Chapter 51 — The Black Stone Cave

This Black Stone Cave was much like the Ten Thousand Bats Grotto of Mount Kongsang that day: once past the entrance, the path plunged straight down into the earth, and the slope was even steeper than that of the Ten Thousand Bats Grotto. Whether the villagers had dug it out or it was simply so by nature, there was no telling.

The three walked on a while and were already deep underground, yet all around was utterly silent, without the least sign of living things—unlike the Ten Thousand Bats Grotto, with its countless dreaded bloodsucking bats. As Zhang Qingyue walked, his thoughts could not help drifting back to the day he had first descended into the Ten Thousand Bats Grotto, and from there naturally to that time when he and Bili had been trapped together in the Blooddrop Cave beneath the Dead Spirit Abyss.

Just then Bili, ahead of him, suddenly halted with a soft cry. Thinking some danger had appeared, Zhang Qingyue's heart leaped and he rushed forward to stand at her side. Bili paused a moment and turned to look at him.

There was no path ahead.

A sheer cliff lay before them, and below the cliff all was black, but far off in the depths of the darkness something seemed to flicker unceasingly, like wisps of ghost fire. Zhang Qingyue's body gave a start, and in a daze he thought himself back before the Dead Spirit Abyss.

Yet plainly this place was far inferior to the Dead Spirit Abyss—in sheer space alone it was smaller by a hundredfold at least. Zhang Qingyue frowned and turned to look at Shi Tou. By now Shi Tou too had reached the cliff's edge; he took one look, pondered a moment, and said, "Brother Zhang, it seems we have no choice but to go down."

Zhang Qingyue nodded. "Brother Shi, be careful yourself."

Shi Tou's face was grave. "You too." With that, he pointed a spell sign, and the golden Demon-Breaking Staff rose before him. He leaped upon it, drew a deep breath, and slowly descended.

Zhang Qingyue turned and glanced at Bili, but this time said nothing (no doubt having been snapped at by her just before), and then summoned the Dark Iron Staff and followed down.

Behind him, Bili suddenly smiled, a smile full of delight.

Three spheres of golden, blue, and white light descended slowly from the cliff, the black rock still all around. There was nothing else remarkable, and the surroundings remained silent as before—only one odd thing: the farther down they went, the higher the temperature around them seemed slowly to rise.

They descended another stretch, and by the light of the three artifacts Zhang Qingyue gradually made out his surroundings. Beyond the cliff there was no path at all, only a sheer wall of jagged, grotesque rock. The place where the three of them were now seemed, in the whole, like an ancient well magnified a thousandfold, dropping straight down.

Suddenly Shi Tou, at the lowest point, cried out urgently, "Careful!"

Startled, Zhang Qingyue and Bili hastily braced themselves, and saw that on the rock wall not far below was a small stone hollow, within which two small, bright, deep-set eyes were gazing at them.

Shi Tou signaled to them, then slowly edged closer. Zhang Qingyue and Bili both held their breath and watched intently.

They drew near. How long it had been since any light had shone in that dark place, none could say; when the golden glow of Shi Tou's Demon-Breaking Staff lit the little hollow, they all saw together what was inside: a rat the size of a palm, which had made its nest in the hollow, now staring wide-eyed at these three uninvited guests.

Shi Tou shook his head and drew back. He exchanged a glance with Zhang Qingyue and Bili behind him; the three smiled wryly, then continued their descent.

Yet what came next was something they had never in the least expected.

One point, then two, then three... lights glimmered in the darkness, some bright, some dim, flickering faintly all around them, above and below, before and behind, kindling slowly to life. And out of that darkness came what seemed like countless low, heavy breaths, and something like a soft growling from the depths.

Though above the Black Stone Cave the land seemed barren, utterly devoid of life, here beneath the cliff, deep in the earth where no daylight ever reached, countless creatures bred and thrived in a way that defied all expectation.

It was as if the darkness had lifted its veil of ages from before their eyes. With a strange quickening of the heart, they traced the way from that rat hole downward, and the stone wall began to show more and more holes, great and small, until at last there was one every few feet. And in those holes dwelt creatures of every imaginable kind: from tiny mice and bats to black apes and leopards standing as tall as a man. How they hunted their prey in the ordinary course of things, no one could guess.

And these were only the beasts they had seen before and could put a name to. A little farther down, their jaws dropped at the sight of crabs clinging to the rock, though crabs were creatures of the water, and these had four pincers besides; then a fetching creature they could not name, a six-legged civet cat; then a two-horned monster with the stripes of the character 'wang' on its brow but the shape of a pig. And so on and on, beyond all counting.

Countless eyes, gathering like a sea of faint light, fixed upon the three figures within the glowing halo.

The more Zhang Qingyue looked, the more astonished he became, and he could not help thinking that if his old friend Zeng Shuyan, whom he had come to know on Canglan Mountain, were here now, a man so fond of collecting rare and wondrous creatures, his mouth would surely be split in a grin from ear to ear.