What the hell was this thing?

Yi Sa stared at it for a while as chills ran up her spine to her brain, becoming increasingly horrified. Anyone facing such a giant, undulating “brain” would find it impossible to remain unmoved.

When Zong Hang came to his senses, he reached back to pull her away. At this moment, no water ghost signals were needed – his posture and expression said everything: Let’s go! Before we disturb it!

Yi Sa was pulled back two or three meters before she reacted, and then she grabbed Zong Hang’s hand to stop him.

Looking at her watch, they’d been down for just over an hour and a half, with more than four hours until dawn. Without complications, they had enough time to observe this thing, and the more information they gathered, the better it would be for them.

As scouts, when encountering enemy intelligence, they should advance, not retreat immediately.

Though they couldn’t talk underwater, their expressions and eye contact made her decision clear. Zong Hang was distressed but helpless, so he could only draw his Wu Gui dagger – though using a dagger against this thing would be about as effective as tickling it with a feather, but at least it helped boost his courage.

Swimming forward another stretch, they got closer to the “brain,” and the water became increasingly gelatinous and thick, probably due to the slime secreted by this thing settling in the nearby water.

Zong Hang felt a chill wondering if this slime was poisonous, but then resigned himself to the fact that they’d been soaking in it for so long already – if it was toxic, they’d already been exposed.

From afar they could only see its outline, but up close it didn’t look like a brain – it was just massive chunks of blackish-brown flesh that rose and fell like breathing, causing the surrounding water to surge and ripple. The surface of these flesh chunks had meat fiber-like textures and was covered in protruding vein-like structures.

Yi Sa reached out her hand, hesitating whether to touch it.

Zong Hang quickly grabbed her hand, willing to get down on his knees and beg if he could: Please, ancestor, can you not touch random things?

Do you know what this thing is? What if it has a mouth and can eat people? If your hand touches it and it sucks you in like a whirlpool, how am I supposed to pull you back?

Yi Sa wasn’t very determined either, so when he pulled her back, she gave up easily. However, when she saw Zong Hang’s expression, she couldn’t help but smile: his young and somewhat naive face was now full of worry and concern, like a fussy mother hen or a white-haired father worn out from anxiety.

Fine, safety first. As Ding Panling said, observe what they could, and leave the rest for when all the water ghosts gathered.

Yi Sa led Zong Hang in swimming around nearby, but there were no discoveries. The thing kept writhing continuously – shocking at first glance, but after watching for a while, it became mundane.

She made a hand signal to Zong Hang to return.

Finally able to head back, Zong Hang secretly let out a sigh of relief. The two began swimming back along the guide rope.

They had barely swum a few dozen meters when the water current suddenly changed: what had been like a dead pool with barely any movement suddenly surged in the opposite direction of their swimming, sweeping them up in its flow. People caught in rapid currents are like ants in the wind – how could they withstand such force?

Both were instantly flipped and carried away by the current – it felt like a hole had suddenly opened in the wall of a water tank, and all the water was desperately rushing to leak out through it.

Yi Sa was relatively okay since her wrist was wrapped around the rope. No matter how she tumbled and spun in the water, she always had an anchor point to grip. Zong Hang wasn’t so lucky – he had only been holding onto the rope, and once he lost his grip, he had nothing to grab onto. His body was completely at the mercy of the current, spinning dizzyingly, his heart turning ice cold.

Where would he be swept to? Would he die?

Would he never see Yi Sa and his parents again?

Just as he was panicking, a wave pushed his head above water, and he heard Yi Sa shouting: “Zong Hang! Grab it! Grab it!”

Grab what?

Zong Hang didn’t know, but since she told him to grab it, it couldn’t be wrong to follow her instructions. He desperately kicked and grabbed around.

At some point, his hands suddenly grabbed into a mass of sticky, soft flesh.

At least it was something tangible to grab onto. Without thinking, Zong Hang started climbing up. After climbing two or three steps, he suddenly realized.

Was this the “brain”?

Before he could feel disgusted, his back was suddenly pushed with great force: he wasn’t sure what happened, but he found himself climbing between two pieces of flesh that were writhing and pushing inward, with him being rolled in between them.

Everything went dark instantly, his face was tightly pressed against the ice-cold soft flesh, making it impossible to even breathe. Zong Hang struggled desperately but couldn’t break free. In the end, most of his body had been sucked in, with only one arm still flailing outside – fortunately, he managed to grab onto something.

Yi Sa had caught his hand.

Yi Sa shouted hoarsely: “Zong Hang, hang on! Hold your breath first!”

Zong Hang couldn’t hold his breath anymore, he could only use his last bit of strength to grit his teeth and endure. All around him was a murderous ice-cold softness, with rough textures within the softness, and under the pressure from front and back, he felt like his skeleton was creaking…

Just when he couldn’t hold on any longer, relief finally came: the pushing force from behind suddenly disappeared, and large amounts of air rushed into his nose.

The sudden ability to breathe made Zong Hang’s vision go black, and he fell forward, forgetting that he was still holding onto Yi Sa, pulling her down too.

Two splashing sounds followed as they fell back into the water, but being in the water felt like returning home – it wasn’t as uncomfortable anymore.

Yi Sa held his waist and treaded water to lift him to the surface, repeatedly asking: “Are you okay? Zong Hang? Quick, say a complete sentence.”

Zong Hang spat out a mouthful of dirty water and air: “I’m fine, not injured.”

As he spoke, he looked up.

Now he could see clearly – this was a huge underground cave that had been filled with water, which was why they thought it was an underground lake. But now, at least half of the lake water had drained, allowing them to surface and breathe air.

That half-opened “brain” was also almost completely exposed above water, still writhing – apparently, the danger just now wasn’t an attack targeted at him.

The place where he had been pulled in was now completely hacked and dug up, with chunks of cut flesh floating on the water surface nearby.

It seemed Yi Sa had used the Wu Gui dagger to hack and dig to get him out.

Zong Hang’s scalp tingled: This thing… would it go berserk after being injured?

Yi Sa feared this too, but after a fearful moment, she noticed the thing was still writhing unhurriedly, showing no signs of wanting revenge.

Perhaps the size difference between them was too great – like a lion being bitten by ants, it only considered it an itch, not worth making a fuss about…

Yi Sa said quietly: “Let’s go, slowly, don’t panic.”

Zong Hang nodded.

They continued facing this thing while slowly paddling backward. After a while, they almost simultaneously discovered something and stopped, then spoke at the same time.

Yi Sa: “Zong Hang, has the place where it was cut grown back?”

Zong Hang: “Yi Sa, look at those chunks of flesh in the water, have they… gotten bigger?”

They were both right – the brutally hacked place was slowly recovering, and those pieces in the water, whether due to water absorption or not, were indeed larger than before.

Damn, what did this mean?

They exchanged a glance, then without coordination, both turned around, grabbed the guide rope, and swam desperately toward the cave entrance.

Fortunately, everything went smoothly after that – that thing didn’t chase them, and the hanging rope pulled up in time. When they reached the cave entrance, someone handed them towels, someone brought ginger soup, and the tent even had a fire prepared in advance.

After shivering for a while, Yi Sa and Zong Hang, wrapped in military coats, finally recovered.

Ding Panling had placed high hopes on them: “How was it? Did you find anything?”

Yi Sa nodded: “You could say that.”

Ding Panling relaxed slightly but became even more tense afterward. He wanted to ask more but glanced at the people in the tent and held back: “Let’s talk somewhere else.”

Yi Sa and Zong Hang followed him out and discovered that during their time underwater, Ding Panling’s people had moved their entire previous campsite over.

The two followed Ding Panling into another large tent.

This was the command center and Ding Panling’s quarters, much more luxurious than their two-person tent, equipped with a generator, small heater, emergency lights, and even simple tables and chairs.

Just after entering the tent, Ding Panling suddenly remembered something and turned to instruct those outside: “Call Long Sheng and Ding Xi over too.”

Yi Sa could understand calling Ding Long Sheng, but since when had Ding Xi become so important?

Yi Sa’s mind stirred: “Uncle Panling, is Ding Xi working for you now?”

Ding Panling smiled: “We’re all working for the three families, it doesn’t matter who we’re following.”

His answer was truly watertight. Yi Sa pursed her lips and casually turned her head.

Her gaze happened to fall on the simple folding table.

On the folding table were a computer, paper and pens, and a black leather manual – Yi Sa recognized it as the one she had worked hard to steal from the kiln factory and then returned to its original owner.

Under the black leather manual was…

She remembered now, it was that soft-covered notebook she had found in Ding Long Sheng’s desk, which had been tucked at her waist but unfortunately fell out when she was crawling out of the cave entrance.

Yi Sa vaguely remembered that the soft-covered notebook contained records of something like clinical symptoms…

Just as she was thinking about this, Ding Long Sheng and Ding Xi entered one after another, and Ding Panling gestured to Yi Sa: “You can speak now.”

Yi Sa temporarily pulled her thoughts away from the soft-covered notebook and recounted everything that had happened underwater in detail.

Ding Panling listened very carefully, occasionally asking questions, and since Zong Hang had direct contact with that thing, he asked him more questions.

“So, that thing had no temperature, it was cold?”

Zong Hang thought for a moment, then said with certainty: “It was cold.”

“Very soft, no bones?”

He didn’t want to recall that feeling, it was too disgusting. Zong Hang sighed: “Both soft and slimy, a feeling that’s impossible to describe, and sticky like glue.”

Ding Panling frowned deeply and remained silent for a while. After some time, he walked to the table and pulled out a piece of paper, quickly writing down several lines.

Yi Sa leaned over to look.

He wrote:

– Flesh chunks, meat fiber-like textures, protruding blood vessels.

– Underground, with water.

– Regenerative, strong repair capabilities.

After writing, he stared at it for a long time, then handed it to Ding Long Sheng: “What do you think, does it look like… that thing?”

Ding Long Sheng didn’t immediately react, and Yi Sa was also confused: “Like what thing?”