The Village on the Other Side of the Underground River

The three comrades were worried sick about No. 325, their hearts burning with anxiety.

Only Lin Xiaosu was different from them.

Because Lin Xiaosu had personally seen that No. 325 was already dead...

The two murderers had slung his corpse over their backs, leaped up, and gone straight into the deep pool without surfacing again.

This was something conventional investigative methods could never uncover.

By ordinary reasoning, after coming down from the cliff, they would naturally have followed the valley beside the pool elsewhere. Who could have imagined that they had entered the deep pool?

Could there be some secret base hidden within this utterly wild deep pool?

Lin Xiaosu landed beside the pool and put on a show of inspecting the surroundings before lightly shaking his head. "No traces!"

"None? How could there be none?" Changye's heart jolted. "The traces above were obvious. Down here, apart from this pool..."

Lin Xiaosu's gaze settled on the water.

The surroundings were silent. Everyone's eyes fell upon the pool.

"Don't you find it strange?" Lin Xiaosu said. "The water above rushes down so fiercely. The volume is clearly enormous, yet this pool hasn't overflowed."

"An underground river!" Changye said. "You suspect No. 325 jumped from the cliff after being injured and was swept away by the underground river?"

"That's possible!" Lin Xiaosu said. "How about we go down and take a look?"

"Go!"

Changye and 88 simultaneously tapped their waists. Strange helmets suddenly rose around their necks, enclosing their heads.

Lin Xiaosu did the same.

Qianlong Warriors were all six-sided fighters of land, sea, and air.

The Qianlong Suit itself came with diving capabilities. Once the helmet was activated, it formed an oxygen-supplying diving suit that could keep them underwater for five hours.

Lin Xiaosu's False Dragon Armor had the same function.

They entered the water. Number 88, at the front, emitted a hazy glow all over his body, the light guiding those behind him.

The water was dim, but the entrance to the underground river, spinning as it swallowed vast quantities of water, was still clearly visible.

A figure slipped past him, then turned back and gave him a smug smile. Lin Xiaosu was startled. Xin Yue!

Holy shit!

Xin Yue wasn't even wearing a helmet. She swam freely through the water like a fish...

What kind of damned gene was that?

Passing through an unfathomable underground river with the raging current was a severe test of courage.

Although Lin Xiaosu showed no fear throughout, his face inside the Qianlong Suit was somewhat pale.

He had seen the two murderers carry No. 325 into the underground river's entrance, but he had no idea what lay inside.

A hand reached out from beside him, soft and gentle.

It caught his hand.

Lin Xiaosu turned and saw Changye inside her Qianlong helmet. She smiled faintly at him. Her smile was far cleaner than Xin Yue's, a pure comfort.

Hand in hand, the two slipped into the dark river.

As the current spun rapidly, they turned seven or eight bends in an instant. With a splash, they emerged from a gloomy cave, and the underground river became an open river from there.

Distinct footprints appeared along the riverbank.

The moment he saw them, Number 88's face darkened incomparably. "Human footprints, but not No. 325's!"

"The injuries he suffered on the cliff weren't inflicted by wild beasts. They were caused by humans!" Changye added.

"Move! Follow the tracks and see what sort of god they are!" Number 88 took the lead, advancing along the riverbank.

Ahead was a cave entrance. The moment they emerged, they saw a village outside.

It was a village that looked extremely ancient.

Its brick-and-tile houses were badly dilapidated.

It was cut off from the Outside World, with no electrical facilities to speak of.

But there were people.

An old woman sat before a rundown house doing needlework. On the slope ahead of them were seven or eight vegetable plots, filled with lush green vegetables, peppers, and cucumbers, brimming with the air of rural life.

An old farmer leaned his hoe against the ground and tilted his head to look at them.

"There's actually a village here." Changye swept her gaze around.

"It's normal for there to be a village. There are always people in the mountains who can't bear to leave their homeland," Number 88 said.

"I'll go ask him whether he's seen any strangers..." Xin Yue said.

Lin Xiaosu stepped forward. "I'll do it!"

"Damn it, you're even competing with me over asking directions? There aren't even any points for that." Xin Yue was annoyed.

Lin Xiaosu said, "I come from the countryside. I'm best at dealing with old farmers."

Xin Yue stopped. She couldn't argue with that reason...

Lin Xiaosu slowly approached the old farmer, who watched him as well. Everything seemed perfectly harmonious.

"This village is pretty old. It's been around for over a hundred years, right?"

The old farmer lightly nodded without speaking.

Lin Xiaosu said, "Where are the villagers?"

The old farmer grinned and pointed. "There. Some went up the mountain, some went down to the river, busy making a little living. That's all of them."

Changye followed his finger and did indeed see people scattered across the slopes.

Lin Xiaosu said, "I'm asking about the real villagers, not you bandits."

Changye and Number 88's hearts both jolted.

The old farmer slowly raised his eyes, a murky look filling them. "Y-you... I don't understand what you're saying. I'm just a farmer..."

Lin Xiaosu gently shook his head. "Killing villagers and taking over their ancestral homes, disguising yourselves as villagers to commit illegal deeds—though that's the sort of thing bandits often do, you should at least do your homework and learn how to be real farmers. Sorry, but your disguise is riddled with holes..."

Number 88 and Changye's eyes turned cold as autumn water.

The people within their sight also began to seem subtly out of place under their sharp scrutiny.

Yet the old farmer before Lin Xiaosu wore a bewildered expression. "Bandits? There are no bandits. The villagers here are terribly poor. What could anyone rob?"

Even at this point, he still looked very much like a farmer.

Lin Xiaosu lightly tapped the ground with his toe. "What is this old man doing here? Digging a pit to bury corpses?"

Changye's bone-chilling eyes suddenly shot toward the old farmer's hoe.

Fresh earth clung to the hoe.

A newly dug patch of ground lay on the slope.

It looked like a vegetable plot, but it would also make sense as a place to bury bodies.

Suddenly, the old farmer's hoe rose sharply in his hands.

At that lift, dust flew everywhere!

The sand and dust blocked Lin Xiaosu's vision as the hoe came straight for his head.

Screech!

A bullet spun out through the dust, striking the old farmer's wrist with precision. The hoe flew from his hand, and he abruptly performed a great flip, plunging down the cliff.

Before he hit the ground, a figure flashed through the air like a flying eagle soaring overhead.

A slender palm chopped down diagonally, striking the old farmer precisely on the neck.

The old farmer slammed to the ground. Changye planted one foot on his back, her hair flying loose. This image was utterly different from the elegant lady she usually was, with every strand of hair immaculate as she moved gracefully through the city.

Number 88 leaped down, his hand forming a dragon claw. He plunged it into the fresh earth beneath his feet, reaching more than two feet deep.

With a boom, he casually hauled up a corpse.

As earth scattered down, everyone's expressions changed at once. The corpse wore a shredded Qianlong Armor. It was unmistakably No. 325!

The silent mountain village suddenly erupted into boundless turmoil, as though Lin Xiaosu's gunshot had completely thrown it into chaos.

Number 88 stared at his dead comrade in his hands, his face as heavy and still as water.

"Subdue them all!" With those four words—

Number 88 was the first to leap down the slope, charging toward a stream below. Beside the stream, two people dressed as villagers changed color at the same time.

Screech!

The carrying pole in their hands flew out, stabbing toward 88 in midair.

88 kicked down, turning the carrying pole into a spear that stabbed straight into one of them. Dragon Scales in his hand shook, and a shrill howl ripped through the air. Pfft! It pierced one man's neck.

The other was caught completely off guard by the carrying pole and fell into the stream. The instant he touched the water, 88 tapped off the ground with his toes and glided past like he was skimming over waves. Pfft! One foot stamped on the man's head, sending him beneath the stream. Lin Xiaosu's Divine Eye saw clearly: brain matter floated in the water.

His eyes abruptly widened.

They were really killing them?

At the same time, Changye flowed like water and suddenly arrived on the opposite slope.

The two men on the slope, who looked like farmers, abruptly leaped up. The woodcutting knives in their hands were no longer knives, but gleaming daggers. Yet elegant Changye suddenly became a wisp of Qing Yan. As Qing Yan rose, a streak of silver light accompanied it. The silver light swept across their necks, and both men fell at once, heads severed from their bodies.

Xin Yue cried out, "They're really killing them? Are these people actually villagers?"

"Isn't that nonsense? Look at their skills. Do they look like villagers?" Lin Xiaosu raised his gun. Screech! A figure fell from a large tree above. This person was also dressed like a villager, but he was holding a sniper rifle.

Xin Yue shot into the sky and pounced straight at the old woman above.

The old woman seemed somewhat slow-witted. Despite the battle below reaching such a scale, she had continued doing needlework at the doorway.

The instant Xin Yue pounced, the old woman suddenly stood. As she rose, the stool beneath her flew through the air and crashed toward Xin Yue. At the same time, a needle tube in her hand lifted, glimmering with eerie light...

Xin Yue's figure blurred, vanishing completely beneath the needle tube.

The old woman's figure also blurred and vanished.

Before the dilapidated cottage, the two figures fought with dazzling brilliance, but in ordinary eyes, they looked like nothing more than two whirlwinds spinning at high speed.

Only Lin Xiaosu remained where he stood, but his gun fired seven shots in succession.

Seven shots took out three snipers hidden in the forest.

With his Gun God talent of never missing a shot, he should theoretically have killed seven people with seven bullets. But these snipers were no ordinary snipers. They were all Gene Humans. One of them dodged three of Lin Xiaosu's bullets before being killed by the fourth. His ability to evade bullets while lying down was no weaker than Xin Yue's.

Bang!

With a tremendous impact, the white-haired old woman was kicked flying by Xin Yue. Her head struck the rock behind her, red and white spilling everywhere.

Xin Yue locked onto the bamboo grove to the left and laughed loudly. "Hehe, the forest is this young lady's best battlefield!"

She pounced forward...

Number 88 shouted from below, "Xin Yue, enter the house!"

Accompanying that shout was the collision of two figures. Number 88 had engaged an expert, and they tumbled across the stream in a rolling fight.

Xin Yue said, "I'll clear this battlefield first!"

She charged into the bamboo grove. The bamboo grove churned as though swept by a tornado...