Open the mountain with a sword

Upon hearing what Chi Qingshuai said, I pondered for a moment and roughly understood his meaning. He was worried that the snake might also have a soul imprint of dragging corpses on its body, and that it would summon the Yin spirits of Motu in anger. If that happened, it would definitely cause a lot of trouble and seriously delay our journey.

Having understood this, I quickly headed towards the cave entrance while shouting to him: "Master Chi, hurry up and follow me."

Chi Qingshuai nodded his head and shone his flashlight again at the struggling python before quickly catching up with me as we entered into the cave.

"What's going on? What happened to the snake?" It wasn't until we went inside that we noticed Xie Yilin tightly holding onto Jietou's arm tremblingly while Jietou held onto a golden wheel in his hand as if he wanted to rush out to deal with the python.

"It's okay now. Let's go quickly. We need to get to the bottom of this cave where there is an entrance leading to Emperor Helü's tomb," Chi Qingshuai waved his hand before rushing ahead first.

Upon seeing this situation, we all followed suit immediately.

Xie Yilin finally calmed down after walking some distance when she let go of Jietou and fell onto me instead. As I walked forward, I held her hand reassuringly until she finally regained her composure.

"Here it is."

Soon enough, after passing through another narrow mountain tunnel which suddenly opened up into a vast underground cavernous space filled with stalactites hanging from above like icicles; roots from trees growing above ground penetrating through cracks in rocks forming natural nets along walls; water dripping constantly from overhead creating puddles below; insects crawling everywhere - one could tell right away that this was not man-made but rather formed naturally over time by geological processes. Those who had dug the air-raid shelters must have stumbled upon this place by accident and decided to use it as a base after some minor repairs.

Standing at one end of the cave, I lifted my flashlight towards the bottom and could clearly see a row of square-shaped black holes on the far wall. It seemed like there were several small chambers separated inside.

The temperature inside the cave was very low. Since I entered, I felt a chill in the air. Subconsciously, I opened my flashlight to check and found that there was a thick black mist here, giving off an eerie and evil atmosphere. Looking at the bottom of the cave entrance, I saw that it was pitch-black inside with gloomy black mist constantly emanating from it. It seemed like a passage leading to the underworld, exuding endless fear.

"YiHeng, have you seen those entrances?" Chi Qingshuai shone his flashlight on them while asking me: "Which one do you think is closest to the interior of the mountain?"

"It's hard to determine for sure. We'd better go over and take a look one by one," I said as I patted Xie Yilin's hand to signal her to let go of me. Then holding my own flashlight, I walked towards those entrances.

When we got closer, I shone my flashlight into one of the small rooms and found that it was full of water with no abnormalities except for cracks all over its back wall.

I checked out other small rooms in turn but didn't find anything special.

"Do you see anything?" Chi Qingshuai asked as he approached us.

"Based on what we know now, unless something unexpected happens, this middle room should be closest to the interior of the mountain," after pondering for a moment with furrowed brows,I explained: "Black mist is coming out from cracks on all these room walls but this middle one has more concentration than others so I deduce that it's closest although not necessarily true because fractures within mountains are always winding and twisting; besides even if it were true we still face difficulties penetrating through thick stone walls which is not easy given our current conditions."

"What's so difficult about that?" Chi Qingshuai laughed then walked into the small room and thrust his sword towards its back wall.

"Crack!" With a light sound, Mo Ye Sword was inserted into the stone wall. Due to stress, a large crack appeared along the blade's edge and "crackle crackle," another big opening emerged.

"You see?" Chi Qingshuai pulled out his sword and turned around to look at me with some pride: "The stone walls here have become very fragile due to long-term water erosion. We can easily open up a passage by hacking away. The only thing I'm worried about is that it may not be able to bear much weight so we need to be extra careful when working."

"Well, since you say so, let's take turns and work together to create this passage." I walked forward and said to Chi Qingshuai.

"Okay, you help me shine your flashlight on it first while I plan out the layout of this initial section then you'll find it easier later." As he spoke, Chi Qingshuai handed me his flashlight before gripping his sword with both hands and starting work.

He first used the sword blade to draw a regular rectangular frame on the stone wall with cracks all over it, defining the boundary of the passage. Then he swung his sword at the stone wall inside the frame, and there was a loud noise of "pili hua la", and broken stones fell down. In just a moment, he had cut out a groove nearly one foot deep.

"Indeed worthy of Mo Ye Sword, so sharp," seeing this situation, JIETOU couldn't help but praise.

"YiHeng's Ganjiang Sword must be even more powerful than this," Xie Yilin came forward to take a look and then walked over to hug my arm, looking at me with affectionate eyes.

My face turned red. Feeling her chest pressing against my arm made my mind sway and desire surged up. I couldn't help but say to Chi Qingshuai: "Master, you rest for a while. Let me do it."

"Okay," Chi Qingshuai stepped back and said to me: "It's not really tiring; it's just that as we go further inwards, the stones become harder and harder. I'm afraid of damaging the sword blade so I have to be careful. When you start working on it yourself, also pay attention to sliding your sword blade straight back and forth instead of sideways because that can easily damage your sword."

"Don't worry; I understand," I said confidently while holding Ganjiang Sword in my hand. Walking up proudly towards that groove on the stone wall inside which I would thrust my sword.

"A loud bang!"

As soon as my sword pierced into it there was suddenly an explosive sound coming from outside rather than from my own weapon - A huge snake head covered in white scales appeared abruptly through door opening followed by its wriggling flesh body behind.

"F*ck!" We were all shocked by this sudden appearance. Then we saw the snake head suddenly open its huge bloody mouth and a purplish-brown venom was shot straight towards us.