Cueillir des fleurs et sourire

Chapitre 62

The water cave behind us was deathly silent—a silence more terrifying than death itself.

The three walked silently through the waterway, and after a full two incense sticks' worth of time, they finally saw light in the distance, as if the exit was just ahead. They were now quite far from where they had been when Shangxuan suddenly said, "Why don't you stay and go with him?"

“If he died at this point, he wouldn’t be him,” Li Lingyan smiled. “He’s the person with the strongest survival ability.”

“Da Yu has his own plans,” Sheng Xiang said. “You should trust him.”

Shang Xuan remained silent.

At this moment, a sound that made the entire rock wall tremble came from the depths of the distant cave. A strange roar that made one's whole body go numb came from the rock wall, followed by a turbid loud noise, as if a pot of soup had been stirred up inside, as if everything in the depths of the cave had been churned up.

Li Lingyan continued walking forward, while Shang Xuan stayed behind. Sheng Xiang looked left and right, sighed, and had no choice but to stay by Shang Xuan's side to accompany him and the others.

“Shangxuan, has anyone ever told you that you are actually a good person?” he sighed. “If you want to be a ruthless leader, you have to learn from Xiaoyan. Look at him, he can take things in stride and let them go. How carefree he is.”

Shang Xuan kept his lips tightly shut, and after a long while, when the sounds inside gradually subsided, he said coldly, "I just want to know if he will come out."

With a soft "tap," Shengxiang placed her hand on his shoulder. "I understand."

Li Lingyan had already reached the light, becoming a tiny black dot in the distance. Shang Xuan suddenly said coldly, "Aren't you going to follow him? What if he leaves alone and causes the cave entrance to collapse?" Li Lingyan had never been a gentleman, and it wouldn't be surprising if he kicked them while they were down. They knew that if they missed this opportunity, killing the three of them later would be far more difficult.

“Xiao Yan doesn’t know.” Sheng Xiang blinked.

"Why?" Shang Xuan sneered.

“I just don’t know.” Shengxiang smiled. “Good people wouldn’t understand this kind of thing; only bad people would.”

"You—" Shang Xuan endured Sheng Xiang's nonsense and shut up, ignoring him. He absolutely couldn't fall for his tricks and argue with him about whether he was a good person or a bad person.

Shang Xuan was truly unsuited for scheming and intrigue. Sheng Xiang smiled, oblivious to the subtlety of the situation—Li Lingyan was seriously injured, and he had no idea where he was. Shang Xuan was highly skilled in martial arts, and Yu Cuiwei was experienced. How could he possibly kill these two still useful people and leave himself to face this predicament alone? Besides, he felt a certain degree of sympathy for Yu Cuiwei… As for Young Master Sheng Xiang, he was his bargaining chip in fighting against the Yan Prince's faction and killing Qu Zhiliang, so he absolutely could not die. If it were anyone else, they might seize the opportunity to kill their formidable enemy now, but Li Lingyan wouldn't.

Because he was Li Lingyan.

After a while, no sound came from the depths of the cave, as if everything had died after that commotion.

“He’s still there. There might be something wrong with the cave entrance…” Shengxiang stared at Li Lingyan in the distance. “Let’s go take a look.” With that, he led the way with his bucket of water, leaving Shangxuan behind.

Shang Xuan glanced back and saw no one coming out. He couldn't help but wonder if Yu Cuiwei had perished together with the monster. He paused and rushed towards the exit.

Li Lingyan looked up at the exit, about ten zhang above his head. The ground below was a large, narrow-mouthed urn, its walls remarkably smooth, seemingly a vertical cave eroded by years of powerful water jets. Even a top-tier master of lightness skill could only manage four or five zhang horizontally, let alone ten zhang vertically. He had heard that Wudang possessed a lightness skill called "Cloud Ladder Leap," which allowed one to ascend ten zhang, but he didn't know it. The smooth, rounded sides meant that even a top-tier master of "Gecko Kung Fu" might not be able to climb more than three zhang. The exit wasn't far, but he couldn't reach it.

Saint Incense's voice came: "Why don't you go up?"

Li Lingyan carefully and gracefully lowered his eyes. "How do we get up there?"

Saint Incense looked up for a moment, "If..."

"If only we had a ten-zhang-long rope..." Li Lingyan interjected.

Shengxiang raised an eyebrow. "As expected, Xiaoyan is just as clever as I am. It's a pity that even if all four of us stripped naked and tore our clothes to shreds, we still wouldn't be ten zhang long."

You can't jump up to the top of this cave, and you can't climb up either. But if there were a rope about ten feet long, with a stone tied to it, you could throw it up—although you can't jump up, with their wrist strength, throwing the stone ten feet wouldn't be a problem. And as long as there's a little place to get a foothold in mid-air, someone with Yu Cuiwei's lightness skill could climb up easily—unfortunately, there's no rope.

With a soft "thud," Shang Xuan swept over. "What?" Sheng Xiang pressed her five fingers on his head and said with a smile, "You're doomed, you're a turtle with a turtle's head."

Before Shangxuan could say anything, someone in the darkness behind him laughed, "There's a rope."

Shengxiang cheered and turned around, "Dayu!"

The pale sunlight from the cave ceiling reflected on the deep, rippling water below. Amidst the shifting light and shadow, Yu Cuiwei stepped onto a protruding rock in the tunnel wall. Surprisingly, aside from being covered in water, he wasn't bleeding or even broken a skin, as if the turbulent commotion inside the cave had nothing to do with him. He was far more composed than Shang Xuan, whose head was pressed down by the sacred incense. He pointed inside, "That monster inside is probably three or four zhang long. If you skin it and tear it apart, you can make a rope."

Shengxiang shrank her neck and pushed Shangxuan, "Go peel the skin."

Surprisingly, Shangxuan wasn't angry. He silently strode into the depths of the cave, actually intending to skin the fish.

Shengxiang paused for a moment, while Yu Cuiwei smiled and said, "Let's go."

Returning to the spot where they had encountered the monster, it was still pitch black. The lingering smell of blood and damp earth confirmed that the terrifying creature was dead. No one knew how Yu Cuiwei had killed the behemoth; a chilling "squeak" of digging echoed as Yu Cuiwei ripped out the monster's eyes with a single stroke. The eyes still emitted a faint glow, and the group immediately recognized it as a gigantic crocodile.

The enormous crocodile was unimaginably large, with interlocking fangs and a long, thin snout, its appearance quite different from that of common crocodiles. Sheng Xiang gasped in astonishment; if this thing bit him, half a person would be flattened. A inch of throwing knife hilt protruded from its blind eye, but Shang Xuan and Li Lingyan immediately recognized that Yu Cuiwei had fired several throwing knives in quick succession, striking the same spot, each subsequent knife pushing the previous one forward and embedding it into the crocodile's head, piercing its brain and killing it. Yu Cuiwei's actions were swift and ruthless, earning Sheng Xiang's utmost admiration. Just as he was admiring him, Shang Xuan drew his gold-inlaid knife, grabbed the crocodile's front paw, and pulled hard. He intended to cut its skin to make a rope, but unexpectedly, after pulling, a faint light appeared behind the crocodile, suggesting an exit there as well.

The four exchanged glances, dragged away the crocodile blocking the cave, and groped their way toward the dim light.

The tunnel behind the crocodile was even shorter, only about fifteen or sixteen zhang (approximately 33-40 meters) before it ended, and the entrance was surprisingly flat. As Shengxiang plunged out, she heard a scream from the other side, followed by a "thump" as a basket was thrown in front of her, and the figure of a woman in red quickly disappeared into the garden.

garden?

Saint Incense blinked. The scenery before her was completely different from the dark, foul-smelling landscape on the other side of the tunnel, which resembled salted fish soaking in a wine vat.

The second one, Shangxuan, emerged from behind and was also taken aback upon seeing this.

Yu Cuiwei was clearly behind Li Lingyan, but somehow he came out a step faster. Upon seeing the scene before him, he smiled lightly and waved his fan, as if his wet clothes were still fluttering.

Before them lay a lotus pond, and the place they had emerged from was the entrance to an artificial rockery. Outside the pond, ornate beams and painted rafters, pavilions and towers, were faintly visible, making it seem as if they had stepped into the mansion of some noble family. The woman in red, dressed as a maid, suddenly saw someone emerge from the lotus pond, dripping wet, and no wonder she dropped her flower basket and ran away.

"This family actually raised a monster-like crocodile in the lotus pond," Shengxiang murmured. Clearly, the enormous, ghostly creature in the tunnel belonged to this family; otherwise, the cave entrance was ten feet above the ground, and the opening was so small that even if it had wings, it couldn't fly out. They were swept down from that cave entrance by the floodwaters, sharing a room intimately with the crocodile, killing it, and then crawling through. No wonder the little maid looked as if she'd seen a ghost.

Li Lingyan carefully looked at the pure and elegant lotus flowers in front of him, lowered his eyelids, and said calmly, "This place is very nice."

Shang Xuan opened his mouth, thinking that this place was clearly very strange and mysterious. What kind of kind-hearted person would keep such crocodiles in their garden? But then he heard Yu Cuiwei bend down and pluck a lotus petal, exhale deeply, and say, "This is indeed a good place."

Shang Xuan stared intently at the flower petals he had plucked, but couldn't make heads or tails of them. Sheng Xiang put a hand on his shoulder and said with a smile, "The lotus pond is quite large."

Shang Xuan frowned and did not answer. This lotus pond was very large, even larger than the back garden of his Prince Yan's mansion. To prevent crocodiles from crawling out, extremely high white stone railings were set up around it, and the bridges and other structures were also exquisitely carved and inlaid.

“This lotus pond is even bigger than the one in the Imperial Garden, and there are also these houses, pavilions, and gardens…” Shengxiang pointed to the surrounding pavilions and towers, “I see eighteen of them.”

Shang Xuan frowned even more deeply. "What a grand display!"