Chapter 25 Face-Covered Immortal

“Black Glasses!” I cried out. The sound seemed to fade faster in the narrow gap, giving the impression that it didn’t travel very far.

I tried signaling with my flashlight, hoping for a response—it was so dark here originally that he would’ve been able to see it no matter how bright it was—but none came.

I looked at the seemingly endless crevice above and below and figured that the probability of Black Glasses being here wasn’t very high.

My flashlight had a very long range, and there was no other light in this place so I would’ve definitely been able to see his flashlight if he was actually here. Even if the light was as faint as the dimmest star in the night sky, I knew I would’ve been able to see it.

Moreover, he must have been able to see my flashlight.

But right now, it was obvious that the only light source was the one in my hand.

However, he did leave a sign to show me the way here, which meant that the biggest possibility was that he had kept moving forward. This was just a crevice he had passed through; there may be more further in the distance that he had already traveled deep into.

I took a deep breath before taking another look at the covered mummy with my flashlight—I had no intention of going up to check it out since I wanted to conserve my strength.

Covering a corpse’s face with a cloth was an extremely bad omen, mainly because it meant that the corpse’s face would make others feel highly uncomfortable. This usually happened when a corpse was disfigured or deformed.

This place was full of people who were trying to cultivate into immortals. Alchemists weren’t considered very normal, but why come here if they were still afraid of evil things?

When they got here, they must have abandoned the way of thinking of people simply by their corporeal bodies.

So, this thing’s face definitely wasn’t covered because of its unattractive appearance. Besides, looking at the situation here, it seemed like each person basically minded their own business. They likely had nothing to do with each other and cultivated on their own since ancient times. Even the person in the niche next to them might not have necessarily known what they looked like.

If that was the case, then there were two possibilities. One was that the face had been covered for some reason before the person died. For example, as a way of cultivation. The other possibility, which I thought was the most likely one, was that the corpse had changed after death so the alchemists here had covered it.

This was the Kunlun Mountains, which contained the qi of ancestral dragons. An alchemist who was cultivating must have deviated and become a strange thing, so the others here covered his face to stop the transformation.

I hesitated for a while, unable to shake the strong sense of insecurity this corpse was giving me. Although I felt that there was more to discover if I kept moving forward, I decided to forget it.

This strong sense of insecurity probably came from what I knew about this covered immortal before the heavenly gift wiped my memory.

At this time, I began to empathize with Poker-Face more and more. Before any kind of danger appeared, he would keenly look at a corner of the room, stare at something over there, and then say, “Something’s wrong.”

Now that I thought about it, this phrase “something’s wrong” was probably the same as what I was feeling right now.

He instinctively knew that there was something wrong with the things in the corner, because even with his erased memory, he still remained vigilant against such things.

I may have even seen this thing’s face, because at this very moment, the smallest hint of desire to see that face had my heart beating violently and feeling like it was about to stop at any moment. This was a sign of extreme fear. If I hadn’t seen that thing’s face, I wouldn’t be so scared.

But I couldn’t come all this way for nothing. I climbed down a few steps, found an ancient corpse that looked cleaner, and then tied it to my back while saying, “Please excuse the offense.” Once that was done, I jumped back into the pool.

When I was getting the ancient corpse situated on my back, I noticed that there were a lot of empty wooden boards below. This gave me an even worse feeling than before—there was no wind here, which had me wondering if the ancient corpses on them had been knocked down due to some accident. If that were the case, then Black Glasses had probably climbed down.

I made my way back through the doorway at the bottom of the pool, returned to the original crevice, swam all the way up, passed Black Glasses’ signpost, resurfaced again, and continued moving forward.

The corpse on my back had become slightly soft and bloated due to the water, but I ignored it and continued following the crevice for about seven or eight forks (all marked) until I finally reached a larger space.

I climbed in and found that this space was about half a person’s height. There were seven or eight mummies lying inside, along with a person lying in the middle of the mummies.

The man’s femur was broken, as evidenced by the bone sticking out of his flesh. The wound had been simply bandaged, and when I went over, I found that he was seriously dehydrated due to blood loss.

He was indeed dressed as a herdsman. I felt his pulse and found that he was still alive, so I opened his mouth and started pouring the water into it.

He immediately choked and opened his eyes, looking first at me and then at the mummy on my back before saying to me, “You failed again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t ask, just look around,” he said weakly. “The previous you told me to tell you that you can’t get out without changing your way of thinking.”

There were mummies all around. I looked at them and found that they were all alchemist mummies. They were exactly the same as the one I had just carried back with me.

Including mine, there were now a total of nine.

“I went out to look for water and searched nine times. Did I come back like this each time?” I asked him.

He nodded, very weak, “You’re so amazing. The fact that you can come back each time shows that the clues you gave yourself are strong enough.”

“What the hell is going on?”

He grabbed the water bag, took a big sip, and then said, “This will be the ninth time I’ve told you what happened. I tell you every time, and each time, I use it to threaten you. In other words, if I tell you the cause of this incident, you must kill me. The only way you can leave here is by killing me.” He coughed, “But you lie to me every time.”

“What did I lie about?”

“You didn’t kill me. Then you’d leave to find a way out, but you would forget everything and end up coming back with a corpse on your back,” he said. “This has repeated nine times. This time is no different, but I still want you to promise me. If I tell you the truth, you must kill me.”

“Why?”

“As long as I’m alive, you’ll definitely come back to me once you get to Juxian Hall because you want to save me. As long as you want to save me, you’ll be affected by the heavenly gift when you leave again.” As he spoke, he slowly took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it for himself.

The space was very cramped, so smoking here was a paradise for those trying to get secondhand smoke.

“As long as you kill me, then when you reach Juxian Hall again, you won’t need to turn back and can continue moving forward,” the herdsman said. “You have to learn from that Black Glasses guy and be more ruthless.”

<Chapter 24><Table of Contents><Chapter 26>

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Happy New Year’s Eve!!! (or New Year depending on what side of the world you’re on) ☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆