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Looking again at the center of the ice platform, in the eye of the extremely cold spring surrounded by dark green ore, a large, crystal-clear, extremely white ice bead churned and rolled, emitting icy vapors. The ice bead itself reflected a rainbow of seven colors—red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and violet—dazzling and magnificent. With each roll, gusts of extremely cold icy air shot out, quickly filling the palace with smoke and causing the temperature to drop even further.

Fatty and I took off running. When we got close to the icicles with the ropes hanging down, it was difficult to walk. Every step felt like stepping into knee-deep mud. The newly formed ice layer on the ground stuck to our boots like latex, and every step pulled out a long strand of ice from the sole of our boots.

We held hands and pulled each other, finally reaching the icicle. I called to Fatty, "Put your backpack on, and we'll climb up the rope quickly."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the incredibly strong, strange-eyed ice corpse, dragging the heavy ice pillar, managed to move it with all its might before crashing to the ground, cracking the ice pillar.

A ghastly white hand emerged from the crack of the monstrous ice corpse, its five fingers outstretched, clawing wildly at the ground. Its purplish-black face writhed impatiently within its frozen golden armor, letting out a muffled roar.

I was startled, and I tiptoed, chasing after the fat man's bloodied buttocks by climbing the rope.

Thick icicles covered the rope, chilling me to the bone. As I climbed, nearing the top, my gloves got stuck to the icicles, and I couldn't break free, making it impossible to alternate hands and climb upwards.

I turned my head and looked down. The palace was filled with icy mist, and I could vaguely see the strange-eyed ice corpse firmly pressed into the ice layer, frozen to death on the ground, wrapped in layer after layer of ice, buried alive by the ice.

I breathed a sigh of relief. The fat man, who had climbed out of the hole, pulled me and the rope out of the top hole and closed the copper door cover at the entrance.

I pulled my hands out of my gloves and pushed the fat man uphill quickly.

The yin energy from the Earth's Yin Eye was already faintly seeping out from the copper lid of the top hole, forming a bluish-green ice film.

We, the two defeated survivors, panted as we climbed up the winding stairs in the passageway, until we emerged from the tunnel and rushed into the front hall of the underworld. We frantically turned the mechanism on the head of the bronze crane, moved the bronze bed back to its original position, and covered the entrance to the passageway. Only then did we collapse paralyzed beside the bronze bed, unable to get up for a long time.

Fatty Wang lay sprawled on the bronze crane, his buttocks covered in blood and bruised from the cold.

I laughed and said, "Fatty, your butt is now comparable to the monstrous-eyed, ice-faced corpse in the lower palace. It's all bluish-purple, like the grape color of Turpan."

The fat man hissed in pain, clutching the two wounds on his buttocks inflicted by the Ice Corpse Spear, and cursed, "You son of a bitch, you're up to no good, a peeping tom, aren't you? Ouch, my muscles are frostbitten!"

Volume 1, The Ancient Tomb at the Cape, Chapter 24: Escape from Hazard (1)

A thin layer of bluish ice slowly formed on the eight bronze pillars of the Underworld Palace. It seemed that before long, the extreme yin energy of the Earth's Yin Eye would turn the Underworld Palace into a solid ice cave.

"Old Hu, hurry up and think of something!" the fat man shouted. "Damn it, with Ice Fairy in front and Ice Qi behind, how unlucky am I to have fallen into an ice hole?"

As if in response to his words, the Ice Enchantress outside the Underworld Palace suddenly let out an excited hiss. It seemed that it had sensed the complete release of the energy of the Earth's Yin Eye.

I smiled slightly, took out a bag of broken dark green ore that I had collected in the corner of the bedroom from my backpack, and said to Fatty, "It's alright, we'll rely on this to eat and stay warm from now on. With this, we can deal with the Ice Core, but we can't deal with that beast, Ice Enchantress."

The fat man was overjoyed, but then frowned and said, "How should I use it? Should I just smash it to death, or grind it up and feed it to poison it?"

I laughed and said, "Try burning it with fire."

The fat man said, "Use fire. Didn't you say that if you start a fire, it will cause Bing Meier to relentlessly pursue you?"

"Even without fire, it would still destroy us anyway," I said, looking at the fat man.

The fat man suddenly realized and slapped his head, saying embarrassedly, "Damn it, one accident after another has made my brain rusty."

I picked up a piece of broken ore and lit it with my Zippo lighter. The ore quickly burned like pine resin. I blew out the flame, and thick, dark green smoke billowed from the ore. At the same time, a pungent, acrid smell filled the air.

I instructed Fatty to use his Swiss Army knife to dig out some more dark green ore from the floor of the Underworld. However, the dark green ore dug out here was clearly not of very good quality; when burned, it produced very little smoke.

The fat man looked at me strangely and said, "What should we do?"

I dug up the floor of the underworld and found that there was only a layer of dark green mineral floor tiles about one and a half feet thick.

The ice cave outside the Underworld Palace is about half a mile long and more than ten feet high from the ground entrance. With these poor-quality floor stones and that bag of high-quality broken ore, it would be difficult to guarantee that we could drive away the ubiquitous ice and snow monster, Ice Enchantress, and climb out of the ground safely.

My head started to ache. The fat man, not wanting to be left out, kicked the bronze door several times. Outside the door, Bing Mei'er was even more enraged, violently slamming against the door and letting out a deafening roar.

I lit a piece of dark green ore, signaled to Fatty to hide behind the door, quietly pulled off the latch, opened the copper door, and then suddenly threw the burning ore outside.

Screams erupted outside the door as the dark green ore fragments struck the mouth of the ice monster's head, which was coiled in the tunnel. Ice Enchantress twisted her body and retreated deeper into the tunnel. Instantly, a fierce wind arose, and the creature used its inhalation technique again.

The fat man immediately closed the bronze door. During this time, I was shocked to see that there was no passage left. Damn it, this Ice Enchantress had changed so unpredictably that she had completely filled the passageway behind him with ice crystals with her body. Except for the area she had retreated from, the remaining passageway seemed to have completely disappeared; it had become a thick, solid ice wall, so thick that not even a fly could fly through.

Upon hearing my description, Fatty also realized the seriousness of the situation. Given the current circumstances, if we didn't lure Bing Meier away or kill her in time, we would both be buried alive in this thousand-year-old ice tomb.

Behind us, the icy air from the Earth's Yin Eye rapidly seeped and spread. Ahead, Ice Fairy blocked the passage with her body, and the air became increasingly thin. Soon, not long after, even if we didn't starve or freeze to death, we would suffocate from the depletion of air.

I raised my hand, the hands of my watch ticking away, and my heart pounded with each stroke. With each rotation, the hands signaled that we were one step closer to death. At their end lay the final point of annihilation.

Suddenly, I remembered something and said to Fatty, "If we can't get out, let's lure it in first."

I grabbed the black folding book, went behind the bronze door, and quickly pried up pieces of dark green mineral floor tiles. I dug a three-foot-wide passage through the ice and soil layer from behind the door to the center of the main hall. The key was to dig a trench inside the door that reached the underground soil layer to cut off the surface ice layer.

As the fat man helped, he asked, bewildered, "If it comes in, won't we be doomed even faster?"

I smiled mysteriously and said, "Let's lure it into the trap. Once it's inside, the outer passage will be clear. We can use ink ore to block the door, trapping it inside the main hall, making it easier to escape."

The fat man gave a thumbs up and exclaimed, "Brilliant! Truly brilliant! Our tomb raiders' strategist, Comrade Hu Bayi, is truly cunning and resourceful!"

I had Fatty hide behind the door, carrying a large amount of dark green ore, waiting to cut off Bing Meier's retreat as soon as she entered the main hall.

I took a deep breath, focused all my attention, and gestured for the fat man to pull the bronze door open.

I stood with my hands on my hips facing the bronze gate, loudly chanting the tugboat chants of the Xiangxi fishermen, while holding fragments of inkstone bricks in my hand. Seizing the opportunity, I threw them one after another at the large ice monster fish head of the Ice Enchantress, which was entrenched in the passageway.

I threw to the left, to the right, up, down, jumping, leaning back to throw, throwing with my back to the door, bending over to throw between my legs, hitting the target every time, hitting the target every time, like a crossbow bolt, making the little monster scream in agony and fly into a rage.

I even threw it specifically into its gaping maw, so hard that it choked, so hard that it couldn't even open its mouth to inhale the raging wind, so hard that its soul left its body, and it peed and pooped repeatedly, banging its head on the ground and crying for help.

The strange fish head dodged left and right, but to no avail. Even after burrowing into the ice, it was still harassed, which angered it so much that it jumped and thrashed about, breaking the ice layer.

The fat man, watching from behind the door, couldn't resist the urge. Scratching his ears and cheeks, he joined me in singing the fisherman's tugboat tune. "Brothers, hey yo; rainy days, hey yo; going to the white sand beach, hey yo; barefoot, hey yo; seeing a girl, hey yo; my heart itches, hey yo; marrying her, hey yo; sewing a pair of shoes, hey yo; my heart is warm, hey yo; let's hurry and fish, hey yo; take good care of the girl, hey yo..."

I was having a great time when, without warning, this thing suddenly burrowed under the ice, emerged from the doorway in the blink of an eye, and climbed up the bronze door in a few quick movements, revealing its gleaming white icy teeth to the fat man's face behind it.

Poor Fatty Wang was completely oblivious, still swaying his head and howling, "Raise a good sister, hey yo—" He looked up and was suddenly struck by the gleaming white teeth, almost fainting.

I shouted and threw all the dark green ore blocks in my hands at once, engulfing the strange ice fish head and the fat man in a sandstorm.

The strange ice fish was hit several times, then slid under the ice with a whoosh and slipped out the door in the blink of an eye.

The fat man panicked and fell to the ground with a thud. He immediately jumped up, howling, clutching the frostbite wound on his buttocks and leaping three feet high.

I deliberately slowed down, sat on the ground, and without even glancing at Bing Meier, kept panting heavily.

In the blink of an eye, the Ice Enchantress darted under the ice, shooting out like an arrow from the ice tunnel we had just dug out. Wherever she passed, a trail of white water appeared beneath the azure ice surface.

I suddenly flipped over and jumped to the side, yelling at the same time, "Block the door, Fatty!"

The fat man tacitly scattered a patch of dark green fragments inside the door. At the same time, he ignited pieces of ore and continuously threw them into the trench dug horizontally inside the door.

I ran towards the door in a few strides, and Ice Fairy instantly flipped over from the icy tunnel to catch up with me. I was terrified as I could feel its cold teeth grinding against my back.

As soon as I stumbled away from the vicinity of the icy passage, Bing Meier instantly appeared by the door, stood up in mid-air, opened her blood-red maw, and blocked the way to the door, leaving me trapped inside the hall.

I looked back and saw that the icy aura of the Earth's Yin Eye had already filled half of the main hall, and the situation was becoming increasingly critical.

The fat man was so anxious he was jumping up and down outside the door, furiously igniting pieces of dark green ore and hurling them at Bing Mei'er. But the thing dodged left and right, howling in pain, refusing to give way. It seemed to understand that as long as it kept me inside, it would have a final chance to fight back.

I frantically dug up the dark green ore bricks inside the hall and smashed them against where it was hiding. With the help of the thick smoke from the large amount of ore that the fat man lit, we finally forced it deeper into the hall.

The icy air from the Earth's Yin Eye quickly formed a large layer of bluish ice within the hall. The strange fish-headed creature became active, leaping out of the icy passage and gliding across the ice membrane, searching for an opening to attack me.

I forced it back into the depths of the main hall, leaped out of the thick smoke-filled ditch, and slammed the bronze door shut with the fat man.

Even after running quickly down the passageway, bending low, I could still hear Bing Meier frantically banging on the door behind me.

A dozen minutes later, we appeared at the bottom of the hole where the coconut tree roots were hanging down.

Looking up at the sky, it was already dawn outside the cave. A few stars shone down through the tops of the coconut trees, giving a warm feeling of seeing the light of day again. The east was already tinged with the pale light of dawn, but the sun had not yet risen from the sea. A cool breeze was blowing, and the coconut palms swayed gracefully. At that moment, two words popped into my and Fatty's minds: "Awesome, so awesome!"

Volume 1, The Ancient Tomb at the Cape, Chapter 25: Escape from Hide (2)

I took a deep breath of the cool air, not daring to delay, and Fatty and I split up and climbed upwards along the coconut tree roots in the icy soil layer on the cave wall. Soon, I grabbed the thick coconut tree root that was hanging in the air, while Fatty was below me, and we climbed up the cave ceiling one after the other.

As we approached the cave entrance, a sudden gust of wind swept up from the bottom of the cave, making our ears ring and causing us to tumble and fall like wind chimes from the coconut tree roots.

Before he knew it, the fat man's head slammed hard against the cave wall. He groaned, his hands slipping from his grip on the vine, and he was about to fall headfirst down.

I quickly hooked my feet around the fat man's calves and shouted, "Fatty, hold on tight to the tree roots!"

The fat man suddenly woke up and clung tightly to the thick coconut tree root, head down.

Suddenly, the wind reversed direction, pulling us down three feet.

Damn it, without even thinking, I know it must be the icy aura of the Earth's Yin Eye that covered all the dark green ore, allowing that wretched ice monster fish head to escape.

Ice Enchantress screamed, the wind whipped back, and snowflakes fell in droves. With the help of the icy yin energy from the Earth's Yin Eye, this grandson of a disciple became even more arrogant.

The fat man was lying face down beneath me, and I could only cling tightly to him with my feet; the situation was extremely dangerous. The strong wind made it impossible for us to open our eyes as we slowly slid down.

Suddenly, the ice monster's head stopped the gale and disappeared into the ice. The ice crystals surged and piled up layer by layer, quickly solidifying into a huge flat ice body, which chased after us.

As they approached, the image of a strange fish head emerged from the center of the ice. A gaping hole suddenly appeared in the ice, and ice teeth grew out and bit at the fat man at the bottom.

The fat man hurriedly took off his backpack to defend against Ice Fang's attack. The backpack was caught in a tug-of-war between Ice Fang and the fat man.

I tore off everything I could—my black blouse, gloves, boots—and threw it at the ice, but it was no use.

As the ice swelled violently, the massive crack nearly swallowed the backpack and the fat man whole. Hanging in mid-air, I was utterly desperate. Looking up at the clear sky and green trees above, I sighed, "All my efforts have been in vain."

A person appeared at the cave entrance above, carrying a rock and smashing it hard against the ice inside the cave.

With a loud bang, the ice cracked open, then quickly closed again; nothing happened.

I was so excited that tears welled up in my eyes; it was Shirley Yang.

Shirley Yang picked up stones from the ground and hurled them at the ice repeatedly to prevent it from engulfing Fatty and me.

The stone struck the ice with a loud thud, then was swallowed up in the blink of an eye. It was like a strong ant trying to trip an elephant—a truly whimsical and fantastical scene.

The fat man shouted at Shirley Yang, "It's no use, Miss Yang, you should run away! If I can see you again, Old Hu can die in peace. Let us two brothers sacrifice ourselves for the country!"

Shirley Yang ignored us and continued to smash the ice.

I smiled wryly, watching the fat man uncontrollably slide down my legs, his chubby head almost touching my icy teeth. Ice Fairy let out a triumphant, muffled hiss.

Just then, a piece of paper suddenly fell out of the fat man's pocket and fluttered down.

The paper, shimmering with phosphorescent runes, was a talisman we had taken from a sandalwood box in the rear hall.

The talisman fell into the ice mouth and ignited instantly, spitting out long tongues of fire that were indestructible, burning a large hole through the ice in the blink of an eye.

The ice monster's head hissed and twisted wildly, shrinking downwards and disappearing beneath the ice. The ice itself emitted distorted patterns, resembling the wrinkled face of an old man.

Fatty and I hurriedly crawled backwards, and with Shirley Yang's strong pull, we quickly crawled out of the hole.

The flames grew fiercer, crackling and popping as they burned the ice at the bottom of the cave. The ice melted, the ground trembled, and wild beasts roared. A towering coconut tree near the cave entrance collapsed, instantly turning into charred firewood. The air reeked of a burnt, acrid smell, like that of a charred corpse.

We ran without stopping toward the edge of the coconut grove, with a tremendous force behind us, as if the sky were collapsing and the earth was splitting, with layers of ice and soil collapsing and spreading toward us.

They fled in a sorry state from the coconut grove, and looking back, under the glow of the rising sun in the east, the entire coconut grove had sunk into the ground, forming a large pit several miles in circumference. Blackish-gray smoke rose from the pit, and when the smoke dissipated, a pool of murky water was revealed.

The water surged continuously, countless bubbles rising from the bottom as if boiling. Suddenly, a deafening roar erupted, towering waves surged in the lake, and an unparalleled transparent skeleton was thrown out of the water, disappearing in the sunlight in the blink of an eye.