Wu Shaoyi's breath remained faint. "Are you an imperial soldier, or one of Bandit Lu's men?"
He Lingchuan picked a fleck of dark grime from his temple. "Imperial soldier."
"You aren't wearing armor. You're no ordinary grunt, are you?"
"No." He Lingchuan couldn't help admiring the man. On the verge of death, yet his eyes were still so sharp? "I'm just along with the convoy to handle errands."
He seized the initiative. "A perfectly fine great monster—why do you call it the Crocodile God?"
"It came from the northern demon kingdom to aid the Holy Master. In water battles across lakes and rivers, whenever it led the fray, we won nine out of ten. The army worshipped it as the Crocodile God and often tossed cattle and sheep to it as sacrifices. Aside from the Holy Master, it... never interacted with people. Anyone who offended it, friend or foe, was mauled to death."
So even though Wu Shaoyi knew the crocodile demon possessed intelligence, he had never considered speaking to it.
Blind adherence to past experience was deadly.
He Lingchuan thought about it. The south was rich in wetlands, and the Buxin Rebel Army indeed often had to assault water strongholds and lake-side cities. "So it was Hong Xiangqian's spirit pet."
"Not a spirit pet." Wu Shaoyi slowly shook his head. "The Holy Master once did it a favor, and it was merely repaying the debt. There was no master-and-servant relationship. After the Holy Master passed away, no one ever saw the Crocodile God again. We all assumed it had returned to the north; who would have thought it had thrown in with Lu Yao?"
At this point, he let out a long sigh.
If not for the giant crocodile's sneak attack, he would have severed Lu Yao's head by now, rather than lying here awaiting death.
He Lingchuan glanced at the giant crocodile not far away, suddenly realizing how the surge of fish rushing toward the shore had happened the previous night. These giant crocodiles were clearly not as peaceful as the spirit turtle. The giant crocodile had likely emerged to hunt, and its immense aura had terrified countless aquatic creatures into a frantic flight.
The surging fish had actually signaled the direction of its advance.
In other words, the giant crocodile had been swimming toward the shore back then, right as several clueless soldiers were scrubbing down in the lagoon. Just as they were about to become a tasty meal in the crocodile's jaws, Lu Yao—not wanting to alert the snake in the grass—personally entered the water and "dissuaded" this Crocodile King.
As for the massive fish he claimed as a trophy, it had probably been stunned senseless by the giant crocodile's aura or knocked cold by a flick of its tail, right?
"By the way, when we were retreating earlier, Lu Yao ambushed us with some sort of magical artifact, blowing apart my shield and my horse. When I fell off the cliff, that thing even pursued me down!" Recalling it, lingering fear still seized He Lingchuan. "If I head back up, I don't know if I'll walk into another ambush."
"You didn't see what it was?"
"It was extraordinarily fast, just a white shadow. It seemed to be... an arrow?" He Lingchuan was not entirely sure.
"The Ghost Eye Bow," Wu Shaoyi muttered. "A treasure that once belonged to the Holy Master. So Lu Yao got his hands on that too."
"What is that?"
"Arrows shot from the Ghost Eye Bow pursue and strike targets on their own," Wu Shaoyi explained to him. "If the first strike misses, it can strike twice more in succession—known as 'three strikes to a single arrow.'"
"Three times in total?" He Lingchuan felt somewhat relieved. "Are you sure?"
"Just as you said: it blew apart your shield, killed your horse, and shot at you once beneath the cliff. With all three completed, you should already be safe."
Speaking of which, when He Lingchuan had gone to loot the giant turtle earlier, he had noticed the divine bone necklace against his chest pulsing with red light.
Did this indicate a treasure on the turtle's body?
Yet after scavenging it inside and out, the divine bone necklace was still glowing. That was bizarre.
Did that mean there was some hidden treasure on the turtle he hadn't found?
Though it was time to leave, He Lingchuan still couldn't let it go, so he circled around the giant turtle once more.
He noticed the red glow grew stronger at times and weaker at others, seemingly shifting depending on his position.
Wu Shaoyi asked him, "What are you doing?"
"Wait, something doesn't seem right." If the intensity of the divine bone necklace's red light signaled distance, then with the giant turtle right in front of him, there shouldn't have been any fluctuation.
Could there be something unusual nearby?
He Lingchuan held up his candle and searched all around, finally spotting a gray clam shell on the ground not far from the turtle's foot, tucked inside a recess in the rock wall.
It was slightly smaller than a coconut. Under this dim light, anyone with less than sharp eyesight wouldn't have spotted it at all.
Leftover food from the Water Spirit? That didn't seem likely. The giant turtle had a huge mouth; wouldn't it crunch down clams like this in a single bite?
He reached out to pry the shell open, but it didn't budge at all.
This thing was sealed tight.
The giant crocodile, having not yet rested enough, suddenly spoke up: "What are you doing?"
He Lingchuan could only say, "There seems to be something else here." Whatever made the divine bone necklace glow had to be a treasure; he didn't want to miss it.
The crocodile demon flicked its tail, churning the pool water with a loud splash. "There's a cave dwelling behind that dead turtle."
Both of them froze. "What?"
"It claimed a cave dwelling. Otherwise, why would it nest in a place so dark and cramped?" said the crocodile demon. "I waited outside the dwelling for half a day before catching the turtle as it crawled out."
"A cave dwelling? The kind of abode only immortals are rumored to possess? Are you sure?"
"Won't you know if you go in and look?"
This revelation was far more shocking than the existence of the giant turtle or the Crocodile God itself. Brimming with curiosity, He Lingchuan walked behind the giant turtle and reached out to touch the stone wall.
He had heard at least eighty or a hundred legends about immortals, all saying exalted immortals possessed powers capable of shaking heaven and earth. Surely, then, an immortal's cave dwelling would be extraordinary?
He had to pay homage and look upon it at once.
The uneven stone wall was solid, but when tapped, it sounded hollow.
Was an immortal abode opened like that? Ignorant fool. The crocodile demon instructed him, "There's a shell in the corner. Kick it."
Oh, so this gray clam shell wasn't meant to be pried open, but kicked?
Who could have guessed that?
He reached out with his foot and kicked it, and the clam shell parted. At the same time, ripples seemed to spread across the stone wall like water, before an opening parted.
Light seeped out from within.
Closing its eyes, the crocodile demon said, "Go in. It's safe inside." Naturally, it had already been in there.
Hearing this, He Lingchuan felt reassured enough to step inside.
The interior looked like a small courtyard on some back mountain. The sky was an overcast gray, neither bright nor dark.
The rocks bore marks of years of water erosion; evidently, it had once been a pool of water, yet now not a single drop remained. The ground was bare, the vegetation long withered and dead, with only a few stray dried stalks clinging to the cracked earth, impossible to identify.
Only the small courtyard looked relatively intact, though its structure was completely unlike anything He Lingchuan had seen before. Originally, it must have been exceptionally lavish and elegant, as he could still see traces of gold tracery under the eaves, but much of the plaster on the walls had already flaked away.
Dragging trails marked the sandy soil, and half of the fence had collapsed—the handiwork, it seemed, of either the giant turtle or the Crocodile God.
He Lingchuan stepped into the courtyard. The door stood open, revealing a complete set of assorted furniture inside, though some pieces had been knocked over. Scrolls and books were strewn everywhere, and upon a prayer mat on the first floor sat a withered skeleton.
He Lingchuan couldn't decipher the characters on the book covers. He casually reached to pick one up, but the moment his fingertips brushed the cover, the entire volume crumbled to ash.
Just like that?
This was an immortal's cave dwelling? Why was it so different from the ethereal, transcendent realm bathed in ten thousand rays of auspicious light that he had envisioned?
The dust was suffocatingly pungent. He Lingchuan fought back a sneeze, terrified he would blow the rest of the books and scrolls away in one burst.
Reading was out of the question now. He crouched down to examine the withered skeleton on the prayer mat.
Chapter 130