Book 3, Chapter 130: Sun Setting Cave

After the gathering, Chen Chuan spent the next few days keeping his family company and practicing his newly learned techniques. Once he was familiar with them, he asked for another session from Wen Tong.

In the beginning, he could only focus for three hours, but after a while, he managed to increase it to more than four hours. The length seemed to be increasing as he worked on it.

Before the end of the month, he managed to learn all that he needed to pick up, which was faster by one-third of the original schedule.

There were plenty of other things he needed to learn, of course, but they weren’t what he could master right now. He needed his blood essence and mind to work together for that; he didn’t have a solid enough foundation at the moment.

On this particular day, after Wen Tong taught Chen Chuan through resonating with his biofield again, he said, “I’ve taught you all the basic techniques, but you have ways to go before mastering them. This has nothing to do with talent. It’s simply because you’ve only just reached the Third Limit and haven’t built a solid enough foundation. Once your foundation improves, you’ll be able to use those techniques as easily as breathing.”

He smiled. “I’m going to teach you some special ways to train now. Pay attention.”

Through their biofields resonating with each other, Chen Chuan could sense Wen Tong’s mutated tissue guiding his own in a unique rhythm.

Then, Wen Tong brought his hand up and swung it in the air.

Boom!

A rumble as loud as lightning blasted by Chen Chuan’s ear and echoed in the air. A cloud of fog appeared on the back of Wen Tong’s hand before disappearing.

“That’s the Cloud Ripping Palm. It’s simple and practical. Before you attack, you need to have gathered a certain amount of energy. That’s why you don’t often see it during fights. It’s usually just used to train your mutated tissue and let you unify its power.”

Wen Tong slowly lowered his hand. “First, you need to make sure that you have accumulated enough energy for this attack. Then, the less time you need to deliver the attack, the better you become at unifying the power of your mutated tissue. Did you get a grasp of my demonstration just now?”

“I did,” Chen Chuan replied with a nod.

“When you go back, take your time trying it out. As for now, this will be the end of my lessons for you,” Wen Tong declared.

“Thank you, Mr. Wen,” Chen Chuan said gratefully.

“You don’t have to thank me. I’m only teaching you because Lao He asked me to, but I’m happy to have been able to meet such an outstanding young man like you. Head home now. We’ll have plenty of chances to see each other in the future,” Wen Tong said with a smile.

Chen Chuan nodded and saluted Wen Tong before leaving. When he reached his car, he turned around, only to find that Wen Tong was no longer around. Chen Chuan looked away, opened the car door, got in, and drove off.

Once he was back home, aside from practicing the new techniques, he would occasionally meet up with Ding Jiao and the rest of his friends. At the end of the month, they met up again, and a friend of theirs suggested, “Why don’t we go have fun at Sun Setting Cave?”

His words brought waves of objections.

“Are you crazy? You know as well as we do that plenty of people

died

in there!”

“But we have Xiao Chuan! He’s a martial artist!”

“And I don’t suggest going there. No matter how good I am, I can only protect myself. I can’t protect all of you,” Chen Chuan shot the idea down with a firm shake of his head.

Sun Setting Cave was famous in Yangzhi City as an underground cave. Plenty of people had died there, so the locals had strictly forbidden their children from going anywhere near it. Even so, every year, dozens of people would still go missing inside.

Around twelve years ago, a foreign exploration team had gone in, but not one of them ever came out.

Since the deceased people were all foreigners, the Great Shun Republic’s government didn’t bother doing anything about it, but this incident made the cave infamous in other countries. Foreign tourists and exploration teams often went inside. Some managed to make it back, but there were also some who were lost forever.

Because of this, some hotels were built around the area, and some local businesses provided services centered around the cave.

“What’s up with the crazy idea, Melonbread?” Ding Jiao grumbled.

“A few days ago, I read a newspaper article saying that an exploration team of more than ten people went in and came out. They said that they’re going back, and they even offered to bring other people to take a stroll around the entrance.

“I was thinking that since they managed to come back out, why don’t we follow them and take a look around the entrance? We should be safe if we don’t go far. We can then boast about it later.”

“It’s too dangerous. Forget it.”

“Exactly. Who knows whether there’s anything bad inside?”

“My mom is saving up for my wedding. If I disappear, all that money will go to my brother.”

Most of them were against the idea, but another said, “We would just be looking at the entrance, right? As long as we don’t go in, we should be fine. I’ve never seen what’s inside, even though I’m almost twenty. We should just go and take a look. Treat it as something interesting.”

Ding Jiao was quite surprised when he heard this, and he asked, “What do you say, Xiao Chuan?”

Chen Chuan thought about it before saying, “If we’re just going to take a look at the entrance, I suppose we can go. I’ve never been there myself.”

He was fine with them just looking around. While he wasn’t strong enough to save those who went in, he could easily prevent his friends from going inside.

“Alright. That’s settled. We won’t be going in and will just be taking a look at the entrance,” Ding Jiao declared.

With their plan set, Chen Chuan picked up five of his friends with his car on the next day. Meanwhile, Ding Jiao and four other of their friends rode on motorbikes to Jia Mountain, located southwest of Yangzhi City.

Jia Mountain was one of the three mountains mentioned in

the Legend of the Three Mountains,

and Sun Setting Cave was located at the foot of the western side of Jia Mountain. It was a secluded, rural area, which wasn’t developed during the Great Expansion. There was a military outpost there, but it was abandoned later. A bazaar was only set around the place after foreign exploration teams started frequenting the cave over the past decade or so.

Few supernatural beings appeared in the area, though it was likely because there were so few people around the place. Since no one actually lived there, even if some supernatural beings did show up, they didn’t affect the area much.

When the group arrived in front of Sun Setting Cave, they noticed that it wasn’t as deep and narrow as they thought it would be. It didn’t look foreboding either. The entrance was wide: It was more than twenty meters long and more than ten meters tall.

A lot of people and stalls were at the entrance, and there were people walking in and out of the cave.

Chen Chuan observed the place. The edges of the cave showed signs of people carving out the entrance, which meant that the cave wasn’t naturally formed, though it seemed like no one had actually taken the time to figure that out.

They arrived just in time to see the exploration team getting ready to head in. A large group of people surrounded them while gossiping. They had to have rushed over to watch this exciting event.

The exploration team wore professional equipment. They had impact-resistant helmets, head lamps, hooks attached to their waists, and large backpacks. The twelve of them seemed to be all foreigners. It was quite a large team, to be honest.

Chen Chuan listened to the gossip around them. Apparently, a wealthy merchant had hired these people.

That should be the truth, since one of the explorers was surrounded by the crowd, and he had two martial artists in charge of ensuring his safety beside him.

When his companions told him to return to them, he broke free and rejoined his team.

They took around half an hour to get ready, then checked their equipment again. As the people watched, they entered the cave one after another. Some of the spectators went down with them.

One of Chen Chuan’s friends looked eager to join them. “Are we just going to stand here and watch? Why don’t we go in to take a look too? We can come out after exploring the place a little.”

Some people were leading others in and out of the cave, so the places the guides led the other people were likely to be safe. The guides had gone in first to take a look to make sure that everything was safe. The people came out after venturing less than a hundred meters into the cave. In the end, they lingered around the entrance for a little while before coming out.

Chen Chuan was pretty sure that none of the guides would be willing to venture any further than that.

Even so, his friends were satisfied. Just exploring the entrance was enough for them to gain bragging rights.

After they left the cave, they decided to go hiking. After all, they were already here, so why not?

The southeastern side of Jia Mountain was perfect for hiking. There was also an old temple up there with a large number of peach trees. They could also see green hills and lakes in the distance. In all, the scenery was gorgeous.

Since it was peach season, they could pick all the peaches they wanted after paying a fee, but they couldn’t waste a single one of them. The group ate to their fill and only left the mountain in the afternoon.

Once Chen Chuan returned, he put the excursion to the back of his mind, and a few more days passed. When he only had five days left of his summer holidays, he started getting ready to go back to Central City.

At this time, Ren Shu called him.

“Mr. Chen, we received a mission from the Department of Administrative Affairs. Judging by the situation, it’s a supernatural-related mission, but we can’t be sure. That’s why we’d like to ask you for your opinion.”

They knew the extent of their strength, so when they received missions with some unknown details, they would reject them. This time, however, the Department of Administrative Affairs had assigned the mission to them. Coincidentally, Chen Chuan was around, so Ren Shu decided to ask him how to complete it.

“Could you give me the details?” Chen Chuan asked.

“Alright. A few days ago, an exploration team—”

Surprise stirred in Chen Chuan’s heart, and he asked, “Are you talking about the exploration team that went into Sun Setting Cave?”

“You heard about it too? Yes. It’s about that one. The exploration team went into Sun Setting Cave twice. The first time, all of them managed to get out, but the second time, something went wrong, and only three people made it out.

“This in itself isn’t strange, since disappearances are common there, but a series of strange events happened later.”

He paused for a moment before continuing. “Twelve years ago, a foreign exploration team disappeared in the cave. Have you heard about it?”

“I heard about it from people around me talking about it, but I was a kid at the time, so I don’t know the details,” Chen Chuan said.

“These two events are related. The three people who came back weren’t from the team who went in a few days ago. They’re... from the group who went in twelve years ago. They’re the two security guards from back then, and the investor.”

“The group from twelve years ago?” Chen Chuan started paying more attention to the mission.

“That’s right! Those three people are from the group which disappeared twelve years ago. When we asked them about it, they didn’t know that twelve years had passed. They thought that only three days had passed since they went into the cave.”

“Any other details?” Chen Chuan asked. If that was all, Ren Shu wouldn’t have called. He was sure that there was more to the story.

“The three people were shocked when they learned about what had happened and said that they wanted to go home and see their families, but that very night itself, all of them died. Their flesh and skin disappeared. Only their skeletons were left. Their clothes also became tattered and mottled,” Ren Shu said.

Chen Chuan pondered over this for a while before saying, “I’ll go take a look.”