Infinite Nightmares

Hearing Zhang Wenda’s reply, Wang Xiaohua shook her head. "The captain has clearance for communications. I don’t know if he sent a distress signal."

"What about the portal?"

"It won’t work. The distance is too great, and the destination has to be set in advance. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have needed to take a plane to get here."

"So, that means we have to find Shuisheng. If anything happens to him, we’ll be trapped here for good." Zhang Wenda’s brow furrowed as he paced back and forth.

The afterimages from before and the monstrous Jade Bodhisattva flashed through his mind.

After thinking for a few moments, Zhang Wenda stopped pacing and said to Wang Xiaohua, "You wait out here. I’m going in to find your captain."

"No! It’s too dangerous in there!" Wang Xiaohua immediately protested.

"Listen to me." Zhang Wenda grabbed her arm, looking her straight in the eye. "Based on a few clues, I have a hunch this place has something to do with my grandfather. That means it might have something to do with me. Maybe I can find some critical clues if I go down."

"Besides, I hate being in anyone’s debt. If that old man promised something and didn’t follow through, I have to see it done."

Seeing she was still worried, Zhang Wenda gave her a confident smile. "And hey, don’t underestimate your cousin. I’m pretty tough, you know."

Hearing this, Wang Xiaohua didn’t argue further. She simply reached up and gently plucked at her white pupil.

The eyeball vanished, reappearing in her palm as a tattoo of a white pupil, which she immediately pressed onto Zhang Wenda’s chest. "Then I’ll help you too!"

Zhang Wenda had no time to waste on anything else. He grabbed a black rope hanging down into the tunnel and prepared to slide down.

As she watched Zhang Wenda get ready to descend, Wang Xiaohua couldn’t help but say, "I was wrong before. I’m sorry."

"Heh, it’s nothing. We’re family," Zhang Wenda said, then started down the rope.

Since they were underground, Zhang Wenda pulled out a flashlight to cut through the darkness. He flicked it on, illuminating Song Jianguo’s curious, wide-eyed face.

"What are you doing here?" Zhang Wenda asked Song Jianguo, who was following right behind him.

While he’d been talking to Wang Xiaohua, this guy hadn’t said a word, just stood there with his ears pricked.

"Nothing, nothing." Song Jianguo averted his gaze, watching the tunnel walls rush past as they descended.

"Stop messing around and get serious. I have a feeling those statues that suddenly came to life have something to do with the Big Circle."

’There was something else Zhang Wenda kept to himself: what exactly had his grandfather promised those local Immortals all those years ago?’

As they descended further down the tunnel, the air grew hot and stuffy. Zhang Wenda’s senses sharpened once more.

"Look! There’s a light down there!" Song Jianguo, who was practically draped over Zhang Wenda’s head, pointed to the white glow below.

"I see it." Zhang Wenda bit into a mushroom, and the Wai Rabbit shot down to scout ahead.

When the rabbit flew back up, signaling that it was safe, Zhang Wenda plunged the scythe in his right hand into the dirt wall. He let go of the rope and slid the rest of the way down.

The moment Zhang Wenda landed with Song Jianguo, he was stunned by the enormous cavern that opened up before them. An underground temple, as vast as the Forbidden City, stood in front of him.

Huge bonfires, arranged in two rows on the left and right, illuminated the entire space.

’Even though the walls and gatehouses seemed to be made of packed earth, the scale was just immense. Buddha? Bodhisattva? A Daoist immortal? What exactly was worshipped in a temple like this?’

"Hey! Hey!" Song Jianguo elbowed Zhang Wenda, pointing to a nearby corner.

Zhang Wenda whipped his head around and saw a tiny infant leaning against the wall. A red string was tied to one of its legs, and it was draped in an earth-yellow robe. Its body was withered and impossibly small, its skin a flushed, crimson red.

As Zhang Wenda stared, he heard it begin to speak. Its voice was piercingly high, a consequence of its minuscule size.

"Xiaozhang? You’re still alive? Do you know how many, many of us vanished while we waited? Right up to the moment they disappeared, they stood guard at the gates of their own temples, waiting for you."

’Another afterimage...’ To gather more information, Zhang Wenda walked closer, intending to hear what it had to say.

"You deceived us. You deceived all of us."

"Why should we be the ones to disappear?! Who was it that mended the sky?! Who shot down the suns?! Who helped you mortals face death with peace, and who taught you that good and evil are always repaid in the end?!" As it spoke, the infant grew agitated, its eyes welling with hot tears.

"Thousands of years! Millennia! Even a stone can be warmed in that time! We once thought we were family. I thought we had become one with you. But we were wrong. So terribly wrong."

"But you’re so powerful now, aren’t you! So powerful! You don’t need us anymore! You can mend the sky yourselves! You can shoot down the suns yourselves!"

"When we were no longer useful, you cast us aside like garbage, without so much as a second glance! On what grounds?!" Reaching a fever pitch, the infant angrily slammed its small crutch into the ground.

After its outburst, the infant seemed exhausted. It took several gasping breaths before speaking again. "Our demands aren’t high. They really aren’t. We just don’t want to disappear."

"But you couldn’t even grant us that. You smashed our temples and burned our books, declaring our very existence illogical. You wanted us all to disappear... every single one of us, with none left behind..." The infant began to sob, its words choked with tears.

Hearing this, Zhang Wenda sighed, his heart heavy. He didn’t want to listen anymore. He could already piece together most of what had happened.

’Bureau 507’s goal was to return to the world of logic that existed before the Thought Tide. There was nothing inherently wrong with that. But for these creatures born from the Thought Tide, it was tantamount to the complete annihilation of their race. It was just too cruel.’

"Let’s go. We need to find Shuisheng," Zhang Wenda said, pulling Song Jianguo by the arm toward the magnificent, colossal underground temple.

Zhang Wenda walked on, but the voice behind him didn’t fade. It continued speaking.

"Xiaozhang, don’t blame us. We have no choice. We don’t want to disappear. Since you won’t help us, we have to find someone who will. It doesn’t matter who they are—whoever can guarantee our existence, we’ll help them. You’re the ones who abandoned us first!"

Zhang Wenda’s heart skipped a beat at those words. He immediately whipped his head around to look at the infant.

He then saw the infant, propped up on its crutch, kneel on one knee. It plunged its flushed, red right hand directly into the ground.

The instant its soft-looking palm sank into the earth, a gigantic hand of mud, several stories high, swelled up like a mountain. The length of its massive fingers was a perfect match for the crater left by the vanished attack helicopter.

As the massive earthen fingers curled and slowly pressed down toward him and Song Jianguo, the scent of damp soil filling the air, Zhang Wenda finally, belatedly, realized the truth.

’This thing is real! That infant wasn’t an afterimage at all!’

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