Where Immortals Once Walked

Crocodile blood trickled down the spear shaft, warm and slick. He Lingchuan heard that strange rasping again. “Hhhah, hhhah.” It was only now that he realized that the sounds he had heard earlier had actually been the crocodile’s cries of pain.

For a fleeting instant, a dangerous thought crossed his mind.

If I suddenly thrust this spear upward, could I drive it straight into the giant crocodile’s brain? Wouldn’t killing this monster once and for all be the only way to remove the threat?

But the notion vanished as quickly as it came. If the giant crocodile were that easy to slay, would Wu Shaoyi not have tried already? And even if the strike succeeded, could he escape being dragged down in its death throes? He was, after all, standing in its mouth.

So, He Lingchuan shoved the idea aside and set to work, grinding the spear free from the cavity little by little. The process made the giant crocodile howl miserably.

He kept his wits about him, though. Before the final tug, he climbed back onto the stone ledge, braced the weapon crosswise, and yanked it loose while springing back at once.

The spear came free.

He retreated several meters just as the crocodile snapped its jaws shut with a clack that rang crisp and sharp through the cavern.

The beast lay there motionless. He Lingchuan called out, “Hey, you owe us a ride to the surface.”

“Move him now, and he dies,” the crocodile god muttered, unwilling to budge. “I’m exhausted as well. Let me rest.”

It had wrestled with Wu Shaoyi for hours, and even such a monster was worn to the bone. Endurance was never the forte of its kind.

At least it showed no further hostility, and that was enough for He Lingchuan to breathe easier. He hurried back to Wu Shaoyi’s side, lit two more candles, and began examining his wounds.

Earlier, he had only given the man a hemostatic pill. He had deliberately withheld the stone lump powder. He knew too little about Wu Shaoyi. If he took away his pain, he might find new strength to turn on him. Hence, it was best to let him keep hurting for the sake of safety.

Even out of the water, Wu Shaoyi coughed often, and each cough brought up blood. The closer He Lingchuan looked, the more alarmed he grew.

“Your injuries are catastrophic. Your lungs and kidneys are both damaged, you have seven bones broken, and you’ve lost a lot of blood.” He gestured at the gaping punctures across the man’s torso, each the width of a thumb. “You’re still bleeding internally. Keep this up and you’ll drown in your own blood, or your organs will simply give out.”

Wu Shaoyi’s state could be summed up in two words: beyond saving.

“I know,” Wu Shaoyi said with a twisted smile. “I’ve already used all the medicine I had.”

“In the condition you’re in, can you even make it back to shore with me?” Now, He Lingchuan understood why the crocodile monster had been so quick to agree to their bargain. It must have seen for itself that Wu Shaoyi was already as good as dead. There was no need to take revenge when the man’s life would soon slip away on its own.

“I’ll endure... somehow.” Wu Shaoyi’s eyelids sagged. “I just don’t want to die here, in darkness.”

Indeed, whether it was vanishing nameless inside this lightless cavern or being swallowed by the beast’s gut, both were ignoble ends. “Get me to the surface. I still have a way to save myself. And I swear, I will richly repay you.”

It was the second time he had promised as much.

After a brief hesitation, He Lingchuan pressed another pill between his lips. It was one of the same life-saving elixirs he himself had taken months ago after his own near-fatal fall. He Chunhua had specially procured a batch from Grand Shaman Zhaomandu before leaving Heishui City, to guard against calamities just like this.

Wu Shaoyi felt the pill melt the instant it touched his throat, leaving behind a foul, earthy tang as if somebody had kneaded it straight from river mud. Yet soon after, warmth surged up from his belly, spreading into his limbs. Some strength returned to him at last.

While he recovered, He Lingchuan took up the candle and ventured deeper into the cavern. Earlier, when tending to Wu Shaoyi’s wounds, he had caught a stench wafting from this direction. Now, by flickering light, he finally saw what lay ahead.

“What is that?”

What the candlelight revealed nearly made him jump out of his skin. Before him was the colossal carcass of a giant turtle.

From snout to tail, it stretched over thirteen meters, and its domed shell rose like a hill, ridged with sharp spurs. He Lingchuan recognized it at once as a leatherback turtle, although he had never seen one of such monstrous size in his life. Without question, it had been a great monster, one steeped in profound cultivation.

Yet now its head was gone. Both forelimbs had been severed, and one hind leg torn off entirely. A gaping wound split open its flank, viscera spilling forth. Blood had dried in thick black crusts upon the stone beach, while crabs, rats, and other carrion feeders gnawed greedily at what remained.

He suddenly recalled the Water Spirit Shrine in Immortal Spirit Village. This must have been the lake’s guardian spirit. Just yesterday morning, the Water Spirit Tablet had shattered without warning. So it was true: the turtle had been slain by the crocodile. No wonder poor Mrs. Zhu had caught that slap from the village headman.

Scratches and punctures scarred the shell in savage profusion, most of them unmistakably the marks of crocodile fangs. He Lingchuan turned from the turtle to the massive reptile resting on the bank and back again, the picture clear in his mind.

Yet the shell remained unbroken. No matter how sharp the crocodile’s teeth were, none had managed to pierce it. In a matchup of spear against shield, the shield had held until the bitter end. Victory had only come when the crocodile clamped onto its foe’s head and crushed it in a single bite.

This meant two things. First, the crocodile was not a native of Immortal Spirit Lake. It had only entered in the last day or two, fought the guardian spirit, and won. That timing lined up exactly with Lu Yao’s arrival in the village. Second, the turtle had been formidable in its own right, which meant that when the crocodile clashed with Wu Shaoyi today, it was likely still battered from yesterday’s death match, far from its peak. No wonder it had leapt at the chance to call a truce. Both sides were spent arrows.

Still, excitement and bewilderment churned in He Lingchuan’s chest. The Water Spirit lay dead before his eyes, beyond doubt since yesterday morning, so how had he drawn those two inauspicious lots only hours ago? Could it be, as He Chunhua had said, that the turtle had tampered with the divination sticks, ensuring his every draw was ill fate? Or had its spirit lingered even after death?

And if the Water Spirit was gone, then who could interpret the lots now?

As he edged closer, the candlelight glimmered faintly against the rim of the shell. He Lingchuan thought he saw a sheen of gold. He tugged at it experimentally, but the shell was immovable, just as he expected.

The crocodile monster suddenly said, “Crawl inside.”

“Huh?” He Lingchuan turned. The beast still lay with eyes shut, resting.

“There’s a pearl in its belly. I cannot reach it, nor can my brood. Take it out, and it’s yours. Consider it my thanks for pulling the spear free.” Its tone was flat. Crocodile claws were clumsy, so treasure-digging was beyond them.

A pearl in the belly?

He Lingchuan’s gaze shifted from the mountain-like corpse to the congealed pools of blood around it. To claim the prize, he would have to climb inside that ruptured gut.

It was excessively gory, foul, and grotesque...

But unavoidable.

He pressed his palms together and bowed twice. Water Spirit, your soul has already ascended. Show magnanimity, and please forgive me for this desecration I’m about to do.

The carcass already bore a gash in its abdomen where the crocodile had ripped it open. Drawing his broken saber, He Lingchuan widened the slit until it was just large enough to crawl through.

Though torn and bloodied, the flesh was still hard as aged ironwood. If not for the saber’s uncanny sharpness, he doubted any ordinary weapon could have cut so deep.