Chapter 80: Reflections in the Jade Pool

Chapter 80: Reflections in the Jade Pool

In a haze, Zhang Sanlu could not tell how much time had passed. He felt himself drifting, unsure if it was all an illusion or reality. It seemed as though there was a figure kneeling there, hair disheveled, in a bizarre posture, utterly motionless. In front of that figure, a towering black shadow stood silently, countless arms behind it writhing like twisted tentacles.

The suffocating silence was suddenly shattered by a series of sounds that chilled the soul. Zhang Sanlu could neither imitate nor even fathom such a dreadful noise; it was as if the sound dragged him into an endless nightmare. No human, nor any terrestrial creature, could possibly possess the vocal organs to produce such a sound—it was hoarse, warped, and seethed with malice toward all living things, piercing his eardrums and reverberating through his body to the very marrow.

The sound rose in pitch, and its terror was not mere chaos but possessed a strange, deranged melody, as if it were chanting some profane litany. With the onset of this mad chant, the colossal shadow began to change. The countless limbs on its back emitted a hair-raising metallic screech as they spread outward at a speed visible to the naked eye. Black appendages reached and tangled, intertwining to form a vast circle. In the darkness, those innumerable arms seemed to gain a life of their own, undulating and spiraling like some grotesque tentacles, their movements nightmarishly bizarre.

Then, the black limbs tore madly at the ground, which yielded like fragile canvas, ripped apart with ease. The stench of death and decay surged forth, igniting primal terror deep within his soul. The accompanying muttering rose softly, indistinct and unintelligible, yet so saturated with undisguised malice that it nearly made him faint.

The stench itself was the very essence of rot and distortion, the malice of countless screaming corpses distilled into a hatred for the living that transcended time and space.

Gradually, Zhang Sanlu felt himself slipping from his body, sinking ever downward.

The descent was interminable; his sense of time blurred. At times, it seemed an instant had passed; at others, it felt as though he had fallen for eons. Time and space seemed to lose all meaning here. He thought he glimpsed monstrous, swollen forms the size of mountains, emitting maddening shrieks as they writhed slowly in still-warm layers of rock. He seemed to see countless hunched figures with mottled, purplish-black skin, teetering through subterranean caverns toward unfathomable depths...

Suddenly, out of the darkness, a gigantic shape appeared. Its immensity defied all description, surpassing the limits of language.

It was a door.

Countless massive stones, emanating an unnatural black light, were stacked in patterns so twisted they defied human imagination, forming the door. Carved upon it was a vast, deformed figure, rendered in crude, primitive strokes. Yet, despite the roughness of the carving, nothing could hide the thing’s essential horror—an unprecedented fear and revulsion radiated from it.

This was the true source of terror.

It was the door—or more precisely, what lay beyond it.

A deep rumble grew ever more violent, shaking the earth as if the world itself trembled in terror of some unspeakable presence, then gradually fell silent again.

Zhang Sanlu could no longer distinguish hallucination from reality. He did not know how long he had wandered in the darkness. Suddenly, in his daze, a face appeared before him, followed by a hand waving vigorously in front of his eyes.

A voice echoed, muffled as if traveling through ocean depths, gradually becoming clearer.

“Wake up. Are you alright?”

“Sanlu... Fellow Daoist... you’re awake? Good heavens, now I understand why I’ve always been a bit wary of you. You’re a real tough one!” Zhang Mancheng gave him a thumbs up, then gently helped Zhang Sanlu to sit up.

“And those... cough, cough, those ghostly things?” Zhang Sanlu coughed twice, his lungs burning with pain—each breath stung, though his stomach wound hurt less by comparison.

Zhang Mancheng gestured broadly, “They’re everywhere...” Before Zhang Sanlu could panic, he hastened to add, “But they're dead—completely, utterly dead!”

Only then did Zhang Sanlu’s eyes focus. In the torchlight, he saw a pile of decaying flesh on the ground. The black shadow on the nearby stone wall had broken through the rock, but within the fissures, the darkness looked as though it had melted, forever fused into the stone.

Zhang Mancheng slowly helped Zhang Sanlu to sit up. The torchlight flickered across their faces, casting a complex, indescribable expression on both.

Drip... drip...

Not far away, at the center of the cavern, that strange pool still lay quietly. Its edges were as smooth as a mirror, but a hole had opened at its center, exposing the pool’s bottom, which gleamed like polished jade in the wavering light. The once-shallow water had drained through the breach, and the remaining droplets continued to fall, their sound echoing in the silence.

Their gaze followed the falling droplets downward. Reflected torchlight revealed glimpses beneath the pool’s opening. Zhang Sanlu’s pupils contracted—he saw that something still lingered in the shadow beneath the hole.

“There... it looks like something’s down there,” Zhang Mancheng’s attention was drawn as well. He steadied Zhang Sanlu, then raised the torch and approached the edge of the jade pool. Crouching, he hesitated, then reached in and fished something out from the depths.

“What is it?” Zhang Sanlu, his view blocked by Zhang Mancheng’s back, felt his heart race with curiosity and unease.

Turning slowly, Zhang Mancheng cradled the object in his hands: a statue about a foot high. Its material was impossible to discern, but its color was a loathsome black that seemed to swallow the torchlight, giving back no reflection at all.

“It’s a statue, but I can’t tell what it’s supposed to be,” Zhang Mancheng said, carrying it over.

He brought it close—so close that, even in the dim light, the statue seemed shrouded in a layer of deep shadow. Yet even at arm’s length, Zhang Sanlu could not make out its true form. Still, that did nothing to diminish his instinctive aversion. The statue exuded an indescribable, vaguely familiar stench that made Zhang Sanlu nauseous.

It was the very same stench he had smelled in his hallucination.