pozo profundo

Capítulo 52

“I think…” I smiled and said, “I originally wanted to buy a really big house, where you and I would live, and I also wanted to get a pet. It would play with our children, okay?”

"Ah, okay, okay!" Fang Lei turned her head to the side, and I saw the glistening tears in the corners of her eyes.

"Damn it!" Li Yang slammed his fist on the wall of the main hall and cursed, "There's still nothing there!"

"Li Yang, come and rest for a bit!" Li Hai called out to Li Yang, who was still looking for him, and said, "You need to rest."

"What time is it? How can I rest?" Li Yang snapped at Li Hai.

"Don't panic. We need to rest now so we can wait for the next round of searching. You're just wasting your energy like this," Li Hai replied calmly, then closed his eyes and entered a meditative state, ignoring Li Yang.

Sighing heavily, Li Yang helplessly returned to Li Hai's side and plopped down. A Bao was trembling with her head buried in her hands. Looking at the girl in front of him, Li Yang felt a pang of pity and patted her shoulder, as if coaxing a kitten. Perhaps A Bao was really too tired.

The hand pressing against my stomach tightened its grip, and I felt as if my entire body was being emptied out. The pain gradually spread from my stomach to my entire torso. My body involuntarily curled up.

The light, like a white night, brought us no sense of illumination whatsoever. The prolonged, intense light had already made me dizzy, and the dryness from my throat to my mouth made me wonder if I had stumbled into the Shangganling Mountains. The brighter the light, the more empty it felt; the more spacious it was, the more suffocating it became. In the blinding white light, I felt the hall gradually expanding, growing larger and larger, while the temperature in the air gradually decreased. The once still floor began to shake and tremble.

Surely there must be a way out of this hall? I stared intently at the statue of the Goddess Senluo. If this hall was once the temple where the Moonshadow Clan worshipped the Goddess Senluo, there should be a way out, but we just haven't found it yet.

Calm down! I swallowed hard; my brain was spinning from hunger, and my thoughts were becoming increasingly unclear. I had to figure this out before I completely lost my composure—this exit hidden somewhere in the corner of this hall.

The statue of the Goddess Senluo in the main hall was almost identical to the one in the Netherworld Palace, except that this goddess now held a stone eyeball in her right hand. There must be differences, I thought, carefully recalling the statue in the Netherworld Palace, hoping to find the differences between them.

The discomfort in my left eye suddenly returned, and I immediately closed my eyes tightly. The image of Tsukihime appeared before my eyes, along with the strange clan rule of the Moon Shadow Clan: the second twin is an omen of bad luck and must be abandoned!

Twins! A thought suddenly flashed through my mind: Could it be that Senra is also a twin? That would explain why there are two statues, identical statues! With that thought, I struggled to get up from the ground.

"What do you want to do?" Fang Lei also got up and asked.

“Twins? Maybe Senro is a twin too?” I excitedly turned around and explained to them.

"So what?" Li Hai suddenly opened his eyes, got up, and asked.

"The second twin must be abandoned; this is the Moonshadow Clan's rule." I suppressed my stomach discomfort and climbed back onto the statue. I felt the way out was right in front of me, and I trembled with excitement.

"What do you mean?" Li Yang asked, intrigued. "What are you going to abandon? The entire statue?"

"Do you think we found the secret passage in the Netherworld Palace just now?" As I spoke, I had already climbed to the same height as the right hand of the statue. The stone eyeball in the right hand of the Goddess of Senluo statue was lying there quietly. Just as I thought, it was a stone eyeball that could be placed separately and was not carved as one with the right hand.

“You put one of your eyeballs in her right hand!” Abao replied.

"I understand!" Fang Lei exclaimed excitedly. "You mean if the Goddess of the Underworld in the Netherworld Palace gets an eyeball, then an eyeball should be discarded here?"

"Yes!" I nodded and carefully picked up the stone eyeball in the right hand of the statue.

But... nothing happened at all; there was no sound of any mechanism being activated. I had thought that removing the eyeball from the statue's right hand would activate the mechanism! What went wrong?

"It seems like there's nothing there!" Baiyun's calm tone broke our silence.

"Come down first, Lin Xiao." Li Hai waved to me. I jumped down from the statue, still clutching the stone eyeball in my hand.

"Let me see." Fang Lei took the stone eyeball from my hand, examined it carefully, but in the end she shook her head regretfully and wanted to hand it to Li Hai.

"Let me see first!" Li Yang said eagerly, reaching out his hand.

"Ouch!" Fang Lei exclaimed in surprise. Due to Li Yang's sudden grabbing, Fang Lei's hand slipped, and the stone eyeball fell to the ground with a crisp sound.

"Why do you keep trying to take it from me?" Li Hai glared angrily at Li Yang, then squatted down to pick it up.

"Wait a minute." I grabbed Li Hai's body, but my eyes were fixed on the stone eyeball. It was slowly rolling towards the wall to my left, then hitting the surface of the wall, and because of the reaction force, it bounced back from the wall and rolled towards the other wall.

No one spoke; all eyes were fixed on the rolling eyeball, as if drawn by some force, which rolled incessantly between the two walls. According to the law of conservation of force, without external force, a force can continue indefinitely in the direction it was initially applied. However, considering air resistance and friction from the ground, this rolling stone eyeball should have stopped long ago. Even with the elastic force from the walls, it shouldn't have been able to roll to the opposite wall, which was quite a distance away! This defied common sense; it was as if it were being attracted by something, rolling towards a place we didn't even know existed.

With a soft click, the stone eye finally came to rest in a corner of the left wall. Then, as if a mechanism had been activated, there was another tremor, causing the entire hall to shake. Then, in the very center of the hall, a previously smooth surface suddenly began to move, and from there, a pillar slowly rose from the ground!

"What is it?" Li Yang wanted to go over, but Li Hai grabbed him.

"Be careful!" Li Hai pulled Li Yang behind him, but he himself walked towards the pillar.

Closely following behind Li Hai, we arrived at the pillar. The pillar was short, barely reaching our waists. I think it would be more accurate to call it an altar, an altar for worshipping the goddess Senluo. The smooth surface had only four round indentations.

"It looks like it's for putting something in!" Fang Lei said, touching the four recessed holes.

"It's for the eyeball!" I looked at the stone eyeball still on the ground, but the problem is that there is only one eyeball, but there are four concave holes. So where are the other three?

"Give it a try!" Abao had already taken the stone eyeball and placed it into one of the recesses, but it seemed that the recess was a size larger than the eyeball.

"This doesn't look like it's meant to be placed here!" Li Hai said to us after looking at it.

"Where are we supposed to get four beads?" Li Yang sounded a little dejected. He had finally thought he had found the way out, only to discover that the truth was still submerged. What he had touched was just the tip of the iceberg.

"Anyway, this mechanism is probably designed to make these four indentations bear the force. With so many of us, why don't we just press down on these indentations together and see?" Abao said dismissively.

"No, it won't work. There have to be four people pressing down with the same force at the same time. Even though there are many people, the force each person applies won't be exactly the same. Your method won't work," Fang Lei poured cold water on A Bao's idea.

"What do we do then?" Ah Bao cried out, "Are we really just going to wait here to die?"

"Don't worry, there will definitely be a way." I comforted Abao, and everyone began to think again. Where could they get four round objects of the same weight? This hall had nothing but a statue of a god.

A round object! Could it be... could it really be an eyeball? A living person's eyeball? Thinking this, I couldn't help but touch my left eye, but even with my two eyes, I only have two—not half! Unless... I looked up at Li Yang and Li Hai, twins. I wondered if their eyeballs weighed the same? If I used their eyeballs...

Oh dear! What's wrong with me? How could I even think of that! I bit my tongue in disgust. What joy is there in freedom gained at the cost of sacrificing both of them? I could never do something like that—risk my friend's life!

Wait a minute! I scratched my head, and suddenly something else occurred to me. Although the Moonshadow Clan harbored hatred towards the second twin, they probably wouldn't be willing to use the first twin's eyeball as a sacrificial offering! Besides, even if they were twins, the weight of their eyeballs wouldn't be exactly the same!

Sigh! I'm still at a loss! I touched my poor stomach, which was suffering from excruciating pain, and I barely had the strength to stand up. My legs were trembling uncontrollably.

What are those four damn indentations?

Volume Two, The Devil's Left Eye, Chapter Twenty-Seven: "Oboro" and "Oboro"

Volume Two, The Devil's Left Eye, Chapter Twenty-Seven: "Oboro" and "Oboro"

Time stands still in the mountains; it's imprisoned in a cage, and all I feel is my increasingly weakened body and parched soul. If souls truly exist in this world, then mine has already stepped into hell. My stomach no longer hurts, because I've long since starved myself. All that's left is probably just a shell; all my senses are dulled, my vision is blurry, and I can only vaguely hear the faint groans of others. Although I know they're nearby, they seem so far away. Perhaps it's a hallucination, but the bright white light has gradually dimmed, and everything seems shrouded in a white mist. There, Senluo smiles as if resurrected, welcoming her offerings.

Is this death?

Turning my head, I saw Fang Lei lying motionless beside me. It had probably been two or three days since we were imprisoned in this hall. No food, no water—not a single thing necessary for human survival! It's laughable; humans are the most advanced beings on Earth, but correspondingly, also the most vulnerable. In the process of evolution, humans have lost the conditions necessary to survive in harsh environments.

The sounds of breathing around me seemed to grow weaker and weaker. I didn't know how much longer I could stay conscious; all I could do was hold Fang Lei's cold little hand tightly. I didn't want to die, I really didn't. Where do people go after they die? Where can the dead be accepted? If there really are souls, where do they go?

Does death truly mean the end? No thoughts, no memories—I don't want this emptiness! It's terrifying; an unprecedented fear of death makes me tremble. I reach out with difficulty, trying to grasp something in the air. The increasingly dim light flows through my palm, leaving no trace.

A flickering white flame emanated from the deceased's mask, its frequency like a strange rhythm, stirring something deep within my memory. Before me, only the white flame danced incessantly, and gradually, a faint figure appeared, seemingly that of a woman.

She seems like someone very important in my memory, but I just can't remember her. Please let me see her more clearly; if I can see her a little more clearly, I'll remember!

The figure grew clearer, and the deepest memories within me surged forth like a tidal wave. No, if this memory wasn't just a recollection, it was etched into my soul. Such a graceful woman's figure, so familiar, yet not one of the women I knew, not even Yin Xue! My heart ached... as if my soul were being torn apart.

"Who are you?" I found myself standing in a sea of flowers, with the woman standing there with her back to me. The seven-colored petals were emitting a dazzling seven-colored light under the starry night sky, and the familiar fragrance of Tian Niang's wine filled the air around me, the taste of a dreamlike illusion.

A gust of wind blew, sending countless seven-colored petals fluttering down like a rain of flowers. It also lifted the woman's long, flowing hair, making it look beautiful as it danced in the wind.

The woman's clothes were the kind of elegant attire only women of ancient times would wear, with flowing sashes and large, water-sleeved garments. I walked over quietly, wanting only to see her face—whose face was it? I turned the woman's body around and opened my eyes wide.

"Ahhh!" An involuntary scream escaped my throat. What a face it was! One half was breathtakingly beautiful, the other half a rotting corpse. The most beautiful and the ugliest features of humanity were concentrated on this one face, creating a bizarre face that would move even God. On the festering, pus-filled left side of my face, the exposed jawbone and eye sockets revealed pink bone.

I was startled and instinctively closed my eyes. When I opened them again, the sea of flowers and the woman were gone, leaving me alone on the barren mountaintop. Looking up, I saw a magnificent temple standing on the other side of the mountain. In the open window, a woman in white was leaning against the railing, her long hair obscuring her face.

"Who?" I took a step forward, but felt a figure standing behind me. I turned around and saw Yin Xue standing there with a smile on her face.

"Yin...Yin Xue?" I opened my mouth wide, not knowing what to say.

“Ah, Longyi Temple!” Yin Xue said to me softly.

When I turned around again, I found myself standing at the entrance of the Longyi Temple. But in just one glance, the entire temple crumbled and sank into pieces, leaving behind only a large pool of blood.

"Yin Xue!" I turned around, and Yin Xue was still smiling at me, but her eyes held a hint of sorrow and longing. Then, her body fell apart like fragments, leaving only a large pool of red blood.

"No, don't leave me!" I rushed over, not wanting to be alone anymore. Why do I always have to be alone? I feel lonely and isolated too. I'm not a superhero; I also want someone to be by my side forever!

He lunged forward, reaching out but grabbing only the sticky blood on the ground.

"Yin Xue, Yin Xue, come out!" My hands were submerged in blood. "Don't play hide-and-seek with me, it's not fun at all."

I frantically groped my way into the bloody water, and suddenly realized something strange. The pool of blood shouldn't be more than a few centimeters deep, yet my hands were completely submerged. So, it turns out, the ground wasn't beneath this pool of blood!

I continued to submerge my hands, reaching my elbows. What was happening? The blood seemed alive, slowly creeping upwards from my elbows. My kneeling body leaned forward, and without warning, I plunged headfirst into the pool of blood.

My eyes were still open, and I felt countless figures surrounding me in the blood, gripping every part of my body. Those figures were transparent, and I could still vaguely make out their human shapes.

Blood rushed through his body, and strange images suddenly appeared before his eyes: women in ancient costumes, swords flying in the air, strange animals, strange symbols, and mysterious formations. Everything flashed through his mind like a fast-forwarded videotape.

My head was throbbing, everything was rushing in at once, it felt like my brain was constantly absorbing something, and simultaneously forgetting something. The exploding pain gradually blurred my consciousness, but then a flash of red light appeared before my eyes, and all the images suddenly transformed into pairs of delicate, white jade hands, constantly changing and performing strange yet familiar gestures. Blue light particles were gradually forming, surging towards me…

"Ah!" she cried out in surprise, her whole body jolted. Looking around, she realized she was still lying in the main hall, the mask of the dead emitting a dim light.

I remember almost nothing, but the only clear image in my mind is of the Ryouji Temple I'd only glimpsed earlier, and the plaque hanging above the gate. The plaque was slightly different from the actual one; it was brand new, the character "胧" (lóng, meaning "darkness") was intact, but it wasn't "胧"; it was... "眬" (lóng, meaning "darkness").

Is it Longyi Temple or Longyi Temple? Does it make a difference? It's just a radical, but I'm absolutely certain I won't get it wrong! Wait a minute, the "Long" on that plaque only shows the upper half of the "moon" radical; the rest is peeled off. Think about it carefully, aren't the upper halves of "moon" and "eye" the same? So, it really should be Longyi Temple! But why did Baiyun call it Longyi Temple? Perhaps it's because even half of the "eye" radical is peeled off, and "Long" is more commonly used, so most people would assume it's "Long" instead of "Long"!

Struggling to my feet, I felt that the goddess of hope had not abandoned us; I could feel a glimmer of light, though it was still just a tiny bit.

The Temple of Oblivion, the Temple of Oblivion! I looked at the four dragons surrounding Senra. This temple's name must have a deeper meaning. Think of it, think of it!

"Lin Xiao!" Fang Lei also got up from the ground, and there were others too. It seemed they were still alive!

"Cheer up, we're not going to die so easily!" I encouraged the others as I walked to the statue.

The character "眬" is a combination of "目" (eye) and "龙" (dragon), could it refer to the eyes of a dragon? Four dragons, four pits. I examined the dragons' eyes closely. At first glance, they seemed completely identical, but upon closer inspection, you would notice that each dragon's left eye had a slight blackish tinge, while its right eye remained the original color of the stone.

“Come and see.” I waved to Li Hai and the others and said, “The left eyes of these four dragons seem a bit off.”

"The surface of the stone has turned black." Li Yang looked at it, then reached out and touched it, saying, "It seems to have turned this color because it's been touched so often that it's gotten covered in people's sweat or something!"

"Four dragon left eyes, four dents!" Abao shouted excitedly, as if he had found some treasure.

"My God, Lin Xiao, you actually thought of that!" Li Hai patted my shoulder hard and said happily.

"Hehe, actually, this wasn't my idea. Yin Xue told me!" I answered, scratching my head sheepishly, but I caught a glimpse of Fang Lei's slightly embarrassed expression out of the corner of my eye. Without saying anything, I quickly took Fang Lei's small hand and gave her a gentle smile.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's try and see if we can get it off!" Li Yang seemed to perk up again as he spoke, and was the first to reach out and press on the dragon's left eye. Sure enough, the left eye rolled out of its socket!

"Great!" came the almost unanimous cheer. It seemed we wouldn't have to die here.

After removing the left eyes from the four dragons, we returned to the central pillar. Just as Li Yang was about to place the four dragon eyes into the four recesses, suddenly, a wall on the left flipped open, and then a figure rolled in from inside.

"Who is it?" Li Yang asked immediately, alert.

The light was particularly dim at that moment, and I squinted hard to finally see the face of the person who had come in—a pale, cold face with a devilish smile.

A dead man's mask!? My heart skipped a beat, but after a closer look, I felt relieved. It turned out that the person who had come in was Old Gen, who had been missing for a long time.

"Old Gentou!" Abao was the first to rush over, without even having time to stop her.