366 Melting Into the Earth
Another seven days went by.
Qin Huai and She Wanshan were sitting in the forest with two huge birds roasting in front of them. They had explored every inch of the bronze land but found no clues, only hundreds of scattered remains of past geniuses. Over time, they became numb to the desolation, their days dwindling down to cultivating in the forest and aimlessly eating and drinking.
Burp~
She Wanshan burped suddenly. “I’m sick of these! Are we to eat meat like this for the rest of our lives?”
Qin Huai removed a piece of tree bark from his bosom. Upon it was a crude map of the entire bronze land, carved with a tree branch. Only one uncharted spot remained.
“Isn’t there one place we haven’t visited yet?” Qin Huai questioned, unruffled.
“How can you stay so calm, Brother Zhou?” She Wanshan responded with a bitter smile.
“You said there was a predecessor who escaped, so this proves that this place isn’t entirely hopeless,” Qin Huai reminded him. He stood up, studied the map, and headed to the last unexplored area.
“Wait for me, Brother Zhou!” She Wanshan called, picking himself up to catch up.
Upon reaching the last unknown location, they found nothing remarkable except for a large stone. Near it was a skeleton seated cross-legged. It was the remains of an expert with four full patterns, a sight that no longer stirred any emotion in Qin Huai.
“There’s nothing special about this place…” She Wanshan sighed and walked around the huge stone.
“If there’s something special, it’s this stone.” Qin Huai also walked forward.
Just as Qin Huai was about to turn away, his attention was caught by a line of carved words on the stone behind the corpse. He crouched down and pushed the skeletal remains aside. The instant his fingers made contact, the corpse collapsed into a fine white powder. The remains were older than he’d imagined, likely among the earliest victims on the island.
However, Qin Huai’s interest wasn’t in the corpse but in the message etched on the stone.
“The beasts here are all poisonous. After eating them for twenty days, the people will dissolve into mud, returning nutrients to the earth.”
She Wanshan’s voice, shaky with fear, echoed behind him, “It’s over. Our suspicions are confirmed. We’re truly going to die here.”
Qin Huai replied calmly, “At least we now understand how many perished in this place.”
He speculated that many of the deceased did not meet their end inside the belly of a beast. Upon seeing this warning, some people might have chosen to starve to death, believing the beasts to be poisonous. Others, skeptical of the message, would have continued consuming the meat until their bodies dissolved.
Qin Huai further reasoned that the latter group must have discovered some path to a particular place. Otherwise, there was no explanation for the mass disappearance of individuals throughout history, without their reappearance in this land’s forest. The question remained – where did they eventually end up?
“Let’s continue eating the meat,” Qin Huai said slowly, sensing a turning point close at hand.
“But… isn’t it too risky?” She Wanshan asked hesitantly. “One misstep and we might die here.”
“If we don’t eat the meat, we’ll starve to death regardless,” Qin Huai countered, silencing She Wanshan. “Besides, we’re not far from the twenty-day mark, are we?” he mused aloud. He had arrived on the island six or seven days before She Wanshan, meaning they should be able to verify the boulder’s warning in just a couple of weeks.
Their conversation ended in silence. Having completed the map, Qin Huai’s days comprised mainly of practicing the clasping vitality and the blood heart technique, eating meat, and resting.
Just like that, a fortnight passed. While consuming the usual roast meat, She Wanshan exclaimed, “Brother Zhou! Your body!”
Startled, Qin Huai looked down at his lower body and sprung to his feet. His body was visibly dissolving, his feet already a pool of mud merging with the ground.
His scalp prickled. He could no longer feel his feet. They, now part of the muddy earth, seemed tethered to his legs even as he leaped into the air.
However, elevation did not halt his deterioration. On the contrary, it escalated. Yet, oddly, Qin Huai felt no pain or discomfort.
Bang!
He fell to the ground, rolling around in a sorry state, then leaned against a colossal tree. He watched as a panicked She Wanshan rushed over, saying, “Brother Zhou, how do you feel?”
“I feel nothing,” Qin Huai answered calmly.
Suddenly, the bronze wall in Qin Huai’s dantian world began radiating a brilliant light, and the ancient azure illusion force within his mind surged with power.
But… It was useless. Despite these phenomena, none of them could stop his body from melting.