When they heard that the new scientific expedition team was about to go into the water, all the villagers of Blue Lake Village ran out to watch, chattering about it.
"I hope our water won't lose its magical effect if they stir it up."
"Not really, didn't someone drown before, and all his illnesses were cured after drinking it?"
"That's right." The villager looked up at the people on the shore who were wearing diving equipment and said with a curled lip, "I hope that after this incident is over, no one will come again."
Every time someone came to the village for scientific research, there would be a commotion for a while, which made the villagers who were used to the quiet life in the mountain village very uncomfortable.
Rather than figuring out what is hidden in the lake, they care more about their current stable life.
Although I didn't have much money, I was able to be self-sufficient. After dinner, I would invite three or two neighbors to play cards and chat. Life was very comfortable.
The people from the Special Investigation Department heard every word of these words.
One of them couldn't help but whispered, "It's as if we are willing to come."
"That's enough, stop complaining." The person next to him pushed him to shut up, then turned to look at Li Hongyu who was putting on his clothes, "Deputy Team Leader, you can go into the water now."
Li Hongyu picked up a diving helmet and handed it to Chen Ling, "Fasten the safety buckle and then open the oxygen tank. If there is water seepage, get ashore immediately."
Chen Ling said thank you, put on the heavy helmet, then turned around and waved to Jiang Yu, then dived underwater with the others.
The water of the Blue Lake is very clear, but because of its depth, it looks dark green with a hint of deep blue. Looking down from the shore, it always makes people feel like there is something hidden inside.
The outside of the helmet was made of thick glass, so if one wanted the person on the other side to hear what one was saying, one had to speak very loudly. Chen Ling pursed his lips and pointed in a certain direction towards Li Hongyu.
Li Hongyu understood and made a few quick gestures to his subordinates, assigning them to disperse and investigate, and report any situation using underwater signal devices.
Chen Ling gave him a thumbs up and swam in the opposite direction.
There is a buzzing sound of water in my ears, invading my ears through the glass cover. All I can see is turbid water. Occasionally, I can see one or two figures passing by in front of me.
After checking a small area, Chen Ling began to swim downstream. He raised his wrist to check his watch and saw that he was currently five meters underwater.
He looked down and saw that the water became darker as the depth increased.
What is most worrying is that the temperature is getting lower and lower.
The low temperature penetrated his diving suit and stuck to his body, quickly giving rise to a strange feeling, as if he was wrapped in something.
Normal water feels cool and soft, without any of that suffocating and weird feeling.
Intertwined with these lake waters are yin and deathly auras.
Those kids who went swimming for fun at the beginning but none of them came out were either trapped by the previous ghosts or entangled by these evil spirits.
The water this time had hallucinogenic properties, so Chen Ling couldn't open his mouth and bite his fingers to draw talismans like he did in the pool in Fengling Mountain. Fortunately, he was wearing a telescopic stick and a Sanqing Bell.
The copper bell vibrated, and the sound spread with the waves. The sticky yin energy around it immediately disappeared.
Chen Ling did not put the bell away. He held it tightly in his hand and swam straight to the bottom of the water, using the sound of the bell to clear the way.
Just as I was about to hit the bottom, a dark, blurry figure appeared in front of me.
As the other party approached, Chen Ling saw the copper coin sword on his back, breathed a sigh of relief, and shouted through the diving helmet: "Did you find anything?"
Li Hongyu has always been reserved and abiding by etiquette, but now that they are underwater, he can only be forced to respond without caring about his image by shouting: "No!"
Soon, the people who had been searching separately came together, shaking their heads and waving their hands, indicating that they had also found nothing.
Chen Ling fell to the bottom of the water. The soil at the bottom was wet and soft, but as his feet sank, he soon stepped on solid ground.
Li Hongyu also stood at the bottom of the water. He pulled out the copper coin sword and poked it downwards with force, but it was easily blocked by a rock and he could not go any further.
Chen Ling turned around and asked the others loudly: "Have you seen the child's body?"
Before going into the water, he specifically asked the village chief whether the bodies of the children who had drowned in the water had been salvaged.
The village chief said: No.
The young and middle-aged people in the village went into the water twice, but after searching in vain, no one dared to go into the water again.
Although the villagers said that the blue lake water could cure illnesses and wishes, it was precisely because of this miraculous ability of the lake water that they were deeply afraid of the lake.
There is a spring in the Blue Lake that will not dry up, but there is no flowing river connected to it. If the bodies of the children had not been salvaged, the bones would have remained at the bottom of the lake.
How could there not be
There were some things that Chen Ling couldn't say directly, but fortunately Li Hongyu had some tacit understanding with him. Seeing the doubt in his eyes, he asked loudly, "Did you search carefully?"
A subordinate shouted, the voice coming from the helmet buzzing, "Search carefully, confirm that there is nothing."
That's strange.
The time it takes for the flesh and internal organs of a corpse to decompose is related to the surrounding humidity, temperature, and pH, but bones are the most stubborn and will not rot easily. Even if they are buried in highly acidic soil, it will take a long time for them to decay rather than disappear.
Chen Ling shouted back: "Search the bottom of the lake carefully again."
The people from the Special Investigation Department were a little unhappy. They didn't understand why there was so much fuss over just a few skeletons.
Li Hongyu made a gesture and asked them to take action immediately.
Several people left reluctantly because they did not take the order too seriously. After swimming underwater for a while as if they were playing, they planned to go back and report.
Seeing the shadows of Chen Ling and Li Hongyu just ahead, someone suddenly patted the leader from behind.
The leader looked back and saw his colleagues shouting, "Zhang Yang is gone!"
The leader was startled and immediately led everyone to swim back. Zhang Yang's air tube fell out of his helmet and sank into the mud. Zhang Yang's helmet was drowned by the lake water that flooded in from the air inlet.
He tried his best to raise his head to avoid swallowing the lake water. When his colleagues found him, he waved his hands desperately for help.
The leader swam over with several colleagues and immediately pulled the air tube out of the soil, but they were obstructed at the last moment. A swollen hand was actually holding the other end of the air tube tightly.
The hand deliberately acted in opposition, exerting force in the opposite direction and directly pulling the entire thin tube out of the air bottle. Immediately afterwards, the surrounding water suddenly became turbid, and all the mud and sand on the bottom of the water floated up and mixed in the water, making it impossible to distinguish the surrounding situation.
The talismans could not be used after entering the water, and several people realized that something was wrong and immediately took out various magical tools.
More and more mud and sand in the water floated up, as if something was moving wildly under the mud. Chen Ling and Li Hongyu would not fail to notice such a big movement. They swam over quickly and stopped outside the turbid waters.
Chen Ling took out a piece of red light signal stick and broke it open. The red light could only illuminate a very small area.
Li Hongyu took the signal stick and prepared to go in first. As soon as the flippers on his feet moved, he hit something. He looked down and saw a human face that was soaked and rotten.
The tightly closed eyes on the man's face suddenly opened, and he quickly grabbed towards Li Hongyu.
Chen Ling was quick-witted and grabbed Li Hongyu's arm and pulled him towards him... Only then did he see clearly that it was not a person at all, but a corpse that had been dead for who knows how long but had not decayed.
The clothes on his body had long been ripped by the microorganisms in the water, and his limbs were swollen and looked a little stiff.
But after what happened just now, Chen Ling knew how fast the other party's movements were. He loosened his hand, took off the Sanqing Bell hanging on his waist, and shook it hard.
The corpse shook all over and began to pull out.
But soon after, another corpse crawled out from the mud at the bottom of the water.
Chen Ling shook the Sanqing Bell faster, but the Yin Qi under the water was too strong, so the effect was very limited. He cursed inwardly, pulled out the telescopic stick, turned his wrist, and hit the corpse's temple with the slightly thicker metal handle.
While the opponent is slow to move, raise your foot and kick him.
Li Hongyu also drew out the copper coin sword and chopped at the corpse with force. The corpse's arm was immediately broken at the shoulder, and thick black blood quickly dyed the lake water.
It was like a signal to start a war, and everyone felt the bottom of the lake shaking.
Chen Ling looked at the pairs of hands sticking out of the mud and shouted, "Retreat first!"
Li Hongyu refused to leave. His subordinates never came out of the murky waters. "You go first. I'll go find them."
Chen Ling was not a coward, so how could he leave these people alone? He immediately chased after them and swam with Li Hongyu towards the unknown waters.
The red signal stick didn't last long before it went out.
Chen Ling threw it away, broke off a new one and held it high in the water.
With the little light, the two of them finally found the people. Unfortunately, there were five of them, two of whom were lying at the bottom of the lake, with their air tubes pulled out and floating in the water, as lifeless as their owners.
When they saw the deputy team leader, the three of them seemed to have seen a savior. Their morale was immediately restored even though they had lost the strength to fight.
The leader raised his elbow and hit the corpse lying on his back, then pierced the opponent's body with the Seven Star Sword. Just when he thought he had successfully killed the opponent, the corpse suddenly opened its eyelids to reveal only the whites of its eyes.
He just grinned, and his five fingers turned into iron claws, grabbing towards the living person's heart.
In desperation, Chen Ling released the cursed whip from the telescopic stick, and swung it straight at the corpse's face with the force of breaking water, wrapping around his neck.
He gritted his teeth and pushed force towards himself. The curse whip was like a sharp soft blade and actually cut off the corpse's head.
Li Hongyu quickly disassembled the copper coin sword and threw one end of the red rope out, encircling his three colleagues.
The Five Emperors' Coins were meant to ward off evil spirits, and coupled with the red line, which was stained with the blood of countless evil spirits and carried an ominous aura, the copper coin line acted like a barrier wherever it passed, keeping the dead bodies out.
"Go!" Li Hongyu turned around and shouted.
Chen Ling didn't know why, but suddenly he stared blankly ahead.
He said, “I can’t leave.”
Countless dead bodies broke free from the mud at the bottom of the lake and swam towards them in dense groups. There were old and young, male and female, all of them had their eyes rolled up and their bodies were rotten and swollen.
No one knew whether these things would follow them back to the shore.
Chen Ling shouted through his diving helmet: "You lead them away, I'll cover them."
The underwater survey work was originally the task of the Special Investigation Department. Chen Ling was only involved because of the Yuan family's order. The one who should leave was Chen Ling, not Li Hongyu!
Li Hongyu pushed several of his subordinates and said, "Go first."
Human life is more important than anything else. When life is hanging by a thread, who would care about brothers and sisters and morality? The three of them just said, "Deputy team leader, be careful," and swam quickly to the surface without looking back.
Halfway through the swim, someone couldn't help but look back down.
Countless corpses crowded together, forming a black area that made his scalp tingle. He shuddered and swung his arms and legs desperately.
The water waves behind were shaking, but even the afterimage of the Sanqing Bell was shaken and could not withstand the overwhelming force.
Chen Ling's foot was grabbed by a hand. The dead body was wearing a tattered gown and jacket, and obviously did not belong to this era. He kicked the other's head with his other leg and took the opportunity to pull back his foot.
Li Hongyu glanced at him and was about to speak when a dead body pounced towards him.
The corpse was different from the others. It had sharp fangs in its mouth and had become a zombie.
Zombies are creatures that transcend the six realms and feel no pain, so their lives can only be cut off once.
Li Hongyu moved his fingers, and the straightened copper coin thread flew towards its owner as if it had its own life and wrapped around his hand.
His five fingers flew flexibly, and in the blink of an eye, the copper coin thread turned into a copper coin sword, chopping straight towards the zombie's face.
The seemingly blunt copper coin sword was not obstructed and it split the zombie's head in half like splitting tofu.
Chen Ling made a gesture to him, and he was not idle either. The curse whip in his hand became sharper after being stained with blood. He didn't know if it was his illusion, but Chen Ling always felt that the color of the spell on the curse whip was darker than before.
The long and sharp whip wrapped around a corpse, pulled and released it, and the corpse flew out, hitting several people who had just rushed over.
Chen Ling did not relax, but he could not kill so many things with his physical strength. He looked up and saw that many of them had already passed them and swam towards the surface of the water.
He needs a greater force.
Chen Ling had an idea and was about to take the risk of taking off his helmet and biting his finger to draw a talisman to summon thunder, when he suddenly caught a glimpse of a flash of red light at the bottom of the lake.
He was stunned for a moment and felt that it looked more like a pair of eyes.
The copper coin sword in Li Hongyu's hand was about to cut into pieces. Seeing the young man stunned, he quickly bumped him with his elbow.
Chen Ling came to his senses and immediately swung the cursed whip to make a path. His intuition told him that he was not mistaken, there was something else underneath besides these dead bodies.
Seeing that a group of reinforcements had come down from above, Chen Ling thought that Li Hongyu should be fine. He said, "I'll go take a look down there" and left.
All the dead bodies crawled out from the bottom of the lake. At this time, the water at the bottom of the lake had gradually become cleaner over time.
Chen Ling recalled the place where he had seen the red light before, and swam forward along the bottom of the lake. He soon discovered a problem from the traces in the mud. The further he went, the messier and denser the traces became in the mud at the bottom of the lake.
He swam faster and faster, and his body in the tight diving suit was like a bulky but flexible fat fish, quickly shuttling through an area of algae.
Compared with the places he passed before, the traces in this underwater area were larger, which meant that the corpses should have come from here, no... Chen Ling raised his head and looked forward through the glass with difficulty.
There was actually a huge pit in that place.
It is certain that this thing was definitely not there when they checked before.
Chen Ling suddenly felt his heart beating faster. He closed his eyes for two seconds to calm himself, then swam over with all his strength. He was stunned for a moment.
—The pit was filled with soaked bodies.
Most of them were sleeping with their eyes closed like ordinary corpses. A few of them stretched out their hands, rolled their eyes and struggled, as if they wanted to get up but couldn't.
This shabby place is simply a mass grave!
He hesitated for a moment, then dived downwards. Just as he was about to hit the bottom, a shadow appeared out of nowhere and threw him into the pile of corpses.
It was a hairy creature with red eyes, sharp fangs, and pointed nails that were trying hard to pierce through the young man's diving suit.
It's a hairy zombie.
Hairy zombies are a type of zombie. They are covered in hair, have strong skin and bones, and are agile in movement. The most deadly thing is that they are not afraid of sunlight and can move freely.
Chen Ling's scalp tingled and he cursed.
I am so unlucky! Why would I run into a hairy zombie at this time!
He raised his knee and pushed hard, but the opponent's abdomen was harder than rock and he felt no pain at all.
Mao Jiang exerted force with his fingers, and Chen Ling immediately felt that the waterproof suit was torn. He raised his head suddenly, and with a bang, the helmet hit the opponent's head heavily.
The force is mutual. When Mao Zhuang's head was knocked back, Chen Ling felt dizzy. He quickly looked at his arm and saw that it was bleeding.
That’s perfect, it saves you the trouble of having to unbutton your helmet and bite your fingers.
He hit the opponent's head with force again, and while the hairy zombie was retreating, he quickly climbed up from the pile of corpses. He waved his arms, and blood followed his movement trajectory, forming a large corpse-suppressing talisman in the water.
As he used his palm to forcefully strike the blood talisman, he chanted, "This sword of mine is an extraordinary sword. The stars of the Dou are shining, pointing to the heavenly Gang, pointing to the sky being clear, pointing to the earth being spiritual, pointing to everyone being immortal, pointing to ghosts being destroyed. This divine weapon is as urgent as a decree!"
It's not like he hasn't encountered zombies before. When he first met Zhao Xunchang, Chen Ling often watched his master catch ghosts. After all, he is the kind of person who will find ghosts even if he doesn't look for them.
One time, the two of them went out to buy yellow paper. When they stopped in a small village, they came across a dead body that was almost resurrected because it was buried in a bad place.
At that time, Zhao Xunchang used chicken blood mixed with cinnabar to draw talismans. He had to finish drawing the talismans while reciting the spell, and then use three incense sticks to fumigate it.
Not only did I have to draw this on the spot today, I don’t even have talisman paper to carry the magic power.
Chen Ling took a breath. He had experience in catching ghosts, but he had no idea how to catch zombies. He could only pray silently that it would work, otherwise he would be torn to pieces alive by this hairy zombie.
The blood spread in the water, and it looked like it had surrounded the hairy zombie from all directions. Chen Ling opened his eyes wide unconsciously and saw the hairy zombie open its mouth and roar, its eyes becoming increasingly red, and it grabbed his ankle.
And then... nothing happened.
The hairy zombie was frozen!