TRCP 218 PART 1

Chapter 218: The Qinghai Mystery PART 1

Dawn arrived amidst anxiety and sleeplessness.

There were no further incidents that night, but the previous night’s events had sounded the alarm.

While packing, they discarded many non-essential items, traveling light. If nothing unexpected happened, they would reach their destination that morning, rendering many things unnecessary, especially when facing the restricted zone’s creatures in close combat.

They crossed the mountaintop and continued forward. After crossing two smaller peaks, a magnificent rift valley appeared in their sight. Due to the surrounding snow, visibility was poor, making it difficult to gauge distance. Their only impression of the rift valley was its sheer size and length, like a giant axe had cleaved the earth, creating a shocking fissure. The rift snaked between two mountains, its beginning and end out of sight. They didn’t need to guess; this rift valley was the epicenter of the earthquake. Chu Xingzhou pointed at the chasm. “The last time we tested, the Puppet Jade’s signal came from within this rift valley.”

Zhuang Yao looked at Cheng Tianbi, “Do you have any impression of this place?”

Cheng Tianbi shook his head. “There was no snow on the mountains when I was here. The rift valley was formed after the earthquake.”

Mr. Sun sighed. “Indeed, this place is completely unrecognizable.”

The following parts of the text will be scrambled to prevent theft from aggregators and unauthorized epub making. Please support our translators by reading on secondlifetranslations (dot) com. If you are currently on the site and and you are seeing this, please clear your cache.

Rv vssj vblx vos bswap vs alynb vbl letl sq vbl akqv hyzzlu. Nssjkdt esod, lhlausdl oyp yolpvawnj cu vbl pktbv.

Mbl akqv hyzzlu oyp yv zlypv y jkzsxlvla ellr yde shla pkmvu xlvlap okel, kvp zldtvb kxxlypwayczl. Mblal oyp hltlvyvksd yde pdso yv vbl csvvsx, okvb y akhla qzsokdt vbaswtb kv, zkjlzu vbl ekhlavle Oypv Mykfkdya Skhla. Mbl akhla eked’v zssj okel, cwv vbl qynv vbyv kv byed’v qasgld kd pwnb zso vlxrlayvwalp oyp y osdela. Jlnywpl vbl akqv oyp ps ellr, xydu yalyp olal nshlale cu hltlvyvksd yde pdso, tkhkdt vblx sdzu y aswtb hklo sq vbl vlaaykd, obknb oyp zkjlzu lhld xsal nsxrzlm vbyd kv yrrlyale.

Mydt Mkdtgbk pyke, “Mbkp akqv kp iwkvl pvllr. Ohlausdl cl nyalqwz tskdt esod.”

Mbl pzsrl sq vbl akqv hyzzlu oyp ycswv 80 eltallp. Nssjkdt esod qasx ycshl, kv yrrlyale yzxspv hlavknyz. Mbl jkzsxlvla-ellr nbypx xyel vbl pvllr nzkqq oyzzp pllx lhld xsal eydtlaswp.

Qlvvkdt esod aliwkale lhlausdl vs wpl vblka yckzkvklp. Mbspl obs nswze qzu bye dsvbkdt vs osaau ycswv. Mbspl obs olal pxyzz yde zktbv olal nyaakle. Mbl xspv ekqqknwzv elpnldv oyp qsa vbl zyatl lhszhle ydkxyzp. Ew Zsw, Nk Pys’yk, yde Kyniwlzkdl vssj vwadp nalyvkdt qssvbszep sq knl, lyavb, yde rzydvp sd vbl nzkqq qynl qsa vbl ydkxyzp.

Gcw yde svbla qlzkdl lhszhle ydkxyzp, zkjl Tws Jyk, olal nsxrzlvlzu wdyqayke sq vbl pvllr pzsrl, dkxczu fwxrkdt esod vbl qssvbszep. Mbkp, bsolhla, vlaakqkle Usdt Dky yde vbl svblap pkvvkdt sd Gcw’p cynj. Rv qlzv zkjl Gcw oyp fwxrkdt hlavknyzzu esod y jkzsxlvla-bktb nzkqq. Mblu bye vs nzkdt vktbvzu vs Gcw’p qwa vs yhske clkdt vbasod sqq.

Gqvla lhlausdl alynble vbl csvvsx, vblu zssjle wr yv oblal vblu bye fwpv elpnldele, osdelakdt kq vblu bye alyzzu fwxrle esod qasx pwnb y blktbv.

Nkw Wldtuw vpjle voknl. “El’al esod, cwv R esd’v jdso bso ol’al tskdt cynj wr.” Usxkdt esod, vbl ydkxyzp nswze fwxr esod sd vbl qssvbszep rasvawekdt qasx vbl nzkqq qynl. Qskdt wr, bsolhla, oswze cl plhlayz vkxlp xsal ekqqknwzv.

Cong Xia laughed. “We don’t even know if we’ll make it out alive. Why worry about that?”

Liu Fengyu put his arm around Cong Xia’s shoulder. “Oh, you’re trying to scare people now? Getting brave, are we?”

“I’m not scaring you.”

“True, you have a point.”

As they were talking, they heard Mr. Sun’s surprised voice, “What? It’s gone?”

Cong Xia looked over and saw Mr. Sun using a small device to detect the Puppet Jade’s signal. Mr. Sun frowned, seemingly unable to accept the result.

Zhuang Yao asked, “Mr. Sun, what’s wrong?”

“The Puppet Jade’s signal has disappeared.” Chu Xingzhou added, “The last time I was here, I detected it around here. Even with errors, it shouldn’t be too far off. Now the signal is gone.”

Zhuang Yao said gravely, “This situation is worse than we imagined. It seems the Puppet Jade isn’t in a fixed location but on something.”

Everyone’s expressions changed.

There was a situation worse than the Puppet Jade being buried seventy meters underground, and that was the Puppet Jade being mobile. How could they find a small moving jade piece in such a vast snowy mountain? Moreover, the jade piece might be on a creature similar to the one that ambushed them last night.

“We need to be prepared for a long battle.” Mr. Sun sighed. “Everyone, check your food supplies and conserve. We won’t leave until we find the Puppet Jade.”

It was freezing here, and there seemed to be nothing around. Even hunting would be difficult. If there were evolved animals here, he wondered what they ate.

Mr. Sun sent Rong Lan and Cheng Tianbi, the fastest in the group, to search in the eastern and western directions of the rift valley, respectively, to decide which way to go.

After a while, they returned, one after the other. Rong Lan had gone upstream along the East Taijinar River. If they went in that direction, they would return to the endless snowy mountains. Cheng Tianbi had gone downstream and said there was a large cave at the end of the rift valley.

Naturally, they couldn’t go back to the snowy mountains, so they followed the river downstream.

As they walked, they noticed Abu intentionally or unintentionally moving closer to the riverbank, its gaze fixed on the water.

Deng Xiao also looked into the river and then exclaimed excitedly, “Hey, who said there’s no food? There are fish in there!”

Someone teased, “Oh, how big are the fish? Are you going to eat them, or are they going to eat you?”

Deng Xiao shouted, “This river is narrow and shallow, of course, they’re small fish, easy to catch.”

The river in the newly formed rift valley was indeed relatively shallow and clear, seemingly no more than two meters deep in the middle. It certainly couldn’t harbor any large fish. In any case, everyone was happy to hear there were fish in the river, at least they wouldn’t have to fight on an empty stomach.

Cong Xia stroked Abu’s head. “Want to eat fish?” Abu hadn’t eaten fish since the Qinghai Lake incident.

Abu meowed softly, turning its head, its beautiful and enormous purple eyes fixed on Cong Xia, filled with longing.

Cong Xia smiled. “If we rest by the river tonight, I’ll let you eat fish.”

Abu wagged its tail excitedly.

Deng Xiao leaned on Cong Xia, whining, “Cong gege, I want to eat fish too.”

Cong Xia laughed and pushed his head away.

Cheng Tianbi said, “Has Abu grown bigger again?”

Cong Xia nodded. “It’s a bit bigger than before. Its current size is comparable to the evolved animals in Golmud.”

Liu Fengyu said, “If it keeps growing endlessly like this, one day even the transport helicopter won’t be able to carry it.”

Zhuang Yao, who had been resting with his eyes closed, opened them and said, “It should stop growing once we leave this place. Abu is already an adult. Its size is normally fixed outside, and I don’t want it to grow too big.” He also glanced at the river, then paused, surprised. “This riverbed isn’t new.”

His words caught the attention of Mr. Sun and Tang Tingzhi, who rode their mounts to the riverbank. “This riverbed really isn’t new.”

Tang Tingzhi was astonished. “This is a thousand meters underground, in a desert area. There’s actually such a well-preserved riverbed, and it doesn’t look like an underground river, lacking many of the characteristics of one.”

Mr. Sun couldn’t help but jump off his mount and squat by the riverbank, studying it for a while. “This riverbed is very shallow. Although the riverbed existed before, the water comes from the East Taijinar River, meaning this riverbed was dry before. It only started flowing again after the East Taijinar River changed course.”

Zhuang Yao pondered, “A dry underground riverbed… That means long ago, an underground river flowed through here, and it flowed towards that cave. What’s in that cave? Where does this river ultimately flow?”

With unresolved questions, they continued towards the cave at the end of the rift valley. They were about to discover what lay within the cave. The thought filled them with a mixture of excitement and fear.

Since the path was flat, they walked quickly, reaching the cave entrance at noon. The entrance was many times larger than they had imagined, at least two hundred meters high and wide enough for five or six trains to run side by side. The rift valley split open here, extending for tens of kilometers, and this large cave appeared abruptly in the middle of the fissure, looking like an intersection of space and time, both magnificent and incredibly strange.

Mr. Sun touched the rock at the cave entrance. “This cave has existed for at least hundreds of millions of years. It’s because of its existence that the earthquake caused the fissures here to open up, allowing it to see the light of day…”

Tang Tingzhi murmured, “Such a large cave, buried between mountains, underground? Such a strange landform is truly rare, at least I’ve never heard of it.”

“Everything here is strange.” Zhuang Yao frowned. “An ancient riverbed, fissures opening up, a cave with a diameter of over two hundred meters that hasn’t collapsed, all buried under the snowy mountains. The earliest records of the mountains in this area of Qinghai date back to over sixteen hundred years ago, meaning this landform was already formed at least before then. It has experienced multiple earthquakes but has never been exposed, only this time…”

Cong Xia said, “If this is where the Puppet Jade was excavated, it doesn’t seem so strange. After all, the Puppet Jade itself is strange enough.”

Cheng Tianbi said, “The places where we excavated those Puppet Jades weren’t this deep. The deepest one was only 220 meters underground.”

“How long did you stay here? How many Puppet Jades did you dig out of the mountain?”