The Three Pure Ones' Secret: Expressing Spirit

Wang Xiaoshuai stood there dumbfounded and stepped aside. Zhou Xing asked me to help him, but hesitated, saying, "We don't even know what's down there. What if..."

Before I could finish speaking, Zhou Xing said to me, "Hey, let's not worry about what it is for now. Even if it's a demon or monster locked up down there, we still have to try our luck. What if it has a grudge against the thing chasing us? If we don't find a way to deal with it, we'll be the ones who get dealt with later!"

Although Zhou Xing was anxious and his words were a bit harsh, he was telling the truth. At this point, we couldn't care less about anything else. Let's just open it and take a look.

Just as Zhou Xing and I were about to open the Yin-Yang Stone Slab, Wang Xiaoshuai urged us urgently and frantically, "Hey! Hurry up, damn it, it's coming after us!"

When Wang Xiaoshuai said they were catching up, my heart skipped a beat, and my body trembled involuntarily. Fortunately, the yin-yang patterned stone slab wasn't as heavy as we had imagined. Zhou Xing and I used all our strength to open the slab and put it aside.

Wang Xiaoshuai quickly shone the candle on the well, and it seemed there really was a well beneath the stone slab. Zhou Xing and I were stunned for a moment, but we calmed ourselves down in the dim light. Although Zhou Xing and I didn't see water, we did see that there were steps carved out of the well, a vertical passage. Where did it lead?

Suddenly, Wang Xiaoshuai whispered to us again, "What's inside, you two? They're coming!"

Upon hearing his words, we looked out of the bushes and sure enough, the white lotus lantern floating in the air along the path we had come from was slowly drifting toward us. Although it was drifting very slowly, it was visibly approaching us.

Zhou Xing hurriedly said to us, "Quickly, go down and see if there's anywhere to hide!"

I stood there dumbfounded. Zhou Xing glanced at Wang Xiaoshuai, then said to me, "Pu Qingyuan, you go down first. Fatty, you go second. I'll cover the rear and put the stone slab back up!"

I felt a mix of reluctance and frustration. What if my buddy went down and there was something even more terrifying inside? Just as I was lost in thought, Zhou Xing urged me anxiously, "Don't hesitate, brother! If we're going to die, we'll die together. We definitely can't escape outside. There might be a way out down there!"

Zhou Xing's analysis made sense, but he was extremely panicked, and I, too, chickened out. There was no way to avoid it. I had no choice but to compromise, suppressing my fear, and with my mind blank, I slowly moved down the shaft opening, supporting myself on the shaft.

A warm breeze wafted from the shaft, unlike the bone-chilling damp cold outside. Then, Wang Xiaoshuai, who was above me, followed him down. As he descended, he said to me, "If you climb any lower, Zhou Xing won't have enough space! I'll hand you the candle when he comes down!"

I moved down a little further, and then I heard Zhou Xing above me straining, the sound of the stone slab scraping against the ground, as he put the slab back down.

I was a little scared, so I asked Zhou Xing, "Hey brother, what if there's no path down there? Can you push the stone slab aside by yourself up there?"

Zhou Xing, who was above me, said, "Don't worry, brother. I can put it on by myself, so opening it will definitely be easier than putting it on."

I thought about it and it seemed to make sense, because the force of pushing is usually greater than the force of pulling upwards. Zhou Xing didn't dare stop and hurriedly asked me, "Is there any room down there? Let Wang Ba give you the candles, and you go down and see if it's water or a passage or something."

I was terrified by the darkness beneath me, and speechless. Why did we have to come to this godforsaken place so late at night? And now, we don't even have a flashlight. The three of us are only covered by this broken candle and Zhou Xing's lighter?

I was filled with fear and resentment, but I dared not delay. I slowly moved down, and even through the candlelight, I couldn't see how much further down I had to go before I reached the bottom.

In the midst of his prolonged fear, Wang Xiaoshuai's hand was stepped on by Zhou Xing, who yelled, "Ouch, damn it, slow down, bro!"

As I listened to Wang Xiaoshuai speak, something suddenly blocked my path. Looking down, I realized I had reached the bottom. Seeing that I wasn't moving, Wang Xiaoshuai hurriedly asked, "Why aren't you going down?"

I looked at Wang Xiaoshuai above me and said, "Next fart, it's reached the bottom!"

Zhou Xing hurriedly asked me, "Is there a road?"

I took the candle and looked at it. I discovered that there was an archway on my right, and it was quite tall, probably two meters high, but only fifty or sixty centimeters wide.

I quickly replied to Zhou Xing, "Yes! Come down now!"

Then I squeezed into the passage with the candle, and they climbed down too. Zhou Xing originally wanted to go in front of us, but Wang Xiaoshuai was too fat and he took up the whole passage by himself, so I had to clear the way with the candle.

The passage was about ten meters long, and we soon emerged from it into a very strange place. The space we were in was enormous, probably more than three or four hundred square meters. What made this place strange was that a small portion was man-made, while the majority was a natural mountain structure. How could there be such a large cavity underground? And how did the people of the past manage to dig right into this underground cavity? Did they have X-ray vision?

I initially thought it was a bit of an exaggeration to say I had X-ray vision, but then I immediately thought of the lights that floated in the air and followed us. I think I would believe it even if someone said there was a Sun Wukong or the Jade Emperor in this world.

Perhaps because I'm naturally introverted and not very brave, I felt my legs trembling uncontrollably.

Wang Xiaoshuai and Zhou Xing looked at me like a phone on vibrate, and hurriedly comforted me. Wang Xiaoshuai didn't forget to tease me, "Hey bro, what are you afraid of? This is scary, but it doesn't have to be this frightening!"

I looked at Wang Xiaoshuai, who was panting and pale. He was so scared that he was pale, but he still had the nerve to comfort me. It seems that he is indeed a little braver than me.

Zhou Xing glanced at me; he didn't actually seem that scared. Seeing how calm he was, I asked him in a panic, "Um, Zhou Xing! What should we do now?"

He asked me to give him the candle, and then he led us on a long walk around. Then, on a man-made rock formation, we found a hole that looked like a dog hole—though calling it a dog hole is an exaggeration; the hole was actually quite large. It was rather round, somewhat like a drainage ditch, and only about fifty centimeters in diameter.

Zhou Xing gestured for us to climb in together. He didn't care whether we wanted to or not, and prepared to climb in. But as soon as he poked his head in, he paused and said, "It seems quite big in there. Let's go in and take a look."

He then led the way and crawled inside. Seeing him go in, we hurriedly followed behind. After crawling through the opening, we found ourselves in a very large and wide passage, like the belly of a large bus. We had no idea where it led. But the three of us were completely disoriented, and we had no time to care about directions; we were only focused on finding the exit as quickly as possible.

Zhou Xing checked the time: "Damn it. It's almost midnight. I wonder if they're doing a room check tonight. If they are, we're doomed."

The group walked blindly forward for more than ten minutes. Then they saw a light in the distance. Although it wasn't very bright, they could still tell that it was moonlight. So they hurriedly ran towards the light. The three of them were initially very excited, thinking that they would definitely be able to get out. But when they got closer, a sense of fear and helplessness spread from the bottom of their hearts.

We did reach the end of the passage. And the passage led directly outside, but we encountered something that made me particularly desperate: the passage was blocked by steel bars the size of a thumb. We couldn't even stick our fists out, let alone squeeze our heads through.

Feeling helpless, the three of them stared blankly at each other, completely at a loss. Looking outside, they realized that what they saw beyond the steel bars was none other than the retaining wall outside the cafeteria on the basement floor of their dormitory building. The thumping sound was coming from a stainless steel pot lid hanging on the security bars of the cafeteria window. With a slight breeze, it would tap against the security bars, producing a strange sound with each impact.

Normally, looking through the steel bars, it looks like an abandoned sewer, but now I know that it was originally an underground passage of an old temple. So, that underground space, which is half artificial and half natural, must be the place people talk about, like a library.

Seeing that there was no other way, Zhou Xing sighed: "Sigh~ What should we do! We can only turn back, but that strange lamp is definitely waiting for us outside."

Wang Xiaoshuai looked outside: "We can't get out. What exactly is that strange lamp? Are we really going to be stuck here?"

I was completely stunned. Zhou Xing, hearing Wang Xiaoshuai's discouraging words, spat on the ground: "Pah, what the hell are you talking about? It's just a weird lamp. What's there to be afraid of? I don't believe it can actually eat the three of us!"

After saying that, he said to us decisively, "Let's go!" We'll go back and have a go at it. I don't believe that the three of us modern atheists can't beat this old thing.

I was somewhat unwilling, yet I felt powerless and desperate. What could I do? I could only follow Zhou Xing blankly as we walked back. As we walked, Zhou Xing kept looking around. He had been excited when he saw the exit earlier, but now, as we walked back, he carefully examined the environment in the passage.

He was walking along when he looked up and stopped, then paused, lost in thought. I didn't know what he was looking at, and was about to ask him when I heard him shout "Holy shit!" and then take off running. His scream of fear, combined with his sudden acceleration, caused the candle in his hand to go out instantly.

Wang Xiaoshuai and I were quite startled by his sudden outburst, and before we could calm down, we were so frightened that we almost screamed.

Above us was a passageway leading upwards, about the size of a washbasin, and from within that passageway, a lamp with a flickering white flame drifted down.

Wang Xiaoshuai and I didn't have the mind to think about anything else. My brain was like it had exploded. My mind went completely blank, and I felt every hair on my body stand on end. I chased after Zhou Xing as fast as I could.

We couldn't see anything in the darkness, and the only light that allowed us to discern the path was the strange white lamp chasing us from behind. I felt myself drenched in sweat, my clothes completely soaked.

So we quickly ran to the hole we had crawled through earlier, when Wang Xiaoshuai hurriedly said to me, "Big brother, I'll go first!"

At that moment, I didn't care who went first. Although Wang Xiaoshuai was fat, he had incredible explosive power. He was like a dog, crawling across the ground in a flash.

Watching him nimbly burrow into his hole like a fat rat, I couldn't help but curse inwardly, "Damn it!"

Without the slightest hesitation, I crawled into the hole. We originally thought we could hide from the strange lamp down there, but it turned out to be a dead end. Now we were trapped.

As Wang Xiaoshuai ran, he pulled his brick-like phone from his pocket and turned on the screen. The light wasn't bright, but it was better than nothing. We quickly reached a very narrow passage. Zhou Xing was particularly nimble, while Wang Xiaoshuai, because he was too fat, could only move forward slowly, inch by inch. He hadn't gone very far even after moving ahead of me for a long time, and I anxiously urged him from behind, "Brother, can't you hurry up?!"

Wang Xiaoshuai was also very anxious: "Brother, I want to be fast too, but there's nothing I can do about it."

I looked behind me and felt a chill run down my spine because the strange light was getting closer and closer to me. Wang Xiaoshuai in front of me was clearly not moving as fast as the light behind me. But my survival instincts drove me to desperately squeeze behind Wang Xiaoshuai.

Finally, when Wang Xiaoshuai squeezed out of the narrow passage and climbed up, before I could even reach out to climb up, that strange white light floated straight behind me. When I saw it, I was so frightened that my body trembled like a leaf. My vision went black and my mind went blank. I just felt like I was doomed!

The lamp floated in front of me, its white flame flickering without pausing, until it reached my chest. Then, a bizarre and unsettling scene unfolded before my eyes: it actually entered my body. The instant it entered, instead of feeling burned, I felt an icy chill run through my entire body. But the chill lasted only four or five seconds, and then, as if nothing had happened, the surroundings plunged into endless darkness.

Wang Xiaoshuai, panting heavily, climbed up above me, asking as he went, "Are you keeping up?"

I stood there, frozen in place, my mind a complete blank for a moment, before finally replying, "Coming. Hurry up and climb!"

I was actually very scared, but I was also very confused. How did this strange light get into my body? Why did I feel nothing except a chill? Did it stay in my body or just disappear into thin air?

As I climbed, my mind filled with questions, I heard Zhou Xing above me already pushing the stone slab. Without hesitation, I followed Wang Xiaoshuai and climbed up.

Then Wang Xiaoshuai and I climbed out. Zhou Xing had already prepared to move the lid. As soon as I climbed out, he didn't hesitate at all and immediately closed the lid.

The three men lay in the pavilion. Zhou Xing and Wang Xiaoshuai carefully observed the area outside the bushes, but found nothing unusual except for the moonlight illuminating the surroundings. Wang Xiaoshuai then began to complain and curse, "Go to hell! You beastly bastard, you don't care about anyone else's life or death when something happens!"

Zhou Xing didn't offer much explanation, he just lay there panting blankly.