Chapter 40: Amidst the Pile of Bones, a Thousand Hands and a Thousand Eyes

Chapter 40: In the Pile of White Bones—A Thousand Hands and Eyes

“The place is too big. Everyone, split into groups of three to search. If you notice anything strange, alert the others immediately.”

After the initial wave of fear had subsided, eager to display their courage and manliness, the young men from Guo Family Village organized themselves into groups, arming themselves and scouring the surroundings. It was clear, however, that some were barely holding themselves together—putting on a show as they inspected only the nearby area, unwilling to venture further from safety. Yet there were also the reckless, fearless youngsters who, seeking to prove their bravery, plunged alone or in pairs deep into the piles of corpses.

Zhang Sanlu was teamed with Old Yao and Zheng Ji. Of the three, Old Yao was the most experienced. He started by shining his torch from the left side of the cave entrance, sweeping the light along the cave wall from top to bottom, inching gradually to the right.

Once they reached the right side of the entrance, they would have surveyed most of the cave’s interior. In unfamiliar territory, the first rule was to understand your surroundings as thoroughly as possible before making any move.

The cave was vast—more than twice the size of the previous one, easily as large as a football field, with a high ceiling. As along their previous path, there was no sign of life: no bats, no animals, not even plants.

Though Zhang Sanlu’s mind was sometimes unstable, prone to hallucinations and hearing things, he often possessed a preternatural intuition. This instinct usually landed him in trouble, but it also helped him make the right decisions in dangerous moments. He felt a nagging, inexplicable unease, as if some unseen gaze was fixed upon them.

Examining the bones scattered on the ground by torchlight, Zhang Sanlu frowned. How had these people died? He saw shards of pottery, and not far away, an incense burner—suggesting to him that people had lived here for some time. But the field of white bones was staggering; there must have been thousands of skeletons.

Among the remains were some tiny skeletons—clearly children or youths. Why had so many entered this place? Was the faint mountain path they’d taken earlier worn by these people? What had brought them into the cave? Could they all have been lured inside, bewitched? If so, why were there traces of habitation? Why had none escaped? How had they all perished here? None of these questions had an answer.

Zhang Sanlu also noticed that many of the skeletons were incomplete. If they had died naturally, the bones should have been whole, yet here and there severed arms, legs, and even skulls lay scattered about. The thought of such carnage sent a chill through him. The air itself seemed thick with a suffocating scent of blood, blending with the dim light to create an atmosphere of unspeakable terror.

The more Zhang Sanlu dwelled on these thoughts, the colder his back became. The deaths of these people might have occurred countless years ago, yet people still went missing in the present—so why were there no fresh corpses? He glanced back at his companions, their faces flickering in the torchlight, shadows shifting constantly as if their expressions were changing with them.

“What is that?!”

A sudden cry of alarm echoed through the cave. Startled, everyone hurried around heaps of bones toward the source of the shout.

In the depths of the vast, gloomy cavern, like the very gates of hell swallowing all light, at the heart where illumination barely reached, a colossal statue stood—at least ten meters tall. It seemed to transcend the bounds of time, rising from the abyss like some ancient demon, silent and mysterious. As they reached its feet, the sight left them all stunned.

“That’s—”

“A stone statue?!”

By raising their torches high, they could see the statue’s immense bulk, as if formed from the cave’s own darkness and fear. On either side of its body, countless arms extended outward, twisting like tendrils from the underworld, clutching at the surrounding stone walls—a sight so horrifying it seemed to shake the soul.

“It’s... a Bodhisattva!”

Only then did Zhang Sanlu realize that the statue, with its thousand arms, was a depiction of the Bodhisattva of a Thousand Hands and Eyes.

It was almost beyond belief: in this dead, lightless cavern, surrounded by a sea of white bones, stood a giant stone Bodhisattva with myriad arms. Its very existence was terrifying, as if its presence made the air itself heavy.

The statue’s shadow stretched long across the ground; as the flames flickered, the countless arms’ shadows seemed to squirm, giving the illusion that the statue might step forth from the darkness at any moment. Each arm extended from the central figure in a different pose—some joined in prayer, some raised as if holding objects or brandishing weapons, some poised as if enacting some forbidden ritual. Every arm was twisted and uncanny, and though their number was overwhelming, they conveyed a dark order amid chaos.

The torchlight climbed the statue’s form, illuminating its face at the very edge of the light. The face was obscured, tightly shrouded with a massive cloth, hiding the eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.

Such veiling was common for statues not yet consecrated, but to Zhang Sanlu, it seemed the cloth was woven from the wails of departed souls, each crease and fold saturated with endless resentment and curses. It lay motionless on the statue’s face, yet seemed that a mere touch would unleash boundless darkness and horror, swallowing the world entire.

Zhang Sanlu touched the statue. Its material was utterly unlike the cave’s stone, and how could such a massive boulder have been brought into the cave, let alone carved here? If it was transported from outside, how had it passed through the narrow passageways? Who had carved it? The corpses beneath their feet? Or...

“Were all these dead people craftsmen? Killed here as a sacrifice after the statue was finished, like funerary victims?”

Old Yao and Zhang Sanlu both shook their heads. “What kind of Bodhisattva would require human sacrifice, and there are children’s skeletons here—how could children carve statues?”

As Zhang Sanlu stood staring, lost in wild speculation, Guo Xiaoshu suddenly cried out, “The Bodhisattva is moving!”

Everyone stepped back in alarm, looking up at the statue.

Zhang Sanlu’s heart leapt into his throat. Gazing upward, he saw that among the Bodhisattva’s thousand arms, the shadows were writhing—not just the effect of torchlight, but real movement. The arms were actually beginning to shift!