Chapter 100.3: Devilry Must Be Afoot When Things Seem Strange
By the time she opened her eyes and blew out a breath of impure air, her brows immediately creased together as she stared into the inky dark night sky. [Why isn’t the sky changing in colour at all? Based on her calculations, it should at least be three quarters past the Yin hour close to dawn and not only was the sky seemingly not showing any signs of brightening but it seemed to be further steeped in darkness.
There was a faint nagging ominous feeling in her heart and she quickly went to wake the others.
“What happened…..” Yan Xi Rou asked lazily as she raised a hand to rub her sleep filled eyes.
Qing Bei became alert very quickly and Yan Xi Wu was looking well rested as they looked quizzically at her.
“We might not be able to get out.” Qing Yu said slowly.
“What kind of a joke are you making? Once the Mao hour is here, we’ll be able to leave won’t we?” Yan Xi Rou retorted with a yawn, disregarding what Qing Yu said completely.
“It is already three quarters past the Yin hour and it will be the Mao hour very soon. But look at the sky.” Qing Yu said as she pointed up at the sky, before indicating for them to look at their surroundings. “There weren’t so many tall trees here before. Do you remember? These gigantic trees were growing near where the Hades’ Canyon’s entrance was.”
“That seems to be the case.” Yan Xi Wu said, looking rather startled.
“And…..” Qing Bei’s eyes swept to a spot at the side. “When did that man disappear?” The man had still been here when he had closed his eyes but he was nowhere in sight at that moment.
Truly an example of “devilry must be afoot when things seem strange”.
Qing Yu’s eyes narrowed, and she suddenly recalled something. “Does everyone still have that teleportation jade token Elder Qin gave us?”
Hearing that, everyone took out their jade tokens and held them together.
“There is only one way to prove if we have all been trapped in here and are not able to get out.”
The jade tokens that Qin Fang gave them could not be fake and they would only need to crush the jade tokens to get themselves transported right out of this place.
Exchanging glances with each other, they all crushed their jade tokens at almost the same moment. A faint white light flew out from inside but disappeared in the next instant. After the jade tokens were crushed, they lost their effectiveness and disappeared completely.
“How can this be! ?” Yan Xi Rou’s face was pale as she stared incredulously. “Has the teleportation jade token lost it effectiveness? Why did it not work! ?”
“Elder Qin will not lie to us. The jade tokens must still be effective.” Yan Xi Wu then said.
“Then why are we still here! ? Are we not going to be able to get out from here?” Yan Xi Rou was frantic, and she then broke into tears. “Are we going to die here? Boo hoo hoo….. And I did not even get to see Mother for the last time…..”
“Alright. Stop crying. What’s the use of crying now?” Qing Bei grew angry when he saw her looking so useless and went on to say viciously: “Go on and cry but if you come to draw anything to us with your bawling, you can go deal with it yourself.”
Yan Xi Rou immediately stopped, not daring to cry anymore, struggling to hold back her tears.
“The Hades’ Canyon, might have disappeared…..”
After quite a long while, Qing Yu stood up and stared into the pitch black night as she said slowly: “Even our surroundings have changed, and the sky still has not turned bright till now. This place might have fallen deep underground.”
[Otherwise why would so many strange gigantic trees appear right out of thin air?]
They were not given the luxury of time to go consider the situation any further when a heavy and low rumbling booming slowly sounded in the distance.
It sounded like some enormous beast and the booming was the sound of its footsteps due to its overly large body walking. The moonlight grew hazy and a terrifying bolt of lightning suddenly struck the ground, which caused a crack that was a good ten meters deep to appear.