Chapter 20 The End

Black Glasses looked at the bronze amplifier overhead that went deep into the rock stratum and wondered just how deep it had been embedded.

When he looked through Wu Erbai’s data before, he couldn’t help but ask a question: Why listen to thunder in an enclosed space?

No matter how enclosed the space was, surely it wasn’t better than listening to it from the top of a mountain?

But now that he thought about it, both the sorceress and her daughter from Liaobian were listening to thunder on the roof and were killed directly. Maybe these bronze devices weren’t only used for ceremony, but were also as a protective measure.

He still didn’t know how exactly he got rid of this immortal thing last time. All he remembered was that he was in a cave and saw a deformed hand rising out of the darkness.

At that time, he was in a very similar state to his current situation. He was almost completely blind, with only a very small field of view left. All he could see were the outlines of things in front of him. But when that hand pressed on his neck, he felt a force that instantly made all of his muscles feel as if they were reborn. The thing that had been weighing his neck down had no resistance in front of that force.

When that hand let go of his neck, his eyesight slowly began to recover. He was on the outskirts of a city and there was an extremely deep hole in the dirt in front of him. He knew what was living in the depths of this hole and whose hand it was, so he felt a bit sad.

It used to be a person. The owner of this hand… well, if the world had a dispute with a good person, then the result should be the thing in this hole. It looked like it could only live in this kind of place, but that wasn’t necessarily the case.

That person had basically told him that when you were able to read people clearly—whether it was someone in a crowd or someone who lived deep in the dirt mounds outside the city—it was difficult to distinguish who was actually happy and free.

It was only after giving up your identity that you might find real happiness.

“Mute, help me.” Black Glasses looked overhead. Since the thing on his back was afraid of the noise here, it was better to go to the center of it.

At this time, Black Glasses’ vision would intermittently come back, so he could see some things.

When Poker-Face started looking around, Black Glasses pointed to the darkness on one side, “If you go in this direction, you can climb from the cave wall to the area above this underground river. But the noise is too loud up there and I may not be able to bear it. I want you to temporarily make me deaf.”

Poker-Face turned to look at him, suddenly shot his arm out, and was caught by Black Glasses. Black Glasses immediately let go, “At least give me a warning before—”

Poker-Face’s other hand shot out, the web between his thumb and forefinger hitting right below Black Glasses’ ear.

Black Glasses tilted his head and found that he could no longer hear any sounds in that ear. He shook his head and then turned his other ear towards Poker-Face. After the move was repeated, all external sounds disappeared in an instant, leaving only a vague buzzing sound.

Poker-Face’s skills could temporarily paralyze the ears. The eardrums would still technically be damaged by the sound waves, but you wouldn’t fall off the cave wall due to the pain.

Black Glasses stretched his neck and then started running into the darkness. It didn’t take long to climb up the wall and reach the top of the underground river. It was a karst landform, but the rock structure wasn’t completely limestone, so the stalactites weren’t prominent. A lot of cracks had formed in the cave ceiling since the bronze devices were embedded in the rock stratum. But these cracks weren’t wide enough for him to climb closer.

He reached out several times, but couldn’t find a point to hang from.

When the thunder died down, his eyesight began to fade again.

He could see that the riverbed below was crowded with leather figurines. The thunder must’ve startled them out of the water, but they didn’t go up to dry land. Instead, they were all piled on the riverbed in a surging wave. Based on the movements, they seemed to be mating. The figurines and shellfish were all mixed together, just like a big pot of food.

As another series of thunderclaps sounded, he saw Poker-Face had climbed up next to him and was pointing to a stalactite in front of them.

This stalactite stood between them and the bronze device. Poker-Face leaped, slammed his blade into the stalactite, let go, and started falling. Black Glasses had jumped at the same time, so when Zhang Qiling twisted in the air, Black Glasses kicked off from his shoulders and reached his hands up.

As Poker-Face fell to the ground and rolled, Black Glasses jumped up directly and grabbed the blade that was inserted into the stalactite. Then, he used the inertia to swing again and inserted his hand into a crack on the ceiling. With his fingers stuck in the gap, he could hang from the cave ceiling.

He was now very close to the bronze device and could feel the whole rock stratum shaking. His limbs felt a little limp and numb, but he laughed and began swinging forward from gap to gap like Tarzan.

As another burst of thunder rushed out, he leaped at the last moment and caught the edge of the bronze device. Now that he was in the center of the sound waves, the thing on his back suddenly became frantic.

Black Glasses clung to the edge of the bronze device that looked like an inverted bell and glanced inside.

There was a bronze mirror inside that looked just like the mirror he had seen hanging around that female corpse’s neck.

Half of the bronze mirror was completely rusted, but the other side was still usable. When he looked at the mirror, he could see a monkey-like thing hanging on his back and struggling like crazy.

Is that the immortal thing? It’s not very good-looking.

Black Glasses laughed when he saw that the immortal thing was in pain. Although his nails were all cracked and he felt like his brains were coming out of his ears from the shaking, it was totally worth it to see this thing being tortured.

In the mirror, the immortal thing began to change into what looked like a woman’s face from ancient times. Then it turned into a mass of black fog before turning into that monkey-like thing again. Black Glasses leaned his upper body into the bronze bell and saw that the black shadow detached itself from his shoulders and fell down.

“Be careful!” Black Glasses shouted at Poker-Face as he turned around, finally able to see everything clearly.

Poker-Face watched the shadow coming towards him, his tattoo appearing on his body in an instant. Black Glasses stuck his hand into the bell, grabbed the bronze mirror, and forcefully yanked it out. As he fell towards the ground, he turned and threw the mirror to Poker-Face.

Poker-Face dodged the black shadow, caught the bronze mirror, and backhanded the shadow with the mirror like he was swatting a fly. After Black Glasses landed, he went over and stepped on it. As the two of them pressed the bronze mirror into the ground, they saw that the shadow was trying to squirm out of the gap. They exerted more force and firmly pressed the bronze mirror into the gravel on the riverbank.

Finally, the power surging under the bronze mirror disappeared. They didn’t know if this thing was dead, had returned to Thunder City, or disappeared completely.

Black Glasses moved his neck—no longer feeling the pressure from before—and then looked at Poker-Face. There was nothing behind him, but a heat wave was radiating from him.

“You were nervous just now.” Black Glasses smiled. “So rare, so rare.”

“Look behind you.”

Black Glasses froze for a moment and then turned around.

There was a monster climbing out of the underground river that was about six or seven meters high. It was a very strange giant leather figurine—

“Ok, stop.” I finally spoke up.

I didn’t know how true some of their final statements were, but there was no denying that this was definitely a wonderful story. But if they kept talking like this, we wouldn’t be able to eat.

If the story continued any further, it would go against the original intention of this dinner.

Black Glasses laughed. He had turned the tide and steered the story in such a way that nobody would be embarrassed now.

Even though there was a giant leather figurine, they still had a dozen incendiary bombs at their disposal. I also knew what this thing’s attack power would be like. When Poker-Face and Black Glasses were in peak condition, the leather figurines weren’t a threat at all. Besides, the human hand shellfish were afraid of Poker-Face’s blood.

There was no need to listen anymore, but I did want to know what happened to Chuchu.

“When we came out, she was still hanging on the rope,” Black Glasses smiled and then started laughing.

After coming out of the underground river, he and Chuchu sat on the balcony of their diaojiao in Mute Village. Black Glasses didn’t feel embarrassed at all. Now that the haze behind Chuchu had been removed, it seemed as if a faint sense of suffocation that had been lingering there before had finally disappeared.

For a long time, he had been avoiding contact with people who might be able to remember him. But the accident with this little girl had really been unexpected. At that time, he had encountered one of his strongest opponents and even went blind for a bit. Moreover, this little girl was one of the parties involved at that time.

For many years, he didn’t think that he would fall into any sort of crisis that could be called a quagmire. Danger—all kinds of danger, really—was something he had already experienced.

In this world, smart people were probably in their thirties when they could start classifying people. Although humans were complicated, it was easy to figure out what category they fell into. And even though they might go through big changes, these changes ultimately amounted to just one big idea.

Me, Black Glasses, Fatty, Xiao Hua, Uncle Two, Uncle Three, and so many others were all smart and cunning people who could see others’ ultimate thoughts. Poker-Face could too, but he was probably just too lazy to look.

A person’s turning point, which direction he’ll finally turn to, and his thoughts at that moment are the true mysteries of the ages. No matter how smart people were, it was just too difficult to understand. The direction at which you could turn was limited, but that could also be used as a strategy or a way to fight against danger.

Only emotions could upset one’s heart. It was one thing to understand the world, but once you did, it became an issue of whether you could do it according to your own consciousness. The two concepts of knowing and doing were hard to unite.

Black Glasses still had some lingering feelings for the little girl he had spent a few months getting along with back then, so even his actions today had been a little distorted. The immortal thing left the girl and latched onto him, which made Black Glasses feel a sense of relief. It was finally over. If relationships in this world were connected by cause and effect, then this causality had almost disappeared.

He felt as if he had returned to the time when his heart was like a desert.

Just like the tall immortal who could only live underground like an earthworm, he could only walk in the desert. It didn’t matter whether it was the snake marsh or Gutong Jing, he felt that this was his own world.

That was why he felt so calm.

The little girl his godson had originally sent to drive him to Mute Village suddenly drove up to the village gate. He didn’t know why, but this time, she was carrying a Remington 700, which was the best gun Canadians used to teach their children to hunt. The little girl had a solemn expression on her face and seemed very nervous as she chewed on betel nuts.

Black Glasses glanced at Chuchu. He needed a formal farewell to put an end to this cause and effect. It was better for the girl to return to a normal life, after all.

Everyone had their own different opinions on the value of a period of time. The name Funny Uncle had great significance to a fire when she was a child and an adventure when she was an adult, so she might not forget them. If she was lucky, her life should be smooth sailing after these two events as long as she suppressed her curiosity.

“I have something to do. If you want to find me later or treat your throat, you can find the person on that business card. If you have any questions about me, you can also ask him. He’ll tell you who I am,” Black Glasses said as Chuchu looked at him a little awkwardly.

The dark clouds in the sky still hadn’t cleared yet as Poker-Face prepared their equipment off to the side. The two of them were going deep into the underground river for a week. This time, they were going down by boat before the villagers noticed that the temple keeper and sorceress were missing. This was their last chance for a deep exploration.

Why did the South Sea country’s people build a temple here thousands of years ago?

In addition to the South Sea King’s tomb that we had found, was there a huge underground palace below the South Sea country? Or maybe there was a big tomb here? But if so, then whose tomb was it? They wouldn’t know until they went down.

(End of the Southeast Asia Adventure)

<Chapter 19><Table of Contents><Restart Trial Reading: Chapter 1>

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Sorry guys, only 1 tonight. It was a long one and the author tried to get all philosophical (I always struggle with it). Next up is the Trial Reading, so be prepared to probably be confused lol. I don’t think a lot of chapters have continuity like you would think but I figured you all might be interested in reading them nonetheless