Chapter 23 Danxi

This was a mark I had left for myself, so after thinking about it, I calmed down and told myself that my other self must have described the noise so vividly in order to ensure that whenever I encountered it, I would immediately understand what was going on.

It seemed that a certain me had climbed here and suddenly wanted to say a thousand words, so they kept writing and writing. Did he already sense that he was going to lose his memory? There must have been some kind of feeling, because Poker-Face had also had a similar phase.

I took a few breaths and climbed on, noticing that there were fewer messages the farther I went.

After climbing for more than ten minutes, the crevice became narrower. I raised my head and shined my flashlight towards the top of the crevice, finding that clear water droplets were falling down in some places. As I looked at them, I suddenly realized that the water in the leather water bag had come from here.

It should be drinkable.

I hesitated for a moment before tentatively licking it. Finding that it was sweet, I took a few more sips.

I continued climbing for a while when I suddenly noticed a lot of strange reflections appearing under the flashlight’s glow. After taking a careful look, I realized that there were a lot of clam shells embedded in the rock walls on both sides of the crevice in front of me. These clam shells were polished to the point of almost being transparent and embedded in the walls.

This was a craft I had seen in Jiangnan. In ancient times, people in Jiangnan had used clam shells polished to transparency to make glass.

But the clam shells here were very large, each one almost the size of a basketball. I had rarely seen such huge clams in my day-to-day life.

I climbed over and found that there was water at the bottom of this crevice. The water was full of clam shells, which were huge. In fact, the largest one was almost as big as a car’s windshield. Lined up one by one, they all looked like they might still be alive.

These water droplets had gathered here to form a narrow pool, and inside of this pool were clam shells of varying sizes containing freshwater clams.

I returned my gaze to the clam shells embedded in the stone wall and saw that they were arranged in such a way as to look like murals. There were all kinds of them, and the texture formed by the pearls was very unique so the flashlight shone brightly whenever it passed over them.

Most of them were about cultivation, immortals cultivating, and alchemy. They had nothing to do with each other, so there wasn’t any kind of cohesive narrative at all. In fact, it almost seemed like the alchemists here processed the clam shells and embedded them in the walls to form patterns whenever they got bored.

But because there were so many and they were all so beautifully crafted, I instinctively knew that what I was seeing was priceless.

I didn’t want to stay any longer, but my heart was telling me that these clams may have been the alchemists’ food source back then. Moreover, clams were very nutritious. If they could be raised here, you could indeed practice cultivating all year round without having to go out for a long time. But after the alchemists died, no one was here to eat the clams so they ended up growing so big.

Could freshwater clams really grow this big, though? I had heard some old people say that clams basically only had a lifespan of two to three years. Of course, I had also seen clams raised on farms that were purported to be seven years old, and they were already very big. Had the clams here lived for thousands of years?

Was the water quality here suitable for longevity?

As I pondered over it, I put my feet on both sides of the crevice and slowly began crossing over the pool. As I was moving, I suddenly saw a huge clam shell below abruptly open.

I wanted to ignore it at first, but by chance, I happened to catch a glimpse of something inside the clam shell out of the corner of my eye.

I shined my flashlight on it and saw a withered hand protruding from the crack in the huge clam shell, stretching out towards me.

When I looked at that hand more carefully, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had seen it somewhere before.

Did this clam swallow a mummy?

I thought about it, hesitated for a moment, and then came to a complete stop. Then I squatted down and brought the flashlight close to the water.

From this distance, I could see that the pool below was very deep, and all the crevices were covered in what looked like a mountain of clam shells. There were so many of them that it would likely cause people to have an intense case of trypophobia.

And on that hand was an electronic watch like mine, which suddenly began to flicker non-stop.

<Chapter 22><Table of Contents><Chapter 24>