Waking up early in the morning, he tidied up the messy bed again. Another quilt was unusable. At this rate, he'd soon run out of spares.
"Xi'er... tonight... can I have a little rest?"
Looking at Lu Ze's pitiable state, such a strong man, how could he be so incapable? Was he even good enough? Such a weakling!
"Alright... I'll go back and have Wendy cook something nourishing for you, and I'll buy some goji berries so you can recover properly."
The words were filled with mockery, not the kind of thing Xi'er would say. On closer inspection, red eyes, alright, he knew who it was.
"Black Xi... give me some face, will you? I'm not incapable, I just don't want to reveal my true strength, for fear of scaring you."
Hearing this, Black Xi's eyebrows rose slightly, her eyes filled with disdain. She chuckled and said, "After two days of getting acquainted, I know your depths quite well. You, revealing your full strength? You'd likely collapse before that."
That provocative tone, that dismissive gaze, made him seem truly inadequate.
"Damn it, if I don't show a bit of real strength, you really think I'm useless?"
And so, what was planned as an early start to investigate turned into this first thing in the morning.
The newly changed quilt was immediately unusable again. Another couple of days, and he'd have no usable bedding left.
An hour later, due to time constraints, they had to stop. In just that short hour, Lu Ze had truly shown his masculine side, leaving Black Xi no choice but to concede.
"Enough, it's time to get up. Stop lying on me, you're crushing my body."
The others also began to stir. Following the pre-arranged plan, Ningguang and a group of about twenty to thirty elite soldiers slowly made their way towards the back mountain.
Since the waterfall wasn't far, they reached their destination within half a day. The miasma in the lake was worse than before, so much so that black mist could be seen slowly drifting out with the naked eye.
"What's going on? Why is black mist coming out of the lake? I have a bad feeling there's something terrifying at the bottom."
Keqing reached out to touch the lake water, wanting to check the situation.
Her hand was slapped away. Lu Ze shook his head at her, advising against touching it until they confirmed it was safe.
"I'm the strongest here, so I'll check the bottom of the lake. Diving is no big deal for me."
Saying this, he took off his shirt, revealing his perfect abs and broad back, then plunged into the water and swam down.
The others wanted to stop him but couldn't. However, seeing that he was fine, they breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed this much miasma was nothing to him.
As he descended, the pool was surprisingly deep. After diving about 50 meters, it was still bottomless. Moreover, the light grew dimmer, with no sunlight penetrating.
Thus, he had to rely on his eyes to discern the situation below, though this was a minor matter for someone so accustomed to darkness.
Descending another 50 meters, he finally saw the bottom of the pool. Looking around, the first thing he saw was a dragon-like head, bound by countless purple chains. Its eyes were enormous, as if it had died with its eyes wide open.
"Human? Someone can actually reach here. Kid... you're quite good. Your strength is formidable, but still far inferior to mine."
Lu Ze, startled by the suddenly speaking dragon head that he thought was dead, was taken aback. But he quickly recovered.
"You scared me! Talking to me so suddenly, don't you know that's terrifying? From the looks of it, you're chained here. If I'm not mistaken, you must be Gu Chi, right? To have fallen to such a state, sealed beneath a pool, never to see the sun. And you claim to be stronger than me?"
As if provoked, the massive dragon head tried to open its mouth and roar, but found that even its mouth was tightly bound by purple chains.
"Human, don't be too arrogant! If I hadn't just revived and wasn't still recovering from being severely injured by that blonde young man, I wouldn't have been sealed beneath this pool, never to see the sun."
Listening to its description and combining it with its previous words, it seemed a certain event had occurred here.
A blonde young man had found a way to revive Chi, painstakingly obtained a body and head, resurrected him in this place, and then... this.
However, the revival scene was witnessed by a young man from the village. Under mental pressure, this young man went mad, muttering only the word "demon god."
Perhaps something like this had happened. Why did it seem so melodramatic? Maybe it was just his imagination.
"So... you've been trapped beneath this pool, tortured like this? How about I send you on your way? After all, being trapped is worse than going to the afterlife."
Hearing that he was going to be killed, Chi panicked instantly. He had lived for so long and had never wanted to die. Even trapped beneath this pool, he firmly believed he would eventually escape.
"Sir, I call you sir, please don't finish me. I want to live, I don't want to die so soon."
Seeing Chi's sudden panic, Lu Ze chuckled. He had always thought demon gods weren't afraid of death, but it seemed they were.
"If you don't want me to kill you, you'll have to do something for me. Once it's done, I'll not only help you find your body but also let you return to the skies. However, you might lose your freedom, as releasing you would be a scourge upon the world. You'll stay obediently in my shop."
Upon hearing that he wouldn't die, Chi nodded rapidly, afraid that Lu Ze might change his mind in the next second and send him to the afterlife.
"First, tell me the details of the matter. I'll verify them, and then we can plan the next step."
After listening to the dragon head's explanation for about ten minutes, the matter was clear, matching his own conjectures with some interesting parallels.
It turned out that initially, the blonde young man had found Chi's dragon head and proposed an alliance, in return for which he would be resurrected and his body found.
But for some reason, after resurrecting him, the blonde young man changed his mind and plunged a knife into his own body. This was something Chi couldn't comprehend.