“What the hell is this thing?”
I pushed myself up from the ground, carefully sidestepping that grotesque head, and hurried to my mom’s side.
Without wasting a second, she grabbed my arm and rushed us deeper into the passage, whispering urgently:
“Their blood reeks. It’ll draw others of their kind soon. We have to get through now!”
“If your dad wasn’t exaggerating… this whole passage will be swarming with them in minutes.”
Hearing there was more than one of those geta-wearing horrors, I quickened my pace instinctively.
We ran in silence, me jogging tightly behind her…
Glancing at the sharp dagger in her hand, a wave of relief washed over me…
I’d long stopped wondering how my mom mastered such lethal skill. As long as she kept me safe, even if wings sprouted from her back right now—I wouldn’t flinch.
...
After what felt like forever, we reached a colossal stone gate—over five meters tall, carved with weathered, broken patterns. In its lower left corner gaped a roughly hacked hole nearly a meter wide, jagged edges screaming brutality.
“We’re here…”
Mom crouched, sweeping her flashlight around the hole’s rim, then slipped through. I followed without hesitation, not daring to pause…
Beyond the gate, she ignited a cold flare and hurled it skyward. Brilliant light flooded the space…
A vast chamber unfolded before us—far grander than anything we’d seen. Ahead loomed a crumbling, massive palace…
Built between rock wall and floor like a pop-up 3D greeting card, it clung to both surfaces.
A deep, seemingly bottomless moat encircled its base, isolating the structure like an ancient city’s defensive trench.
From afar, the palace appeared to stand alone atop a single, towering stone pillar.
A pitch-black suspension bridge stretched toward it—the only visible path across.
...
Mom leaned against the gate, studying her map under the fading flare light, face grim.
I slumped beside the hole, back against cold stone, gasping for breath.
“Rest a moment. We should be safe… for now.”
The flare died. She tucked the map away, beam of her flashlight landing on my face.
“*For now? Should be?*”
I sucked in a shaky breath, barely daring to replay the nightmare behind us.
...
Mom sat beside me, gently smoothing my tangled hair.
“Your uncle told you about the mural stories, right?”
I gave a silent nod.
“They’re true. Your dad shared them with him long ago. The Dragon-Taming Undercrypt’s entire rise and fall unfolded just like that.”
She closed her eyes against the stone.
“But he never mentioned this underground civilization endured for over a thousand years.”
“What kind of people could survive a millennium down here? No water. No sun. Barely any air?”
She spoke softly, eyes still shut.
“I don’t think it’s possible,” I shook my head.
“Without sunlight, yin and yang fall out of balance. The human body… it couldn’t withstand it.”
I voiced every scrap of common sense I knew.
Mom offered a faint, knowing smile, then sighed. “That thing we met earlier—your dad mentioned it. He calls creatures like that *Whispering Maidens*.”
“Whispering Maiden?” I frowned, echoing the words.
“It’s a category, not one specific being. Wei Chuanyi uses it for any tomb-dwelling corpse that mimics human speech,” she explained.
“A talking corpse?” A chill prickled my skin—then realization hit. *I just faced one.*
“The Dragon Tamer Clan’s customs were deeply bizarre. That backward-walking figure? Likely a shrine maiden who served in the royal palace.” She rubbed her temples. I kept glancing warily at the hole behind us, listening for movement from the passage.
I had no clue if Second Brother and Wei Qiuying were subdued by that black monster—or if more were creeping this way. But I needed to hear her story. So I listened, hyper-alert.
“These shrine maidens held sacred roles. Chosen from newly adult virgins, their eyeballs and noses were removed—ears and mouth left intact, purpose unknown. Hence the gauze wrapping above the mouth… just as you saw.”
“R-removed? Eyeballs? Noses? Cut… cut out?” My scalp tightened.
Mom actually chuckled. “How else?”
“Their sole purpose? Tortured, then offered as sacrifices to those black lizard-like monsters—the Dragon Tamer Clan’s only deity: *Pulao*.”
I blinked, thinking I’d misheard an English word, tilting my head with a confused smile.
Seeing my confusion, she clarified:
“Legend says the dragon had nine sons; the fourth was Pulao. That’s what Wei Chuanyi named that ugly black lizard-thing we saw.” She rolled her shoulder.
“Pulao’s just his nickname for it. Not that the creature’s *actually* a dragon’s son. The Dragon Tamer Clan had almost zero contact with outside cultures.”
“At certain times, Pulao emits a sharp, piercing shriek—like a desperate woman screaming her lungs out…”
“Hearing it, Dragon Tamer Clan members would lose all reason, rushing blindly to Pulao… only to be devoured.”
“Do you understand?”
She turned to me—and in that instant, her face drained bone-white, eyes locked in horror on the hole beside me.
A cold dread seized me. I twisted around.
Half a deathly pale face, wrapped in torn gauze, had pushed through the opening. Where eyes should be: two hollow, ink-black sockets.
Yet even sightless—I felt it.
It was staring straight at me…
