Exploring the Cave

Liu Yuanzhou came out from the crowd, looked around, and saw Wang Wu's back as he hurried away. Liu Yuanzhou quickly followed.

Once out of the market, there were few people on the road. Liu Yuanzhou just kept a distance behind Wang Wu, who was only focused on walking and didn't look back, so he didn't notice anyone following him.

Wang Wu walked around several turns to the outside of a courtyard, which had walls and a gate. He pushed open the gate and went inside.

Liu Yuanzhou hid behind a mud wall not far from the courtyard and waited for a long time. When Wang Wu didn't come out, he shook his head, thinking about leaving, as the Yangko dance competition was about to begin.

Liu Yuanzhou had always vaguely felt that the haunting of Li Laocai's house, the sealing of the Thousand Buddha Cave, and the various anomalies of the village's Yangko team seemed to have a connection with this White-Haired Taoist, but he couldn't figure out what the connection was. Therefore, when he saw the White-Haired Taoist handing the box to Wang Wu today, and Wang Wu leaving in a hurry, he thought about following him to find out.

Now that Wang Wu had entered the courtyard and hadn't come out for a long time, Liu Yuanzhou felt that perhaps he was overthinking it, maybe Wang Wu was just coming back to put the box down, so he decided to leave.

Suddenly, Wang Wu came out of the gate again. Liu Yuanzhou's spirits lifted, and he thought, "It seems my intuition was right." This time, Wang Wu had changed his attire, wearing a hat, and the box was still slung over his shoulder.

Wang Wu walked out of the courtyard and went straight into a small path on the left. Liu Yuanzhou carefully followed. Liu Yuanzhou followed Wang Wu out of Crouching Tiger Slope and saw Wang Wu taking a road towards Liu Yuanzhou's village.

"He's really going to our village." Liu Yuanzhou pondered for a moment and decided to take a detour to return to the village ahead of Wang Wu, as the road here was wide on both sides, making it difficult to follow.

After Wang Wu had gone far, Liu Yuanzhou turned into a small path and ran. When he came out of the small path, he was already in the village. Liu Yuanzhou ran to the roof of a house in the village, where he could almost overlook the entire village.

After about a quarter of an hour, Wang Wu's figure appeared on the main road at the entrance of the village. Liu Yuanzhou thought, "He really came, it must be related to Li Laocai."

At this time, most of the people in the village had gone to Crouching Tiger Slope to watch the Yangko dance, and the main road was empty.

Liu Yuanzhou saw Wang Wu walking along the village's main road, and soon he left the village area and headed towards the back of the village, without entering Li Laocai's gate.

Liu Yuanzhou was puzzled, but his movements were not slow. He walked onto a small path almost parallel to the main road and ran towards the back of the village. Running out of the village, Liu Yuanzhou saw Wang Wu turning into a mountain gully in the distance, and the Thousand Buddha Cave was in that mountain gully.

Liu Yuanzhou was now certain that Wang Wu was going to the Thousand Buddha Cave. He quickly ran down the main road and chased after him in the direction of the Thousand Buddha Cave. He took a shortcut and arrived at the woods outside the Thousand Buddha Cave ahead of time, climbed a big tree, and waited quietly.

Before long, Wang Wu arrived at the gate. He walked up the steps and knocked on the door a few times. After a moment, the door opened, Wang Wu slipped into the gate, and the door slammed shut.

The person who opened the door led Wang Wu to the Thousand Buddha Cave, where the Yangko dance was being rehearsed. The two stood talking, and Liu Yuanzhou couldn't hear what they were saying because they were far away. The person talking to Wang Wu looked like Li Fuguang, the third son of Li Laocai.

After talking for a while, the two climbed to the entrance of the cave and began to dismantle the stones and wooden boards. Soon, the entrance of the cave was cleared, revealing its dark original appearance. After clearing the entrance, Li Fuguang hurriedly ran back to the room, while Wang Wu slipped into the cave.

Liu Yuanzhou wanted to go over and see what Wang Wu was doing in the cave, but the front of the courtyard was an open space, and even if he sneaked into the wall, there was no cover around the entrance of the cave, it was bare. To enter the cave, he would definitely be discovered by Li Fuguang in the courtyard. So he suppressed his restless thoughts and waited patiently.

After about a quarter of an hour, just as Liu Yuanzhou was getting impatient, Wang Wu ran out of the cave and went straight to a house and stood still.

"What did he do in the cave?" Liu Yuanzhou frowned tightly.

"BOOM—" Suddenly, a loud noise came from the cave, followed by an earth-shattering tremor. A flock of sparrows in the forest were startled and fluttered out of the forest. Liu Yuanzhou, who was hiding in the tree, was also shocked and his mind went blank for a moment. "Was it an earthquake?" When he came back to his senses and looked at the entrance of the cave again, it was covered in smoke and dust, and he couldn't see the appearance of the entrance at all.

"Could it be an explosion inside the Thousand Buddha Cave?" Liu Yuanzhou muttered to himself, "It must have been Wang Wu who did it, what is he trying to do?"

Looking at Wang Wu, Li Fuguang had come out of the room and was standing shoulder to shoulder with Wang Wu, facing the entrance of the cave, neither of them speaking.

After about half a quarter of an hour, the smoke and dust gradually dissipated. Liu Yuanzhou looked at the entrance of the cave and saw that there was no change in the entrance. He thought that the smoke and dust had come out of the cave, "Was something inside the cave blown to pieces?" Liu Yuanzhou thought to himself.

After a while, the smoke and dust cleared, and Wang Wu cautiously climbed into the cave, while Li Fuguang stood in place and did not follow.

Wang Wu climbed into the cave. The cave was not big, about the depth of a Cave Dwelling. His eyes quickly adapted to the dimness of the cave. He saw that the walls of the cave, which were originally carved with densely packed Buddha statues of various shapes and sizes, were covered with cracks. In some places, entire pieces of Buddha statues had fallen off, and the originally clean and tidy ground was scattered with large and small stones.

"Tsk tsk, the power of the Exploding Talisman given by Master is really great." Wang Wu smacked his lips secretly, and his respect for his Master grew even more.

He walked to the place where he had placed the Exploding Talisman and saw that a crack had been blasted open in the original stone wall. Wang Wu lit a candle he had prepared earlier and brought it close to the crack. The crack was irregular in shape and only large enough for one person to barely crawl through. Behind the crack was pitch black, and he didn't know how deep it was.

"The flame isn't flickering much, so it seems like a dead cave. I need to wait a bit before going in." Wang Wu kept his Master's instructions in mind, waiting quietly at the crack.

"Hehe, the Li Laocai family are fools. There aren't any ghosts here. This place holds my sect's important treasure."

"My Master is truly a brilliant strategist."

"Once I retrieve the treasure and present it to Master, it will be a great achievement. What will Master reward me with? An even more powerful cultivation technique?" Thinking of this, Wang Wu's heart burned with excitement, but he immediately became troubled again. "Alas, I've been practicing for months, but why haven't I cultivated the magical power Master spoke of? What could be the reason? Master always says not to rush, could he be hiding something from me? No, this time I'll make a contribution, and I'll definitely make him pass on the true method to me."

"Once I cultivate magical power, let's see who dares to look down on me, Wang Wu. Those like Fatty Wang, and those two brats from Liu Li Village, you'll be in for a treat."

Wang Wu was thinking wildly when about another quarter of an hour passed. "It should be safe to go in now." He stretched the candle into the crack and looked in. In the dim light, he saw a very small stone chamber, only about five feet square. The blasted stone wall was about a foot thick, and in the corner of the stone chamber was a small box.

"That's it." Wang Wu was excited. He stuck the candle into a crack in the stone wall and crawled into the stone chamber. He knelt and crawled to the box, picked it up with both hands. The box was not heavy. Wang San cherished it in his arms, then retreated from the stone chamber, taking the candle with him.

Wang Wu retreated from the stone chamber, his heart pounding. He sat on the ground, placed the box on his legs, and wiped the dust off it with his sleeve. Using the light from the cave entrance, he stroked the box and examined it carefully.

The box was made of wood, with intricate patterns carved on it. A brass lock hung on the front. Wang tugged gently on the lock, but the box was locked tightly and could not be opened at all, so he dared not try to open it again. He took out a piece of yellow cloth from his arms, spread it on the ground, and wrapped the box in it, tying it securely.

After doing all this, he stood up, took out a few Exploding Talismans from his arms, and then stuck them in several places around the crack, crossing them in a cross shape.

After sticking the talismans, Wang Wu breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly, the entrance of the cave darkened. He turned to look and saw a person standing at the entrance of the cave at some point. The person was masked, revealing only a pair of eyes. Wang Wu was shocked.