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Chapter 44: The Black Water
They were indeed descending deeper. The strange, black liquid was rising higher and higher, filling the narrow, oppressive tunnels. Occasionally, their lamps illuminated the surrounding rock walls, revealing reinforcements—some clearly added recently.
The underground wasn’t as cold as the surface; instead, it grew hotter the deeper they went. Chen Yingyao and his companions were drenched in sweat. Ahead, the tunnel widened from a claustrophobic single-file passage to one spacious enough for five people to walk abreast. This wasn’t an exit route—it was the main shaft of Fengyuan’s old mine.
It didn’t look abandoned. Though outdated, the infrastructure suggested recent use. Pipes and wiring lined the walls, though the lights were dead. Even through the viscous liquid at their feet, Li Xingyuan could make out tracks for mining carts—newer tracks, not relics of the past.
The main shaft continued downward, plunging into impenetrable darkness. Their lamps couldn’t pierce the void ahead—it felt like a wall of black fog blocking their path, staring back at them with silent hostility.
“This section isn’t on the blueprints,” muttered a middle-aged man accompanying Chen Yingyao, inspecting the tunnel. He clenched his teeth as realization dawned. “They’ve been illegally mining the old shafts.”
No one present was foolish enough to miss the implications.
Under the flickering lamplight, Chen Yingyao’s face turned pale. As the local official, he bore responsibility for this oversight. But the revelation raised more questions. Copper wasn’t valuable enough to justify such elaborate efforts. How many workers did it take to operate these operations? Where were the ore carts headed? How was the raw material refined and processed without detection? The scale of the operation was staggering—a vast, clandestine network operating under everyone’s noses.
“Let’s go,” Li Xingyuan said, unconcerned with these ponderings. The main shaft led toward an exit, and they could already see upward-sloping tunnels ahead.
“Once we’re out, we’ll dismantle this criminal ring!” the middle-aged man declared heatedly.
No one responded. They all understood this wasn’t an ordinary case. How deeply were the people of Fengyuan Town entangled in this illegal operation? Had none of the town officials noticed—or had they been complicit?
With that, the four remaining men aside from Li Xingyuan each harbored different thoughts, though outwardly they trudged forward in silence. What occupied their minds remained inscrutable.
But before they reached the end of the tunnel, a swaying figure appeared ahead.
Their lamps focused on the shadowy form. It was human—or at least resembled one. Its face was unadorned by painted masks but deathly pale. Its body rocked violently, as if its spine had been misaligned. Despite its erratic movements, it didn’t fall. Up close, faint sounds emanated from within—something crawling, or perhaps water flowing.
Its gray, unfocused eyes stared at them, yet it made no move.
“Run past it,” Li Xingyuan whispered urgently to Chen Yingyao and the others. “Don’t look back, just run.”
Li Xingyuan veered to the side of the tunnel, keeping his distance from the grotesque figure. The creature paid him no heed, standing motionless.
Li Xingyuan sprinted, ignoring everything behind him. But he couldn’t block out the sounds—the rustling of movement, followed by screams, grunts, and the slicing of air. Then came the stench of blood, amplified by the narrow confines of the tunnel, echoing chillingly around them.
As he ran, something tugged at his feet—a weak force pulling him backward. Glancing down, he saw the black liquid clinging to the floor rushing past him, alive and writhing.
Chen Yingyao was right. Only the truly unlucky ever witnessed such things.
The liquid was alive—but not as any animal, plant, fungus, or bacteria. No language on Earth could describe it. The black fluid, Di Mu’s milk, flowed and twisted into bizarre shapes: organs of sorts—livers, hearts, wrinkled skin, feathers, claws. Fragments of creatures that had existed, or never would, merged chaotically. Occasionally, when the liquid coalesced into something capable of producing sound, it emitted low, guttural noises—short bursts of agony or meaningless moans. There was no terror comparable to this—not even the horrors of Avici Hell rivaled it.
The liquid boiled and gathered, forming organs that dissolved moments later. Sometimes, absurd, tiny, wrinkled lifeforms emerged briefly before being devoured by the encroaching black tide.
The black water surged everywhere—not just on the floor but also up the walls and between the tunnels, converging toward a single point. Li Xingyuan heard screams fading, dissolving, blending into the cacophony of the horrifying symphony.
Run.
Li Xingyuan ran as if his life depended on it—and it did. His long-unused body screamed in protest; his lungs burned, and his heart threatened to burst from his chest. The black water hadn’t attacked him, but he wanted nothing more than to escape this nightmare.
At the entrance to the old mine shaft, another door awaited. Long unused, its lock was rusted shut—but that posed no obstacle for Li Xingyuan. With a flick of his finger, the mechanism clicked open.
He burst through the door, fleeing the hellish depths of the old mine. The sky above was dark, and overhead, the remnants of the sun hung like an arc, emitting a faint, feeble glow.
Turning back, Li Xingyuan saw only two survivors: the tall, northern-accented man who had first alerted Chen Yingyao to the mine, and the middle-aged man who had uncovered the illegal mining operation. Both were gasping for breath.
Chen Yingyao was gone.
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