Chapter 10 Siberian Salmon

Even though Lao Yang said that, we were neck-deep in water so how exactly were we supposed to escape quickly? As I floundered around, I looked back and saw that the triangular ripple was rushing right towards me, its lightning-fast movements churning the water into a cloudy mess.

I quickly tied my flashlight to my wrist, pulled my knife from my belt, shifted my backpack to the front to act as a shield, and called Lao Yang to help, only to find that this bastard had already swam more than ten meters away.

I silently cursed all of his ancestors up to the tenth generation, but I didn’t have any time to worry about him now—the monster had rushed over as fast as lightning and was already in front of me.

I lowered my body and braced myself for the hard blow I was about to receive from this monster. The triangular ripple came quickly, but when it was about a meter away from me, it suddenly swelled and then disappeared.

Before I even had time to wonder where it had gone, a stream of water suddenly exploded right in front of my eyes, and a huge force slammed into my chest. It all happened so fast that I didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t even open my eyes as I choked on the smelly water that filled my mouth and nose.

The explosive force slammed me into the water before pushing me more than ten meters in one go. I entered the water so abruptly that I didn’t even have time to take a breath and was already nearly at my limit. I knew I would suffocate if this thing kept pushing me down, so I gritted my teeth and raised my knife, stabbing it down randomly. I didn’t know where my blow landed, but I knew I must have hit the creature because I could feel something under my hand suddenly start to tremble. The blow must have been painful because the thing violently jerked in the water and lost its hold on me. I went flying through the water and hit my head on the wall, my vision darkening for a moment.

But at least my knife had worked. That pressure on my chest was gone and the force behind it had finally disappeared.

Knowing that it had let go of me, I struggled to reach the water’s surface, and then greedily sucked in a mouthful of air. I checked my backpack and found that the fucking thing had been torn in half, and almost everything inside had fallen out. Fortunately, I had used the backpack to protect my chest; otherwise, I would have definitely died considering how strong this thing’s bite was.

At this time, the light in our surroundings was very dim and only Lao Yang’s flashlight could be seen swaying in the distance. But this faint light couldn’t illuminate anything at all and was actually affecting my vision with the way it kept reflecting off of the water’s surface.

As I took a few deep breaths, my mind became clearer and I found that my knife was no longer in my hand. I didn’t know if it had fallen into the water when I hit the wall just now, or if it was still stuck in that creature, but I sighed heavily when I realized that I was now weaponless. Plus, without the protection of my backpack, I figured my internal organs would be ripped out if that thing tried to take another bite out of me.

I stuck close to the rock wall, thinking that it would be harder for that thing to bite my body since this place was a lot narrower.

During the battle just now, I vaguely felt that the creature was a big fish, but how could there be a fish in this sealed hole? And it was such a big one, which didn’t make any sense. Even if there was a fish in here, what did it eat? Rocks?

Lao Yang had chased after me and gave a shout when he finally saw me, “Are you alright? Are you missing any arms or legs?”

I quickly told him to stop where he was and stick close to the wall, “Don’t come over here, that thing is still nearby!”

He didn’t listen to what I said and kept talking, “It’s fine. I tried to make some noise to attract its attention just now, but I didn’t expect that it wouldn’t—” He was halfway through his sentence when his whole body suddenly jerked and he was pulled underwater. As water went flying everywhere, I suddenly saw a huge fish tail shoot out of the water, and a green wave hit me in the face.

Not good! I silently cried in my heart. There was no telling where Lao Yang had been bitten, but it would be really bad if it was his body. Even if he was lucky enough to survive such a bite, he’d definitely wind up disabled.

I felt all over my body but couldn’t find a single weapon. All I had on me was the military can opener I found in my pocket. The blade was sharp enough but it was way too short to do much damage. Even if you stabbed someone with it a hundred times, it probably wouldn’t be enough to kill them. But it wasn’t like I could be picky now. I gave a fierce shout, leaped into the water, and swam in the direction I’d last seen Lao Yang.

Since the water was roiling from whatever scuffle was taking place beneath its surface, I couldn’t see anything at all and had to rely on my sense of touch. I swept my hands through the water twice before I made contact with what felt like a fish tail. But just as soon as I did, the tail swung out of the water and slapped me so hard in the face that I became disoriented, my body went flying through the water, and I almost broke my neck.

But the slap riled me up a bit, so after pulling myself together, I immediately rushed back over. It was still chaos underwater, but I managed to grab hold of something that felt smooth, greasy, and scaly. There you are! I thought to myself. I didn’t know which part of the fish I had grabbed, but I raised my can opener and stabbed it down hard.

Although this can opener’s blade was short, it was still very sharp. As a result, when the blade plunged into its body, the creature suddenly started thrashing around wildly. I couldn’t hold onto it any longer and wound up getting thrown back by a wave, but I had learned my lesson and held onto the can opener with everything I had. The sharp blade was still stuck in the creature’s body, so as soon as it pushed forward with all of its might, a gaping wound opened in its side.

When I finally resurfaced, I found that the green water was full of red blood, and the two colors had mixed together to form a very disgusting sight. I lifted my hand out of the water and found that the can opener had bent backwards and cut into my white, pruney fingers. I had been so focused just now that I didn’t notice it at all.

But I couldn’t worry about it now. I took a moment to collect myself before starting to move forward, but at this time, a huge fish head suddenly burst out of the water. All I saw was a dense row of fangs hurtling right towards my head. In a fit of desperation, I leaned back to try and avoid it, but the fish fell right on top of me and pushed me underwater.

I struggled desperately in the water, trying to grab something, but someone suddenly grabbed my hand and yanked me out of the water. I looked up and saw Lao Yang. He was covered in blood and panting heavily.

“Are you ok?” I hurriedly asked him. “Where did it bite you just now?”

He lifted up what looked to be half of a backpack from the water and gave a wry smile. I breathed a sigh of relief. It appeared this place was too narrow for the fish to move freely so it could only attack us head-on. This was truly a blessing in disguise.

As we looked around, we found that the water had become even murkier than before. The big fish was obviously in a lot of pain, as evidenced by the churning water close by. We continued to stay on guard as the fish kept thrashing around and hitting the stone wall on the side from time to time. But it wasn’t too long afterward that the fish floated to the surface. Its belly was face up and its two fins kept twitching, but it seemed to be right on the verge of death.

I waited for a while to confirm that it was really dead before I dared to swim towards it.

The fish was at least two and a half meters long, with a big head and a mouth the size of a washbasin that was full of tiny barbed teeth. But the strangest thing was, the fish had a weird thing sticking out of its forehead that looked like a knife without a handle. I couldn’t tell whether it was mine or Lao Yang’s handiwork.

As I got closer, I realized that this was a Siberian Salmon, one of the most vicious freshwater fish out there. In terms of species, the fish in front of us was considered relatively small, but they lived only in cold water habits so how did it end up in a place like this?

Just as I was thinking this, I heard Lao Yang shout, “Look, there are steps over there!”

After that chaotic fight just now, I didn’t know where the fish had ended up bringing me, but it seemed like we had entered the depths of the stone passage. I turned to look and found that there were several crude steps off to one side that rose out of the water and led to a small elevated area. We used our flashlights to take a look and saw several murals.

We were cold and achy all over, and in urgent need of some rest. So, after discussing our options, the two of us decided to go to a place where there wasn’t any water and treat our wounds first.

Lao Yang was so cold that he didn’t say much to me as he suddenly grabbed the fish’s gills and started to drag it out of the water. I gave him a strange look and asked him what he was planning on doing with this fish. “It swallowed all the equipment from our bags,” he responded. “We still need these things to make a fortune so we have to get them out now.”

I shook my head after hearing this, but still went to help him pull the fish out anyways. I climbed up the almost perfectly vertical steps first and found that the elevated area was really a stone chamber supported by wooden columns that were thin and rotted. There was a stone path off to one side that led into the darkness, and the place was relatively spacious. It was probably used to temporarily store the quarried stones and waste materials. The murals on the surrounding walls were very simple and seemed to have been made in an abstract style, but I was in such a bad state that I didn’t take the time to look at them carefully.

We stripped off all our clothes, built a fire with the rotten wood we found in the corner, and began drying our clothes. Lao Yang was so anxious about his equipment that he didn’t even bother getting dressed before cutting the fish’s belly open. “This fish is so big that it’s such a waste to leave it like this,” he said to me. “How about we cut some of it up and eat it later? What do you think?”

I pulled out some medicine from what was left of Lao Yang’s backpack and disinfected my fingers before wrapping them with a band-aid and saying, “Eat it yourself. Not only is the water here too dirty, but there’s no telling where this fish came from or what it grew up eating. I doubt it’s safe.”

By this time, Lao Yang had already sliced deep into the big fish’s stomach and cut through its gallbladder with his knife. A nauseating stench suddenly hit me in the face and almost choked me to death. My head involuntarily turned to look, and I saw a mass of rotten, pulpy things flow out of its stomach, along with a round thing that rolled a few times before coming to a stop right in front of me.

When I saw it, the only sound that came out of my mouth was, “Uh…”

As it turned out, that round thing was a human head.

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