The voice of that person eventually disappeared.
Because the old Gong only said a sentence: "If you want to go back, you should go back by yourself. Don't delay your duties. Think about taking advantage of the opportunities when you came in. If it doesn't work, you have to leave. You have the freedom to leave, and I don't want to send you off. It's better not to dream."
The barber then offered comfort to the man carrying the coffin, asking him to calm down and reminding him that it was just an accident.
This took up a full half of the day.
Finally, the water below receded, allowing us to continue forward along the same path.
There were some fragments of cloth hanging on the projecting stones of the cave wall, all left behind by that witch, Ho Yan.
The few people in the Nirvana Mansion remained silent, but the oppressive atmosphere was still spreading.
Fortunately, without water, there was indeed no danger, and after climbing like this for two more days, we were once again faced with the challenge of going upstream.
The position was precisely where Si Yan had stopped before.
The only thing I can do for now is to wait.
There was another incident in the middle, which was that our position changed. At a cave entrance with a fork in the road, we could switch positions. Wu Jinluan became the first one, and I was behind him.
In this way, Wu Jinluan could be more accurate in distinguishing the direction, and I could also protect him.
As for the other people from the Nirvana House in the back, they believed that this would make them safer.
That's why when we faced the current, we didn't back up too much. Wu Jinluan curled up and sat with his body exposed, giving me enough space to react immediately if anything unusual happened.
The distance between us and Si Yan, after the delay and chase in the middle, had become three days again.
Once the water level went down, we continued our journey. Lao Gong gave us some good news: Si Yan had stopped at a certain location and had not moved.
When the distance closed to two days, Si Yan still hadn't moved.
What I felt was not joy, but a subtle sense of wonder and suspicion.
Is she injured?
Or is something else happening?
"There are traces of others, it's not Si Yan." Wu Jinluan suddenly fixed his gaze on a certain position on the cave wall, stopping abruptly.
There was a nail there, deeply drilled, and there were some scratches beside it, looking quite fresh.
"That's getting interesting." Lao Gong said with a stern expression.
Behind, those few people dared not speak up, and they became even more cautious.
From this single nail alone, it's impossible to discern any clues or determine who the other party might be.
However, when we were only about a day's journey away from Si Yan, we suddenly saw five caves.
This made the space we were crawling in slightly broader.
These five cave passages are all still merged together in front of us. From a directional perspective, any one of them could lead to Si Yan. However, based on experience, if we choose the wrong one, we could be in trouble, simply wasting time.
For a moment, Wu Jinluan and Lao Gong couldn't make a decision.
"It's complicated," Lao Gong muttered.
As Wu Jinluan pondered, he carefully examined the five passages.
"There are traces of someone passing through here," he suddenly pointed to the passage at the very edge.
"However... we can't ignore one possibility: there may be someone else in here, possibly in front of Si Yan, or behind her, sandwiched between us and Si Yan's Daoist!” Wu Jinluan said this with utmost certainty.
"I dare to speculate that either Si Yan Daoist came in with him, or he was chasing Si Yan Daoist. However, given that Si Yan Daoist broke the Feng Shui array at the beginning, it's more likely the latter. But this cannot be completely certain, because... the other party understands Feng Shui, and there were some carved characters of hexagrams on the nail earlier."
"It's not ruled out that the other party gained access to this mountain body through a clever position, and Si Yan Daoist had no choice but to break through with brute force."
Wu Jinluan's observation was indeed very acute.
His words undoubtedly made the situation more complicated.
At this moment, Lao Gong suddenly made a sign to hush.
"Turn off the light," he said in an even lower tone.
Once everyone's flashlight was turned off, the cave passage was enveloped in darkness, adding to the oppressive atmosphere.
In complete darkness, the heartbeats of everyone accelerated significantly.
In front of the cave passage where Wu Jinluan stopped, there was an extremely extremely weak light source, not direct light, but more like the diffuse glow that lingers in the sky over cities.
Is it...
Someone!
The eyes quickly adapted to the darkness, and a darker object could be seen, which was Lao Gong's head, moving forward along the passage.
He didn't go much further. He stopped at the distance visible to the eyes and began to fade into a very blurred form. I knew he was there, but if anyone else came along, they would surely not feel or sense his presence.
In the silent waiting, everyone's breath was extremely shallow.
The dim light that seemed to appear and disappear gradually became further away, indicating that the person was moving forward...
I was about to tell Wu Jinluan to keep moving forward when...
Lao Gong suddenly appeared and whispered, "Go into the cave on the side."
"As soon as there is a beam of light, let the people from Nirvana House go in. This time, you take the rear. Let's find out who's in here."
"The person being chased by Si Yan is no ordinary one. The person who dares to chase her into this place is even less so!" Lao Gong's tone was straightforward and decisive.
"I don't want to lead the way..." The voice of the man carrying the coffin seemed like he was about to cry.
"Shh!" Lao Gong's voice grew more urgent.
The next second, the light dimly brightened.
The casket carrier fell silent without any further remarks. His eyes flickered with a hint of indecency, which matched Lao Gong's gaze.
The light was weak because after Lao Gong turned on the flashlight, he used his hand to cover most of the light.
Lao Gong directly crawled into the cave on the side. The others couldn't afford to be lazy, and after they entered, Wu Jinluan went in ahead of me, while I covered the rear.
During this period, Lao Gong got off the coffin carrier, of course, with the flashlight turned off.
The coffin carrier dared not make a sound either, because Lao Gong threatened him with a sentence, saying that if there were any more trouble, he would kill him.
Everyone crawled towards the middle of the cave in the dark.
Lao Gong only allowed us to stop after a certain distance.
I could faintly see that there was a light source ahead.
Previously, that seemingly distant light did not leave, but returned!
This indicates one possibility!
This means that Si Yan is lower down here, and this person is chasing after Si Yan.
Furthermore, he took the wrong path!
Was he turned around because the previous cave passage was inevitably a dead end and went down there?
If we found him, had he also discovered us?
Silence...
The silence was absolute, punctuated only by the sound of breathing.
About twenty minutes had passed.
The light source grew bigger and became more concentrated.
We were about thirty to forty meters away from the fork in the cave entrance. The passage was straight, and we could see very clearly.
I distinctly saw a beam of light flicker!
Then, I saw two figures pass through the cave entrance. The light was still on, but they did not enter this cave. Instead, they stopped and seemed to be thinking, which cave should they enter?
Vaguely, I heard a faint sound.
In a muffled voice, I heard, "Master... Are the remains of Master Sanmiao really below one of these paths? I feel like her direction might actually be correct?"
This voice, was somehow familiar...
"She wasn't heading in the right direction. She didn't want to find Master Sanmiao. She had another purpose."
The other voice was somewhat unfamiliar.
"What exactly is her purpose?" The voice once again echoed in my ears.
"Her purpose is unclear, but it's unnecessary to stay too close to her. This part down here, even your master doesn't have a full understanding of it. We just need to find the remains first. Your master will give her to you later." The unfamiliar voice spoke up.
"I really want to chase her down from here. This woman doesn't make any sense at all. She's not like Xu Nuan."
