Fragen zu Liebesliedern

Kapitel 6

I took the lead, carrying the package on my back, and brandished my military knife to clear the way.

Volume One: The Ancient Tomb at the Cape, Chapter Seventeen: The Ice Stranger

The weather was somewhat gloomy, and the further we went, the thicker the clouds became, and the cold wind howled. Eventually, it even started to drizzle with ice pellets.

It's clearly May. Even if it's an isolated island overseas, according to our common sense, there would only be strong winds and rough waves, how could it possibly be hailing?

I pulled my collar tighter, the cold seeping into my skin. The further I went, the more it felt like I was entering an extremely cold place.

Through the dense forest, ice pellets fell from the sky, gradually becoming denser, from the size of glass marbles to the size of individual eggs, clattering and banging as they broke through the leaves and hit the ground, creating small craters.

Fortunately, the forest was dense enough to block a lot of the damage. Fatty and I were fully armed, with backpacks on our heads, and leaned against a big banyan tree. At least we didn't get a head tumor from being knocked out.

After a hailstorm, the ground was covered with broken branches and leaves, leaving us speechless.

The strangest thing is that these hailstones, when they fell to the ground, actually emitted a faint blue glow.

The fat man asked me if this was somewhat like the tragic story of Dou E in ancient China, where snow falls in June.

I suspect that these bluish ice particles might be a celestial phenomenon caused by an ice tomb located in what is considered an extremely yin place in feng shui. However, such ice tombs are said to be extremely rare, occurring only once every thousand years. Furthermore, legend has it that ice tombs require the subjugation of a giant ice demon beast—the Ice Enchantress—to guard the tomb. Therefore, it is unlikely that such a phenomenon would occur on this island, which is only a dozen kilometers in circumference.

To avoid causing panic in the fat man, I suppressed my doubts and casually recited a poem by Su Shi: "Do not listen to the sound of rain piercing the forest, why not chant and stroll leisurely?"

Summer weather is like a child's face, changing in an instant. We had just turned out of the banyan tree and hadn't walked far when the sky started to drizzle down in large, white raindrops, wetting the trees and our clothes in patches.

The fat man cursed, "What kind of damn weather is this? If I were at home in San Francisco, sleeping in would be so damn comfortable. That damn foreign devil Robert, he's ruined your fat grandpa's life!"

I smiled slightly, thinking to myself, "Damn it, maybe it really is some weird weather, some weird weather. This could be a real opportunity."

Soon, we reached the edge of the coconut grove ahead. The ground was covered in a layer of solid ice, and even the trunks of each coconut tree were coated with a thick layer of white frost. The tall grasses were also pressed deep into the ground by the ice, and long, sharp icicles hung down from the trees like dense ice swords pointing at us. The place was filled with one word: eerie.

We walked quietly through this white, icy world, slowly advancing from one coconut tree to another, afraid of disturbing the countless icicles hanging from the trees, or even the strange creatures of this icy world.

Everything around us was a blindingly white, transparent expanse. We groped our way along, eventually losing all sense of direction. Everywhere looked the same: white coconut trees covered in icicles and thick layers of ice beneath our feet. Even our compasses malfunctioned, spinning erratically.

The fat man and I were both pale and speechless for a moment. Maybe we were too cold, who knows?

Without a compass to guide us, we could only identify the direction to move forward, which is what we now call the center of the coconut grove, and walk there step by step.

I don't know how long we walked, but I suddenly had a premonition that something was watching our every move, and I could hear faint breathing sounds. I signaled Fatty to stop and carefully checked our surroundings, but we didn't find anything, and the breathing suddenly stopped.

The fat man laughed and said, "Old Hu, when did you become such a coward?"

As we moved forward, I sensed that breathing sound again, still nearby. Unfortunately, we couldn't see it. I told Fatty to grab his weapons and prepare for battle.

It seemed we were nearing the heart of the ice coconut grove, but hadn't found anything of value, let alone Shirley Yang. I thought dejectedly, "Looks like we've come all this way for nothing."

Before I could finish thinking, a deafening roar suddenly erupted, as if the cry of a gigantic sea beast were right next to my ear. With the roar, the ground cracked open, and countless thick ice pillars teetered precariously.

I yelled "Oh no!" and pulled the fat man forward, rolling into a crack in the ice beside us.

Countless icicles rained down from the sky, piercing the icy ground behind us like a line of arrows.

The fat man broke out in a cold sweat. Good heavens, if we hesitated even slightly, we would end up with a miserable fate of being riddled with arrows.

The cry came again, clearly audible from deep underground, so close yet so deafening.

Above, there was another series of crackling sounds as icicles pierced the ground.

This was the furious howl of a wild beast, as if it had been trapped in a dark abyss for thousands of years, restless and anxious. We had disturbed its solitude, arousing its ferocious nature. The roars continued, the cracks in the ice on the ground slowly widened, the icicles of the coconut palms overhead gradually thinned, and the coconuts fell one by one, leaving white marks on the ice before scattering and rolling haphazardly like a football.

Fatty and I climbed out of the crevasse and walked through the jungle-like array of icicles. Fatty reached down, picked up a coconut, dug a hole with his Swiss Army knife, and we took turns sucking the coconut juice.

I bent down to pick up another coconut when suddenly a strong wind blew up, and a deep hole appeared in the ice in front of me, dark and unfathomable.

The strong wind sucked all the coconuts in the vicinity, along with us who were caught off guard, into the cave.

Volume 1, The Ancient Tomb at the Cape, Chapter 18, Ice Enchantress (1)

Before we could even react, we were sucked into the cave entrance by a huge gust of wind.

I screamed and stumbled as I fell. In the chaos, my head hit a long, knotted root. Stars flashed before my eyes, and I quickly reached out and grabbed it tightly. As soon as I opened my eyes, I saw the overweight Fatty Wang crashing down on me from above.

I grabbed his backpack and yelled, "Fatty, hold on tight to the tree roots!"

The fat man stretched out his hand and pressed himself firmly against the tree root.

We were like grasshoppers tied to the same string, swaying endlessly in the gale.

Before long, the storm had passed.

I looked up and saw a coconut tree root, as thick as an arm, hanging down more than ten feet long. We were trapped at its end, the remaining roots embedded in the icy soil around us.

Using the reflection of the ice, the fat man whispered, "Old Hu, there seems to be a tunnel down there."

We carefully climbed down to the bottom of the cave, clinging to the haphazardly crisscrossing roots in the permafrost.

This was a long, narrow, and winding passageway. The walls were made of thick ice bricks dug up on the spot, and because of their antiquity, it was impossible to tell anything about them at first glance. We were standing in the middle of the passageway, which seemed to have no end in sight.

After Fatty packed his backpack, we decided to walk to the left, because Fatty said men should walk on the left and women on the right.

Imagine, on a sunny May day with hail, we're happily exploring an underground ice cellar—who would believe it!

The fat man cursed under his breath, and I, warming our hands and gripping our weapons, crouched low as we moved forward. The passageway was eerily quiet; time seemed to stand still, everything gleaming with an icy sheen. After about half an hour, an ice wall appeared at the end of the passage, blocking our way.

I searched around but found no mechanism. However, when I tapped the ice wall, it felt extremely thick, and I could clearly hear that there was a space behind it.

The fat man cursed, "Are you going to be trapped here to die?" He pulled out a Zlppo lighter and was about to set the place on fire.

I stopped him, saying, "Don't use fire. Looking at this strange melting ice, this place is very likely the legendary thousand-year-old ice tomb. If it is an ice tomb, there might be an ice monster guarding it—the Ice Demon." It's said that this monster not only eats ice but is also adept at melting it, able to burrow through ice, possesses immense strength, and is elusive. Most importantly, it is extremely sensitive to fire; even a tiny spark within a few miles will unleash its demonic nature, causing it to relentlessly pursue and kill. If we light a fire now and disturb it, it would be far too regrettable.

The fat man immediately became anxious upon hearing this and shouted, "Banana, my foot! How could there be such a monstrous creature? It can't possibly be more powerful than the prehistoric giant insect in the tomb of King Xian of Yunnan, can it?"

I explained that, according to the description in the "Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Technique," it is even more powerful. After all, this thing lives in ice and can remain hidden, making it very difficult for us to detect, much like the invisibility techniques in Japanese martial arts and ninjutsu.

I turned around and gasped. The thick ice wall that had been there vanished without a sound while we were talking. Behind it appeared a long corridor, several dozen meters long, leading to a glaringly green bronze gate.

Did we accidentally trigger the switch on the ice wall?

We took a tentative look, but couldn't find a trace of where the ice wall had ever existed in the passageway.

"Damn it, am I seeing things?" the fat man cursed, "or is there no ice wall at all?"

A sense of foreboding washed over me; it was highly likely that the ice wall was a mutated form of Ice Fairy. But why did it retract? Could it be that an even greater danger awaited us behind the bronze door? At this point, I had no choice but to take it one step at a time.

The fat man was already impatient and strode over. I followed closely behind, clutching my black folding book.

The bronze door is covered in green patina, and its surface is engraved with patterns resembling human heads and fish tails, surrounded by concentric circles of sharp, pointed blades. Most striking is the central, largest pattern, depicting a handsome young man with clearly defined features: green eyes, a short mustache, a square face, and narrow, half-closed eyes. His left hand holds a scepter shaped like a strange fish head, while his right hand cradles a small, exquisite box. His entire face exudes a regal and domineering aura.

The fat man looked at it and said, "This box looks familiar. I feel like I've seen it somewhere before."

It does look familiar, but I can't quite place it.

Suddenly, a chill ran down my spine from behind. I whirled around, waving my folding staff, only to find nothing. In that instant, I felt as if a strangely shaped piece of ice had jumped into the ground and disappeared.

The fat man was startled by me and became nervous. We stood with our backs against the bronze door for a long time, but there was no sound.

I turned around and was shocked. A thick layer of ice armor had formed on the bronze door at some point, and the ice armor was spreading and bulging at an extremely fast speed. Part of the ice had already silently wrapped around the fat man's right shoulder.

I swung my folding sword at the fat man's back, and the piece of ice armor suddenly turned around like a wild beast, nimbly opening a gap to reveal sharp, serrated ice teeth that bit down hard on the black folding sword.

At that moment, I clearly felt that it was extremely elastic, as if the black fold had struck a mass of white, icy flesh, which possessed an extremely strong suction force.

I tried to pull the black folded piece back with all my might, but it stuck to the ice, swirling and twisting inside, along with a long strip of ice dripping with white slime. The ice suddenly pulled back, and the black folded piece was pulled back again. Back and forth, like a tug-of-war, I struggled with the ice for the black folded piece, neither side giving an inch.

The fat man's eyes nearly popped out of his head. Finally, he realized what was happening and drew his knife to stab.

Unexpectedly, the ice ball suddenly extended two more ice feet, tightly clamping the military knife as if it had taken root. The knife couldn't pierce it, and the fat man started a silent tug-of-war.

Suddenly, my body tensed. I looked down and saw a thick layer of ice rising from my feet, quickly enveloping most of my body. It was icy cold, and the ice was so tight that I almost fainted. I turned my head and saw that Fatty had fallen silently into the ice, just like me.

The ice ball surged upwards, binding my arms. I looked up and saw that the ice ball on the bronze door resembled the head of a monstrous fish on a scepter. Suddenly, it opened its bowl-sized white maw, revealing sharp, icy teeth that dripped with viscous liquid, and slowly lunged towards my head.

Volume 1, The Ancient Tomb at the Cape, Chapter 19, Ice Enchantress (2)

The monstrous ice fish lunged at me with its head open, its stiff arms unable to withstand its attack. Icy saliva dripped onto my face, each drop a reminder to my nearly frozen body that death was imminent.

I couldn't help but cry out in my heart, "My life is over."

Suddenly, a loud clang was heard. The fat man barely managed to swing his knife and strike the strange ice fish on the head, sending sparks flying. Cracks immediately appeared on the fish's head, and pieces exploded, shattering into pieces like glass marbles and falling to the ground with a crash.

The fat man looked at me with delight and said, "Damn it, I wiped out this monster."

Before the words were even finished, the shards of ice scattered all over the ground swiftly merged together, crawled up the bronze door, and reached the level of our eyebrows, wriggling and slowly transforming into the rudimentary shape of a strange fish head.

The fat man and I looked at each other, unsure of what to say.

I suddenly felt a slight flash of green light, as if something in front of me had trembled. I looked closely and saw that the body of this ice mass almost covered most of the bronze door, with only one spot untouched by any ice: the eyeball of the right eye in the center of the human face with its crow's feet. That spot looked like it was made of a small piece of crystalline mineral.

Could there be something strange about that? Right, it might be the switch on the bronze door. My mind raced, and before the strange fish head could even take shape, I used the black folding tool to poke directly at the eyeballs on the bronze door.

The strange ice fish head hissed and snarled, lunging at the black fold before it could fully form. The black fold dodged, missing its eyeball.

I yelled urgently at the fat man, "Quickly, chop it up with your military knife!"

The fat man swung his knife and rushed forward, but the strange ice fish's head coiled tightly and twisted to bite at the military knife.

Almost simultaneously, Fatty and I felt a layer of ice suddenly contract around our bodies, so tight that we almost passed out.

I saw the fat man's face turn purple and blue, he was panting heavily as if he was suffocating, and the strange ice fish head almost snatched the military knife from his hand.

I used my left fist to block, while my right hand hurled the black folding tool at the eyeball on the bronze door.

With a soft clang, my eyeball was pierced by the black folding tool, and the bronze door creaked open a crack. I leaned forward with difficulty, using the momentum to lean against the door, and pushed it open at an accelerated pace, falling to the ground behind it.

The ice blocks all over his body smashed to the ground and scattered, hissing and emitting white smoke as they melted into the cracks in the ground.

I leaped to my feet and saw the fat man outside the door, his body covered in ice armor, being poured into an ice pillar. He was being dragged along by the monstrous ice fish head that had slid down to the ground, struggling as it slid into the ice wall of the passageway. I rushed over, kicking and slashing to scare away the monstrous ice fish head, grabbed the fat man, and pushed him inside.

The interior of the bronze door was dark and gloomy, filled with a stagnant, decaying stench. I switched on my wolf-eye flashlight and discovered it was a spacious, three-courtyard ancient tomb. We were currently in the front hall (the underworld hall), its floor paved with a dark green mineral. Apparently, this mineral had the power to subdue the Ice Demon, preventing it from using the tomb as a nest to cause trouble and wreak havoc.

At this moment, the fat man, soaking wet, got up from the ground and asked, panting heavily, "Damn it, that ever-changing ice ball outside is the Ice Enchantress you mentioned? It's really weird, it's impossible to kill."

Before Fatty could finish speaking, a deafening roar erupted from outside—it was Bing Meier's furious outburst. Along with the roar, a gust of wind swept in from behind, pulling Fatty and me headlong towards the door.

I hurriedly grabbed the fat man's foot and crawled on the ground, trying my best to stay in that position. A strong wind swept in, so close that I couldn't open my eyes.

The fat man plunged his Swiss Army knife deep into the ground, and the wind blew us three feet off the ground, leaving us suspended in the wind, supported only by the Swiss Army knife in his hand.

I looked down and saw a large mass of ice in the middle of the passage, coiled into the shape of a crouching giant fish head, with its mouth wide open. The gale was caused by the forceful inhalation of air from that opening. I realized that we and the large amount of coconuts had been sucked into the cave by this thing, and now it wanted to suck us in and eat us just like it sucked the coconuts.

I turned my head and looked. The bronze door was too far away to close and stop this guy from breathing.

In the blink of an eye, some unknown objects in the Underworld Palace were sucked in by the gale and rolled into the mouth of the strange fish head with a clatter.

The fat man shouted, "Old Hu, think of something quick, we can't hold on much longer!"

I suddenly remembered that this monster dared not enter the Underworld Palace, so I shouted, "Fatty, use your saber to dig down a piece of ore from the ground and throw it to it."