A faint light with a clear scent scattered from the small hole, while gusts of chilly wind blew out, making the small square hole instantly become magical and mysterious. Subconsciously, both I and JIETOU, including Xie Yilin covered in the bell that shields heaven, leaned towards the small hole to see what was inside.
As I was closest to Chi Qingshuai, I approached first and then lay on top of the small hole. When I looked inside, my heart shook uncontrollably as I was shocked by what I saw.
I swear that I never thought that there would be such a scene inside the mountain. Before this moment, I always thought it must be a place where ghosts howled in nine dark regions or even an underground tomb built by King Wu Huanlu because of its location.
However, when facing reality and seeing what's really inside the mountain for myself now made me realize all my previous assumptions were wrong - not just wrong but completely off base.
Looking outside through the small hole at this point in time revealed we were standing high above a vast underground cave shaped like an inverted wine cup due to its immense size; however since it is too large for me to see entirely at once so it may not necessarily have this shape throughout. Nonetheless based on what can currently be seen from here one could roughly determine its overall shape.
The cave wasn't dark but instead had rich light and shadow effects: firstly natural fluorescence emanated from all four walls while secondly below us where one might expect Nine Yin Yellow Springs (the underworld), released a bright glow which puzzled me greatly leaving me subconsciously stretching my head outwards trying to get a clearer view.
Unexpectedly at this moment since that stone wall was already very thin so when exerting force against it caused remaining pieces of rock fragments to collapse outward with loud clattering sounds causing me to exclaim "F*ck!" in shock and suddenly pounce outwards.
"YiHeng!" Xie Yilin screamed, but it was JIETOU who grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
"What are you doing?!" JIETOU gritted his teeth while pulling me up and complaining at the same time.
"Okay, let go of me. Stop pulling," I splashed him with cold water just as he was biting down hard to exert more force.
"Do you want to die?" JIETOU frowned and asked me.
"You can see for yourself," I smiled slightly, let go of his hand, and then fell straight down.
As it turned out, when I landed on the rock wall and looked down, I discovered a huge mushroom patch growing about twenty meters below us. The mushrooms were colorful with caps as large as umbrellas, some even taller than trees. They covered the ground like a beautiful carpet. It was obvious that they were soft so I wasn't afraid of falling to my death.
Before this, I was worried about how we would get to the bottom of the cave but now these mushrooms solved our problem perfectly. So without hesitation, I let go of JIETOU's hand and fell downwards.
To be safe, while falling down, I condensed my Qi into a protective shield around myself.
However, after landing on the ground safely, I realized that all my precautions were unnecessary because those mushroom stems were thick yet tender with great elasticity - just like mattresses! Falling onto them didn't hurt at all!
After standing up from one giant mushroom plant nearby where we landed safely on top of it , YunQingYue couldn't help but exclaim: "It's really strange here!" She continued: "This place is known as Jiuyin Ghost Domain which leads directly to Yellow Springs in Hades world. Why is it so lively and vibrant? What's going on?"
"If only I knew what was going on." Rolling my eyes at her question while pointing towards a shining pillar not far away from us , before speaking further she suddenly said: "Get out of the way!"
"What are you doing? Why do you suddenly ask me to move?" Feeling annoyed by her sudden request,I asked her curiously .
"If you don't move then don't blame me." With an impish smile,YunQingYue lifted her foot and jumped to the side. Before I could react, JIETOU fell heavily on me.
"Ouch! Your bones are really hard, Liu YiHeng. You almost crushed me." After knocking me down onto the mushroom plant ,JIETOU climbed up while complaining and calling out: "Master Chi and Master Xie, come down too! It's safe here!"
"Okay, you guys move aside first," upon hearing JIETOU's words, Chi Qingshuai replied.
Upon seeing this situation, we quickly stepped aside and saw a flash of green light. Xie Yilin was the first to jump down from the top with the huge Sky-covering Bell on her head.
"Bang!" With a muffled sound, Xie Yilin landed safely. She instinctively lifted the Sky-covering Bell and scanned everything in front of her, especially those shining stone pillars not far away. Excitedly, she said to us: "It seems that we have accidentally discovered a huge underground treasure."
"Don't talk now, move away quickly. Master Chi is coming down," based on our previous experience, I hurried over to pull Xie Yilin aside while looking up and shouting: "Master Chi, you can come down now."
There was no response or anyone jumping down.
"Master Chi, can you hear me? You can come down!" I shouted again but still got no answer.
After three consecutive shouts without any response, JIETOU and Xie Yilin looked at each other nervously realizing that something had gone wrong. It was clear that something unexpected must have happened to Master Chi Qing Shuai; otherwise he would not ignore our calls.
"What should we do?"
Xie Yilin clenched her fists and asked us anxiously: "Has anything happened to Master Chi?"
"I don't know," I frowned while releasing some Qi towards the hole above us for exploration. To my surprise there was nothing inside it - Master Chi Qing Shuai's figure had disappeared.