After Chu Xiaoyao and Nuomi left, a deathly stillness settled along the shore of Big Stone Lake. The streetlights on the road outside the school spilled a faint glow onto the pitch-black water, as though something terrible were brewing beneath the surface, ready to burst out at any moment and set a person's nerves on edge.
Zhou You started taking off his clothes. He had barely begun before something felt off—there wasn't even a screen around him; it was no different from undressing in public.
"Why do I feel so much like a pervert?"
His movements were hesitant and sheepish, but in the end he stripped completely.
Zhou You put on his swimming goggles. First he exhaled slowly, then drew a deep breath until his chest was pushed out, repeating this three times, emptying his lungs as thoroughly as he could, and finally taking the fullest possible breath. This was the breath-holding method he had learned from videos the night before.
Plop.
The summer night was hot and stifling, yet the lake water was terrifyingly cold. Passing through the surface was like entering another world—utterly silent, with only darkness for company.
Oddly enough, Zhou You relaxed. In the lake, he no longer felt like a pervert.
He switched on his flashlight and lit up his surroundings.
The lake was thick with water weeds and reeds. The flashlight beam could not even fill the space right in front of him; visibility was extremely low, and he could not make out the bottom. Now and then a dark shape flickered past his eyes—he could not tell whether it was a frog or a fish.
Standing on the lakebed, Zhou You looked up. The surface was less than a meter above his head, yet he could see nothing at all—only pitch blackness.
He walked along the bottom, fighting the resistance of the water. He felt like a giant in a movie, every movement unbearably slow and heavy.
Every step he took kicked up silt from beneath his feet, obscuring his view until he could see nothing. That was something he had not anticipated.
The flashlight flickered twice and went out.
It was a cheap piece of junk Zhou You had bought to save money; once water got in, it stopped working.
'You get what you pay for.' Zhou You sighed and tossed the flashlight aside.
Following the rough location Nuomi had described, he groped blindly at the lakebed. A mineral water bottle.
Another blind grab: half a brick.
Toys, textbooks, rebar... the lakebed was like a garbage dump; it had everything.
Zhou You felt like he was playing a lottery game—no skill involved, whatever he grabbed was pure luck.
"Phew—"
He held his breath a full four and a half minutes before surfacing. An ordinary person could hold their breath two minutes at most, and any longer would damage the brain. Zhou You could last that long without any training at all, sustained entirely by his cultivation attainment.
"How did it go?" Chu Xiaoyao and Nuomi crouched at the water's edge and asked with concern.
"A pile of trash." Zhou You pursed his lips, glad that the school, worried about student safety, had fenced off Big Stone Lake. If they hadn't, students would be throwing things in here every day and there would be even more garbage.
"I'll try again."
Zhou You dived again and again for half an hour, still turning up nothing but trash.
Chu Xiaoyao checked the time. It was getting late; they had to head back, or she would have a hard time explaining it at home.
Chu Xiaoyao lent a hand, kindly trying to haul Zhou You up. "Forget it, let's go back. We'll try again tomorrow night."
Zhou You hastily dodged away from her. "Hey, hey, don't pull me—stay away from me."
His clothes were still on the shore!
"Oh, right."
In the darkness Zhou You could not make out Xiaoyao's expression. Chu Xiaoyao's cheeks flushed slightly; she hurried away, and only then did Zhou You climb out with peace of mind.
Not finding the little treasury today was within Zhou You's expectations; he had not counted on locating Nuomi's little treasury in one go anyway.
Since he could dive, it was just a matter of trying over a few more nights. No rush.
On the rooftop, the Red King saw Zhou You and the others leave and was overjoyed; he slapped his thigh.
"There's no mistake—the Human Dao supreme treasure is in that lake!"
At first the Red King had only suspected the treasure was in the lake—after all, why else would Natural Disaster run off to Big Stone Lake every single day for no reason?
But after Zhou You's dive, the Red King was certain the Human Dao supreme treasure was in the lake. It was his intuition!
The Red King felt a rush of clarity, like clouds parting to reveal the sun.
Monitoring Natural Disaster's movements had been torment for him—every day spent on tenterhooks, terrified that one day Natural Disaster would discover him.
Now it was fine: the Human Dao supreme treasure was right before his eyes. He did not understand why Zhou You had left without fishing anything up, but this was no time to worry about that.
"You two get ready—we're going to the school." The Red King hurried Nianshi and Lishi along.
After Natural Disaster and Zhou You left, Nuomi had returned to the classroom. The school was completely empty—the perfect chance to sneak in.
Nianshi and Lishi were full of regret. On their very first infiltration of the school, they had plunged headfirst into Big Stone Lake.
If only someone had told them earlier that the Human Dao supreme treasure was in Big Stone Lake! The two brothers could have just carried it off, and none of what came after would have happened: getting blindsided by Zhou You's brick, tagging along with the Red King to monitor Natural Disaster, spending every day gathering intelligence on Zhou You and analyzing his relationship with Natural Disaster... all that trouble.
But such complaints could only be muttered inwardly. If they dared say it aloud, whether they would live to see another day was an open question—the Red King did not have a good temper.
The three of them packed up quickly, went downstairs, and left the residential compound. With Nianshi and Lishi along to navigate, they easily found Big Stone Lake and climbed over the wall.
"You two wait on the shore. I'll go down," the Red King ordered.
For Zhou You to enter the water, he first needed success in skin refining—to develop a layer of film—and then had to hunt for jobs on the forum to earn spirit stones and speed up his cultivation. For the Red King it was not nearly so troublesome: he could take on his body of flame and enter Big Stone Lake.
But one preparatory step was the same.
The Red King began to undress, stripping completely naked.
The Red King had stronger nerves than Zhou You. He often took on his body of flame, and when the transformation ended he was left bare—he had long since grown used to that state.
But this time, for some reason, the Red King felt uneasy, as though someone were watching him.
He felt his heart beating—thump, thump—much faster than usual.
He frowned at Nianshi and Lishi and shook his head slightly. It was not those two.
Was Natural Disaster watching him? No, that could not be; if Natural Disaster had seen him, she would have come over long ago.
"Am I just tense because I'm afraid Natural Disaster will notice?"
The longer he dragged it out, the more uneasy the Red King became, so he hurried to get it done quickly.
Pitch-black flames bloomed across his skin like a black lotus of calamity, blacker than the lake water, burning over every inch of the Red King's skin until his internal organs sank into a sea of black fire and only a vague human outline remained.
He took a step into the lake. The surface hissed, steam rising from beneath his feet.
The Red King sank to the lakebed. His flames burned, automatically searing out a vacuum around him.
He had to grope around just like Zhou You, but he could stay active underwater far longer than Zhou You—you could even say there was no time limit—and he moved freely, treating the lake water as though it were not there.
After groping around for about half an hour, he found a box.
"Got it!"
The Red King was delighted. He leaped out of the water, returned to his original form, wiped the mud clinging to the box, and could not wait to lay eyes on the legendary Human Dao supreme treasure.
"Congratulations to my lord on a great achievement!" Nianshi and Lishi said, without sincerity, eyes full of envy, but they did not dare snatch anything from the Red King's hands; they could only stand by and offer congratulations.
The box looked worn and ancient. Carved patterns ran around its sides, but perhaps because it had soaked in the water so long, the patterns were no longer discernible.
"Hm?"
The Red King tried hard to open the box, only to find it would not open at all.
"Is it locked?"
The Red King examined the box closely and suddenly recalled the ancient text Nianshi and Lishi had deciphered, which said there was a sealing on the box that kept vengeful ghosts from getting near.
"Could there be a sealing on it that cannot be opened easily?"
Then again, that made sense—a box holding the Human Dao supreme treasure was not going to open so easily.
"Never mind. I'll take it back to headquarters and have the Professor open it." The Red King considered his mission complete, but that unease still clung to him; he just wanted to get away quickly.
He dressed in a fluster and led Nianshi and Lishi over the wall and away.
He left so hastily that he never noticed a pair of ghost-seeing lenses left lying where he had been.
Zhenyue Ghost King, who had been watching in secret all along, grew suspicious.
"Did I misjudge them? All that trouble they went to—were they not looking for the Human Dao supreme treasure?"
Chapter 44