Chapter 343: Old Tree Stings

Fatty and Poker-face should have encountered something right here, and for some reason I still don't know, they untied the rope connecting to the surface and then vanished at the bottom of this lake, tens of meters deep.

Without scuba gear, they could only hold out for one minute underwater. Where could they go in that minute? I didn't want to believe any weird talk about being devoured by water ghosts. Based on realistic deduction, they could only travel at most twenty or thirty meters underwater, meaning unless there was a submarine waiting for them down there, they couldn't do anything and had nowhere to go. They should be right nearby.

But there was nothing around—the silent lake bottom was wide open.

Among it, the strangest part was the two details of taking off the diving helmet and untying the rope. On one hand, putting on this helmet was very troublesome; its zipper was on the back and very long. Even with ample time, taking it off might take ten to twenty seconds. Adding untying the rope, at the fastest you'd need another five seconds. That twenty-five seconds was still Poker-face's time; if it were Fatty, with his physique and mental state, it would probably take longer. On the other hand, the helmet didn't hinder their movement and could serve as armor when attacked, so emotionally and logically, they had no need to take it off.

What exactly happened that made them think of taking off the helmet?

Judging from the fact that Poker-face also took off his helmet, this certainly wasn't a sudden whim. His character is very reliable, so taking off the helmet must have been a very necessary move.

I thought it definitely wouldn't be too dangerous. Since they calmly took off their helmets, what they encountered must not be an urgent, ever-changing situation, like being attacked by animals or encountering strange phenomena. Instead, it should be something that allowed them to calmly think and make judgments like "it's okay to take off the helmet, no danger" or "it's okay to take off the helmet, the danger is under control".

So, one thing that could be certain was that this incident must have happened nearby.

Step-by-step analysis gradually calmed me down. I looked at the deep underwater ancient village below the stone slope and suddenly felt a strange chill seeping out from that ruin—could they be inside this lake-bottom ancient village? But reaching the ancient village from here within one minute was impossible. They would have to be crazy to take off their helmets and swim there. That would be suicide.

I tried to reconstruct the scene at the time, looking around to see if there was any place that required untying the rope to get past, or that required removing the helmet to pass through.

All around were clean stone shoals. I swam slowly and found the situation here very simple. Under the view of the powerful searchlight and diving mask, everything was clear at a glance. The only possible place was below the stone slope, near the edge of the village, where there were several huge sunken logs.

These rotted logs must have been big trees outside the village back then. Now all the twigs and leaves had rotted into mud, leaving only the thick trunks not completely decayed. Countless branches that had fallen from them piled up around, forming a large area of dead shrub-like branch piles. Numerous branches crisscrossed and were covered with calcareous deposits from the water, making them look like rocks.

If Fatty discovered something in there, he might untie the rope before entering, because the rope could easily get tangled in these branches, and the clumsy helmet would also prevent him from getting his head close to take a look.

Thinking this, I suddenly felt a chill and a terrifying thought popped into my mind: at that time, maybe Fatty found something in that pile of branches, took off his helmet and rope to look, and got trapped. Then Poker-face, to save Fatty, also took off his helmet and got trapped as well. Both then drowned, which is why the strange result of no bodies appearing occurred.

If that were really the case, then I would face an extremely horrifying sight—I would see their bodies, soaked for two weeks underwater, in the branch pile. The reason their corpses hadn't floated to the surface might be that they were trapped in these claw-like branches.

I didn't dare go over, but then I forced myself to kick my fins, because now I couldn't avoid it.

Maintaining distance, I floated over those logs, shining my searchlight downward. I saw that below, there was an area the size of a basketball court filled with white branches, tangled together like a wire mesh. The light shone through the branches, revealing layer after layer beneath. If one got stuck in there, even a celestial deity couldn't escape.

In those tangled branches, there were indeed some large gaps, which seemed to have been made by someone forcing the branches apart. I didn't see the bodies of Fatty and Poker-face in them. After searching around and confirming there were none, I breathed a slight sigh of relief, clenched my steel teeth, and forced myself to sink down close to the surface of the branches.

Getting close to these branches, I held my breath and looked, immediately discovering that these branches definitely couldn't trap a person. Many branches had been snapped off. From the break points, I saw that the inside of these branches had already rotted into mud-like powder; they broke into several pieces with a touch. They maintained their branch shape only because a thin layer of calcareous deposit supported them, like very thin lime tubes. They couldn't bear weight; even if trapped, a slight struggle would shatter them all into small lime flakes.

In these gaps, there were indeed countless lime flakes and broken "lime branches" scattered around messily, perhaps traces left by Fatty searching for bones there. I brought the searchlight closer and shone it downward, but saw nothing unusual. Apparently they hadn't found anything.

I couldn't help but smile bitterly. If it wasn't for this reason, I really couldn't figure out what had happened here, why they suddenly disappeared at the bottom of the lake. Could it really be, as Agui said, that some lake ghost was haunting this place?

At that moment, I even had the thought of taking off my own diving suit to see what would happen, but I barely held back from doing such an absurd thing.

Below these rotten logs was the ancient village. From my overlooking vantage, all I could see were tile roofs, unable to see inside. Even with the searchlight at maximum, it was useless; the little halo of light that penetrated only made the ancient village seem even more quiet and deep.

I composed myself, preparing to continue searching around. I swung the searchlight, and just as I turned my head away, I suddenly felt that something had changed in the ancient village, so I turned my head back. Somewhere deep in the ancient village, at some unknown time, a strange green light had appeared, as if a dim, solitary lamp had been lit.

Deep underwater, the cold green halo seemed like phosphorescent fire lit from the netherworld, hazy and indistinct. My mind suddenly went blank, as if in a nightmare; my heart raced, pressing down on my chest, making it impossible to breathe.

Holy shit, what is going on? What kind of light is this? Could there be someone in this ancient village? Could Poker-face and Fatty be inside this ancient village, not only alive but also moving around?

But this is at the bottom of a lake tens of meters deep, an ancient village submerged for nearly a thousand years. Without oxygen, how could they survive underwater for so long? Even a flashlight would have run out of batteries in two weeks. And this light had an indescribable eerie quality; it wasn't from a flashlight, nor did it look like firelight.

The feeling of suffocation grew stronger. Could it be that the wronged souls who died at the bottom of the lake back then had not yet attained Buddhahood and had been lingering in these ruins? Was this the lamplight of the Yao family from that time, crossing the barrier between the netherworld and the human world, guiding the spirits back to the ghostly realm?

An inexplicable impulse made me unconsciously want to swim toward the light, like in the cold, dark lake bottom, like a lost person seeing a light in the mountains. But at that moment, a sudden inspiration flashed through me: could it be that Fatty and Poker-face, back then at my current position, had also seen this light and that led to their disappearance? Could this be the key? What would happen next? I couldn't help but tighten my mind and observe all around, afraid of some sudden event.

However, after looking around, everything was extremely quiet. Shining the searchlight, I couldn't see any signs of disturbance.

I turned my head back; the green light of that solitary lamp grew dimmer and dimmer. Suddenly, a groundless panic began to spread in my heart.