Chapter 126: Centipede Dragon

I brushed the snowflakes off my eyes, momentarily unsure where I was, only feeling sharp rocks pressing against my back, with Ye Cheng below me shouting loudly.

I steadied myself and instinctively looked to see what Ye Cheng was afraid of. Peering down, I saw we were clinging to a steep, rocky slope, about five or six meters from the bottom. Our waist ropes had snagged on a rock outcropping, preventing us from tumbling straight down. At the base of the slope were the snow and rocks that had slid down with us, and in the snow pile, several long, thin black claws were exposed.

I felt a suffocating sensation and instinctively pressed my back against the rock behind me. Following the claws upward, I could vaguely see something black, as thick as a water barrel, coiled in the snow. Its segmented body was covered in scales, some hidden in the snow, some exposed. At first glance, I thought it was a hibernating snake, but on closer inspection, it looked more like a centipede.

This thing was pressed against the rock, completely still—couldn't tell if it was dead or alive. I couldn't see its head or tail, nor how long it was.

I found it strange. This was above the snow line, where living creatures were rare. What kind of creature was this? Looking at those centipede-like claws and its size, I felt an instinctive discomfort.

Panzi insisted on going down, while Ye Cheng kept shouting. Fatty also saw the thing below, picked up a handful of snow, formed it into a ball, and hit Ye Cheng on the back of the head. He cursed quietly, "Keep your damn voice down! You want to wake him up?"

I looked around. This should be a small, enclosed valley, now filled with avalanche debris. But because the rocks were piled so chaotically, there were lots of air pockets. Fatty had walked up and accidentally broke through the fragile snow layer, triggering a chain reaction that collapsed the snow, and we all slid down with him.

Snow above kept collapsing. Often after such a collapse, the surrounding snow would converge like quicksand, burying the exposed area again. This process was extremely fast. Many high-altitude expeditions lost members this way—a whole team could vanish in seconds.

Fortunately, the snow around us was fairly solid this time, probably because we were roped together and pulled down one by one, which had rolled the snow flat and prevented a massive collapse.

This was a leeward side, the wind much weaker than before, not as cold. I took a few deep breaths, carefully sat up, and shuffled down a few steps. Though the slope was steep, it was covered with broken rocks—some as big as a dump truck's cab, others the size of ping-pong balls—making climbing up or down fairly easy.

Panzi and Poker-face had already untied their ropes. Since it wasn't far to the bottom, they jumped down with a swoosh, rolling upon landing to absorb the impact, and ended up at the base of the slope.

The two crept up cautiously, one in front and one behind, moving toward that black thing. Our hearts leaped into our throats.

After a few steps, Poker-face and Panzi both straightened up, clearly relaxing. Panzi glanced at Poker-face, shrugged, and gestured for us to come down.

We were puzzled. Fatty untied his rope and rolled down as well. Poker-face had already brushed the snow off the stone carving—it turned out to be a coiled cliff-side stone dragon lying on the rock, carved from black stone. The cliff carving was very vivid; if hidden in snow, you really couldn't tell.

We came down one by one. When Chenpi A'si saw the stone carving, his expression changed noticeably. Unsteady on his feet, he called Monk Hua to support him and walked straight up to the cliff carving, touching it.

This dragon was different from others. Beneath its body were countless centipede-like legs, clearly not a Central Plains carving, but likely a dragon variant from a nomadic tribe in the region.

Fatty asked me, "Why is this dragon so ugly? Looks like a worm. It gives off an evil vibe—much uglier than the ones on the dragon wall at the Forbidden City. Did they mess up the carving?"

Monk Hua said, "Don't talk nonsense if you don't understand. This is a 'hundred-legged dragon,' not a coiled dragon. Early Dongxia kingdom dragon carvings all looked like this. In early China, ancient dragons had very different forms; some even had pig snouts. Nothing strange about it."

The evolution of Chinese dragons was very long. At first, dragons were depicted crawling on their bellies—just stick any animal head on a snake body and call it a dragon. Back then, every tribe had its own dragon totem. Each tribe evolved separately, so dragon forms varied. Later, with the spread of Han culture and the fusion of Yi and Xia cultures, the Han dragon image began to mix with those of various ethnic tribes, eventually standardizing into the coiled dragon form we know today.

This hundred-legged dragon was a hybrid of dragon and centipede. For some reason, seeing an ordinary dragon with so many arthropod legs was not imposing but rather deeply unsettling and somewhat eerie.

After hearing Monk Hua's explanation, Fatty laughed and said, "Brother Scarface, I didn't know you were so educated. So this stone should be from the Dongxia kingdom, huh?" Monk Hua examined the carving, then looked up the slope with a puzzled expression, saying, "Yes, but where did this carved dragon stone come from?"

By now it was dark. We each turned on our flashlights and brushed all the snow off the stone with our hands, discovering that it was a huge, flat slab about five meters high and three meters wide, leaning against the rocky slope. The stone was extremely smooth and black, clearly different from the other rocks around.

I looked at the fracture marks on the stone and said, "It might have fallen from above. Fourth Uncle is right—our destination is still higher up. Look, the dragon's form is asymmetrical. This is a 'twin dragons playing with a pearl' motif; there should be another carving like this, usually on stone doors, one on each side."

Chenpi A'si coughed weakly and said, "Nonsense. Half-baked knowledge, grand pronouncements. A stone door? This block is a sealing stone from a tomb passage."

He pointed to the dragon's mouth. Monk Hua immediately went over and reached inside, pulling out a black iron chain as thick as a wrist. Fatty saw it and said, "Oh no, you just pulled out the dragon's intestines."

Chenpi A'si said, "This is the horse chain used to pull the sealing stone when the tomb was sealed. This side is the inner face."

Embarrassed, I looked around and said, "Ah, I see. I was wrong. But how did a sealing stone end up here?"

Monk Hua tugged hard on the chain; the stone didn't budge. A hint of confusion flashed across Chenpi A'si's face. He shook his head and looked up. My heart sank—I knew what he was worried about. If this sealing stone had also fallen from above, it meant the tomb passage up there was badly damaged. Even if we found it, could we still get in? The wind and snow raged overhead, and it was already dark. I checked my watch, unsure how long this blizzard would last.

Finding this stone carving boosted our confidence in locating the Cloud Summit Palace, but I didn't know whether to be happy or frustrated. Monk Hua took photos of the carving. Chenpi A'si's energy recovered somewhat, and he told us to take care of our gear and rest if needed. This spot offered shelter from the wind. We'd deal with everything once the wind stopped.

We organized our equipment. Monk Hua went to check on the wounded man. As I was rummaging through things, he ran over and told me there was trouble—Shunzi was basically unresponsive.

We laid Shunzi down and shook his head. He only managed a sluggish grunt, his consciousness fading—clearly hypothermia.

"We need to start a fire, or he won't last much longer," Panzi said, walking over. "If he falls asleep, he won't wake up."

I looked around. There was no firewood at all. To start a fire, we'd have to burn the sled. But we needed the sled for the rest of the mountain journey; without it, we might not make it.

Monk Hua glanced at Chenpi A'si, clearly not daring to decide on his own. The latter's face was grim—whether from cold or something else—and he frowned, saying, "Don't let him die yet. I have questions for him."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Monk Hua unloaded the gear from the sled, preparing to pull out the wooden slats for firewood. But the sled was soaked with snow; I worried it might not light. Just as I was fretting, I suddenly caught a whiff of sulfur.

The smell seemed to come from nowhere. My mind sharpened. I told Monk Hua to hold on, stood up, and sniffed carefully. The others smelled it too and paused what they were doing. Fatty took a deep breath and said, "Comrades, I think that's the smell of a hot spring!"

Chenpi A'si signaled Ye Cheng and Lang Feng with his eyes to go look. Fatty also shouldered his pack and wanted to go, but Panzi stopped all three of them. Fatty asked why. Panzi gestured with his chin toward Poker-face and said, "What's the rush? Don't forget we have an expert here."

By then, Poker-face had already crouched down, using his two unusually long fingers to feel the stones beneath him one by one. Suddenly he frowned, made a sound of surprise, and turned toward the hundred-legged coiled dragon sealing stone.

We went up to the coiled dragon stone. There had been almost no smell before, but now the sulfur odor was obvious. Poker-face touched the dragon's head, looked behind the stone, then pressed his hand on the head and pushed. "Strange," he said. "Behind the dragon's head is empty."