The red eye was filled with pulsating blood vessels, looking extraordinarily eerie. As soon as I made eye contact with it, I suddenly felt as if my soul was being pulled away, overwhelmed by a strong sense of nausea and dizziness, and I quickly turned my face away.

However, Liang Shiye seemed possessed, his eyes fixed on that blood-red eye, completely motionless. I called out to him a couple of times, but there was no response.

Liang Shiye had mentioned that the “Candle of Nine Yin” had an eye that connected to hell, and I knew something was definitely wrong. I quickly scooped up a handful of water and splashed it toward him.

But I didn’t know if the Candle of Nine Yin had suddenly leaned forward or what, that handful of water ended up splashing onto its head instead of Liang Shiye.

The splash startled the Candle of Nine Yin, and it closed its eyes, retracting its snake head as if preparing to attack. I hurriedly pressed myself behind a bronze tree, and the snake’s head slammed into the bronze tree, bending all its branches. At that moment, I remembered the backpack I had taken from “Old Yang”; it might have some weapons inside. I quickly turned the backpack around.

It definitely didn’t have a gun, but I recalled there were a few detonators they originally used to blow up tomb walls. Now that I was unarmed, having something with a bit of power to intimidate would be good.

The Candle of Nine Yin was winding around from one side of the bronze tree. I moved to avoid being seen while crawling and rolling to grab the backpack and rummage through it.

The backpack was stuffed full of things. I took out all the food and tossed it into the water, finally finding what I thought was a detonator. When I looked at it, I was momentarily stunned; damn it, I had been too careless earlier. That bundle of stuff turned out to be black candles.

At that moment, the snake’s head had already reached over. Seeing me, it suddenly curled its neck and assumed an attack posture.

The average attack speed of a snake is only a quarter of a second, and although this one was a bit bigger, it probably wouldn’t be much slower. I realized that if I delayed for another second, it would be the end for me, so I yanked up the backpack and jumped into the water.

But my descent was still too slow. Suddenly, a shadow flashed, and the snake’s head shot out, biting me in mid-air. Then its body coiled around, trying to wrap me up in its embrace.

My hands were fumbling in the backpack, and at that moment, I suddenly felt one of those signal flares they used. In a panic, I instinctively pulled the trigger, and the backpack exploded with a large hole. In the chaos, I wasn’t sure if the flare had exploded in the snake’s mouth, but I felt a heat in my palm, and then everything spun around me.

I fell back into the water with a “splash,” resurfacing to look back and see the signal flare in the Candle of Nine Yin’s mouth emitting a bright white light. The air was filled with the scent of wax, and for some reason, smoke began to billow from its entire body.

This type of snake has a lot of fat in its body that burns easily; otherwise, ancient people wouldn’t have hunted it for candle-making. But I never expected it to catch fire like this. What exactly was flowing inside it?

The Candle of Nine Yin was in extreme agony, no longer able to care about us, writhing its body continuously. Its massive tail slammed against the rocks, and a huge crack had already appeared on that side. With each strike, the crack spread into several smaller fissures, and the entire mountainside began to crack, as if the whole cave might collapse.

I don’t know if Zhu Jiuyin will die so easily. Continuing to rummage through the backpack, I found nothing useful, so I threw the backpack into the water. At that moment, suddenly, a surge of current erupted from beneath the water, and the water from the pool rushed toward the crack where Zhu Jiuyin had collided.

The mountain here has numerous cave systems, and it seems that the mountain behind the crack has already been breached. I have no idea where the water is flowing to. I took one last look at the ancient bronze tree and searched around for Master Liang, but he had already vanished. I watched as the stones above began to collapse in large chunks due to the rushing water. Zhu Jiuyin was thrashing about like a madman, and he leaned back, getting swept into the crack by the current.

The crack was extremely deep and pitch black inside. Because it was a collapsed passage, the stones were very irregular, and the water flow created several whirlpools. I spun around in there, bumping into things, barely feeling that I was drifting downstream.

After about ten minutes of swirling, I suddenly felt a free fall and then plunged headfirst into the water. I struggled to surface and found that I had been carried by the current to the underground river we had passed earlier. The water flow here was even more turbulent than what we had seen before; it must have been due to the heavy rain that Master Liang mentioned.

Although the water here flowed very quickly, there weren’t as many whirlpools as in the crevice, and the water was slightly warm. I managed to regain some control over my limbs and began to think about the situation ahead.

This underground river flowed downward, and I had no idea where it would lead. If it plunged straight into a deep underground section, I would be at a loss for words. However, based on the direction we had come from, if it hadn’t changed course significantly, I estimated that I should be swept into the river we had crossed earlier.

Of course, the premise was that everything would go smoothly. I nervously watched ahead, fearing any forks in the river. At that moment, something caught my eye; I saw something carved into the walls of the underground river.

Looking at the erosion of the rocks in this underground river, it seemed that its history was as ancient as the mountain itself. What was carved on it should not have been done in modern times. I seized an opportunity, grabbed a stone column that hung down from above, stopped my body, and shone my flashlight. I was stunned.

Both sides of the river wall were covered with bas-reliefs that resembled those we had seen inside the coffin atop the bronze tree. They formed continuous scenes; some had collapsed, but most were still well-preserved, with clear and flowing lines, and the clothing depicted was graceful. Each relief was unique, vivid, and dynamic.

At a glance, I could tell that these bas-reliefs depicted the process of ancient ethnic minorities worshipping the bronze tree. The scenes were extremely vivid; in one relief, the massive bronze tree was adorned with the bodies of slaves, their blood flowing into the tree, trickling down through the grooves above; in another, they were throwing the bodies of slaves into the interior of the bronze tree.

A significant portion of the bas-reliefs was submerged in water, and the very bottom had been leveled by the current, indicating that there was no water when they were carved.

From the bas-reliefs here, it was clear that the scale of the worship of the bronze tree was grand. I kept looking, but the more I looked, the stranger it felt. Some of the scenes depicted in the bas-reliefs were different from the worship, and I couldn’t comprehend them.

Among the reliefs, there is one depicting the ancient ancestors pouring a liquid into a bronze tree. In the next relief, a “Zhu Jiu Yin,” identical to the one just seen, emerges from the bronze tree, surrounded by many ancestors dressed like warriors, armed with bows and spears, clearly illustrating a hunting scene.

From my previous understanding, this bronze tree should symbolize a special form of divine authority in ancient times. The “Zhu Jiu Yin” within the bronze tree was considered a type of dragon, and in some literary notes, it is even elevated to the status of Pangu, suggesting that it was worshipped as a divine beast. Why then would these people hunt it?

I continued to look further, hoping to find answers in the subsequent reliefs. There were more ritual scenes, and I could see that all the ancestors wore masks, their expressions blank. However, in every relief, there was always one figure carved particularly large and robust. Judging by this person’s clothing and demeanor, I could be fairly certain that this individual was their leader and likely the original form of the statue I had seen on the cliff at Jiazigo.

The head of that statue had been blown off by a bomb, and I had always felt something was amiss, but I hadn’t seen the head all along. Now I had a chance to examine it closely.

I grasped the stalactite above, leaned closer to the rock below, wiped away the grime, and peered in. The image of the leader in the relief was nearly twice the size of the others, resembling a giant. If we assume that the carvings were made to scale, then this leader might indeed have been that tall.

However, strangely, on all these reliefs, this leader had a snake’s head growing from his neck, which did not appear to be wearing a mask or anything similar. Although I had some archaeological knowledge, I still felt puzzled by these details, which required extensive reading to fully understand. Based solely on the surface meaning of these reliefs, I sensed that the judgment of the scholar Liang at the time might have been somewhat off; this bronze tree might not have been solely for sacrificial purposes but rather for some kind of hunting ritual. The sacrificed slaves might have served as bait to lure the “Zhu Jiu Yin” out from underground.

The bronze tree extended deep underground, and these “Zhu Jiu Yin” likely lived in extremely deep layers. How they could survive in such conditions was beyond my consideration; I was merely curious about why these ancestors would go to such lengths to hunt the “Zhu Jiu Yin.”

The reliefs did not provide me with answers. In the end, I only saw scenes of celebration, with no carvings depicting what happened after the “Zhu Jiu Yin” was captured.

Having gathered the basic information, I looked at the water level, which was rising, and reluctantly released my grip, continuing to drift downstream with the current.

After such a long time, the flashlight had become very dim, eventually fading to the point of providing no illumination. I decided to turn it off and let myself be carried along in the darkness.

This period was incredibly difficult to endure. I was swept down several small waterfalls, which, while not fatal, left me bruised and battered. For several hours, I had no idea what surrounded me or where I was headed.

I gradually began to feel a sense of despair, unsure if I had just turned or entered a fork in the path. If I had misjudged, I might be heading into the endless depths of an underground river, not knowing where it would lead. Would it take me to the lower levels where “Zhu Jiu Yin” lives? What kind of place is that? Could there be an emperor’s tomb constructed deep within the underground river? That would indeed be a fascinating idea.

As I was lost in these thoughts, I suddenly saw a glimmer of light ahead, which made my whole body tremble with excitement. Then I heard the rumbling sound of water. My heart leaped with joy, knowing that I must be nearing an exit. I hadn’t seen natural light for over ten hours. I tossed aside my flashlight and swam forward.

I was moving incredibly fast. In just a few minutes, a flash caught my eye, followed by a blinding white light, and I could see nothing. It was the visual dullness from not having seen light for so long. I cried out in my heart, but in that instant, a familiar sensation suddenly came from beneath me.

It was free fall again! Another waterfall! From the force of the rushing water and the sound coming from below, this waterfall had to be quite significant. I had no idea what awaited me below. If the water was too shallow, it would be a truly unjust death for me.

A howling wind rushed past my ears, and in the blink of an eye, before my vision could recover, I plunged headfirst into the water. In that moment, I reached down and immediately felt a rock beneath me. Oh no, it was too shallow! Just as I realized this, my head struck something, and everything went dark; I lost all awareness.