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墨書 Inktalez
The exhilaration of narrowly escaping from the Black Cloud Abyss vanished in an instant, replaced by a denser shroud of darkness that enveloped me. "If I do not enter hell, who will?" I found myself murmuring as I gazed at the Gan Shi.
My senior sister had already jumped down beside me and asked, "What?" Following my gaze, she turned to meet the eyes of the Old Corpse, gasping in shock and nearly slipping to the ground.
I quickly steadied her, but in my haste, I dropped the flashlight. I intended to catch it, but to my surprise, it slipped right through my palm and fell into the unseen depths of the abyss.
Exchanging glances with my senior sister, we both realized that the situation was dire—there was still no bottom in sight?!
She shone the light ahead and discovered that what we thought was "ground" was actually a protruding ledge about fifteen or sixteen meters long and two meters wide on the wall. It was pure luck that I had landed on it—like a stroke of fortune from my ancestors' graves.
As I silently marveled at my good fortune, my senior sister patted my shoulder and gestured for me to look up. Following the beam of light, I was taken aback to see a colossal Buddha statue directly above us. We were currently perched on the bent arm of this Buddha Grandpa.
Her flashlight swept around, revealing that we were in a vast Underground Thousand Buddha Caves! Countless large Buddha Caves lined the towering walls around us. The largest cave housed the very Giant Buddha above our heads, whose arm alone reached at least forty to fifty meters high; beyond that, its height was indeterminate.
I knew little about Buddhism but inferred from common knowledge that if this statue was a seated Buddha, its total height should be around one hundred meters; if it were a standing Buddha, it could easily reach one hundred fifty meters.
I couldn't help but be astonished. The Lushena Buddha in the Luoyang Longmen Grottoes is less than eighteen meters tall; this one’s upper body alone was already three times that length. According to scholarly research, the Lushena Buddha was constructed during the Tang Gaozong era with two thousand strings of cash spent on materials and thousands of laborers over three years and six months.
If this served as a reference point, then the manpower, financial resources, and time consumed in constructing this Underground Thousand Buddha Caves… My goodness, it could rival half of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor!
At that moment when our eyes met, we both stood up in solemn respect. It wasn’t just the awe-inspiring sight of the Underground Thousand Buddha Caves that compelled us to rise; there were even more chilling things lurking within.
In this vast and uneven cavern, every corner held a dark figure of a Gan Shi, seated with its face outward and back inward. The builders of Wanfo Cave had employed some method to ensure that each Gan Shi within the Buddha Cave faced the direction of the Great Buddha. From the perspective of the Great Buddha, no matter which way one looked, the faces of the Gan Shi would always be directed toward him.
It was reminiscent of the smile of the Mona Lisa; no matter from which angle you viewed her, she always seemed to be smiling at you. While both share a certain artistic quality, the latter evoked a far more unsettling feeling.
I couldn't shake off an unpleasant odor, a sickening stench of decay. The Gan Shi behind me resembled a desiccated sausage, surely incapable of emitting any scent now, yet somewhere nearby, there had to be fresher corpses.
Suddenly, I thought about the person dragged away by the Brown Spotted Civet. Could they be hidden within these Buddha Caves? What purpose did these Buddha Caves serve?
I shared my thoughts with my senior sister, but as she listened, her energy seemed to drain away until she suddenly stumbled forward.
"Senior Sister?" I called out, quickly catching her to prevent her from falling. A glance revealed blood streaming from her hand, and I cursed myself for being useless.
Given our limited circumstances, I could only tear off the cleanest piece of cloth I could find to bandage her wound and stop the bleeding. At that moment, I noticed blood at the corner of her mouth. I didn’t recall her being injured or suffering any internal damage. Oddly enough, her lips appeared less bruised than before. Could it be that the poison had naturally dissipated?
No, that was impossible; there was no poison that could resolve itself naturally unless… it was through my blood.
A sudden realization struck me as I recalled spitting blood after being hit by the Heavenly Black Cloud Evil Energy. Perhaps by some twist of fate, a trace of poisoned blood had found its way into my senior sister's mouth, temporarily suppressing the toxicity within her body.
With that thought in mind, I picked up my staff and slid it into my palm before clenching my fist to let a drop of blood fall into her mouth. After about five or six seconds, she slowly opened her eyes. I quickly wiped at the corner of her mouth and asked how she felt.
She frowned and sat up from my embrace. Perhaps feeling nauseous, she clutched her throat as if about to vomit. Seizing this opportunity, I discreetly wrapped my hand behind my back and hastily bandaged myself.
Suddenly, her expression changed as she fixed her gaze on me and said, "You didn’t… do something foolish again, did you?"
I shook my head, "What nonsense?"
My senior sister pulled my right hand out from behind my back, examining both the palm and the back of my hand. Just as she was about to grab my left hand, I quickly clasped her left hand and said, "It's your hand that's bleeding. It got on your mouth, so I wrapped it up for you."
She looked at me with a mix of belief and doubt, her gaze lingering on my left arm. Fearing that she might see through my ruse if she kept looking, I quickly stood up and said, "There's not much time left. Let's proceed as I suggested earlier. I'll go down first to scout the way and call for you when it's safe."
My senior sister weakly nodded and handed me the flashlight along with the only bundle of Safety Rope. I swiftly secured the rope, clipped the flashlight to my belt, and took one last glance at her before riding down the rope.
As I descended, I gradually realized that I was approaching a massive Buddha seated on a Lotus Throne. The closer I got to the Lotus Throne, the easier the path became.
The Lotus Throne had two tiers, each about fifteen meters wide, with a horizontal span estimated to be around thirty to forty meters. Intricate and peculiar patterns were carved into its surface; at first glance, they resembled animals but were not typical creatures. This part looked like one type of animal, while that part resembled another. In short, they were bizarre and unidentifiable.
For instance, what I saw now had a dragon's head, lion's eyes, a tiger's back, a bear's waist, snake scales, horse hooves, and an ox's tail. No matter how you looked at it, it resembled a Qilin mythical beast, yet it had a single horn protruding from its head!
What could this be? A hybrid? A genetic mutation?
As I pondered this, a voice suddenly whispered in my ear, "Xie Zhi, this is Xie Zhi." (To be continued.)
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