Fu Zhaojie's expression changed.
"How... how is it gone?"
He hurried over to the rock wall and ran his palm across its surface. Nothing. No indentations, no marks, no sign that anything had ever been there.
"Impossible... it was still here the last time I came... right in this spot..."
Sweat broke out all over Fu Zhaojie's forehead. He turned to look at Chen Hao.
"High God, I wasn't lying... it really was here... right here..."
Chen Hao wasn't looking at the wall.
He stood in the center of the cave, his head tilted slightly.
Listening for something.
Chen Siyao noticed it too.
Silence.
The cave was too quiet. The dripping water and their breathing were all amplified. But beyond that...
"Grr..."
A low growl.
It came from deeper inside the cave.
Not from the direction they had entered... but from the other end of the cave. A larger opening lay there, leading farther underground.
The growl sent ripples through the water beneath their feet.
It sounded like a tiger. But not quite. Something else was mixed into that frequency... a hoarse, strange resonance blending several sources of sound.
Fu Zhaojie's face went completely white.
"That's it! That's the sound!"
He backed away two steps, pointing the tip of his wooden stick toward the opening.
"High God! It's in there!"
Chen Hao walked toward the opening.
"Brother!"
Chen Siyao called out.
Chen Hao didn't stop. He reached the opening and glanced down. It wasn't large, but it was wider than the passage they had come through.
The ground sloped downward, more steeply now. A faint light shone below... not natural light filtering through a crack. Something else.
"Follow me," Chen Hao's voice came.
Fu Zhaojie glanced at Chen Siyao, then at the pitch-black opening.
His knuckles turned white around the