatty's figure. It was easy to imagine it was an extremely dangerous existence. Indeed, the water hid dangers, and investigating it was not an easy matter.
"My god! What on earth was that? Brother Ye, little fox, did you both see it? Did you get a clear look at what was following me? It was too terrifying. I'm afraid if it opened its mouth, I wouldn't even be enough to fill its teeth!"
After Fatty finally caught his breath, he asked Ye Tiancheng and the little fox, still shaken. He was truly terrified, never expecting to encounter such a thing.
When he was investigating underwater earlier, he kept diving down and didn't encounter anything unusual. The underwater was very calm, but the lake water was too deep for him to dive any further. So, he decided to return and discuss with Ye Tiancheng and the little fox about what to do next.
Unexpectedly, after swimming back for only a short while, he vaguely felt a violent water flow fluctuation behind him. He mustered up his courage and looked back, only to see a huge black shadow, a colossal creature, charging towards him.
In such a situation, how could Fatty dare to look any further? If he looked again, his life would be gone. He could only swim back with all his might, striving to reach the shore as quickly as possible.
It was truly fortunate that he was lucky and swam fast enough. Although the colossal creature chasing him was huge, its swimming speed was average. If not for this, the underwater was not a human's battlefield at all. Fatty estimated that he might have almost become fish food.
"When I realized I was being chased, I was just about to swim back. I had dived a bit deep and didn't dare to look closely, nor did I have time to see what it looked like. Was it a fish, or some monster? It was too big, too terrifying. I almost lost my life!"
Ye Tiancheng looked at Fatty, who had narrowly escaped. His pale face, which had been scared, finally softened. As for the little fox, he was truly worried and felt a lingering fear for Fatty.
"We couldn't see clearly either. That thing kept chasing you, but when it was still some distance from the surface, it stopped chasing you and turned back into the water. We can only tell that its size was huge; we couldn't see anything more."
Fatty was so angry that he almost couldn't breathe. It wasn't because his brothers weren't strong enough to see what monster was chasing him, but rather he hated himself for not daring to look back at the last moment.
"What? It stopped chasing from behind? If I had known it wouldn't approach the surface and was about to come out, I would have looked back again. Maybe I could have figured out what that thing was. Alas, it's such a pity."
Ye Tiancheng immediately slapped Fatty on the back of his head with annoyance. "Alright, stop talking nonsense. In that situation, being able to save your life is good enough. You still wanted to look back?"
"Didn't I tell you to prioritize your own life? What if? The situation was so dangerous just now, what if that thing saw you stop swimming and chased out? What would you do then, and what would we do? You just love to talk, nothing is more important than your life, do you understand?"
Fatty was reprimanded and felt embarrassed. He knew he was in the wrong, and this was not something to joke about. He could only scratch the back of his head helplessly. "Hey, I didn't look back, I was just saying it verbally... I was so scared at the time, my soul almost left me. How could I dare to remember to look back..."
"But this lake is really deep. I estimate I only dived halfway, so we probably can't go down. This is difficult. You know, people have limits."
"The deeper you dive, the higher the water pressure. Now we can't use our cultivation, nor can we use other abilities. We are like ordinary people, unable to go down. If that stone is in this lake, and if it's in the center of the lake, then there's no hope for this matter!"
Hearing Fatty's sigh, Ye Tiancheng felt both helpless and worried. This was indeed a troublesome matter, but Ye Tiancheng did not believe that there was no solution.
In this world, all matters should have a solution; there are absolutely no unsolvable mysteries. Moreover, even if there was no path, Ye Tiancheng had to find one himself. For Nuwa Stone, for Hou Mingzhu and his daughter, he could not be confined here, nor could he implicate his brothers.
"No matter where that stone brought us, or where it hid itself, this matter should not be completely without a solution; it's just that we haven't discovered it yet."
"Currently, on the surface, we cannot go down into the lake. But if that stone is really in the lake, either its location is not that deep, or it's definitely not in the center of the lake. Or, we can still find other ways to go down, or that stone is still in a place we never expected, but we just haven't noticed it."
Although this matter seemed too hopeless, out of trust in Ye Tiancheng, Fatty and the little fox still chose to believe Ye Tiancheng's judgment.
Since Ye Tiancheng felt there would still be a way, then there must be a way. They just hadn't found this way yet. However, they should hurry. They had been here for a long time, and if they couldn't leave, problems might arise outside.
Ye Tiancheng was even more worried. He had been away from home for several days, and he hadn't been able to go back to see his daughter. He also couldn't contact Hou Mingzhu. If anything happened to his daughter, Ye Tiancheng would feel guilty for life and deeply regret it. If there was anything Ye Tiancheng feared most now, it was that his daughter Ye Qingcheng might encounter something.
"Brother Ye, what should we do now? We can't go into the water, and there are such terrifying monsters living in the water. If we accidentally encounter one, it will be really over."
The little fox asked Ye Tiancheng with great worry. Of course, he was not questioning Ye Tiancheng, but rather trying to find a solution. He was not afraid of facing danger with Ye Tiancheng and Fatty. Compared to that, he was more afraid of being abandoned by Ye Tiancheng and Fatty. He would rather fall into danger with Ye Tiancheng and Fatty, unable to escape.
However, the little fox knew that this kind of thought was being influenced by something in this place. He might have had such a thought himself, but it couldn't be so strong.
Moreover, his fundamental desire was not to leave, but not to wish harm upon Ye Tiancheng and Fatty. Therefore, the little fox suppressed this thought in his heart and never mentioned it to Ye Tiancheng and Fatty. He just pretended he never had these messy thoughts.
"There's no point in thinking about going into the water anymore. However, I still feel something strange. I think I might have discovered something," Ye Tiancheng said hesitantly.
"When Fatty went down earlier, I was very worried about him, fearing that Fatty might have some accident. And I thought that there might be some troublesome monsters at the bottom of this lake. Although this was probably a reasonable guess, it actually happened."
"Moreover, I also had thoughts like whether there would be wild beasts in the forest, whether this lake was abnormal, whether you and the little fox would encounter danger here, and so on. And these thoughts all came true one by one."
"This makes people feel very strange. I've carefully recalled all the thoughts I've had since I came here, all the things I've seen, and the chronological order of these thoughts appearing and these things happening. I vaguely feel that something is a little wrong."
Ye Tiancheng suddenly had these suspicions in his heart. He thought a lot in his mind. Some deeper thoughts he couldn't be sure of, and some parts, once confirmed, would mean he absolutely couldn't tell Fatty and the little fox standing in front of him, so he kept them in his heart without saying them out loud.
However, for the parts that could be spoken, Ye Tiancheng spoke frankly to Fatty and the little fox, seriously explaining and analyzing them.
"You tell me, is it this lake that has a problem, or something else? Or, are all the things we are seeing now really real? Are the things that are happening here real or just illusions and phantoms? We speculated at the beginning, because we couldn't determine if this was an illusion, right?"
As for the parts that were not spoken, Ye Tiancheng looked at Fatty and the little fox with a calm and composed expression. Although he didn't speak out his guesses, he couldn't help but wonder in his heart, if everything in this place was fake, and just happened to fit his fantasies, then were Fatty and the little fox in front of him also real?