Book 4: Chapter 65: Conferring Dragons

Book 4: Chapter 65: Conferring Dragons

After telling him my plans, I took out the liquid bandage spray(1) and plastic tape from my bag and began sealing all the skin on my body.

Once I was finished, I told Fatty to continue blocking me from view and prepare for a struggle if I was discovered. Then, I secretly retreated into the darkness. This time, I was delighted to find that the bee man didnt move and didn't seem to notice me at all.

Fatty continued to help block me from view, and when he was almost out of sight, he made a gesture at me which meant: It's up to you.

Holding my breath, I finally retreated completely into the darkness and started climbing the cliff bit by bit.

The tape sealing my nose and mouth had a small gap through which a little air could come through, but I barely breathed as I tried to get as far away as possible.

Once I climbed to the spot where Xiao Hua and I had been chatting before, I looked down and saw the lights below. I pulled my nose free from the tape and took a deep breath.

Fatty immediately coughed below, and I knew that Jin Xingsan must have reacted.

I quickly held my breath again, stopped observing the area, and continued to climb up for about four or five meters. I found a crevice in the rock, stuck my head in, and released the mouthful of air I had been holding.

Fatty's cough didn't come from below, so I knew that I had basically escaped. A refreshing feeling of regaining my freedom suddenly spread throughout my whole body.

The release of this pressure cleared away a lot of the fatigue I was feeling, so I adjusted my breathing, loaded my gun with ammo, and continued to climb.Updated from novelbIn.(c)om

The area was getting darker and darker, so I turned on a very dim light that sat at my neckline. It normally looked like a button, but it was actually a small light that ran on a button battery.

The light could only illuminate up to a distance of about one meter, but in fact, all I could see were the shadows within that range. Any details pertaining to those shadows were completely incomprehensible. It felt more like using the indicator light on a walkie-talkie to illuminate your way.

I climbed all the way up until the darkness above was like a real entity. That was when I knew that I had finally reached the top. The area above actually contained a pile of corpses, so I made my light a little brighter and looked at it using my peripheral vision. I saw that the pile of corpses almost reached the top and the ones that were embedded in the cracks and depressions in the rock were all ancient.

There were bronze chains everywhere at the top and the bronze censer was located at the center of them. I reached out and cautiously touched a bronze chain; it seemed like I could climb on it.

In this position, I listened carefully to see if I could hear any signs of Xiao Hua and Poker-Face. When I didnt hear any sounds at all, I felt a trace of anxiety surge up in my heart.

I climbed to the top of the bronze censer and carefully climbed on top of its body, but it started shaking, which immediately caused the chains to make a rattling sound.

I tried my best to keep the shaking to a minimum as I slowly climbed to the area directly above the bronze censers opening and used my peripheral vision to look inside.

I found that the censer was filled with a liquid that was completely black. There was an ancient corpse soaking in it that was completely leatherized, but its skin was still white, unlike other leatherized corpses which were generally purple.

This ancient corpse had originally been wearing an outfit made of gold-threaded silk, but now all the silk was rotten and looked blackened, which made it hard to see what it originally looked like.

The corpse also wore a black, purple, and gold crown with gems on it that reflected the light in bright pink, yellow, green, and blue colors. It was probably the local colored quartz here.

This was a female corpse, which must have been a sacrifice to the dragon god at that time. I couldnt believe that a corpse from thousands of years ago was so well preserved.

I turned my button light up to its maximum setting, looked carefully, and saw that this female corpses fingers were very long. There was a possibility that she was related to the Zhang family. I also noticed that her chest under the water looked like it was still moving up and down, but the way it was moving didnt seem like she was breathing.

I touched my flashlight, thought about it for a second, and then turned it on, immediately illuminating the whole underwater situation. The female corpse was pale and scary, and when the flashlight came on, I saw the body suddenly twist.

At the same time, I also saw that there were two pipa locks(2) on the corpses shoulders, which locked it in the bronze censer. The corpses skin still had a lot of spots that were decaying, so I could see that metal rods had been pierced through the corpse's skin.

This was a protective cage that was made with a living person. The so-called "protective cage" was something that was usually used to catch snakes and fish, and there were barbs at the entrance so that the prey couldnt get out once it went in. Based on the corpses pained expression, the metal rods in her body interspersed to form a kind of hidden cage under her skin. They had pierced her with these metal rods when she was alive, put the pipa locks on her, locked her in the bronze censer, and put her inside this cave, using her body to catch something.

Her stomach was now moving up and down, so did that mean she was still holding onto whatever she had caught? Did this cage still work?

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TN Notes:

(1) I was not aware this was a thing but apparently its a topical skin treatment for minor cuts and sores. The mixture of chemicals create a polymeric layer which binds to the skin (like a spray on band-aid). Could also be called pflaster-spray.

(2) A pipa is a Chinese lute with 4 strings, a large pear-shaped body, and a fretted fingerboard. According to google sensei, a pipa lock could look something like this: