Volume 5 , Chapter 15: The Crater (Part 1)

In the darkness, Shunzi’s voice came: “This kind of worm is worshipped as a god here because it can live for a long time. And after a centipede dies, its corpse will attract many of its kind, so we have to be very careful when we walk, and we must not step on them.”

He turned on the flashlight, and as soon as it was on, the green sea of stars around us disappeared, and it became dark again.

The protective coloration of these centipedes is so strong that if we don’t turn off the flashlight, we won’t be able to see them at all. I couldn’t help but feel a bit scared. If I had accidentally stepped on one when we were climbing, I would have been sick, and I might have died here.

We gathered our thoughts and continued to slowly climb up the stone steps, carefully passing through this area of the hot spring. The stone-patterned centipedes gradually decreased in number, and later we could no longer see them. Obviously, as Shunzi said, the ecological links of the snow mountain are all centered around the hot spring.

However, the sight just now was really spectacular. If I had the chance, I really wanted to see it more. It was hard to imagine that such ugly bugs could form such a beautiful scene. The world is really very strange.

Without the stone-patterned centipedes, we were able to move faster, but the darkness above seemed endless. I didn’t know when we would be able to get out of the crevice and reach the other exit of this natural tunnel.

The fat guy asked as he climbed, “Right, old man, let me ask you something. At the station, you told us about the Nine Dragons Carrying the Corpse. I’ve been listening, but you haven’t mentioned it again?

Chen Pi A Si stopped and looked at him, then looked at Hua Fan, indicating that he should speak. Hua Fan explained: “We don’t know either. All the information we have comes from the dragon fish. The Nine Dragons Carrying the Corpse may be a lost funeral system. The original text seems to say that the coffin of Emperor Wanniu was carried by nine dragons, and the nine dragons guarded his corpse, and no one could get close to it. However, the Jurchen language is almost lost, and what I translated is also not sure if it means that.

Then he read the original text to us again. The pronunciation of the Jurchen language was so unfamiliar that I didn’t understand anything at all.

“Wow, if the words on this fish are true, then if we want to open the coffin of Emperor Wanniu, we have to learn Nezha first and fight the third prince of the Dragon King, right?” Ye Cheng joked.

“Then don’t worry about it. I think the Nine Dragons Carrying the Corpse Coffin is probably just a coffin with nine dragons carved underneath, just for decoration.” The fat man said, “If there really are dragons, then we’ll be rich. If we catch one and put it in the Forbidden City, it will be packed with people, and we’ll make tens of thousands of dollars just from ticket sales.”

I said, “You’re so money-minded. If you really catch a dragon, then you’ll be Sun Wukong. I’ve never seen Sun Wukong with a body like yours.”

The fat man was furious and shouted, “So what if I’m fat? I’m fat, but I’m still able to move around the world. I can shake the clouds and change the weather, and I can shake the ground and make the mountains tremble.

Before the fat man could finish his sentence, a gust of wind suddenly blew from the side of the cliff, nearly knocking him off. I quickly grabbed him and pulled him back against the cliff. When I turned around, I saw that the gap had ended, and the stairs had reached the end of the gap. If we walked further, it seemed that there was a large space outside, but it was pitch black and we couldn’t see anything clearly.

We’ve arrived! I suddenly felt a burst of excitement.

The few of us stopped talking and moved closer to the edge of the cliff, where there was a protruding rock. Hua Monk first lit a cold firework and looked around. Except for the cliff where we were standing, he couldn’t see anything in front.

Then he threw the cold firework down the cliff. It fell straight down and instantly turned into a tiny dot. We watched it get smaller and smaller until it was almost invisible when it hit the ground.

We were dumbfounded. What was in front of us? It looked like a huge basin surrounded by cliffs.

“A flare,” said Chen Pi’a Si.

“Bang!” A meteor-like flare shot through a long arc, shooting into the darkness in front of us, shooting out 160 to 70 meters, starting to descend, and then a dazzling white ball of fire exploded, and the light suddenly lit up the entire darkness in front of us.

I wanted to hold up my binoculars and look forward, but halfway through, I froze, and suddenly my ears couldn’t hear any sound, and time seemed to have frozen.

Under the white light, a huge crater with a diameter of at least 3 kilometers appeared in front of us. The huge basin formed by the gray basalt looked like a giant stone bowl, and we were standing on the side of the bowl, like a few tiny ants, infinitely small.

“I never thought I would be directly connected to a volcano.” A voice came from the side, but I couldn’t tell who it was. All I could think of was the spectacular scene in front of me.

If the nine-headed cypress and the bronze ancient tree only gave me a sense of wonder, then this crater basin buried underground is simply a trace of the gods.

The basin is covered with a large number of dead trees. Obviously, this crater was once exposed to the atmosphere. It must have been an “underground forest” here. Perhaps due to volcanic eruptions or sudden volcanic activity, the trees here were all sulfured to death, and now the remains of the forest still stand in the basin.

“Look there.” Someone else called out, and I couldn’t tell who it was. Then two more flares were shot into the air above the crater.

Under the enhanced light, we saw a magnificent complex of buildings in the depths of the underground forest in the center of the volcanic basin.

Could that be our destination this time, the tomb of the Emperor of the Ten Thousand People? The underground palace of the Genting Palace would be in the middle of a volcanic crater?