pozo profundo

Capítulo 60

"What are you doing?" Li Hai asked curiously.

There was no answer. I simply compared the painting with the cliff in front of me, hoping to find the key to this superfluous painting. Suddenly, my hand froze in place, completely still.

"What's wrong? Did you find anything?" Li Hai noticed the strange expression on my face and asked quickly.

"Stand behind me and look!" I said to Li Hai. Although Li Hai looked puzzled, he obediently walked behind me. I raised my hand holding the painting again, pointing it at the cliff and positioning it at a certain angle.

"This...this..." Li Hai was almost speechless with surprise.

He was naturally speechless with surprise. That extra painting, if you simply place it against the cliff where the left eye should be, you'll find that the painting actually depicts the left eye that should be there but is precisely missing, albeit just a dark, empty eye socket. That's why it's different from other paintings, with more black and less blue.

"The left eye!" I said, my body trembling slightly, whether from the rain or from surprise. It felt as if this was all part of a script that An Ran had already arranged, just waiting for us to discover the truth step by step, the true meaning hidden in that abstract painting book.

But if An Ran wanted to say that the mask of the dead carved into the cliff had a left eye, then why is the left eye area now empty, with only a bare cliff face? Did An Ran add this himself? Why would he add this? He must have added this after completing a full cliff landscape painting; it shouldn't be a casual creation. This left eye—no, it should be the left eye socket—is clearly the key to the whole thing!

"Strange! Why did An Ran add this left eye part herself? The cliff is clearly a bare mountain wall!" I scratched my head in frustration. An Ran is too strange.

"Who said he added it himself?" Li Hai suddenly said, "Maybe it was the bare mountainside that was added!"

"Huh?" I asked, puzzled. "This mountain wall is right in front of us, so how can you say it's been added on?"

“Sometimes, don’t trust your eyes too much!” Li Hai winked at me and said, “On the mountain where I cultivate, there is a cave behind the mountain called Qiankun Cave. This is a sacred cultivation place that all disciples of our Maoshan Sect must go through. In order to prevent some villains and unscrupulous people from entering, our ancestors specially added a barrier at the entrance of the cave.”

"A barrier?" I frowned.

“Indeed, this barrier can completely conceal the entrance to Qiankun Cave. To those without magic, what was originally the cave entrance is just a mountain wall overgrown with weeds.”

"You mean..." I turned my head and looked at the mountain wall again, and said, "Someone has also set up a barrier there?"

"Moreover, it's a barrier with immense magical power, which is why it won't reveal its true form no matter how many years pass," Li Hai replied.

An illusion? That seems even more mysterious than this kind of trickery. Don't trust your eyes too much; if you can't even trust what your own eyes see, what can you trust?

"Do you think that place could also be a hole?" I asked Li Hai as I closed the window again.

“That’s not necessarily true, but there must be some hidden meaning,” Li Hai said. “That’s why An Ran added this part after the whole painting.”

"So what do we do now? That place is on a cliff, it doesn't seem easy to explore it." I sighed, that place isn't something you can get to on foot.

"Who?" Just as I was racking my brains about how to get to that place, Li Hai suddenly shouted at the door and rushed to the door, opening it wide.

But... there was nothing there! Only darkness.

"What's wrong?" I asked, following behind Li Hai.

"I feel like there's someone outside the door!" Li Hai looked anxiously into the dark corridor for a while and said, "I was so confused by the secret in the painting that I didn't notice anyone eavesdropping."

"Eavesdropping?" I touched my slightly cold forehead and said, "No way! Besides us, there's only Baiyun and Lao Gentou here. Is there any need to eavesdrop? Couldn't we just knock on the door and come in openly?"

"What if someone has ulterior motives?" Li Hai glanced at me meaningfully, and I naturally guessed who he was referring to.

“No, Baiyun doesn’t need to do that,” I said as I closed the door.

"Are you so confident you know her? Don't forget, you haven't seen each other for almost years!" Li Hai seemed unwilling to let Bai Yun off the hook, and continued to ask me, "Didn't you sense even the slightest difference in her compared to before?"

What's different? Li Hai's words seemed to remind me that Bai Yun was almost the same as before, except that she now used poison instead of jealousy as her signature perfume and no longer carried stomach medicine with her. But people always change. Maybe she's tired of the smell of jealousy, or maybe she doesn't need to carry medicine anymore since I'm not around. Anyway, these two things really aren't a big deal, I comforted myself.

"Alright, let's not talk about that anymore. You should think about how to get to that place!" I deliberately brought the topic back.

Li Hai seemed to hesitate, opening his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but finally gave in to me: "Now I'm afraid we can only wait until Li Yang and Fang Lei come back before we can think of a solution. I'll call them tomorrow and ask them to bring some rock climbing equipment when they come."

"Should we wait for them to come back? Then let's pray that nothing else happens before they return!" I looked down at the paintings scattered all over the floor, their mess mirroring my current mood, which was utterly repulsive.

**********

The room's windows were wide open, letting in the icy rain and fierce mountain winds without any obstruction, like a hungry beast devouring the weak. As the rain slid down her exposed skin, she felt a stinging pain, as if pricked by needles. How strange! She could actually feel pain. Perhaps it was just an illusion; nothing was real—this face, this body, even this soul—all were false.

Touching her skin, which had lost its elasticity and was beginning to rot, she felt a sense of relief. If everything had to end, then she would make herself understand, and want to know herself, the true thoughts of the soul hidden within her body.

It's alright, it'll be over soon. Yes, don't rush, it's all about to end!

But even with the windows wide open, it seemed impossible to blow away the unpleasant smell. She frowned slightly; even she was starting to hate the smell of corpses. Perhaps no amount of poison could mask it.

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Volume Two: The Devil's Left Eye, Chapter Thirty-Seven: Bai Yun's Robbery

Volume Two: The Devil's Left Eye, Chapter Thirty-Seven: Bai Yun's Robbery

I tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. I stared blankly at the ceiling, the only sound the howling wind and rain raging through the forest, the raindrops hitting the window with a series of irritating sounds.

quack……

What a strange sound, it seems to be coming from all around the darkness...

I sat up straight, feeling uneasy, and subconsciously looked towards the door. Maybe it was just my overreaction, but I really did feel someone walking quickly past the door for a moment.

"Who goes there?" I got out of bed, threw on a coat, and walked to the door involuntarily. The doorknob was unexpectedly cold, which made my slightly dizzy nerves shiver.

As I opened the door, a chill seemed even more biting than the mountain wind hit me. I pulled my clothes tighter, and there was a strange smell in the darkness. I felt every pore on my body open up, and countless sharp needles floated around them in the air.

Sudden……

"Ahhhh!" A terrified scream came from Baiyun's room.

"Baiyun!?" My heart tightened. She's usually a very calm and rational person; she would never scream in such terror, unless... unless...? There was no time to think further. I rushed towards Baiyun's room. The instant I reached the door, just as I was about to burst through, a figure burst out from inside. So fast! I didn't even have time to see clearly before I was slammed to the ground.

"Ahhh!" I groaned as I propped myself up. This fall was quite hard; I felt like every bone in my body had been shattered, and I was in pain all over.

"What's wrong?" Li Hai's voice rang out from behind me; he must have heard the commotion too.

"It's...it's him!" The words were almost stuck in my throat. I stared blankly at the person in front of me. A white mask of the dead, a long robe so dirty that its original color was almost unrecognizable that it covered his entire body. More importantly, he was carrying Baiyun, who was obviously unconscious, on his shoulder!

"Damn it, put her down!" Li Hai waved his right hand, and a yellow talisman appeared in his hand.

The masked man didn't seem to have any intention of accepting Li Hai's suggestion; he just stood there quietly, but I could feel a cold gaze emanating from beneath his icy mask.

"Break!" Li Hai shouted, and the talisman was launched, flying towards the masked man like a ball of yellow flame. However, it seemed to have no effect at all; the flame went out the instant it approached his body, as if there was an invisible wall around him.

Damn it! I looked at Baiyun, who was completely unresponsive, and the masked man who seemed to be smugly mocking us, and strode over.

"Lin Xiao!" Li Hai tried to stop me, but I was too fast and was already in front of the masked man in the blink of an eye.

Without hesitation, I launched a kick. Although my Taekwondo coach had once said that my leg strength was much greater than my hand strength, my heart was still pounding as I faced this unknown, strange person. But thankfully, he didn't move an inch—he was about to kick me!

Huh?! What happened? In the blink of an eye, the masked man had already flashed past me. I only felt a blur before my eyes and he disappeared without a trace. My foot also missed its mark.

"Stop!" Li Hai shouted towards the stairwell. I turned around and saw that the masked man had already reached the stairwell. He was incredibly fast, almost like he had teleported, and he was carrying someone on his back.

Closely following the masked man, Li Hai and I sprinted down the stairs behind him, chasing him frantically out of the temple. Although we were practically exhausted, the masked man still seemed quite a distance ahead of us. After running for so long, his speed hadn't changed at all; he was running ahead of us at almost the same pace as before. Damn it! This guy was deliberately maintaining this speed; he was clearly leading us to run at breakneck speed. But what was his purpose? Why did he kidnap Baiyun? And where did he want to take us?

As I desperately chased after him, I kept an eye on the mountain path. The masked man was leading us towards the summit! The increasingly steep path was difficult even to walk on normally, let alone run on. I had almost exhausted every last bit of strength in my body, and my legs were trembling. Looking at Li Hai in front of me, he seemed to have more strength, probably due to his cultivation, but judging from his increasingly heaving chest, he also seemed to be struggling quite a bit.

No, I can't give up. Baiyun is still in his hands. I gasped for breath, bit my lip hard, and chased after him with all my might.

The wind and rain seemed to have subsided a little, but the wind on the mountain was still howling and rustling, making people's hearts tremble. The terrain gradually opened up, and it seemed that we had reached the top of the mountain, with a cliff just ahead.

Huff, huff... I pressed my hands to my knees, bent over, and gasped for breath to calm my body, which was on the verge of collapse from the sudden strenuous exercise. I couldn't tell if the liquid running down my cheeks was rain or sweat. Li Hai stood in front of me, staring intently at the masked man we had chased to the edge of the cliff. He watched us without moving, as if the long run had been nothing to him.

"What...what exactly do you want?" I touched my throat, which was throbbing with pain from running. He was the one, the one I saw in the building where the third victim lived. An Yi was not him at all! The masked man remained silent, only slightly hunched over in a strange posture.

"Not good!" Li Hai suddenly shouted and rushed over, but it was too late. While I was still in a state of extreme shock, the masked man had already bent over and leaped up, drawing a beautiful arc in the air before falling straight down the cliff.

"Baiyun!" I called her name as I rushed to the cliff edge. Looking down, I saw the masked man carrying Baiyun plummeting downwards at an incredible speed. But just when I thought they were about to hit the bottom, the masked man suddenly darted into the cliff face with an incredible leap, as if something had pushed him from behind. Instantly, the masked man and Baiyun vanished from our sight.

I stared blankly at the now empty cliff, my mouth agape. The rain relentlessly lashed at me, and I felt icy cold all over. Amid the howling wind and rain, I could faintly hear the mournful cry of some creature.

"What...what happened?" I turned to look at Li Hai, who was also shocked. After a long while, he seemed to come to his senses and said to me, "It seems to have gone into the mountain wall."

"Of course I saw it!" I asked anxiously, "I'm asking how they got in there! It's clearly a cliff face!"

“This…” Li Hai thought for a moment and said, “If my deduction is correct, there might be an unseen cave entrance there.”

"An unseen cave entrance?" I frowned. While I agreed with the hypothesis, this location wasn't accessible to ordinary people without certain tools. Yet the masked man had entered so easily, and more importantly, he had kidnapped Baiyun. What to do? If we followed Li Hai's advice and waited for Fang Lei and Li Yang to bring climbing equipment, would Baiyun have any chance of survival? Furthermore, since he deliberately lured us here to watch him enter, he must have had his reasons.

"What do we do now? Li Yang and Fang Lei probably won't be here anytime soon," Li Hai said to me with a troubled expression.

Yes, what should I do? I was truly at a loss. I couldn't just watch Baiyun be taken away by the masked man, but I couldn't follow him in either. I'm not a bird; I can't fly there without wings. Taking a deep breath, I looked around and discovered a rather large protruding rock at the top of the cliff.

“Then let’s not wait any longer.” I touched the rock’s surface, which had grown even colder in the wind and rain, and said, “Let’s borrow some rope and then go down.”

"What? Are you crazy? This is too dangerous! There's a bottomless abyss below!" Li Hai exclaimed.

"Then what do you suggest we do? Are we just going to wait here like this?" I angrily punched the rock surface, and a sharp pain shot through my hand.

Li Hai didn't speak, he just looked at me quietly. Suddenly, only the roar of the wind and rain remained around us, spreading and engulfing the two of us.

“Alright,” Li Hai finally spoke, “Let’s take a gamble! Let’s go!” With that, Li Hai pulled me back…

When we returned to the temple, we found that we couldn't find any trace of Lao Gentou. Although we felt that something was wrong, we were too anxious to discuss the reason for Lao Gentou's disappearance. Fortunately, we found several bundles of thick rope that looked quite sturdy in a storeroom.

With the rope and some of Li Hai's magical implements, we quickly returned to the top of the cliff. After wrapping the rope around the protruding rock and tying it tightly, I tied the other end of the rope around my waist, and then had Li Hai control the length of the rope from above.

"Are you ready?" Li Hai asked me, gripping the rope.

"Okay." I took a deep breath with my back to the cliff, trying my best not to look down, but my legs still trembled uncontrollably. Although I don't have acrophobia, the fear of heights that I was born with was like an invisible hand touching every inch of my skin.

I cautiously took a step back, kicking a pebble that fell to the ground with a long, silent sound. I gripped the rope tightly, feeling my fingernails digging into it. Looking at Li Hai, who was already prepared, I stepped back. The whistling wind rushed past my ears, and the sudden sudden lift of my legs instinctively filled me with immense fear. I reached out and grabbed the rocks on the mountainside, but the sharp surface immediately cut my fingers, sending sharp pain through my fingertips. A nail had probably been torn off; I saw bright red blood flowing out.

"I'm going to lower you down." I could faintly hear Li Hai's voice, and then my body was slowly descending. I kept touching the mountain wall with my hands, hoping to find the entrance to the cave as soon as possible.

As we descended, Li Hai's cries faded completely; only the fierce, ear-piercing wind howled in my ears. Each slight descent of the rope tugged at my nerves; I could imagine the immense strength Li Hai must be exerting to support my weight. My hands and feet clung tightly to the cliff face, the mountain wind billowing my clothes. The warmth I had felt was slowly fading, replaced by a bone-chilling cold. The wind was so strong I could barely open my eyes; it felt like the wind was penetrating my brain through my ears, a needle-like pain spreading around my temples—it hurt so much, tears welled up in my eyes. I didn't know if it was the strong wind or the lack of oxygen at the cliff's edge, but my breathing became increasingly rapid, as if the surrounding air was being compressed and forced into my chest.

"Lin Xiao..." I vaguely heard someone calling, but I couldn't make out who it was. It sounded like Li Hai, but then again, it didn't. Many familiar faces flashed before my eyes, and my hand, which was touching the mountain wall, grew increasingly numb and immobile...

Suddenly, my hand, which was touching the mountain wall, suddenly felt nothing. My body leaned forward, and I felt an invisible hand pushing me from behind, sending me straight towards the mountain wall.

Just as I was about to crash into the mountainside, I instinctively closed my eyes. Strangely, in that instant, even though my eyes were closed, I clearly felt a blue light expanding before my eyes. Within the light was a graceful figure, a figure that suddenly caused me heartache, but sadly, I couldn't remember her name at all...

The surrounding air seemed to have been completely sucked out; the vacuum left me with my mouth wide open, but I couldn't breathe. Panicked, I tried to struggle, but my body was immobilized, as if I were bound hand and foot. A strange blue light still shone before my eyes, and my head throbbed with pain.

************

"Lin Xiao, Lin Xiao..." Li Hai tried his best to call out loudly towards the bottom of the cliff, but it seemed to have no effect. Only the howling wind and rain responded.

What to do? Li Hai gritted his teeth and tied one end of the other rope to his body. It seemed he had to go down and take a look no matter what. After securing the rope to himself, believing it was foolproof, Li Hai stood on the edge of the cliff. Jumping down might lead him to Lin Xiao, or it might result in something terrible. But there was no time to think about it now.

Taking a deep breath, Li Hai stepped out. In that instant, he seemed to hear his master's last words before he left: "Be careful, Li Hai, this is your death calamity!"

*********

Author's note: I didn't want to say anything when I saw everyone talking about why Lin Xiao didn't take a master, but there are just too many people saying it. (Feeling a little sad...)

On this point, does something good necessarily mean it's right for you? Must you accept something good? Diana was wonderful—beautiful and intelligent—but Prince Charles preferred the older, less attractive Pamela. What could you do? Perhaps many say Charles was heartless and insane. But I think he was courageous; at least he didn't give up what he truly wanted because of societal expectations. Diana was truly wonderful; I've always believed she's the only woman who can be compared to Audrey Hepburn. It's just that she married the wrong person.