Chapter 620: Kill the Fish Monster! Blood Water

Li Qingluo said and was about to set off, which scared Zheng Mama and Qin Ling so much they jumped up to follow.

Zheng Mama lunged forward, tightly hugging Li Qingluo and said: "Miss, you absolutely must not!"

"Never mind whether the water is clean or not, your body itself can't take it now!"

"Miss, you must think it over carefully, and absolutely not act impulsively again."

"Kill One, Zhui Yu, hurry, you must absolutely not let Miss risk herself again!"

"Miss, her body simply cannot endure any more danger; otherwise it would be an irreparable disaster, too late for regret."

Li Qingluo: "But I also care deeply about their lives."

Kill One: "Miss, let me go!"

She clenched her fists, only able to look at Kill One and the others.

Kill One gave a firm nod: "Miss, rest assured, I'll go check what's happening right away."

Li Qingluo: "Come back alive!"

"You must absolutely come back alive, hear me?"

She cannot afford to lose anyone else.

Absolutely!

Li Qingluo was so nervous she broke out in a cold sweat all over.

She hadn't felt this way in a long time.

If the Kill really lost their lives over this, she wouldn't even know how to face herself.

Seeing Li Qingluo so anxious and uneasy, Kill Three came over and said: "Miss, no matter what happens, we of the Kill bear no grudge or regret."

"We have always been ready to die for you."

"Please trust us subordinates; even if any mishap occurs, we are willing and bear absolutely no resentment."

"Miss, having let us serve you for over two years, we are already quite content."

Que'er stood aside, eyes red, turned away and dared not speak.

Li Qingluo, likewise with red eyes, said: "Listen! I don't care how you think, but since I am your master, I want each of you to live long and die a natural death in old age!"

"From now on, you must also protect my children for me."

"And accompany me in traveling the world."

"And serve me for life; no one is allowed to be absent!"

"Did you hear that?"

Kill Three smiled: "Good."

"Rest assured, it's not necessarily that they met with mishap."

As the words fell, Kill Thirteen surfaced from the bottom of the pool.

He gasped heavily, being pulled ashore by Zhui Yu and Xuan Cang, and without catching his breath he reported: "Miss, we jointly killed the fish monster."

"Afraid you'd worry, I came specially to report."

"Miss, it's fine. Aside from a few with minor injuries, everyone is still alive."

Saying this, Kill Thirteen grinned.

Li Qingluo finally laughed as well.

"Well done!"

She punched Kill Thirteen's shoulder, and she, Kill Three, Zhui Yu, and the others exchanged smiles.

The result was that Li Qingluo and the others smoothly pulled the rope and painstakingly climbed out of the tunnel.

Nan Ping's hands were rubbed raw and bloody.

However, what surprised Li Qingluo was that this girl, who always cried, looked at her bloody hands and didn't shed a tear.

Qin Ling quickly applied medicine to her.

Her eyes turned red from the pain, yet she still didn't let a tear fall.

Li Qingluo instead felt heartache for her: "You've grown up."

And growing up always comes at a price.

Discard naivety, cast aside impractical things, and face reality.

Nan Ping gave a bitter smile: "Now I only have this little stubbornness left."

After returning the same way, when passing the iron chain, Li Qingluo fed Nan Ping a detox pill.

Nan Ping was still strange: "Really, there's no hallucination anymore?"

"'But, Sister Luò, what exactly is going on with this place? Why did we have hallucinations?'"

Li Qingluo lifted her eyes to the mist: "It might be these things causing it. Do you see those vines parasitizing the stalactites?"

"'At first I hardly noticed them, but they are the strangest things in this cavern.'"

"'Besides the secret realm where you and Cui Qilang fell, this whole cavern has no other plants.'"

"'This cave is cold and lacks soil; ordinary plants simply cannot survive.'"

"'That's why their existence is all the more strange.'"

"'Strange vines, strange mist.'"

"'If it's indeed the mist they produce that causes hallucinations, then it all makes sense.'"

"'Because I once read in the Strange Records that strange life and strange realms depend on each other, yet also promote and restrain each other.'"

Nan Ping looked at Li Qingluo with admiration.

"'Sister Luò, you're really amazing.'"

"'But we can't let them harm people anymore; why don't we destroy this place?'"

Li Qingluo: "Let's talk after we go out."

As they neared the exit, Nanping touched the icy stone wall and felt cold: "This place isn't just spooky here; have you noticed that if you move a little farther away you can't hear any sound, as if these stones could block sound?"

Li Qingluo felt relieved: "Nanping being able to discover this is still impressive."

"Come on, we're about to go out; close your eyes first."

Upon stepping out of the cave, Nanping immediately felt a very hot and intense light shining on her.

Fortunately Li Qingluo had her cover her eyes first; otherwise, such a sudden blast of sunlight would be unbearable for her eyes.

Nanping's eyes were covered with cloth; she reached out to grab the person beside her, but Cui Qilang happened to be right in front of her.

"Your Highness."

Cui Qilang extended his arm for her to hold onto.

Hearing the voice, Nanping shoved him away.

"Sorry. Que'er, Que'er?"

"Little Luo sister, lend me your Que'er quickly."

Que'er hurried over to support Nanping, then led her to a shady spot to sit and rest.

She naturally didn't know that Cui Qilang harbored undisguised disappointment.

After she had mostly adjusted, Nanping took off the cloth covering her eyes and gradually grew accustomed to the natural light.

She stretched her arms and sighed in relief.

"We've actually managed to survive, haven't we?"

"What is Little Luo sister doing?"

Li Qingluo was bustling about at the cave entrance, apparently directing something.

Nanping rose and went over, hearing Li Qingluo say: "Hide it; when we return to Eagle City, there will surely be a way..."

Nanping: "Little Luo sister, what are you doing?"

Li Qingluo turned to look at Nanping: "We're preparing to make a trip back to Eagle City."

All of this, of course, couldn't just be left as is.

However, perhaps because Bazha trusted the Liu Li family too much, after a night Li Qingluo's group's camels were still waiting behind the mountain; it was obvious no one had come here.

Bazha actually didn't send troops to investigate.

Whether he comes or not, his time of death has arrived.

Before leaving, Li Qingluo made a trip back to the stone cave.

The pool water inside had indeed turned completely blood-red.

Cui Qilang said: "At the bottom of the secret realm's pool there is a passage large enough for one person; if you crawl out and keep swimming, you can return to the underground river in the cavern."

"So these pools and underground rivers are indeed connected."

Li Qingluo: "Then what's the deal with the water monster you encountered?"

Sha Er said: "Miss, we wanted to know where the underground river leads if you keep going forward, so we swam into a larger pool."

"That pool reeked to high heaven, but there was light there, as if it could lead straight out."

"We just wanted to go have a look, but we didn't expect to encounter a pitch-black creature like a fish, yet with a mouth huge enough to swallow a person whole!"

"The fish monster was longer than a person, its whiskers longer than our arms; seeing our group, it excitedly opened its big mouth and swam over."

"We subordinates, working together, managed to kill it, but it took great effort. Now the bloody water has spread here; could it be… that the corpses we usually toss in are just its food?"

Then that fish monster's appetite is also quite large.

But speaking of it, the Shatuo Buddha that everyone in Eagle City believes in, even devout believers who serve and sacrifice living persons, actually feed this kind of monster.

So is this fish monster perhaps the Shatuo Buddha itself?

All along the bottom of the underground river pool lay corpses and skeletons everywhere.

Everyone's faces showed a hint of disgust.

The truth Cui Qilang couldn't bring himself to say was that he and Nanping had indeed drunk water steeped in corpses for over ten days.

Just thinking about it made his face turn green.

Li Qingluo also didn't answer Sha Er's remark, because Nanping had nearly collapsed, shaking on the verge of falling.

No one could bear to expose that truth.

Li Qingluo changed the subject: "You said there's an exit leading outside; where is it? Take me to see."

That exit is actually about ten li west of the rear slope.

Li Qingluo rode a camel and only after about a quarter of an hour did she see it; following a shallow beach river, with yellow sand and some weeds all around, she soon reached a pool no larger than a small courtyard.

Even the water in the pool and the shallow beach river had turned blood-red.

It looked like a red gauze draped over this desert stone beach, gorgeous yet eerie.

Li Qingluo smelled it; the pool was extremely foul, making anyone who caught a whiff want to turn away and vomit.

Moreover, countless flies and some crawling insects hovered above it.

No wonder the people of Eagle City clearly had no water to drink; they'd rather line up all day at the city gate for clean water than come here to fetch water.

But the water source here becoming so foul and dirty is certainly not the doing of Bazha and his gang!

Otherwise, the river water in the cavern could have been plentiful enough to let Eagle City's populace live better, even with free water use not being a problem.

Yet now the populace are forced to become obedient puppets of Bazha.

One supposes that those citizens claiming they've never seen any princess are also compelled by a bucket of water.

Li Qingluo doesn't resent them for hiding the truth.

However, Bazha—Li Qingluo has already figured out how to take revenge on him.

Eagle City, the lord's manor.

Inside the main hall, a burly and tall man sat on the chief seat, already holding two peerless beauties in his arms, while eight beauties in the hall bared their waists, barefoot, dancing a gorgeous song and dance.

Baza drank the wine the beauties fed him, yet wore a look of heavy worries.

"Great King, please drink—"

"Yes, sir—"

As soon as he called out 'sir,' Baza seized the beauty's throat.

"Lowly wretch, what are you calling me for?"