Chapter 1411: Three Thousand Weak Water
What’s related to the character’ betray’ (贰)? There’s no way it’s Erlang Shen, right?[1] Zu An thought. He was confused, but he really didn’t have enough information. He called out, “Everyone, be careful!”
Even though their divine senses didn’t pick up on any living creatures, they really couldn"t afford to overlook anything at the moment. Thus, the others nodded. Yan Xuehen and Yun Jianyue tacitly agreed to stay on either side of Yu Yanluo because her cultivation was the lowest. That way, if there were any unexpected developments, they could still protect her. Yu Yanluo felt warm inside when she saw that.
The group entered the temple. The interior was very small, and the windows and roof were heavily tattered. There was no place for any beasts to hide, so they finally felt some relief.
However, the statue in the center soon caught their attention. It had a human face and a snake body. Even though many parts of its body were damaged, it still looked as if it were about to pounce on them. Its eyes and expression were both fierce and ruthless.
Yu Yanluo saw the others’ gazes dart toward her. She asked in embarra.s.sment, “What are you looking at me for?”
Yan Xuehen and Yun Jianyue both chuckled awkwardly. They were too embarra.s.sed to ask, so Zu An had to be the one to ask, “Is there any chance that this is a Medusa?”
“Absolutely not!” Yu Yanluo said decisively. “The Medusa has always been female, and there’s only ever been a single bloodline. How could there be a male Medusa?”
Yun Jianyue was surprised. Didn’t that mean Yu Yanluo would only give birth to a girl? That meant there wasn’t much of a threat to Honglei! Alright, I have to take the chance to rope her in, or else that stone cold woman and her disciple will get ahead of us.
Yan Xuehen’s cheeks turned red. No one knew what she was thinking.
“Then does the Snake race have anything that resembles this?” Zu An continued. Things that had a human face and a snake body… The first images that came to his mind were Nuwa and f.u.xi[2]. However, the statue didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to Nuwa or f.u.xi.
“There are no such things,” Yu Yanluo said, her beautiful brow furrowing tightly. She stared at the sinister statue and said. “It feels as if he isn’t from the Snake race, and that he just has a snake body. In the past, whenever I’ve encountered a race that was close to the Snake race, I’ve always felt a sense of intimacy, but I can’t sense anything from this statue. I only feel a bit of fear.”
“It seems as if this should be an unknown evil deity,” Yan Xuehen said. “There have been many powerful beings like this in history that have completely disappeared.”
“Do you think this is the Yayu Shun spoke of?” Yu Yanluo voiced her suspicion.
“That is indeed a possibility,” Yan Xauehen said worriedly, “If that really is him, we have to be careful. Judging from his vicious appearance, he is definitely extremely troublesome.”
Meanwhile, Zu An was still wondering what the ‘er’ (贰) outside meant.
“There are some small statues here,” Yun Jianyue said as she looked around and saw some pocket-sized sculptures inside the walls. However, the statues had been heavily corroded over time, and it was already too difficult to tell what they had once been. Many of them didn’t even have heads.
“It seems this person should have been on the level of a monarch when he was still alive,” Yu Yanluo said. “These two rows of statues are just like the ministers under him. Still, both the temple’s scale and the number of statues make it clear that he wasn’t an emperor or anything like that. That means the owner of this temple was either the ruler of a small country, or the leader of a particular force.”
When she visited different countries in her younger years, she had often met with their most influential figures. In the field of politics, she was much better versed than an aloof and indifferent figure such as Yan Xuehen, or the head of a sinister organization like Yun Jianyue.
“So it’s just another ruined country.” The group suddenly realized what was happening. There had been many small countries throughout history that were forgotten over time.
“Why is there a statue missing over here?” Yan Xuehen exclaimed in surprise. She wouldn’t find it too strange for another spot to be lacking a statue, but it was the one in the ‘leader’ position of the ‘subjects’ that was missing.
Anyone who would end up in that position had to be the leader of the officials, the most important figure among the subjects. It made no sense for the other statues to remain even after the one in that location had completely eroded into nothing first.
“Judging from how the base looks, it seems to have been moved away by someone from the start,” Yun Jianyue said after examining it carefully.
Zu An said in surprise, “If it was moved away not long after it was built, that means this person probably made a terrible mistake.”
Yan Xuehen suddenly cried out in surprise. Her hand gently brushed the area above the statue’s position. When the dust scattered, it revealed several black dots and lines that formed a simple diagram.
“This seems to be a constellation diagram,” Yan Xuehen said after studying it for a while. “This should be the roof mansion, also known as the moon swallow. See, when these lines are joined together, they look like the tail of a swallow. Among the celestial bodies, when the moon enters the roof mansion constellation, it should normally bring the rather dim roof mansion light, but it often creates the phenomenon of a lunar eclipse instead. The constellation then appears even dimmer. This star sign is often extremely sinister, representing the onset of a terrible disaster.”
Zu An was startled. After arriving in this world, he had noticed connections between this place and his previous world again and again. For example, their astrology knowledge was virtually the same as that of his previous world. Didn’t that mean this place was none other than Earth?
However, this world was so much bigger than his previous world. After he became a master rank cultivator and gained the ability to fly, he had become even more certain of that fact. That made it even more confusing.
Yu Yanluo suddenly giggled, and the others looked at her in confusion. This was such a dangerous star sign, and furthermore one full of ominous portents, so why was she laughing?
Yu Yanluo’s face reddened. She looked at the two other women and explained, “Don’t you feel like the name of this constellation, ‘Wei Yue Yan’, has a great affinity with you two? It has Yue and Yan, matching up with your names.”
Yan Xuehen and Yun Jianyue were both stunned. Only now did they realize that! Then, they couldn"t help but turn around.
“Hmph, who wants to have any affinity with her?”
“That’s why I’m always saying that there’s never anything good when we’re together. That’s what this star sign is telling us!”
Zu An shook his head helplessly when he saw that they were about to fight again. He began to look around the temple to see if he could find any other clues. When he walked behind the human-faced snake-bodied statue, he was suddenly stunned, calling out, “You guys, hurry over here!”
The group quickly rushed over. When they saw what Zu An had found, they were startled. There was a person being hanged there!
No, upon closer inspection, it was a statue of someone being hanged. The statue had a bird head and a human body, and in his hand was a wooden staff. He looked extremely fierce. However, his face was twisted in pain because he was being hanged in a strange position. His hands had been bound behind his back and tied up with his hair. His body was curled up like a cooked shrimp, but it was bent backward.
“Take a look at his right foot,” Yun Jianyue said, her expression serious. “His right foot was cut off. That kind of punishment is usually only done to those who have committed extremely serious crimes. Based on the position he was hanged in, this was most likely a criminal who committed a tremendous offense.”
“Could he be that statue that was missing out in front?” Yu Yanluo asked quietly.
“That is very likely,” Yan Xuehen said with a nod. “I wonder what this has to do with that Yayu, though.”
Zu An said with a chuckle, “The fact that this temple is here means it definitely has something to do with the Yayu. It’s just that we don’t have enough information, so we can’t find the link yet. Let’s look around at other places first.”
The three women couldn"t help but feel admiration for his optimistic att.i.tude. Seeing that they couldn"t find any more clues inside, they also put their confusion aside for the time being.
Then, the group continued to search the area atop the mountain. It was completely bare without any trees, so they had a full view of their surroundings and managed to finish their search quickly.
“Just where is that Yayu hiding?” Yun Jianyue grumbled. They hadn’t expected to already get stuck right after they had just begun.
“Come over here. There seems to be a river at the foot of the other side of the mountain,” Yu Yanluo said, having suddenly noticed something.
The others immediately thought of something. They used movement skills to quickly descend the mountain, heading toward the river. However, only when they got close did they realize that it wasn’t a river at all. It was far wider than a river, and they couldn"t even see the other end.
Normally, such a wide ‘river’ should have had an extremely calm current. And yet, the river’s flow was vicious and rapid.
“There’s a stone tablet here!”
They had all quickly released their divine senses, and thus collected clues very quickly.
Zu An looked at the rows of words on the stone tablet. His expression changed a bit and he recited, “Three thousand weak water depths; goose feathers float not, reed flowers are doomed to sink[3]!”
1. Erlang Shen is a Chinese deity. ☜
2. f.u.xi and Nüwa are mythological beings who have the faces of humans and bodies of snakes. ☜
3. This is a pa.s.sage from Journey to the West. ☜