Chapter 10: Heavy Rain

Inside the mountain cave was a long and winding tunnel.

Wang Erniu asked everyone to light torches and proceeded into the depths of the cave.

The path inside the cave was winding, undulating, and marked with various strangely shaped stalactites that glowed in different colors under the torchlight.

For Shu Guan, this was not his first time here; he had come at the age of thirteen.

In his previous life, he had also visited many famous scenic spots in Huaxia known for their karst landscapes.

However, Shu Guan swore that none of the other caves he had ever visited could compare to the bizarre twists and turns of this place.

There was something chilling hidden beneath the captivating beauty of those colorful stalactites.

For example, they had just passed by a huge, deep green stalactite hanging upside down from the cave ceiling, with milky white liquid dripping from it, pooling on the floor below, and emitting a faint seductive aroma.

It was unfortunate that beside the pool of aromatic milky stone liquid, there were the rotting corpses of several mountain rats.

When Shu Guan first visited the cave, Old Lame specifically warned him not to touch any water in the cave, even if he was dying of thirst.

Of course, this was something the villagers of Taoyuan Village all knew, as some of their ancestors had accidentally drunk the liquid from the stalactites in the cave and died on the spot.

On the cave floor, there were also some strange footprints, as if engraved on the hard rock surface.

The strangeness lay in the fact that these footprints looked similar to human footprints but were much larger, with the largest pair of footprints over two feet long and nearly a foot wide.

When Shu Guan first saw these footprints, he couldn't help but wonder, how tall would a person have to be to leave such massive footprints?

How could there be such tall people in the world?

According to Shu Guan's memory, in his previous life, the tallest person ever recorded on Earth was not even three meters tall. Shu Guan didn't remember the exact height, but he was sure it was less than three meters.

Four to five meters in height would indeed be considered a true giant.

Could giants have really existed on Earth?

But those footprints were not the thing that puzzled Shu Guan the most when he first visited the cave. There were other things hidden within the cave that had confused him back then.

On the cave's rocky walls, he could see some unique patterns from time to time.

It was difficult to describe what those patterns exactly were, as their shapes were so varied and messy: some looked like broken tree leaves, others like animals, birds, or just too disjointed to describe.

If they were rock paintings, the lines would be too rough, but if they were naturally formed patterns, the coincidence of so many lifelike patterns seemed a bit too much.

The villagers of Taoyuan Village didn't know what these things were, and neither did Old Lame - as they had never paid attention to them.

But Shu Guan knew.

They were fossils.

He had stood in front of those fossils for a long time then.

Back then, he hadn't read the old scholar's notebook yet and thought he was still on Earth. When he saw these fossils, he couldn't help but feel puzzled.

Some of the animal forms in the fossils were too weird and unusual.

However, since most of the fossils were incomplete, and the exposed parts were just small fragments, it was difficult to determine the true appearance of those strange creatures. Thus, Shu Guan's doubts remained just that and didn't raise any suspicions.

It wasn't until his return to the cave this time, when he saw the footprints and fossils again, that Shu Guan finally realized what these things meant.

These creatures simply didn't exist on Earth!

An hour later, the villagers of Taoyuan Village finally reached the end of the tunnel.

The other side of the cave was still an entrance, with dazzling sunlight streaming in from the outside.

This tunnel went straight through the entire mountain.

This was why Shu Guan, after hearing about the cave, had specifically come to see it.

He originally thought there was only one small crevice that he floated through with the stream connecting Taoyuan Village to the outside world. He didn't expect there to be another place.

But after seeing the cave, Shu Guan was still disappointed.

Because on the other side of the cave, there was a spacious open area, and below it, there was a bottomless cliff, with the upper part of the cliff still extremely smooth.

So, no one could really leave the valley where Taoyuan Village was located through here.

Above the cliff, there was a huge protruding rock that looked like an eagle's wing, shielding the small temple below. Thus, it was impossible to see the temple from above.

The temple was made up of three buildings, one tall and two short, surrounded by gray stone walls. Wild vines covered the weathered walls, and above the main entrance hung an ancient-looking plaque that read "Qixia."

So, the name of the temple should be Qixia Daoist Temple.

Of course, the name was not given by the villagers of Taoyuan Village, nor was the temple built by them. It had been standing here for an unknown number of years.

However, inside the central hall of the tallest wooden building in the temple, there was a mud statue built by the original villagers of Taoyuan Village.