Chapter 13: Lost Within the Cave

Chapter 13: Lost in the Cave

Man Shan’s low chuckle in the darkness was abrupt and shrill, sounding more like the cry of some animal than a man.
“Heh heh... I don’t know either, Senior Brother... Perhaps you’re the one who’s been possessed. Do you still feel like yourself?” Man Shan’s laughter grew even sharper.
Zhang Sanlu couldn’t see Man Shan’s expression in the darkness, and once again he felt bewildered.
But the sword in his hand felt no such confusion. He slowly raised his dagger, orienting himself by the direction of “Man Shan’s” voice, and edged it toward where he guessed his throat would be. In a low voice he said, “Oh? Perhaps. I am already a True Master now. But if we’re talking about suspicion... shouldn’t you be the one most suspect? Are you still yourself?”
Relying on his instincts, Zhang Sanlu’s dagger was almost touching Man Shan’s skin. Just one slight movement, and whether this “Man Shan” was the real one or a fake, he would become a dead Man Shan.
There was already a corpse in this cave; what difference would one more make?
In these mountain caves where true masters refined their elixirs, there must be hundreds of dead men—what harm in adding another?
Just as Zhang Sanlu was about to make his move, preparing to lower his head to avoid blood spraying into his eyes, Man Shan spoke.
“Hehehe... Senior Brother.”
Zhang Sanlu’s dagger paused midair.
“Senior Brother, I was just joking. I thought you were afraid of nothing, not even the heavens and the earth.”
His dagger hung in the air.
“Don’t joke around like that again, especially not in a place like this.”
Unaware that he’d just taken a walk to death’s door, Man Shan laughed softly. “A noble man does not bear grudges against a petty one. I was truly frightened, so I made a joke to bolster my courage.”
Zhang Sanlu was silent for a moment before calmly sheathing his dagger and tucking it back into his belt. “You know yourself whether it was a joke. Let’s keep moving—we’ve wasted enough time here. Qiu Ming might already have made it out.”
He edged aside, circumventing the female corpse, and the two of them crawled forward again through the darkness. Yet as he crawled, Zhang Sanlu kept feeling that he’d overlooked something.
The more he thought, the more something felt amiss. Was it just his paranoia acting up again? Overthinking and suspicion were, after all, symptoms of his illness.
Unable to figure it out, he probed, “Man Shan, was there something else you wanted to say just now?”

“I... ah—!”
Suddenly, a cry of alarm burst from Man Shan in the darkness. The sound shifted rapidly away, and there was a scraping noise on the ground—as if Man Shan was being dragged swiftly forward by something.
Zhang Sanlu was shocked, lunging to grab at the sound, just managing to catch hold of a foot.
Man Shan gave another cry in the dark, his body jerking to a halt. Zhang Sanlu had no time to draw his dagger; instead, he pushed off with his right leg, leaping over Man Shan’s fallen form, and at the same time snatched the head he carried from his back.
Using the momentum, his body spun sharply to the left, channeling all his strength into his arm. The bundle containing the head swung in a sweeping arc, scraping the cave wall as it was hurled forward.
The bundle whistled through the air, as if filled with thunder and wind, and smashed ahead with the force of a meteor hammer.
Bang—
Whatever it was in front of them shuddered violently under the impact, a muffled boom echoing through the cave.
There was a wet splatter, as though something had burst, followed by a howl. Whatever it was, it released Man Shan and darted off, bouncing off the cave walls several times with heavy thuds before vanishing.
“Man Shan, are you alright?”
“Wuwu... Senior Brother, what was that thing?”
“I don’t know, but I drove it away.”
Zhang Sanlu thought to himself, in the end, one can only rely on oneself. After all that, his trusty head was still the most useful thing—not only sturdy after being possessed by that shadowy thing, but it seemed to have gained some power to ward off evil.
Maybe, once he got out, he should just install a handle on his head and use it as a meteor hammer. Swing it at enemies—it might not kill them, but it would surely frighten them to death.
“Man Shan, let’s keep crawling. We need to at least find Qiu Ming and see if he’s alright.”
Still shaken, Man Shan didn’t argue, and the two scrambled forward as quickly as they could.
They hadn’t gone far when another startled cry came from Man Shan. Thinking he was in danger again, Zhang Sanlu grabbed his foot—only to find himself dragged along for several steps as well.
In the next instant, Zhang Sanlu understood: ahead was a steep slope. Neither of them had time to cry out before they tumbled down, landing in a tangled heap at the bottom.
“Ow—” Man Shan was struck by Zhang Sanlu falling behind him, and then pinned beneath him, the heavy impact nearly knocking the wind from his lungs.
It was still pitch dark, but Man Shan’s exclamation echoed several times, as though they were now in an open space.

A thought struck Zhang Sanlu. He slowly straightened up, reaching above his head—he didn’t feel a ceiling, and when he stood at full height and stretched his arm, he still couldn’t touch the top.
“Get up. It seems we’re in a large space—we’ve finally crawled out of the tunnels.”
“Senior Brother?”
A voice came from ahead, but it wasn’t Man Shan’s.
“Qiu Ming?”
“It’s me!”
As the voice finished, sparks flared not far away, and a faint red glow illuminated the area. In the weak firelight, Qiu Ming’s face appeared pale as death.
“Quick, get the torches.”
Man Shan forgot his aches and hurried to draw his torch from his belt, but when he reached for it, he froze.
“Hurry up!”
“The torch... the torch... it’s gone!” Man Shan’s eyes widened as he searched himself and began feeling around on the ground by the faint fire-light.
Qiu Ming’s fire-starter was nearly spent.
A torch’s light, though weak, was much brighter than a fire-starter; at least it could illuminate more than just the space before one’s face. Now, with the torch lost, all three of them panicked and searched frantically where they had fallen, but found nothing. Qiu Ming had no choice but to extinguish the fire-starter.
In the darkness, Qiu Ming and Man Shan sighed and fretted, even starting to sob softly.
Zhang Sanlu grew impatient. After a moment’s thought, he said, “Qiu Ming, light the fire-starter again—we need to get a sense of the cave’s layout.”
“Yes, Senior Brother.”
Qiu Ming responded, and as the faint glow of the fire-starter returned, the three of them took in their surroundings and were stunned.
They found themselves in a cavern roughly ten meters in diameter, with a ceiling four or five meters above. At the very center yawned a massive hole, about three meters across, like the gaping chimney of a steel furnace, leading straight upward—the fire-starter’s glow couldn’t reach the top, and it was impossible to tell how high it went.
A sloping ramp could be seen on the cave wall nearby; it was clear that the three had slid down from there.