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墨書 Inktalez
To escape the invasion of the Black Demon Cloud, we had to constantly change our direction. Rarely did we walk in a straight line between two points; instead, we wound our way forward, barely escaping with our lives, and no one had the presence of mind to look up. As we crawled, we unexpectedly found ourselves on the right side of the Ancient Guge Silver Eye, near its two outstretched arms.
Due to the significant curvature of the arms and the protruding parts of the statue's body, it was easier for us to find footholds and climb upward. Subconsciously, we began to drift further to the right, gradually arriving at the side of the Ancient Guge Silver Eye, giving us a clear view of Gan Shi seated in meditation within the Buddha Cave behind us.
I had never imagined that I would witness my own corpse. Even in those bizarre dreams I once had, I never envisioned such a strange and eerie sight.
The body of my senior sister lay less than an arm's length above me in the Buddha Cave, and I found it difficult to express my feelings at that moment—surprise, fear, doubt, disbelief... all mingled together. Yet ultimately, I could not accept that my senior sister had ended her young life here, even wearing the same clothes she had on now.
It felt like a silent yet powerful curse and prophecy, clearly telling us: don’t waste your efforts; this time you’re doomed! What could be more convincing than seeing your own corpse?
I was nearly suffocated by despair. Had I known I would die in this dark hell filled with ghosts and monsters, I would have preferred to be bitten to death by Ditouqing countless times, fall off a cliff, be choked by a zombie, suffocate on meat, or even simply be killed by Yue Master when I was five.
My mind raced through various scenes of past narrow escapes from death. With so many ways to die available to me, why did I have to choose this one? Truly, when there was a path before me, I refused to walk it; when there was no door to hell, I still chose to enter!
Just then, Old Qiao's voice suddenly jolted me awake: “Hey, strange... why aren’t there any of our corpses? Didn’t A Si Girl see Dui Ali’s corpse?”
My senior sister pointed with one hand toward the Buddha Cave behind the left side of the Ancient Guge Silver Eye: “Their bodies are over there!”
As soon as she finished speaking, a loud rumble echoed through the air as a mass of Black Demon Cloud, about the size of a car wheel, surged through a gap on the right side of the Ancient Guge Silver Eye and crashed into the area she had indicated. Instantly, five or six corpses were blown out of the Buddha Cave and turned into swirling black ashes mid-air before slowly drifting down to the ground.
Everyone was momentarily dumbfounded, staring in shock. After a long pause, my junior brother finally said: “What the hell... did they just explode?”
A Li chimed in: “So does this mean... are we dead or not?”
The junior disciple exclaimed, "Idiot! Of course, they're dead!" Suddenly, he shook his head. "No, no, there's a saying: when alive, one must see the living; when dead, one must see the corpse. Now that there isn't even a body left, it means we can't be dead! Even Yama can't take us; we’ve become black accounts on Yama's ledger!"
At that moment, Old Qiao interjected, "I wouldn't be so sure. We entered this threshold of life and death almost simultaneously, so the scenes we witness should be quite similar. Our corpses should be akin to A Si Girl's. If we delve deeper into it, since Dui Ali and I arrived a step ahead of you all, our corpses in this liminal space ought to be fresher and younger than yours. The concept of life and death is intertwined here—once you step into this place, you are essentially already dead. When you truly die, the corpses on Buddha Cave will resurrect—this is a place for borrowing souls! A Si Girl wants to borrow a corpse!"
The senior sister's applause echoed from above. "What an insightful old man! I’m not saying you're too old to be useful for much longer; I actually want to get you in there to prevent you from ruining my good fortune!" As she spoke, her clothes and skin began to shrink rapidly, tightening around her bones like dried bark. Long purple-red nails sprouted from her fingers and toes, resembling a gecko lying flat.
I could hardly believe my eyes; my scalp tingled as my heart raced with terror!
It was an extremely desiccated, twisted, and grotesque face. Apart from the eyes and teeth, the rest of the features were barely recognizable. The face seemed as if it had been sliced diagonally from forehead to chin with a knife, forming an almost sixty-degree inward slope. The skin looked like an unused washboard—uneven and warped—yet severely distorted as if countless worms were crawling beneath it. With each movement, blackened skin would flake off... I swear, it gave me goosebumps all over.
The most horrifying part followed: its eyes resembled those of a rat but sparkled with a sinister gleam. Its long teeth were sharp like those of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, prominently exposed as if it had no lips or chin. With every breath it took, a stream of foul black mucus dripped from its teeth onto the Bronze Buddha statue below, instantly transforming into a thumb-sized wailing infant. But in the next moment, the baby's cries ceased and turned into a pool of putrid water bubbling with white foam.
Old Qiao couldn't help but exclaim, "This is what they call the Mouth Baby... An infant born only to die immediately; upon death, it turns into deadly poison. If any mortal touches even a speck of it—like a flake of dandruff—they will instantly perish! This Female Zombie must have at least ten thousand years of cultivation!"
The junior disciple cursed, "Damn! That's impressive! I knew this old hag was no good! What do you think? Let me take care of this!"
A Li shouted urgently from below, "You two stop it! Find somewhere to hide quickly!"
We were currently at the center of Ancient Guge Silver Eye; there was nowhere to hide!
As I pondered this, suddenly Old Qiao shouted. I looked up just in time to see a dark figure plummeting straight toward me without giving me any time to react. Both Old Qiao and I fell from fifty or sixty meters high.
In that split second before Old Qiao crashed down on me, my mind surprisingly remained clear. I hurriedly used my staff to slide up toward Ancient Guge Silver Eye, which gave us some cushioning effect so that when my back hit the ground, it felt like I had broken something but actually hadn’t.
In addition to that, there was a crucial factor: we happened to fall onto the plump and soft body of the Brown Spotted Civet, giving it a chance to serve the people.
Human luck is truly unpredictable. Sometimes, you feel like you're experiencing bad luck, but in reality, you might be walking into good fortune; otherwise, your situation would surely be worse than it is now. As the saying goes, misfortune may be a blessing in disguise, and fortune may hide within misfortune. Who knows if losing a horse could actually be a blessing?
Just as I was reflecting with Old Qiao on how surviving great calamities must lead to future blessings, a wailing baby was born at our feet. (To be continued.)
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