The presence of Xiaoguei was uncertain, but the existence of a “third party” underground seemed about seventy to eighty percent likely.
Unknown entities were the most terrifying. Mao Liang felt a chill run down his spine. “So… what should we do? Should we catch up with Brother Xing and the others, or go back to Jin Ren Gate?”
Fleeing in panic without even seeing what it was seemed a bit ridiculous, didn’t it?
Yu Rong frowned. “What are you afraid of? Weren’t we given guns? Whatever it is, how can it not fear bullets?”
***
Yu Rong instructed Mao Liang to continue leading the way and catch up with the advance team. As for the corpse, they would leave it for now, marking its location on the map to retrieve it later.
The group returned to their original route. Following Yu Rong’s instructions, they maintained complete silence and minimized the use of flashlights or any conspicuous light sources while accelerating their pace.
Yu Rong considered using signal flares to contact the advance team but ultimately decided against it after careful consideration. The situation underground had become complicated, and firing a signal flare would be equivalent to revealing their position. She had no desire to attract any questionable entities.
…
As mentioned before, the space down here resembled a long tongue extending into the earth.
The tongue comparison was only approximate in terms of shape and outline. More precisely, it was as if the ground had split open, causing the originally compact earth to tear apart vertically. As a result, the ground was uneven, dotted with rock formations, stone pillars, mounds of earth, and depressions. Their progress involved constant up-and-down movements and winding detours.
What was admirable was that even in such terrain, the placement of luminous stones had been adapted accordingly. Sometimes they were directly adhered to rock depressions with resin, other times inserted into holes carved into stone pillars—every possible method had been employed to maintain this natural illumination system.
After finding the third “γ” marker, they took a five-minute break. Sun Zhou climbed to a high point to keep watch while others either had some dried rations or went in pairs to relieve themselves in secluded spots.
Nie Jiuluo had no such needs. She sat beside Yan Tuo to rest, watching people come and go, covering her mouth as she gave a big yawn.
Yan Tuo smiled. “Are you tired? Just lean on me and rest for a bit. Even an ant’s leg counts as meat—five minutes of sleep is better than none.”
Nie Jiuluo didn’t stand at the ceremony. She pulled his arm around herself, nestled into his embrace, and closed her eyes. For her, rest was like charging a battery—one bar of charge meant one bar of energy.
Yan Tuo lowered his head to nuzzle her soft neck, intending to close his eyes and rest his spirit as well.
Nie Jiuluo suddenly murmured, “There must be several groups down here, right?”
Yan Tuo understood her meaning. “Yes, several groups. The native Di Xiao, humanized Di Xiao like Lin Xirou, our group, the kidnapped group, and the possibly existing Xiaoguei.”
Nie Jiuluo seemed somewhat melancholic. “Do you think the Xiaoguei still look like they used to?”
Yan Tuo chuckled. “Of course not. Didn’t you hear what Xing Shen said? Their faces have become like evil spirits. Why else would they be given such a frightening name as ‘Xiaoguei’?”
Nie Jiuluo sighed almost inaudibly, then asked, “Then… can Xiaoguei still recognize their relatives and friends?”
Yan Tuo thought for a moment. “Probably not. If someone could still recognize people and communicate with them, and only their appearance had changed, what would be so frightening about them? Why would they need to be labeled as ‘Xiaoguei’?”
Nie Jiuluo remained silent for a while. “That’s true.”
She reached up to touch the necklace she wore.
If her mother Pei Ke was truly still alive, she probably wouldn’t be the same person she remembered.
She said softly, “Yan Tuo, you need to be prepared. Even if Xinxin is still alive, she won’t remember you, and she probably won’t be like you imagine.”
Yan Tuo responded with a soft “Mm” and said, “I know.”
When they looked up, those who had been sitting or leaning were gradually standing up.
Five minutes had passed so quickly—it was time to move on.
***
This time, problems arose constantly after they had barely started walking.
The issue centered on those six Di Xiao.
They had been injected with Nie Jiuluo’s blood needles at their seventh vertebrae. The effect of needling at this position was similar to a “computer crash”—the entire person would become dazed and their muscle coordination would decrease. Combined with the hoods over their heads and being tied together in a line with rope, the overall effect was similar to controlling walking corpses.
They had been quite manageable throughout the journey, walking when pulled and stopping when not, even managing small runs when they needed to speed up—quite trouble-free.
But suddenly, this six-person formation became inexplicably agitated. Some veered left, others went right, some pushed those in front, while others frantically retreated. Nie Jiuluo noticed that two of them had uncontrollable tremors in their legs.
Were they sensing some danger? Her back tensed involuntarily, but looking around, she couldn’t spot anything unusual.
The person holding the rope was probably from the Whip family, carrying a cowhide whip as was their habit. They cracked it in the air with a snap and said in a low voice, “Don’t move.”
However, these six had never been trained and didn’t respond to whip discipline. After some cursing and kicking from their handler, they finally settled down.
Yu Rong felt uneasy and first asked Wu Qing, “Did you smell anything?”
Wu Qing shook his head decisively. “No, nothing, no smell at all.”
Looking at Sun Zhou, he showed no reaction either.
With both these “detectors” showing no alarm, Yu Rong relaxed slightly but still felt unsettled. She looked at the rope handler again: “Think carefully, did something disturb them? They wouldn’t just act like this for no reason, right?”
The person thought carefully: “Well… they were walking fine, then suddenly… oh, right, there was a gust of wind, and the sound was creepy.”
To be honest, they had been experiencing strange winds throughout their journey, and the sound was always creepy. Yu Rong had grown used to it and couldn’t distinguish between different wind sounds. She could only caution, “Stay close, and be careful.”
After walking another stretch, the six would occasionally “act up.” Eventually, those in front and behind got used to it. Yan Tuo even found it quite amusing and asked Nie Jiuluo in a low voice, “Is there something wrong with your blood needles?”
He wondered if the blood needles were pressing on some nerve in the Di Xiao, causing them to convulse periodically.
Nie Jiuluo couldn’t answer. She had encountered very few Di Xiao in her life, and her use of blood needles was purely by the book, with no experience to draw from.
Just as they were puzzling over this, someone suddenly cried out from behind, “Xu… where’s Xu Er? Where did Xu Er go?”
The team immediately stopped, and Yu Rong strode over. “Who’s Xu Er? What happened?”
The person stammered, still looking around, “Well… Xu Er was walking behind me. I turned around and couldn’t see him, thought he’d gone to the front, but after watching for a while, he wasn’t there either, so I asked…”
Yan Tuo and Nie Jiuluo weren’t familiar with the members of the hooded army, so they couldn’t tell who was missing, but the others were all acquaintances and immediately understood. They quickly looked around, their expressions gradually turning to alarm.
Someone was indeed missing—Xu Er.
The surroundings were pitch black, with only the ghostly green glow of luminous stones casting pale light on people’s faces, making them look as if shrouded in ghostly qi.
Since leaving Jin Ren Gate, these incidents have been occurring one after another. Yu Rong felt like cursing, but for caution’s sake, she kept her voice down: “Where did he go? Did he not come back from urinating?”
Someone immediately denied it: “No, he came back. I saw him earlier, it wasn’t from going to urinate.”
Yu Rong contained her anger: “Did he get lost while walking? You were walking in formation, how did you not notice someone getting lost?”
The person stammered, unable to answer. After a pause, they shuddered violently and said in a trembling voice, “Was he… was he taken by a ghost? We really… didn’t hear anything, not a sound. Sister Rong, what should we do?”
Yu Rong growled, “What else can we do? We go back and look!”
The person responded nervously and was about to turn back when Yan Tuo stopped them: “This Xu Er, was he walking at the very back?”
“I… I think so. Sometimes he walked beside me, a step or two behind.”
When people are focused on moving forward, they often don’t pay attention to those around them. Yan Tuo pondered for a moment: “If he was at the back, someone with very swift movements could have taken him without making much noise, which is why none of us noticed.”
Yu Rong felt a chill run down her spine: “Who took him?”
“We don’t know yet, but I suggest from now on, the remaining people should move in groups of two or three, either tied together with rope or holding hands while walking. Don’t get separated. I have a feeling that if someone is alone, they might suddenly disappear when others aren’t paying attention.”
These words sent chills down everyone’s spine. Yu Rong wanted to say something but realized it would be pointless, so she just waved her hand.
The others understood her meaning. They either quickly grabbed the hands of nearby companions or tied themselves together with rope.
Except for Sun Zhou, the group moved in pairs or threes, backtracking two or three li, but found nothing.
Yu Rong sensed they wouldn’t find him and didn’t want to waste more time going in circles.
She gritted her teeth and shouted, “Let’s go! We need to find Xing Shen and the others first!”
There was no time to worry about anything else. With Xu Er gone, it was highly likely the entire team was being watched. If that was the case, there was no point in hiding their position—joining up with their companions was the safest option.
She took out her signal gun and fired three shots diagonally forward.
The bright yellow signal flares shot out, first hanging in the air, then slowly descending with trailing light.
Soon, far in the distance, signal flares also appeared—as agreed, three shots, yellow.
Yu Rong’s spirits lifted: “They’re ahead, hurry up, everyone moves quickly!”
Everyone was eager to speed up. If it weren’t for Mao Liang still needing to check the map and guide them, and the six Di Xiao unable to move too fast, they would have broken into a run. Yan Tuo gripped Nie Jiuluo’s hand tightly, constantly watching front, back, and sides to guard against another ambush.
Halfway through their rushed journey, another signal flare rose in the distance, this time red.
Yu Rong’s heart tightened. Red meant danger—everything had been fine just now, so what had happened?
But there was nothing they could do about it. They were already moving as fast as they could. Yu Rong could only make a futile verbal effort: “Hurry, as fast as you can!”
Before her words faded, they suddenly heard a rapid ta-ta-ta sound, like nails being pulled out.
Because of the distance, it sounded strange. Before Yu Rong could react, Yan Tuo’s expression had already changed: “Gunfire! They’re shooting over there!”
Gunfire? Who were they engaging? Lin Xirou’s group? Or the unconfirmed Xiaoguei?
Yu Rong’s throat went dry. She didn’t bother urging them on any more, just kept moving forward, her scalp tingling as the ta-ta-ta sound kept drilling into her ears as if counting down her life.
Suddenly, the gunfire stopped.
As if someone had pressed pause, the gunfire ceased. The trails of the signal flares on both sides had long since disappeared, and the surroundings fell into a deathly silence illuminated only by the eerie glow of the luminous stones.
Yu Rong muttered, “What the… what happened?”