Chapter 41 Dog Barking

I nodded unconsciously, as if I was video chatting with him. Seeing his face had my worried heart finally relaxing a bit. Since they were fine, my next course of action could be relatively simplified.

I looked in the video to see if Poker-Face was there, but Xiao Hua’s video was zoomed in so much that I couldn’t tell if he was with him or not. If there was any problem, though, Xiao Hua should tell me right away.

But then again, not necessarily. Xiao Hua’s thoughts tended to run very deep.

“In the middle of this forest, there are several sacrificial pits, which are very old and contain a lot of ivory. The amount of ivory is so great that it’s beyond anything you can imagine. In Bonism, it’s believed that elephants are hybrids of dragons and pigs, and they have divine powers. The scale of those sacrificial pits is very large, which makes it obvious that large-scale sacrifices were carried out here. I believe this is an original site of primitive worship.”

Primitive worship referred to the time before the emergence of religion, when people first saw miracles, invented gods, and carried out the first sacrificial rituals. The places where these rituals took place could be characterized by their large scale, as well as the items found within them, since almost all the good things humans had were sacrificed to the gods.

This was a kind of method to sound out the gods. At that time, humans certainly didn’t know what the gods really needed, so they just kept killing and offering sacrifices to see what the gods’ habits were.

“These black, stone-like parasites can grow on trees and stones. They’re similar to a kind of coral polyp⁽¹⁾ that lives in dry areas and can form coral reefs on dry land. This kind of thing can gather people’s scent. After people eat it, they will go through a kind of pickling process and then be used as a sacrifice.⁽²⁾ It takes a long time for this kind of thing to grow to the size of a peach, so I’ve been calling them flat peaches, but in fact, the flat peaches are really the human sacrifices who ate this thing.” Xiao Hua continued, “What you saw before were the stone-like remains that had formed after this fungus dried up. If these things are still growing, then that means that they’re active and you don’t want to touch them.”

I had already seen it before, but I still nodded unconsciously as Xiao Hua continued, “This place is from an era far beyond the time when you can find any information on it. What happened here occurred between 10,000 and 5,000 BC. At that time, something huge must have happened here. It was probably a volcanic eruption that caused a geological wonder. I know that you’ll be attracted by the snow in the sky and climb here—so were we—but this area isn’t the one we want to pass through. You must go back to the passage and continue moving forward as soon as possible.”

We. He had said “we”. That meant that Poker-Face should be next to him, and the team was complete.

Xiao Hua looked around again, and then moved the camera. I saw Poker-Face behind him, organizing the equipment; I could tell that they worked well together.

“Leave here immediately. If my guess is correct, there may be something wrong with this forest and that’s why the ancients offered up sacrifices here.” He hesitated again, “I can’t explain it, but in any case, you’ll know as soon as you enter. There’s a problem here, and it falls within the scope of this area. Let me give it to you straight—I think there’s something in this forest. This thing is very evil, and you’ll definitely encounter it.”

The moment I got to this part of the video, I suddenly heard the sound of a dog barking coming from the forest off to one side.

I immediately froze. I was familiar with the sound of my dogs’ barking, so I knew it was one of mine as soon as I heard it.

Had Fatty and the others found their way here?

As I quickly stood up, I heard Xiao Hua in the video continue saying, “We’re leaving this place. You must remember, we’re not here. Hurry up and leave. Don’t stay here. All the places around this area will make people’s thoughts extremely confused. If you find that your thought process is starting to become confused, you need to remember that you must never believe any information related to sound. This forest is a master of imitating sounds.”

Then, I heard the dog’s barking getting closer, and something suddenly began shaking the carbonized bushes in front of me.

<Chapter 40><Table of Contents><Chapter 42>

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TN Notes:

(1) Science fact of the day (geh): the branch or mound that we often call “a coral” is actually made up of thousands of tiny animals called polyps. A coral polyp is an invertebrate that can be no bigger than a pinhead to up to a foot in diameter. Each soft-bodied polyp secretes a hard outer skeleton of limestone (calcium carbonate) that attaches either to rock or the dead skeletons of other polyps. A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem made up of millions of coral polyps. More info here.

(2) Remember when the Iron Triangle and Jin Wantang dug up those bodies (Old Bing and his grave robber squad) in the grove back in chapter 7 of “Sea of Lights”? Yeah…that…