121: Chapter 121 Campfire Chat and Exploring the Mysterious Tomb

The night wind in the deep mountains, carrying heavy moisture, howled out through the pitch-black rock crevices.

The sound of the wind passed through the rugged, bizarre rocks on the periphery of the Ten Thousand Gu Demon Cave, emitting a shrill and piercing whistle.

Falling into the ears of living people, this sound made one's scalp tingle and sent chills straight down the spine.

The massive bluestone body of the faceless stone deity blocked most of prescription the gloomy wind.

At the foot of the deity statue, a bonfire was burning brightly.

The dry pine firewood made a "crackling" bursting sound in the fire.

The orange-red firelight dispelled the dense fog within a few meters around.

Lin Ye sat cross-legged on the moisture-proof mat.

He held a cup of piping hot Purple Ganoderma tea in his hands, his gaze piercing through the leaping flames and falling upon the four ravenous Mud and Water Travelers opposite him.

Second Master Lei and the others had been hungry for a whole day.

Dazhuang held a military lunchbox, eagerly shoveling the self-heating rice that Lin Ye had distributed to them into his mouth.

Hazi leaned against the rock wall, his right arm, covered in gray-white mud skin, tightly bound with bandages.

He could not eat anything, his forehead was covered in beads of cold sweat, and he groaned in pain.

Lin Ye withdrew his gaze, chanted silently in his heart, and clicked on the storage grid of the system panel.

Quietly lying inside the grid was a palm-sized yellow talisman.

This was precisely the reward issued by the system after just bribing the stone deity with "netherworld currency".

"Ancient Miao Military Strategy Talisman".

The surface of the talisman paper was not outlined with any Taoist talisman heads using cinnabar.

It was densely painted with various eerie and twisted venomous insect totems.

The totems of centipedes, venomous snakes, and toads were linked end-to-end, forming a bizarre military formation exuding an aura of primordial slaughter.

Lin Ye closed his eyes and probed his divine sense into the talisman.

A method for controlling insects belonging to the high priest of ancient Miao territory surged into his mind along with his mental power.

This thing was definitely not an ordinary evil-dispelling talisman.

It was a military order, a domineering tally specifically used to command and intimidate the venomous insects of the deep mountains.

As long as this talisman was activated, low-level Gu worms would submit on the spot, and high-level venomous creatures would also suffer strong bloodline deterrence.

"This trade was worth it. In this Ten Thousand Gu Demon Cave, this talisman is definitely a life-saving trump card."

Lin Ye calculated inwardly, then cut off the connection of his divine sense.

He opened his eyes and turned to look at Leng Yue sitting beside him.

Leng Yue did not eat anything; she held a cup of warm water with both hands, her gaze calm.

Frost Star squatted beside the campfire, holding a long branch in her hand.

Skewered at the front of the branch was a pitch-black, hard-shelled beetle as large as a palm.

This was what the little girl had caught barehanded in the crevices of the deity statue's base just now.

She placed the beetle over the flames and roasted it repeatedly.

The beetle's hard shell sizzled and oiled up from the burning, bursting with a charred protein scent.

"So fragrant, so fragrant! Roasted crispy, it must taste better than potato chips!"

The little girl's heterochromatic eyes were filled with anticipation, crystal-clear saliva hanging from the corner of her mouth.

Ayugu, sitting not far away, watched this scene, her stomach churning violently.

She tightly covered her poisonous Gu cloth bag, fearing that this yandere little Corpse King hadn't eaten enough and would set her sights on her natal Gu worms.

"Brother Lin."

Second Master Lei put down the empty lunchbox in his hand and wiped the grease from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

He stood up, walked to a spot two steps away from Lin Ye, and respectfully sat cross-legged.

"This place is extremely bizarre. Since we are resting here tonight and entering the cave tomorrow morning, we still need a plan."

Second Master Lei took out his dry tobacco pipe, but did not light it.

His single eye looked at Lin Ye, his tone revealing a heart-to-heart candor.

He knew deeply that the lives of his four men were now completely in the hands of this young man.

"Second Master Lei, tell me, you Mud and Water Travelers have been digging in this Xishan area for over half a month, so how much of the inner workings beneath this Ten Thousand Gu Demon Cave have you figured out?"

Lin Ye took a sip of hot tea, his tone leisurely.

Second Master Lei swallowed his saliva, lowered his voice, and began to recount their tomb-robbing intelligence from the past half month.

"Behind this rock crevice is a natural rift valley leading straight to the depths of the earth."

"The hand-written notes passed down by our ancestors mentioned that a "Yellow Springs Pool" is buried down below. The Unfading Bone suppressed by King Zhou is locked inside the main bronze tomb chamber at the bottom of the pool."

Second Master Lei pointed at the pitch-black mountain wall behind him.

"The poisonous miasma on the periphery is only the first barrier."

"Inside the rift valley, there has been no sunlight for years and months. The cliff walls on both sides are covered with hanging coffins left by ancient Miao people, and what those coffins contain are all medicinal corpses used to feed venomous Gu."

"When we go in, our hands and feet must be light. If we awaken those bugs, even immortals won't be able to save us."

Lin Ye tapped his fingers lightly on his knees.

"Medicinal corpses? "Yellow Springs Pool"? This layout set up by King Zhou is rather interesting. He spared no expense with an army of 100,000, just to throw an immortal monster into a pile of venomous insects to rot?"

If Bai Yu were here, he would definitely give a lengthy discourse from an archaeological perspective.

Right now, there were only this group of tomb raiders, and Lin Ye could only deduce things based on his own metaphysical foundation.

Leng Yue turned her head slightly, her red lips parted slightly, her voice as clear and cold as a spring.

"All things give birth to and restrain each other. That Unfading Bone is the ultimate evil of the corpse path born from the gathering of heaven and earth's dead qi. Ordinary Taoist methods and thunder fire find it difficult to completely destroy it."

"King Zhou utilized the extreme poisonous qi of this Ten Thousand Gu Demon Cave to fight poison with poison. He wanted to borrow the vitality and malevolent qi of 100,000 venomous insects to wear down the millennium-old dark resentment on that bone."

After hearing Leng Yue's words, Second Master Lei nodded repeatedly like a chick pecking at rice.

His awe and fear of this woman in black even surpassed his fear of Lin Ye.

"This lady is completely right! That's what we guessed too. The mud-turn disease Hazi contracted must be detoxified using the 'symbiotic insect blood' growing at the bottom of the "Yellow Springs Pool"."

"Boss Lin, tomorrow when we go down to the underground palace, the four of us brothers will clear the path ahead. You only need to lend a hand at a critical moment, and this deal between us will be settled."

"Rest early. Tomorrow as soon as day breaks, we will enter the cave on schedule."

Lin Ye waved his hand, ending this pre-battle meeting.

Second Master Lei stood up and retreated to the corner.

The four tomb raiders lay down fully clothed on the moisture-proof mats, taking turns arranging personnel to keep watch at night.

The night grew deeper and deeper.

The campfire gradually went out, leaving only a few dark red charcoal sparks.

This night passed safely without incident.

With the faceless stone deity blocking malevolent forces at the entrance, the gloomy wind and venomous insects in the canyon did not dare to approach this camp.

The next morning.

Not a sliver of sunlight could penetrate the top of the canyon, and the surroundings remained dim with grayish-green mist.

Lin Ye opened his eyes and flipped up to stand.

He stretched his muscles and bones, his whole body emitting crisp cracking sounds like popping beans.

"Everyone prepare, check your equipment."

At Lin Ye's command, the camp instantly became busy.

Dazhuang and Yaba deftly packed the tents and stuffed them into backpacks.

Second Master Lei helped re-bandage Hazi's arm.

Lin Ye took out the polymer gas masks obtained by Bai Yu from his tactical backpack and distributed them to everyone.

This thing was connected to a military portable oxygen circulation machine, capable of perfectly filtering out the invisible, highly toxic miasma in the air.

Leng Yue and Frost Star refused the gas masks.

As corpse bodies, the poisonous miasma of this world was useless to them; inhaling it could instead be converted into their own power.

Ayugu put on the mask and hugged the glass jar filled with her natal Gu worms tightly in her arms, looking like a chemical defense soldier ready to defuse a bomb at a Resident Evil scene.

"Let's go."

Lin Ye drew the soul-suppressing copper coin sword, the tip pointing obliquely at the ground, and took the lead with long strides, stepping into that pitch-black, huge rock crevice.

The moment they crossed the faceless stone deity, the surrounding temperature plummeted to freezing point.

The strong light beam of the flashlight shone forward.

This was a huge natural rift valley sloping downwards.

The passage was extremely wide, enough to accommodate two trucks passing side by side.

Both sides of the rock wall presented a scalp-tingling dark red color.

Lin Ye approached a couple of steps and scraped the surface of the rock wall with the sword hilt.

"Click, click."

A fine, crisp sound came over.

That was not the color of rock at all.

The rock wall was densely attached with a thick layer of hard shells.

Those were the exoskeleton shells shed by countless venomous centipedes, corpse beetles, and poisonous spiders!

These shed insect skins piled up layer upon layer over the long years, mixed with the acidic groundwater seeping from the rock walls, forcefully dressing this rift valley in a dark red insect-armor coat.

Second Master Lei and the others looked at this scene, feeling their stomachs churn violently.

"Keep your steps light, and don't step out with a big commotion."

Second Master Lei reminded them by lowering his voice through the gas mask.

Everyone stepped on the crunching insect skins all over the floor, groping step by step toward the depths of the earth.

The further down they walked, the wider the space became.

After walking for about half an hour, the view ahead suddenly opened up.

An endless underground karst cave appeared before everyone.