"Then he learned his lesson, went off to save the world, and became a great hero?" Lu Mingze raised an eyebrow, testing where the story would go next.
"More or less." Lu Mingfei smiled faintly. "What I mean is, one day you see something more terrifying than death. After that, the burning flames, the tearing lightning, blades cutting through flesh, blood gushing out, your vision going dark, and sounds fading away-none of it frightens you anymore."
"So death can't scare you anymore, big brother." Lu Mingze sighed, understanding what Lu Mingfei meant.
Lu Mingfei passed Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu and walked into the darkness deeper in the passage. "I've experienced that kind of death countless times."
Chapter 26: The Bedchamber
"He's about to wake up."
Time resumed its flow, and Lu Mingze vanished. Lu Mingfei had gone from bringing up the rear to walking ahead of Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu. His position had not reset when the dream ended.
Perhaps this was more than a simple dream. Lu Mingze really could affect reality.
Lu Mingfei committed this to memory. It overturned his understanding of what Lu Mingze was. The other party had done more than merely invade his consciousness on a mental level.
Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu were dazed for a moment, then suddenly realized that the S-rank who had been bringing up the rear was now ahead of them.
"Did one of us experience a spirit vision?" Ye Sheng immediately asked over comms. He looked at Jude Jiqu, who shook her head.
"Lu Mingfei's camera and comms just malfunctioned," Professor Mans said over the channel. "When did he move to the front?"
"In Jiqu's spirit vision, a snake-faced statue turned into me. Is it possible we're trapped in a hallucination?" Ye Sheng's gun was ready to fire. At the thought that the S-rank ahead might actually be one of those eerie, blue-black statues, he tightened his grip.
"No. The first thing Jiqu was induced to do in her hallucination was sever the signal cable. That means the hallucination can't fool a camera." Professor Mans reacted quickly, having Thelma bring up all three camera feeds together. After comparing their positions and the details, he confirmed that Lu Mingfei was not an illusion. "Lu Mingfei is fine."
"Professor, I'm all right." Lu Mingfei's voice came through as he raised his flashlight. "Here's the door."
On Professor Mans's screen, Lu Mingfei's camera feed suddenly brightened.
Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu immediately ran over.
It was a bronze door. If not for the bronze human face at its center, also holding a match between its lips, the passage would have appeared to end in a dead end.
"Is there time to send the Key down?" Ye Sheng asked.
"No. You only have about thirty minutes of oxygen left. You'll have to return and make a second dive. Norma has already modeled the route you took, so we'll be much more efficient next time." Mans stared at the patina-covered door. "It looks like the Dragon King hasn't awakened. Time is on our side."
Lu Mingfei suddenly opened the sealing ring connecting his diving glove to his suit at the wrist. After they entered the Bronze City, Norma had adjusted the pressure inside their suits to match the pressure in the city's cavities.
He cut his finger, then dabbed his blood beside the bronze face's lips.
The crimson blood looked black and viscous against the blue-black metal before seeping into it. The bronze face really began to change. Its hard surface writhed, and its twisted expression of agony suddenly collapsed.
It looked as though it had seen something terrifying. Even its pain seemed unable to suppress its terror. Its mouth opened wider and wider. No one who had not witnessed it would have believed a "person" could open their mouth that far, unless they had no jawbone and their mouth was structured like that of an enormous snake capable of swallowing an elephant.
"It seems Lu Mingfei's bloodline is also strong enough to open a door guarded by a living spirit." Professor Mans watched the terrified bronze face with a complicated expression.
Ye Sheng touched the black case at his waist. The bomb inside had been prepared to destroy the Dragon King's egg. "Looks like we can finish the mission."
Like the face at the Bronze City's entrance, this bronze face opened the door.
Lu Mingfei and Ye Sheng took the front, with Jude Jiqu behind them. The three entered in a triangular formation. Their flashlights could only illuminate a small area, yet they lit up the Dragon King's bedchamber almost at once.
It was a small house, an ancient dwelling cast in bronze. Aside from its material, it was no different from the ancient Chinese houses illustrated in history books. It even had windows, though beyond them were pitch-black metal walls.
Within the cramped space, the powerful flashlight beams reflected repeatedly, leaving even the areas outside their direct light dimly visible.
"This is the Dragon King's bedchamber?" Jude Jiqu swallowed. "Why do I feel like an actual human lived here?"
"No one can say for certain what form the First Generations, the noblest of dragonkind, take. They might be saviors out of myth, or enormous monsters perched on mountaintops," Professor Mans said.
Ye Sheng went over to the two bedrooms connected to the room.
Inside were rattan beds, now thick with dust after the passage of countless years. Aside from those, there were only two white, full-length robes hanging on the walls. It was hard to imagine a dragon wearing such scholarly, elegant clothing.
The room they had entered appeared to be the main hall. Jude Jiqu carefully searched the small space but found nothing unusual. It contained only a low table, with a ceramic vase holding a completely withered flower. Its black stem looked as though it had been drawn from iron wire. A stack of yellowed, coarse paper also lay on the table, its writing still clearly legible in dignified Han clerical script. Ye Sheng had already read it. It was an incomplete sentence: "Dragon Rise Year Twelve, divination, inauspicious..."
"My 'snake' has been circling this place the whole time. There's no mistake." After searching, Ye Sheng met up with Lu Mingfei, who had been searching the other bedroom.
"If it were me, I'd definitely hide the egg too. This Dragon King was a master alchemist. There might be some little mechanism," Thelma murmured, chewing on a finger.
It was not just the three underwater who were searching carefully. Professor Mans and the others aboard the ship were also staring at their screens, unwilling to miss a single detail. Meanwhile, Norma was using the images from multiple cameras to build a detailed model of the Dragon King's bedchamber. Perhaps a bird's-eye view of the 3D model would reveal something strange.
"If all else fails, you can plant the bomb here. Its safe distance is fifty meters, and its central kill zone is more than enough to cover the entire house. You're running low on oxygen. Retreat if you have to," Professor Mans said.
"All right." Ye Sheng took the black case from his waist.
Lu Mingfei stood to one side, his unease growing stronger. Lu Mingze had made it sound so urgent, so terrifying, as though the Dragon King had opened a pitch-black maw and was waiting for them to walk into his belly. Yet now they were about to finish the mission and withdraw, return safely to land, with Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu going back to the Executive Department and him returning to Cassell College. Their beautiful peace would continue, and everyone would live out their quiet, happy days.
"Huh?" Jude Jiqu sat cross-legged in front of the low table, leaning sideways with her head level with its edge.
"There's a mechanism here." She looked at Ye Sheng. "I haven't pressed it. Could it be a switch for a hidden passage or something?"
By the time Ye Sheng heard her exclamation, he had already planted the bomb and was checking the signal to its detonator. He immediately went over and knelt on one knee beside her, studying the small protrusion on the table's side.
Chapter 27: Awakening
"The bomb's planted. We might as well see what this is." Ye Sheng gently placed his finger over the little mechanism.
Lu Mingfei and Jude Jiqu immediately kept watch in opposite directions, ready to notice any movement the mechanism caused.
Through the five-millimeter-thick material of his diving suit, Ye Sheng pressed the mechanism. He clearly felt some structure inside the low table engage, producing a slight vibration and a crisp click.
The mechanism's effect was not hidden. It was right behind Ye Sheng. The bronze wall opened, and a bronze puppet slid out along a rail and knelt beside the table. The tray in its hands held shriveled grapes.
"So it's a serving puppet?" Jude Jiqu faced the puppet directly. She could even count the grapes on its tray.
Ye Sheng glanced over the bronze puppet, then frowned and turned toward the space it had emerged from. It was a hollowed-out section of the bronze wall, brightly and clearly illuminated by his flashlight.
First he froze. Then he felt utter terror, so intense that a chill surged from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head.
"Go!" He stood and shouted.
There were three things inside.
The most conspicuous was a copper jar in the back. It was made of brass, its surface covered in dark green patina. Engraved patterns in the Gandhara style were faintly visible: two snakes guarding a giant tree.
The other two objects were what truly struck Ye Sheng as inexplicable and filled him with an overwhelming sense of danger.
From Jude Jiqu's angle, she could not see them. On either side of the opening from which the bronze puppet had emerged, an Infrared Emitter and a Receiver were secured with brand-new aluminum brackets. The puppet's emergence had already activated this sensitive piece of human technology, triggering some sort of injection device fastened to the jar's mouth. What it injected was the substance inside a Gray Tin Bottle.
Ye Sheng did not know what the substance was, but the Gray Tin Bottle was upside down. Without question, whatever it contained had already entered the jar completely.
This was a plot!
Someone had come in long ago and installed this thing, waiting for them to activate the mechanism. Or perhaps the device could trigger itself on a timer.
There was no time to think.
He felt the "snake" he had left nearby to keep watch fleeing. This had never happened before. His "snakes" were his loyal servants, always dwelling deep within his consciousness. Now, immense terror was forcing this "snake" to flee its master.
"Get out! It's a trap!" Fighting the agony in his head, Ye Sheng raised his gun and shot the now-empty Gray Tin Bottle. The other snakes deep in his consciousness swam about in terror, threatening to burst his skull.
Boiling, bubbling sounds came from the jar. Countless irregular black holes appeared among the dense patterns on its surface. Something was corroding its way out from within. The reaction produced vast amounts of gas, creating an enormous pressure differential, and the gas sprayed out through the tiny holes, carrying dark green droplets of mist.
"Get out now! Into the water in the main hall!" Professor Mans roared. He had also seen the horrific changes in the jar. "The passage will absorb some of the blast! There's still time! That thing isn't out yet! There's still time!"
Jude Jiqu and Lu Mingfei immediately followed Ye Sheng, sprinting back the way they had come.
An indescribable growl chased them from behind, echoing through the passage, feverish and frenzied.
"He has returned to the world."
A woman's whisper came through the earpiece.
"It's rare to hear you sound so serious."
A tall woman in a deep-diving suit sat on the riverbank. Waves on the storm-lashed river washed over her long legs, wrapped in tight black material.
No sooner had she finished speaking than she heard something crisp being chewed. The other woman's voice grew muffled. "The boss said this could change everything."
"Sounds like something the boss would say." The woman pressed a hand to her forehead. "One word from His Lordship, and I had to run myself ragged down there!"
"Heh, it's getting pretty lively down below." The other woman sounded excited. "Looks like those Cassell people want to detonate their bomb."
"You're eating chips and watching a movie in a hotel while I'm out here getting drenched. And I might even have to clean up after our little bunny." The woman removed her diving helmet, revealing a slender, fair nape and jet-black hair tied in a ponytail. She lifted her beautiful face toward the dark rain clouds overhead and sighed. "That bomb won't just finish Constantine off, will it?"
"How could it? He's the Bronze and Fire King. Even incomplete, he still has authority over metal and flame. Besides, that's his city." The sound of plastic packaging being torn open mingled with her voice over comms. "Even if the boss changed the plan, what he prepared for our little bunny is still half of one of the Four Great Thrones. That's no less impressive than a whole one."
In the dim main hall, Lu Mingfei and the others raced toward the passage. Once the water rose above their thighs, all three plunged into it.
"Detonate!" Professor Mans ordered decisively.
Two seconds after the order, the bomb Ye Sheng had planted in the Dragon King's bedchamber exploded.
Even submerged at a sufficient distance, all three felt the Bronze City and the water shake violently. The roar burst beside their ears like a thunderclap. A moment later, a hazy glow of fire flickered above the surface. With a bomb modified by the Equipment Department, a stated safe distance of fifty meters probably meant everything within fifty meters was in the lethal blast zone.
"Extraction! Your mission is complete." Professor Mans's tone grew calm again. "Even if the bomb didn't injure him, the alchemical agents inside will react violently with the water and metal, causing a chain reaction that rapidly consumes the air in the Bronze City. He'll have no choice but to leave. The fire support the principal promised has arrived."
Yet after the flames and noise subsided, the shaking did not stop.
The Bronze City had activated again, and this time the changes were even more violent. Even in the flooded passage, they could feel wild currents surging out, as though a breach had opened in the city and tens of billions of tons of river water were pouring in.
If someone was now watering an anthill with a kettle, they were the three little ants trapped in its deepest chamber.
At the same time, their connection to Mans suddenly cut out. The city's changes seemed to have severed the signal cable. Perhaps that living spirit had done it; its teeth were so sharp.
"Retreat." Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu could still speak to each other, with a separate signal cable remaining between them, but both had lost contact with Lu Mingfei.
Ye Sheng looked at Lu Mingfei and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the S-rank had not gone off on his own.
The three swam through the surging current and reached the previous cavity.
But once they climbed out of the water, they finally understood why the signal cable had broken.
The entire space seemed to have rearranged itself. The passage they had come through was sealed, turning this place into a dead end. The severed signal cable lay not far from the passage. In all likelihood, the tightly closing bronze door had sheared it apart.
Chapter 28: The Dragon King
The water level kept rising, and the air in the cavity was dwindling.
"The water has to be coming in through an opening. There might be a gap underwater." Ye Sheng waded through the shallows to the center of the cavity and leaned over to look down.
Most of the cavity was submerged. Earlier, they had stood on the bronze bridge in the middle. Now, even that last foothold was underwater.
He looked into the pitch-black depths. Somewhere down there was an opening through which water was constantly pouring.
But all of them were running low on oxygen. If they became trapped underwater, or the opening was too narrow for a person to pass through, only death awaited them-and the most agonizing death by suffocation. Many deep-water divers died from gas embolisms. Once the bubbles traveled through their blood vessels to the brain, they lost consciousness, and the suffering lasted only a brief moment.