Water Prison

Splash—

Jiang Shuo was swallowed by bone-chilling cold water. After gulping down several mouthfuls of murky filth, he desperately paddled his limbs and braced himself against one wall to steady his body.

He poked his head above the surface, his throat painfully clogged as he coughed again and again. Wiping away the water obscuring his line of sight, he hurriedly looked up.

About five zhang above his head, there was a narrow square opening in the wall, faint light seeping in from outside. A tiny round black dot poked through the opening and turned about as though searching for something, then withdrew moments later. Immediately afterward, the stone door shut, and the room plunged into utter darkness.

With no source of light, Jiang Shuo was blind even with his eyes open. He could only keep feeling about with his hands to examine his surroundings.

Suppressing his anxiety, he pressed close to the wall and slowly swam forward. Before long, he reached a corner. He turned and continued onward, circling the room once in this manner before finally returning to where he had started.

"Ten zhang in both length and width. What a huge place. But why would the Mad Saber Sect build such a secret chamber in its Forbidden Ground?" After investigating, Jiang Shuo had gained a rough understanding of his predicament. This was a square room. "Never mind that. The urgent matter is finding a way out as soon as possible."

The simplest route was to return the way he had come—leave through wherever he had entered. This place never saw sunlight year-round, so moss could not grow here, leaving no plants to climb. The walls were bare and exceedingly slick from the dampness, making the task even more difficult. Even though Jiang Shuo had often climbed mountains and crossed ridges at Nine Tripod Mountain, he still could not scale the walls.

"The stones are fitted so tightly that there isn't even a crack wide enough to insert a finger. This method simply won't work." Jiang Shuo pondered seriously for a moment, when an idea suddenly flashed through his mind. "Since above won't work, could below work instead?"

Jiang Shuo drew a deep breath and plunged headfirst into the water. It was even darker below the surface, impossible to see anything at all. Jiang Shuo simply shut his eyes and felt his way along the wall.

Rotting, stinking dead branches and leaves, fine dirt, and impurities kept brushing against Jiang Shuo's face and arms. He was an excellent swimmer, yet after diving for a long while, he still showed no sign of reaching the bottom. The water pressure grew heavier and heavier, and Jiang Shuo felt his chest swelling painfully, almost beyond endurance.

Then, the hand he had been blindly sweeping about suddenly touched something rather hard.

Jiang Shuo turned his wrist and grasped the object in his hand. His fingers, having been soaked for so long, had become far less sensitive. He could only tell that it was long and narrow, but could not make out what it was.

"This definitely isn't wood or iron. Then what could it be?" Jiang Shuo kept feeling upward until he reached the top of the object, which bulged on both sides and dipped in the middle.

"This shape..." Jiang Shuo's heart trembled. He had been exposed to and memorized human skeletons since childhood; there was no way he could be mistaken. "A human leg bone!"

The shock made Jiang Shuo open his tightly sealed mouth, releasing a string of bubbles with a gurgle as cold water rushed madly into his nose and mouth.

Jiang Shuo could endure no longer and swiftly swam upward. At last, just as his body was about to give out, he broke through the surface.

He gasped in great lungfuls of air, still clutching that bone in his hand. After carefully feeling it over, he was one hundred percent certain that it was a human bone.

"Who left this behind? Could it have belonged to someone imprisoned here before?" Jiang Shuo secretly speculated. A thread of despair even rose within his heart, where no path to survival could be found. Would this bone become his own fate?

He could neither go up nor down. Jiang Shuo could only sit and await death, silently waiting for a turning point.

With no way to mark the passage of time, he had no idea how long had passed. Most of Jiang Shuo's body had been submerged in cold water for so long that it had gone numb and lost all feeling. He paddled almost instinctively to keep himself from sinking. His face had turned bluish, and he shivered violently from the cold. If this continued, he feared that before long, he would either freeze to death or drown.

Splash—

Just as despair filled Jiang Shuo's heart, the sound of two stones grinding against each other suddenly rang out. Far above his head, a round opening appeared.

Light seeped in. Jiang Shuo looked up, and the not-too-bright, long-lost light nearly blinded him, making him squint involuntarily.

Then he saw the square iron cage suspended above his head.

It was an enormous, sturdy iron cage, its six sides enclosed by iron bars thicker than a wrist. Some unknown material had been applied to its surface; despite the damp environment, it had not rusted, instead gleaming with a clear sheen.

Eight chains were connected to the cage's four corners, their other ends hooked onto ring bolts in the walls, like a spider baring its fangs and brandishing its claws.

"This..." Jiang Shuo was utterly shaken. Such an iron cage allowed entry but no escape. What grievous sin could the person inside have committed to be treated so cruelly by the Mad Saber Sect?

Through the gaps between the iron bars, Jiang Shuo vaguely saw a figure sitting cross-legged within, its body wrapped in layer upon layer of iron chains. The distance was too great; let alone whether the person was male or female, he could not even tell whether they were dead or alive.