Chapter 15

As Chuchu rubbed her waist and pushed the hair out of her face, she saw Black Glasses pull the statue’s head off. If she had been able to make a normal sound, she would’ve definitely screamed.

But when she took a closer look, she found that Black Glasses had actually pulled off a mask. The statue turned out to be a very thin man who wasn’t all that young. In addition to a lot of silver jewelry, he was wearing clothes and a mask that made him look like the statue. Black Glasses broke off the gun’s trigger, threw it aside, directly lifted the “statue” up, and dragged it all the way to the sorceress.

Chuchu went over while continuing to rub her waist and asked in sign language, “Why did you run into the minefield?”

“The minefield here may be fake,” Black Glasses said.

“Why?”

“If there’s a minefield, then why do you still need a guard? This is to deceive outsiders. There may actually be landmines nearby, but the number isn’t as exaggerated as they say.” Black Glasses took out two lollipops from his pocket and stuffed them directly into the two people’s mouths.

Chuchu couldn’t understand Black Glasses’ behavior at all. “There’s anesthetic in it,” Black Glasses said. “This teaches people not to eat things given by strangers.” After that, he went into the temple and blew out all the candles as quickly as possible.

The whole temple instantly became dark, leaving only the moonlight outside. Chuchu wanted to turn on her flashlight, but Black Glasses said from inside the temple, “I don’t need any light.” Chuchu didn’t understand, but she already knew at this time that Black Glasses wasn’t an ordinary person. After thinking for a while, she put down the flashlight and waited at the door.

Soon, Black Glasses’ flashlight came on. She didn’t know what he had done inside, but when she took a look, she saw that the altar had been overturned. She ran in and came up beside him, noticing that there was a hidden entrance below the altar. There was a simple stone staircase, which led all the way down.

“How did you find it?” She signed at him. His behavior just now didn’t seem like he was looking for something.

“Women’s thinking is really different from men’s,” Black Glasses said. Chuchu was so stunned that it took her a long time to realize that Black Glasses had avoided answering her question. He continued, “If it’s a man, he’ll ask what’s below.”

Then, he took out his cell phone, made sure he had a signal, pulled up the WeChat app, and quickly typed something.

“What are you doing?”

“When you enter an unknown area, you need to write a suicide note.” Black Glasses quickly sent the text and then looked at Chuchu, “You wait for me here.”

His eyes were locked on the black shadow behind Chuchu. At this time, the shadow became very large, almost like it was going to pounce.

“I won’t,” Chuchu signed. “I want to go down and have a look. I didn’t expect to get the opportunity to enter the underground river.”

“I broke in illegally. Anything you film will be condemned by humanitarians,” Black Glasses said. “You won’t win a prize.”

“You and I are not in the same group. I was merely passing by.” Chuchu went directly into the passage and turned on her flashlight.

Black Glasses shook his head, there’s something wrong with this girl’s character. He followed her in and saw her start signing in the flashlight’s glow: “Hey, have I seen you before?”

“Yes, I used to be an advertising model. You may have seen me at the movies,” Black Glasses said. The passage was very narrow and made from worn stone slabs. The stairs were very uneven and varied in size. Chuchu was still persistent: “No, I think I’ve met you before.”

Black Glasses looked back at her and moved to put his hand on the back of her neck. But Chuchu was very vigilant and pressed up against the passage wall, protecting the back of her neck. “Your movements are the same as Funny Uncle’s. He did that to me, too.” After Chuchu finished signing, she quickly put her hand over her neck and glared at Black Glasses.

“Come on! It’s just a quick squeeze and then you’ll wake up and everything will be settled. You can go home with your videos.”

Black Glasses beckoned to her, but Chuchu quickly signed back: “Are you Funny Uncle’s friend? Or his son?”

Black Glasses looked at her and sighed.

Funny Uncle… how long had it been since he heard that name? At that time, he stayed in the same ward with the little girl for a long time in order to monitor her. The little girl didn’t say a word or cry out in pain or sadness. She just stubbornly held it all back. He didn’t know whether she was refusing to accept her fate or if it was something else.

In order to get her to say something, Black Glasses went to all kinds of trouble and used every method he could think of. Later, because of his strange behavior, the little girl took a liking to him and gave him a nickname: Funny Uncle. Did children remember their childhood so well?

Black Glasses looked at Chuchu and was just about to strong-arm her, when she suddenly ran down the stairs with her hand covering her neck. Then, he heard the sound of her falling. When Black Glasses walked down and shined his flashlight around, he saw that she had bumped into a wall.

He looked closer with his flashlight and found that it wasn’t a wall, but a monument placed at the bottom of the stairs. At this time, he heard the sound of surging water coming from behind it.

Two words had been engraved on the stone monument: Extreme Sea.

The monument looked very old, but because there was only water vapor here, there were no signs of weathering. The engraved words were still quite clear and there were smaller ones carved on the side. Black Glasses wasn’t interested in reading them, so he bypassed the monument directly and found a huge cliff in the space behind it. If the stone monument hadn’t been here, Chuchu would’ve gone down directly.

This underground cliff was a big crack about the width of three liberation trucks and was too deep for the flashlights to illuminate clearly. The running water sound was coming from below, meaning that there really was an underground river underneath. According to Wu Erbai’s data, the Extreme Sea was the longest underground river in China, and also the mother river of the South Sea’s Falling Cloud Country. It was said that there were more than three hundred tributaries, and all of the South Sea’s Falling Cloud Country’s borders were attached to these rivers.

There were Extreme Sea monuments erected by the South Sea country’s people near every entrance and exit of these underground rivers. These monuments were all in secret places, and most of them had pools of water nearby. That was why most people who found them thought that Extreme Sea was the name of these underground pools. They didn’t realize that it actually referred to this connected underground water system. Unexpectedly, the Extreme Sea became so long that even Burma had an entrance. It wasn’t surprising that the legend of the South Sea country placed the country in both the east and the west. This ancient underground country—which existed in the underground river basin—had a vast territory and could be isolated from the world for a long time. This was also the only way to reach Thunder City, because there were too many forks in the underground river.

Thunder City was in a certain section of this Extreme Sea.

Chuchu asked him to come back, so Black Glasses went over to her. She told him to look at the small words engraved on the Extreme Sea monument. When he shined his flashlight on it, the line of words appeared more clearly. They seemed very chaotic, as if the person who had carved them had been in a state of madness.

The words read: Wu Sanxing entered Thunder City from this point to alleviate all regrets.

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