99: Chapter 99 Bronze Ancient Cauldron

The red brick building of Jiangzhou University was built in the 1950s.

On the shady side that never saw sunlight, the red brick walls were long since covered by patches of blackened moss.

Lin Ye and his group of four stood in front of the side door of the building.

Lin Ye had one hand shoved into his cargo pants pocket, while his other hand held the newly acquired soul-suppressing copper coin sword.

He raised his right foot and, without any unnecessary buildup, kicked the rusty wooden door straight with the sole of his shoe.

The door hinges rotated, emitting a harsh and piercing screech of metal friction.

Wood chips cascaded down in a flurry.

The setting sun sank completely below the horizon.

There were no lighting fixtures installed in the corridor, relying entirely on the military-grade high-intensity flashlight held by Lin Ye to illuminate the path ahead.

As the beam of light swept across, dense particles of dust floated in the air.

Black-and-white photographs of previous archaeological achievements were pasted on the walls, and the glass of the photo frames reflected a ghastly pale halo that dazzled the eyes.

Quiet.

Not a single mundane sound of autumn cicadas could be heard inside the building.

The damp and chilling moisture trickling down the wall became the sole main melody here.

"Drip."

"Drip."

The water pipes on the second underground floor had fallen into disrepair for years, and the sound of leaking water constantly magnified on the marble floor, refracting an empty and profound reverberation.

In the gaps of this monotonous dripping sound, there was mixed a scratching sound of fingernails clawing against metal.

The sound was not loud, but it specifically targeted the most fragile parts of human nerves.

Leng Yue wore a black French wide-brimmed hat, walking on the left side of Lin Ye.

The hem of her black trench coat fluttered slightly in the chilling wind.

She did not look around; a pair of dark golden pupils flashed with an icy cold light in the darkness.

Her jade-like hand hanging by her side naturally hooked onto the little finger of Lin Ye.

Where their skin touched, the pulsating heartbeats of each other were transmitted.

Frost Star was hugging half of a watermelon rind with its red flesh gnawed clean, trailing closely behind.

The little girl closed her eyes, her delicate little nose twitching a few times in the air.

"Brother-in-law, the smell down here is getting heavier and heavier. It is the sour and stinking smell of old pickled cabbage fermented for three years, hitting straight to the brain. I do not want to eat it."

Ayugu held a glowing small glass bottle in her hands, and the fireflies inside the bottle were frantically crashing against the glass walls.

"Big Boss, my Gu insects are usually fearless, but now even its wings are trembling. Whatever is down there is definitely a big guy."

Lin Ye stepped with extremely light paces, testing the vibration frequency of the ground with the soles of his shoes with every step he took.

"The true fire of the sun has receded, and the evil Qi in the earth veins is beginning to revive. Cheer up, everyone, and follow me closely."

The hallway grew narrower and narrower, and large patches of brown mold spots appeared on the walls on both sides.

Lin Ye held the flashlight and shone it toward his feet.

The accumulated water on the ground had already submerged his ankles, and the water quality was an unresolvable dark yellow.

The air was filled with a pungent smell of rust mixed with a strange odor of formaldehyde.

At the end of the passageway, a dust-covered door sign appeared.

[B2-04 Independent Exhibition Room]

That heavy explosion-proof steel door was tightly shut.

A thick layer of dark red grease congealed at the door lock.

The scratching sound of metal scraping came precisely from behind this steel door.

Lin Ye stepped forward and bit the flashlight in his mouth.

He raised his right foot, locked onto the position of the door hinge, abruptly exerted force from his waist and abdomen, and kicked out heavily with one foot.

The sound of snapping followed one after another.

The heavy explosion-proof steel door collapsed inward, smashing fiercely onto the antique shelf behind the door.

The wooden shelf shattered, and shards of blue-and-white porcelain scattered all over the floor with a crash, the crisp cracking sound echoing in the second underground floor.

Several gloomy green emergency lights were lit inside the laboratory.

The indicator lights of several high-precision instruments were still blinking nonstop.

Bai Yu sat limply on a high stool in the corner of the wall.

He tightly clutched that yellowed leather-bound notebook in his arms, his originally handsome face now pale and bloodless.

His neat tufts of hair were completely soaked by sweat, sticking messily to his forehead.

A layer of fine water mist covered the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses.

In the exact center of the hall, a bronze ancient tripod standing two meters tall was placed.

The body of the tripod was covered with green patina, and its style was ancient and heavy.

From the joint gaps of the ancient tripod, viscous dark red liquid was bubbling out.

This was definitely not human blood; it was clearly earth marrow nether blood condensed from the deep underground veins dark iron ore mixed with millennium death Qi.

The liquid meandered across the tiled floor of the laboratory, converging into a blurry and distorted character of "Death".

"Clang!"

An extremely muffled impact sound came from inside the tripod.

With each impact, the heavy body of the tripod would leave the ground by an inch, shaking off large chunks of green patina.

Lin Ye stepped over the broken porcelain pieces on the ground, took the flashlight out of his mouth, and shone the beam directly onto the face of Bai Yu.

"Old Bai, not going back to the dorm to sleep in the middle of the night, and running here to cook self-heating hot pot? You put quite enough ingredients in this; I could smell the scent of large intestine sashimi from far away."

"And I found out that you clash with antiques. You should just change your profession."

Bai Yu squinted his eyes, dazzled by the harsh light.

When he saw clearly that it was Lin Ye, he let out a long breath.

He pushed up his sliding gold-rimmed glasses, coughed dryly twice, and his voice carried a distinct tremor.

"Mr. Lin... You are finally here. This situation is beyond my cognitive range."

"I just used a spectrometer to measure it, and the internal molecular structure of this ancient tripod contracts every ten seconds. It is breathing."

Lin Ye walked up to the ancient tripod and tapped the tripod wall with the hilt of the soul-suppressing copper coin sword.

"Clang! Clang!"

A muffled metallic echo rang out.

"Breathing? I think it is hungry. Did you not burn some paper money for it?"

Lin Ye had an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, his tone full of banter.

Bai Yu pointed to a tall testing instrument in the corner connected to countless thick cables.

"I tried irradiating it with a high-power ultraviolet lamp, and the light bulb shattered into pieces on the spot. The magnetic field of this thing is unreasonably strong; even my mechanical watch has stopped."

Ayugu stepped forward pinching her nose, looking at the viscous liquid meandering all over the floor, her delicate eyebrows knitted tightly together.

"This bug stench is too pungent. Whatever is locked inside this tripod is definitely an ancestor that eats people. The poisonous Gu in my jar is almost scared to death."

"Clang!"

As soon as her voice fell, a loud noise far exceeding the previous ones erupted.

The heavy bronze lid of the ancient tripod was blown off overhead by a huge force, rolling twice in mid-air, and smashed obliquely onto the cement ground, creating a deep pit.

From that pool of viscous dark red liquid, a faceless mask pasted from white paper slowly rose.

The mask expanded continuously along with the frantic surging of the liquid, faintly condensing into a half-length humanoid figure without arms.

The gloomy green emergency lights inside the laboratory instantly extinguished all at once.

The surroundings plunged into pure darkness.

Only that trace of ghastly green fluorescence reflected on the lenses of the glasses of Bai Yu looked exceptionally glaring in the dark.

In front of the retina of Lin Ye, ripples appeared on the translucent light screen.

The tingling female voice of the system sounded inappropriately.