Chapter 90: The Limestone Cave

Tang Xianghui looked at Zuo Zhicheng and felt a hint of fear in her gaze. He could actually smell the odor of Corpse Wax with his nose alone—this showed how many corpses Ghost Fist had encountered, smelled, and dealt with.

Thinking this, she once again affirmed Lin Ganghao’s judgment: ‘This guy must have come from that secret unit of the Imperial Court, and he definitely crawled out from piles of the dead.’

Upon hearing Zuo Zhicheng’s conclusion, Qingyue Qiu on the other side thought it over and then calmly said, “Whether there were moving corpses or not, let’s rest here for the night and enter the ruins tomorrow morning. Also, don’t tell anyone about the Corpse Wax.”

“Tell A Wei and the others not to sleep too deeply tonight. Have them stay alert.” After saying this, she looked toward Zuo Zhicheng beside her: “We’ll take turns keeping watch.”

One of them had achieved Grand Completion of Qi Training, and the other possessed Spiritual Energy Vision—they seemed the most suitable for keeping watch. But Zuo Zhicheng did not think so: “You sleep. It’s no problem for me to go without sleep for several days. Your body is too weak; if you don’t sleep well, it will affect your Dao Arts.”

Qingyue Qiu was not a woman who would stubbornly refuse. Whether she had enough sleep and whether her mind was focused indeed greatly affected the performance of Dao Arts. Since Ghost Fist said that going without sleep for several days did not affect him, she would not decline.

So the group scattered. Apart from Liu Changding going straight into the tent to rest, Qingyue Qiu closed her eyes to meditate, beginning her Dao Arts contemplation. Zuo Zhicheng slipped into the forest again, starting to observe and memorize the terrain around them.

As for the other members of the Shadow Corps, some lit fires to cook dry rations, some were responsible for keeping guard, some set up new tents, and others went to catch some wild game for dinner.

Zuo Zhicheng moved through the jungle, observing the animals around him with his Infrared Vision.

‘The animals here seem much fewer than on the way we came.’

With his calm and rationality, things like illusions were basically impossible to occur. In other words, the number of animals really had decreased.

He walked a bit further and found footprints with Corpse Wax dropped in several different places.

Looking at the Corpse Wax in his palm, Zuo Zhicheng thought, “It looks like there really is some creature with Corpse Wax on its body near this lake. I just don’t know if it’s a supernatural being like a Yin Woman or Dwarf Spirit, or some strange animal.”

After a final look, Zuo Zhicheng turned and headed back toward the camp.

When Zuo Zhicheng returned to the camp, he found that the man they had encountered in the middle of the night had woken up. Qingyue Qiu, Tang Xianghui, and others were gathered around him, asking constantly about the camp.

But no matter how they questioned him, the man only looked confused and occasionally let out a scream.

Tang Yuan, with his round face, waved a hand in front of the man’s eyes. Seeing that the man’s eyeballs didn’t even move, he sighed and said, “He seems to have gone mad.”

“What exactly happened? What occurred in this camp?”

Unfortunately, no one could answer his question. Qingyue Qiu ordered someone to tie the man up to prevent him from running around. The group then started to eat.

At night, under the cold moonlight, only Zuo Zhicheng stood alone on the riverbank, slowly practicing the martial art of Northern Peng Hanging Heaven Style.

This martial art for Qi Training was an Authentic Transmission Martial Art that he could continue practicing as long as he didn’t find a more efficient method—it constantly improved his Innate Primordial Breath, which was his Physique Strength. But as his own strength increased, the speed of this training would continuously slow down, eventually reaching a limit.

To gain greater power on the path of Martial Arts, one still needed Spirit Refining and Void Training.

After finishing the last set of Northern Peng Hanging Heaven Style, Zuo Zhicheng slowly exhaled a white breath, feeling the purple Innate Primordial Breath inside him had reached 78%. Unfortunately, without Spiritual Energy Food, he couldn’t train as hard day and night as he did on the island. Continuing to practice would only cause harm.

So, having completed today’s Authentic Transmission Martial Arts training, Zuo Zhicheng raised his head and looked at the moon in the sky—or rather, he looked with his left eye at the moon in the sky.

Yesterday, because he was in the city, Zuo Zhicheng had hidden in the underground base and practiced by candlelight.

But the moonlight reflected from the moon in the sky was naturally also a type of light.

Slightly lifting his eyepatch, Zuo Zhicheng stood there looking at the moon and began to practice according to the method described in the Daoist Canon. He slowly manipulated the Night Sea in his left eye, starting to absorb the power of the moonlight.

Imperceptible to the naked eye, strands of white moonlight drilled into Zuo Zhicheng’s left eye, like streams of warmth, constantly being devoured by the Life Grove Night Sea. Stimulated by the Light Energy, Night Sea also grew little by little.

The night passed without incident. Zuo Zhicheng spent it in practice and contemplation. The possible attack he had imagined did not occur.

Waking up early in the morning, aside from Liu Changding who was still somewhat listless, everyone else—including Zuo Zhicheng—was already full of energy. They dragged the two small boats from the camp into the lake. Carrying torches, ropes, dry rations, fuel, and tools like axes and shovels, they rowed toward the depths of the lake.

Their group totaled eleven people. After leaving two team members to guard the camp, the remaining nine, each holding equipment, sat in two small boats. Because of the strange events at the camp, evident tension could be seen on the faces of several Shadow Corps soldiers.

Unfortunately, to prevent the news about Spiritual Energy Food from leaking, Qingyue Qiu had brought only her trusted subordinates. Otherwise, sending a large force from the city’s Imperial Court would have made everything much simpler.

One person in the team looked at the dark green water surface, which made it impossible to see the bottom of the lake, and said, “You think, with this lake being so big, there might not be some strange things in it, right?”

Tang Yuan spat at him, “What nonsense are you talking? The first two teams that went in didn’t encounter anything in this water.”

“That’s not certain. Look, this lake connects all the way into the mountains. Who knows how long the underground river is and where it leads.”

A Wei also said, “I’ve heard the old folks in my hometown say that this kind of underground river goes all the way to the Yellow Springs underground—it’s a passage between the human and ghost worlds. Usually, you can go in but not come out.”

Tang Yuan’s face was full of disdain, “What era is this, and you still believe in that kind of stuff?” The members of the Shadow Corps had all received education in Martial Arts and Dao Arts, so they often viewed many superstitious matters with a more scientific approach.

Just as they were talking, the two small boats had already passed through several mountain peaks. A limestone cave appeared before everyone on the lake.

The pitch-black entrance of the limestone cave looked bottomless. From the outside, the cave ceiling was only a little over two meters above the water surface, like a huge mouth, wanting to swallow everyone whole.

The group lit torches and then rowed the boats into the cave.

Feeling the sun in the sky disappear inch by inch from above their heads, for some reason, a strange sense of unease rose in everyone’s hearts.

This feeling of unease came quickly and left quickly. Once the boats they were in completely entered the cave, it disappeared. Suppressing the unease in their hearts, everyone rowed their oars, heading deeper into the cave.