Martial Arts Longevity Begins with the Equipment Slot

Chapter 99 Hidden Cave, Strange Reliefs

Early the next morning.

As dawn broke, Chen Yu led his men back up the mountain.

The mountain is deep and complex, with mine tunnels as dense as a spider web.

It harbors many risks that have yet to be discovered.

Following the route marked on the map, he searched through all the places where the fire monkeys might appear.

The surface of the rocky slope was covered with a fine layer of frost, leaving no trace of it.

At the edge of the dwarf pine forest, the bell lines and steel wires remained untouched.

There were no new scratches on the vents.

"Commander, it's not here either."

Fang Dachuan climbed down from the cliff, brushed the stone chips off his knees, and shook his head.

"That's strange. I've searched all the locations marked on the map, but I haven't found a single fresh trace."

Sun Feipeng wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Could that beast have run away because it smelled us?"

He paused, then dismissed the idea.

"Wait a minute, if the Fire Monkey was afraid of people, it stayed here at Black Wind Stronghold for over a month without running away. How come it ran away as soon as we arrived?"

"It has nothing to do with this."

Chen Yu crouched on the edge of the cliff, looking down at the spiderweb-like crisscrossing mine tunnels and valleys below.

The morning mist was slowly churning at the bottom of the valley, blurring the outlines of Wild Wolf Gully and Eagle Beak Cliff.

"There must be something missing somewhere."

He unfolded the map again.

The fingertip moves back and forth between several marks to compare them.

Rocky slopes, low pine forests, ventilation shafts, and old nests on cliffs.

All locations on the ground have been searched.

There's just one spot we haven't had a chance to enter yet.

"underground river----"

Chen Yu tapped the map lightly with his fingertip.

"There's still this place we haven't searched."

Sun Feipeng looked in the direction Chen Yu pointed, and his expression changed slightly.

"That underground river cave? I already searched it yesterday!"

"Wait a minute! We only explored to the edge of the underground river yesterday; we didn't go inside."

"The fire monkey needs to drink water, and for it, this is the most secluded and safest place to drink."

Chen Yu put the map into his pocket and stood up.

"I didn't go to the rocky slope, I didn't go to the dwarf pine forest, and I didn't go back to my old nest on the cliff."

"If it was still on Niutou Mountain last night, the only place it could have gone is the underground river."

Produce "or —

'

He paused, his gaze darkening.

"Inside the underground river."

"Inside the underground river?"

Sun Feipeng was somewhat puzzled.

"The entrance to the cave was so narrow that two people could squeeze in side by side. It was pitch black inside, and the sound of water was terrifyingly loud."

"I threw a rock down to test the depth yesterday, but I didn't hear a sound for ages. How could that beast have squeezed in?"

"It may seem impossible to get in, but that's not necessarily true."

Chen Yu turned around, gripping his sword, and walked towards the mine tunnel.

The underground river is at the end of the northern branch of the mine tunnel.

A cave is hidden beneath the rock wall.

The morning sunlight doesn't reach here.

A layer of cold, damp vapor filled the cave entrance, mixed with the smell of minerals and decaying mud.

The fog was so thick that the torchlight could only illuminate a distance of three feet.

Further in, there was a blurry, constantly shifting halo.

"Go in!"

Chen Yu took the lead, squeezing sideways through the opening.

Sun Feipeng followed closely behind, muttering to himself.

"I don't know if it's just my imagination, but the hole seems narrower than it was yesterday!"

Ding Dangmao followed at the back, holding two torches in his hands.

In the narrow passage, the firelight flickered, suppressed by the steam.

Chen Yu walked forward, holding the torch.

The stone wall was covered with the claw marks of the fire monkey.

"Commander, look here."

Ding Dangmao suddenly stopped in his tracks.

The torch was stuck to the edge of the stone wall.

Five claw marks were intertwined and overlapped.

There are several clear footprints on the wet mud below.

The outline is complete, with the toes pointing forward.

The heels were pressed down very deeply, indicating that the person had been standing in place for a long time.

"The fire monkey stopped here and stood there for a long time."

Ding Dangmao took two steps forward following the footprints.

Less than a step ahead, the direction of the footprints changed.

With the toes pointing backward, the indentation on the heel is much shallower.

The entire footprint twisted into a sharp arc.

Ding Dangmao looked back and then searched around.

After confirming there were no other footprints around, he lowered his voice and said his judgment: "The fire monkey turned around here!"

"There's more than one set; there are at least four or five sets of footprints here, all heading in the same direction. They turned back after reaching this spot!"

Chen Yu lowered the torch, shining it close to the ground over the overlapping and crisscrossing footprints.

Different shades, new and old.

They all turned back at the same location, as if there was an invisible boundary ahead.

There's a problem ahead.

Chen Yu walked forward cautiously.

The torches shone along the stone wall.

The claw marks stretched for more than forty paces on the stone wall, and then vanished into thin air!

All the claw marks ended cleanly on the ridge of the same rock.

"Commander, something's really wrong!"

Ding Dangmao took a step back.

He was a hunter by trade and had seen animal trails on all sorts of cliffs and precipices.

But I've never seen a living mark broken so neatly.

"If it broke normally, there would be a transition period, with the last few claw marks becoming shallower, the spacing widening, or the angle changing."

"But look here!"

"The last claw mark was just as deep as the previous ones, or even deeper, as if a claw had slashed down and then suddenly stopped."

""

After Ding Dangmao finished speaking, Sun Feipeng took a step forward.

The sole of the boot was about to step onto that boundary line.

The front foot is firmly planted, but the back foot hasn't even lifted yet.

The flame on the torch suddenly flickered violently.

The originally orange-yellow flames took on a very faint, ghostly blue hue after crossing that boundary line.

It was as if the heat at the edge of the flame had been licked away by something unseen.

"Holy crap! What's going on?"

He quickly pulled his foot back.

The flames then returned to their original color.

"Brother Chen Yu, this thing—is a bit strange."

Sun Feipeng spoke in a serious tone.

His voice carried a wariness characteristic of a seasoned veteran.

"Even the fire monkeys don't dare to go deeper; could there be even more terrifying monsters inside?"

He spent ten years in the Sword Guard Hall and witnessed many strange things.

But the idea that torches could change color on their own was outside his experience.

"stop!"

Chen Yu raised his hand, signaling everyone to stop where they were.

He held the torch above his head.

The firelight crossed the boundary and shone forward.

Within three steps, the stone wall remained an ordinary stone wall.

The damp limestone was covered with moss and water droplets.

After three steps, the stone wall changed.

The limestone has disappeared, replaced by a dark blue-green stone.

The stone is so smooth it's almost unsettling.

There was no moss or water droplets on the surface.

The torchlight shone on it, but there was no reflection.

The halo spread directly along the stone surface.

"Is all the light being absorbed by the stone surface itself? Why would that be?"

Chen Yu reached out his hand and tentatively approached the stone surface.

Even from three inches apart, I could feel a faint, almost imperceptible, suction force in my palm.

The closer they are, the stronger the adhesion.

"There is some kind of power in the stone, attracting or devouring what is around it."

Chen Yu withdrew his hand and continued to explore.

I felt an extremely thin seam on the stone wall.

Feel down along the seam.

I found another horizontal seam.

The two seams form a right angle.

"What is this thing?"

Chen Yu took three steps to the side along the horizontal seam and then touched an identical vertical seam.

"It's too well-formed; it doesn't look like it was formed naturally."

A seam is placed every three feet, dividing the stone surface into neat squares.

"The fire monkey dares not move forward because it knows what this thing is?"

As you walk, the stone path beneath your feet begins to change again.

The uneven natural rock path along the underground river has been transformed into a series of steps leading down to the bottom.

The width of each step is exactly the same, and the height of each step is exactly the same.

Chen Yu stepped on it, and the texture was exceptionally smooth.

We continued down the steps and stopped at the tenth step.

When the torch shone at my feet, the edge of the steps appeared to be an inverted arc.

Chen Yu suddenly remembered the manor's library.

That's what the stone steps at the entrance look like.

It is ground until smooth and rounded, with a slight indentation in the middle of each level.

The concave curve couldn't have been created by just one or two generations of disciples.

"It's been around for a long time, and many people have walked through here."

He moved the torch to the side.

Suddenly, many reliefs appeared on the left side of the stone wall.

"This is?"

Chen Yu was standing directly opposite the relief sculpture.

The relief features geometric patterns arranged in a staggered pattern.

Triangles nested within triangles, rhombuses stacked upon rhombuses.

The carving technique is simple and rough, with extremely deep lines, as if it were carved out by a blunt tool.

The torchlight casts a shadow, creating a sense of order that is almost unsettling.

Chen Yu stared at them for a moment, and suddenly felt that the patterns seemed to be moving.

The torch flickered.

As light and shadow shift, the triangle collapses deeper, and the rhombus silently flips and recombines.

Something's not right.

Reason told him that these were just marks on the stone.

But my intuition was screaming warnings.

This is not right.

This thing has eyes.

This thing is looking at you through the stone wall.

A chill ran up his spine.

Only after gripping the deer-slaying knife tightly in his hand did Chen Yu calm down.

"Ding Dangmao, trace these patterns."

"Commander, this—will there be any problems if we take this copy back?"

Chen Yu remained silent for a moment.

"Even if there is a real problem, what's the use of just being afraid? We have to figure out what it is first."

Ding Dangmao took a deep breath, nodded, turned around, and began to spread paper on the stone wall.

Chen Yu stood behind him, holding the torch steadily and proudly.

After Ding Dangmao finished making the rubbings and put them away, he was about to turn around.

A "click" sound.

Suddenly, my heel stepped on something.

He looked down and saw it was an animal bone.

"Commander, there seems to be a problem here as well."

He walked forward as he spoke.

The torchlight swept across the ground.

Along the drainage ditches on both sides of the stone steps, large and small animal bones were scattered haphazardly.

Chen Yu walked over and observed carefully.

Some of these animal bones were completely dry and blackened, while others still had a dark yellow, oily sheen.

One of the thick leg bones was bitten off at the root.

Three rows of tooth marks remained on the fracture surface, and the bone at the edges of the tooth marks was charred black.

"The burn marks are exactly the same as those on the corpses in Hequanxi Village."

Ding Dangmao squatted down and poked at the leg bone with the tip of his sword.

His tone carried an inexplicable heaviness.

Chen Yu didn't see anything amiss and went back.

Continue deeper along the stone steps.

Square niches, carved out by hand, began to appear on the stone wall.

There were no statues or offerings in the niche.

Each niche contains only a fist-sized, dark red stone.

The stone surface is rough and porous, like lava that has been burned and then cooled, which looks very strange.

A thick layer of dust had accumulated on the pedestals of the surrounding niches.

But the stones themselves are very clean.

Chen Yu didn't dare to touch the stones, but instead held the torch close to a niche.

Just then, the torch suddenly flickered.

"Waaah"

Everyone heard the same voice at the same time.

Extremely light, extremely far.

It looked like it was seeping out from deep within the stone wall.

"Don't panic, everyone. It's probably just the sound of water flowing in an underground river."

Sun Feipeng felt uneasy, but still tried to comfort everyone.

Chen Yu's keen hearing and sharp eyesight allowed him to hear everything clearly.

The rhythm of the sound didn't match the flow of the underground river at all.

The sound of the underground river is continuous, with occasional muffled sounds of waves crashing against the rock walls.

The sound was rhythmic, like some enormous living thing breathing slowly in its sleep.

"Commander, we can't go any deeper!"

Ding Dangmao's expression changed.

He was using the tip of his sword to pick at the animal bones.

The atmosphere inside the cave suddenly became eerie.

Everyone could feel a chill seeping up from the darkness below the stone steps.

The eerie blue flame on the torch trembled again.

"Let's leave. That's all for today."

Chen Yu gave the order in a deep voice.

Without a word, everyone rushed out.

Chen Yu brought up the rear of the column.

He only slowly walked out after Sun Feipeng, Ding Dangmao, and the five scouts had all retreated to the entrance of the underground river cave.

Before leaving, Zi Guang landed at the bottom of the stone steps one last time.

It was still as dark as ink there.

In the darkness, something seemed to be slowly shrinking.

Chen Yu didn't linger any longer and quickly retreated back to the cave entrance, squeezing sideways through the narrow crevice between the rocks.

Back at the north branch of the mine tunnel, the morning light shone in from afar at the entrance of the tunnel.

Ding Dangmao squatted by the mine tunnel, wrapped the animal bones in cloth, and put them in his bosom, preparing to take them back to the manor for identification.

Sun Feipeng leaned against the mine wall, panting heavily. He took out a water bag from his waist and drank several mouthfuls before he could catch his breath.

"Brother Chen Yu."

Sun Feipeng hung the water bag around his waist, and his voice returned to its usual bright and clear tone.

"Tell me, what exactly is down there?"

Chen Yu stood at the entrance of the mine tunnel, his hand on his sword, gazing at the vast, undulating mountain ridges in the morning mist.

After a moment's thought, he took out the map he had seized from Black Wind Village and spread it out again in the morning light at the entrance of the mine.

"Black Wind Stronghold has been tracking Fire Monkey for over a month, but they've never marked anything about the depths of the underground river on this map. Perhaps it's because the person who drew this map has never been inside either."

"Although it's dangerous inside, we've managed to gain the upper hand this time!"

"Ding Dangmao, keep those animal bones and rubbings safe. You can present them to the Deputy Commander later."

"Commander Sun, the entrance to the underground river cave is now sealed off. No one is allowed to enter without my order!"

After saying that, Chen Yu put his hands behind his back and looked into the depths of Niutou Mountain.

The mountains, like giant beasts lying down, slowly reveal their overlapping ridgelines in the morning mist.

In the distance, several unidentified mountain birds took flight from the low pine forest on the rocky slope, tracing hurried arcs against the hazy sky.

Animal bones, reliefs, and dark red stones all rushed into his mind.

"Something's getting weirder and weirder. How many secrets are still hidden in Niutou Mountain?"

"What exactly are the Huang family and Black Wind Stronghold looking for?"