Don't provoke mentally ill people in the infinite flow genre!

The cave to the north.

After Yi Zanglan and Qin Shaoyu crawled into the crevice, they walked along the rock steps for a long time. At first, the tinder was not enough to dispel the thick darkness in front of them, until later, their vision gradually became clear.

The two finally stepped onto flat ground and discovered that it was less a cave and more a secret room with a long corridor. Continuing to walk along the narrow passage, they soon came to see a simple coffin.

"Let's not lift it rashly, what if there's a trap inside?"

Qin Shaoyu stood far away and used his cane to push open the coffin lid inch by inch. After waiting for a while and seeing that there was no unusual movement, he went closer to check.

...Inside the coffin lay a female corpse, dressed in the attire of a fisherman. It was unclear whether some special drug had been used, but the body remained fresh and incorruptible, still lifelike.

The corpse had a pretty and delicate appearance, except that it wore a small metal mask that just covered its nose.

Yi Zanglan stood in front of the coffin for a long time, seemingly lost in thought: "This is the body of the Flower-Haired Fisherwoman."

"Is it the evil spirit that Yan Zhao wants to worship?"

"You could say that this is the tool we're looking for."

She reached out and removed the mask. Sure enough, the corpse's nose was gone, as if it had been gouged out by some sharp weapon, leaving only a hole in the flesh, congealed with filthy blood.

Qin Shaoyu stared at the corpse, then suddenly seemed to realize something, his expression turning shocked and incredulous.

"It...it's leaking air?"

When the mask was removed and the restraints that had kept the body in its original state shattered, a large amount of putrid gas hissed and leaked wildly from the body's gouged-out nasal cavity.

The flesh of the corpse collapsed and shriveled at a visible rate until it became a wrinkled and skeletal skeleton.

Kara la la la la la —

The corpse mechanically rose, its head turning 360 degrees in place, its empty, deep black eye sockets staring straight at the two.

Qin Shaoyu felt a chill run down his spine from being stared at. He tugged at Yi Canglan's sleeve, trying to pull her back with him.

"Something's not right, it seems to be gathering its strength..."

"You go first," Yi Zanglan said calmly. "Don't block the way."

"oh oh!"

Qin Shaoyu strictly followed her instructions, taking small, quick steps back along the same passageway he had come from, while frequently looking back.

The moment he touched the stone wall of the passageway, he saw the fisherwoman's corpse suddenly rise from the coffin, countless maggots falling from its gaping maw, and each of its fingernails as sharp as a blade.

It stretched out its arms and twisted its limbs, crawling along the walls and the ground in an extremely bizarre posture, frantically scratching and tearing at Yi Zanglan.

Yi Zanglan wielded a bone blade, parrying continuously while simultaneously launching attacks as if using offense as defense.

But she quickly realized that weapons of this caliber could not cause any real damage to the other party; at most, they could only temporarily force them back, and the fisherwoman would catch up again in less than two seconds.

So she stopped fighting, feinted a couple of times, and decisively retreated, quickly running back to the secret passage she had come from.

"No, it's chasing us too closely!" Qin Shaoyu shouted as he ran. "Isn't there any other way?"

Yi Zanglan's mind raced, and she suddenly said in a deep voice, "Pull its nose back up."

"...Huh? But we have to take that mask back with us, right?"

"We need to find another way to stop it."

As they spoke, the fisherwoman had gotten incredibly close to their backs. A dull thud of bones colliding was heard, and Yi Zanglan exchanged more than a dozen blows with her in an instant.

She didn't have time to explain further, but fortunately Qin Shaoyu wasn't stupid; he understood after a little thought.

"Then let's work together!"

The two fought and retreated, leading the fisherwoman to the stone steps. Yi Zanglan pretended to create an opening, and then, when the fisherwoman swung her claw at him, he suddenly held the bone blade across his chest and leaned back.

At the critical moment, Qin Shaoyu leaped up from the steps, gathered his strength in mid-air, and stabbed the cane in his hand into the fisherwoman's face with gritted teeth.

Click!

It was the sound of a twig embedding itself into facial bones.

He let go and landed, and Yi Zanglan, who was next to him, pulled him behind her and kicked the fisherwoman away.

The bottom of the tree branch cane fit perfectly into the fisherwoman's gouged-out nasal cavity. It lay there, its limbs twitching a few times like a stranded fish, before finally stiffening and remaining still.

"Walk."

Fearing that if they lingered too long, the dried corpse might come back to life, Yi Zanglan and Qin Shaoyu raced against time to climb the stone steps and rushed out of the cave.

……

After the two left the cave, they ran for a long time until they were sure that the fisherwoman was no longer chasing them. Only then did Yi Zanglan take out the mask from his pocket and examine it carefully in the light.

After a while, she vaguely felt that something was wrong. She turned her head and saw Qin Shaoyu slowly following behind her, with a disappointed expression on his face.

She was a little puzzled: "What's wrong? Who upset you again?"

Qin Shaoyu sighed and hesitantly told the truth: "The cane you just made for me, I haven't even had a chance to warm it up in my hands, and it's already going to be used by that skeleton."

"..."

As it turns out, people can indeed laugh when they're speechless. Yi Zanglan didn't quite understand his thought process, but still offered a word of comfort.

"It's okay, it's nothing valuable. I'll peel another one for you later."

Qin Shaoyu then cheered up: "Hehe, thank you, Captain."

"...Stop chuckling, it makes you look stupid."

* * * * * *

When Yi Zanglan and Qin Shaoyu returned to the meeting point, they saw that Yan Zhao and Shen Yubai had already arrived ahead of them and were trying to install the pair of heterochromatic conch shells on either side of the head of the mermaid priest statue.

Sure enough, the protrusion on the back of the conch shell fit perfectly into the hole in the statue, making it look like a pair of ears on the statue.

When the prop was put back in its place, nothing seemed to have changed at first. But when the two turned around and looked back, they discovered that the statue's eyes had actually closed.

Perhaps the evil spirits have fallen into slumber.

"We found this on a shipwreck," Yan Zhao shared with Yi Zanglan. "The hold there was piled high with rotting fish heads, and there were also a lot of headless corpses blocking the way. It was a struggle for us to escape."

"Are you injured?"

"No, it's just troublesome, its attack power is average."

Yi Zanglan hung the metal mask on his finger and showed it to her: "We found the body of a fisherwoman in the cave to the north. This was taken from her face."

"But it seems we can't put the statue on yet."

"Yes, we need to use the tool, but only if the evil spirit is activated at night."

"It's getting dark." Shen Yubai looked at the fiery clouds gradually rising on the sea and couldn't help but worry, "Why haven't Ye Wang and Song Zi returned yet?"

"You're back." Yi Zanglan calmly raised his hand and pointed. "There."

Before he finished speaking, Ling Ye and Du Songzi appeared in the shadows of the trees in the distance.

Ling Ye quickly walked up to her and nodded to her before Yi Zanglan could speak.

"Things went relatively smoothly. We found a lighthouse to the south, and inside were hidden props, which we suspect are the eyes of the black sheep statue."

Du Songzi quickly showed everyone the pair of pale yellow stone beads and added, "And we've made a new discovery."

"What?"

"Go past the lighthouse and continue south; there's a fishing village there."