The Bottom Layer
As Long Tian passed through that interface, he felt a brief pressure difference again before continuing to sink downwards. The path of light continued to extend in front of him, passing through the center of the marker plate and the keel base, then continuing deeper into the seabed along a sloping passage. The passage was about an arm's width in diameter, with smooth walls, like a natural pipe formed by years of water erosion, with no chisel marks on the edges, more like a preserved section of an old waterway.
He swam along the passage for a while. After a distance, the waterway narrowed, then gradually widened again. The Dragon Shadow's shadow continued to illuminate him, revealing the texture of the passage walls section by section. Vertical shallow grooves began to appear on the walls, evenly spaced, as if they had been meticulously crafted, more uniform than naturally formed textures. These lines extended forward along the curve of the passage, forming parallel tracks as he continued to swim, all pointing in the same direction.
After descending for about half a cup of tea's time, the passage began to slow down and then became completely straight. Long Tian stopped at the end of the passage, where a relatively large underwater space unfolded before him. The space was several times higher than the passage, and the bottom was covered with a layer of smooth stone slabs, free of sediment, as if kept clean by continuous water flow. The surrounding walls were engraved with continuous patterns—belonging to the same system as the reliefs seen in the domed hall and stone chamber, but in the underwater environment, they were better preserved than in the upper air chamber, as if they had been isolated from long-term weathering and erosion by the water layer.
He stopped in the center of the space. The Dragon Shadow, which had been pressed against his back, rose to the height of the center of the space, its wings slightly spread, and the layer of light on the vertical line on its forehead continued to illuminate. The layer of light from the Yu Jin continued to be transmitted down from above the water, merging into the Dragon Shadow's shadow's light layer, nearly doubling the illumination range of the space and revealing more details of the walls. Long Tian floated in the center of the space, examining the patterns around him segment by segment. There were no pillars or stone platforms in the center of the space, only a slightly raised base, the surface of which was a slightly different color from the surrounding paving stones, being somewhat darker.
He sank to the base and placed his palm on it. The base surface was unmarked, but the instant his palm touched it, the pulse of the Origin Return Pearl traveled along the inside of the base and returned to his palm, as if it had extracted some kind of information from within. He withdrew his palm and looked down at the edge of the base surface—it had an extremely narrow seam encircling it, like the boundary line of a freestanding panel. He traced the seam with his fingertip; there was no filler at the seam, it was a clean, pre-existing seam.
He circled the base and spotted a line of inscriptions on the other edge. The characters were small, covered by a thin layer of sediment, but the carvings were deep, as if made with a harder tool. He brushed away the sediment with his fingertip, revealing the outline of the inscription. The script was a variant of ancient Sea Clan sacrificial texts, but the structure was simple, the word order was the same as the line Shen Mo had translated last time, and the last two characters were in the same position as "Dragon Sleep".
He floated in front of the words, sensing the cavity inside the base through the continuous pulsation of the Origin Return Pearl —a space encased in stone walls and not filled with water, like an air chamber sealed for a long time. He exited this underwater space, swam back to the passage he had come from, passed through the sloping pipe, and returned to the top of the dragon bone. The light layer on the dragon bone had gradually dimmed over time, with only a few areas around the marking plate still maintaining some intensity. Long Tian floated above the marking plate and stopped, placing his palm on it again. The aura of the Origin Return Pearl traveled along the edge of the marking plate, resonating with the cavity he sensed inside the base.
He surfaced, climbed onto the boat, and squatted on the deck to wipe the seawater off his face. His coat was soaked and clung to his skin, but he didn't take it off immediately. Instead, he squatted there and sorted through what he had seen underwater.
"Below the dragon's skeleton lies a complete space, better preserved than the upper level. In the center of this space is a base, hollow inside, resembling a sealed air chamber. The inscription on the side of the base is the same as the ancient script Shen Mo used—'The Place Where the Dragon Sleeps ' likely points to that air chamber itself."
After hearing his explanation, the person at the stern reeled in the anchor cable. Once Long Tian had caught his breath, they turned the boat around and began heading back. The boat passed through dark waters on the return journey. Long Tian sat at the bow, his coat half-dry. He repeatedly checked the tactile sensation of the base in the underwater space and the location of the text in his mind, confirming the correspondence between the opening of the base's air chamber and the endpoint of the nautical chart. Yu Jin sat at the hatch, removing the dark gray bead and examining it in his palm. After confirming there were no abnormalities in the internal structure, he hung it back on his collar. The boat maintained a steady speed during the return voyage. After sailing all night, it entered the waters of Longfish Bay the following morning. The color of the seawater transitioned from deep blue to a bluish-gray near the shore, and the slope at the bay's mouth gradually became clearer in the field of vision.
After the boat docked, Long Tian and Yu Jin went ashore. He walked along the dirt road out of the Longfish Bay area, and after turning a bend, he stopped next to an old elm tree by the roadside, squatted down and knocked the fine sand off the soles of his boots. Yu Jin also squatted down, and the two sat shoulder to shoulder on the tree roots for a while, watching the road surface develop fine cracks from the sunlight.
Long Tian stood up and continued walking along the road. Yu Jin followed behind him, and the two walked back towards the stone house. When they reached a high slope, Long Tian glanced at the sea to the southeast. The sunlight spread a uniform layer of light across the distant sea, and the color of the water was a little deeper than when he had set off, as if the tide was pushing the bottom currents slowly closer to the shore. He looked away and continued walking without stopping. The Dragon Shadow continued to hover above his shoulders and back, its eyes slightly lowered, and the layer of light on the vertical line on its forehead maintained its brightness in the afternoon sunlight, without fluctuating or diminishing in brightness despite the changes in the surrounding light during their continuous movement.