Judging by their silhouettes alone, the white bones tethered by water grass on the lake bed belonged to men and women, young and old, wearing clothing from various historical dynasties.
The only common trait was that all these corpses floated head upward, and some skeletons still preserved the struggling postures from their final moments.
It was eerie, bizarre to the extreme.
A small temple sat right in the center of these corpses.
It was an ancient temple.
In size and specification, it was similar to the roadside Land God temples commonly seen before the founding of the republic, occupying an area of four or five square meters. However, what was enshrined inside was not a deity statue, but a creature that looked like a snake yet wasn't quite a snake, like a fish yet wasn't quite a fish.
Based on its architectural style, experts on site estimated that the small temple dated roughly back to the late Tang Dynasty. Judging by its appearance, it was likely a minor local deity worshipped by the native folk of Xixiang.
At the gloomy, pitch-black bottom of the lake, where one couldn't even see their own hand, only the probe's floodlight offered illumination.
The moss-covered idol, the lifeless and deadly silent lakebed, the sprawling heaps of white bones, the unconscious living people floating inside bubbles, and the colossal creature that might burst into the camera lens at any second...
A suffocating oppression hung thick over everyone's head.
What on earth was that thing?
Could it be the strange fish enshrined in the small temple?
If it really was, didn't that mean this fish had lived for several centuries?
An intelligent, man-eating giant monster fish had been living so quietly in Mulian Lake for hundreds of years.
Yet the people in the surrounding area knew nothing of this, making their homes and settling by the lake, living off the mountains and waters.
None of the tourists who went rafting down on inflatable rafts knew that deep beneath this dark, bottomless lake lurked a colossal creature.
Sinister, icy eyes stared straight through the layers of water, gazing greedily and thirstily at all living beings.
A chill ran through everyone's heart.
“Collect lakebed samples as soon as possible, capture as much underwater footage as you can, and draft a map of the surrounding area to prepare for the rescue operation.”
Zhang Jin suppressed the discomfort in her heart and commanded calmly:
“Notify the divers to be on standby twenty-four hours a day—”
Before her words could fully fade, the feed transmitted from the probe shuddered violently, as if struck by a massive creature, leaving behind only a dull thud!
Zzz... zzz...
The signal cut out completely.
“There really is something under the water! Move away from the lake's surface! Scatter! Everyone scatter!”
Dropping the controller, the operator sprinted outside recklessly, desperate to salvage the instrument—but no matter how fast he moved, he only managed to haul back a section of shredded cable.
The equipment was made of military-grade confidential materials; even explosives wouldn't have shattered it so thoroughly.
Looking at the gruesome bite marks remaining on the wire, everyone felt a cold shiver down their spines.
What kind of monster was that?
With just one bite, it had crushed a military-grade probe to pieces.
The answer was soon revealed.
The final frame sent back by the probe was specially processed and magnified, barely managing to capture the shadowy figure from its appearance to its ambush:
It was a catfish.
A plump catfish with an estimated length of over nine meters, almost rivaling a killer whale in size.
This creature, practically a monster-level beast, was cunning and suspicious. It had spotted the probe from the very beginning, hiding in the shadows to observe in secret, striking ruthlessly only after confirming it posed no threat.
All previous speculations about why there were no fish in Mulian Lake were utterly overturned.
To sustain a monster of this size, the fish resources in Mulian Lake were nowhere near enough.
And if there were no fish in the lake, what would a catfish this big choose to eat?
The answer was self-evident.
“Director Zhang.”
Zhuang Sinan pointed at the final frozen frame on the screen and said grimly:
“We must find a way to rescue them as soon as possible. The people at the bottom of the lake have dark complexions and purplish lips—they've entered a state of ‘suspended animation.’ Though still alive, their souls are extremely weak.”
“Look at that, see what I told you? This thing is evil to the core! Hiding quietly under this lake, it’s eaten so many people that the bones have piled up like this. Since these people aren't dead, it means the thing underwater used to eat only flesh, but now it’s switched to eating souls. If we hadn't found it early, in another few decades, once it could come ashore, not a single person in the nearby villages would survive.”
Ma Lanhua took a sharp breath, shaking her head repeatedly:
“A person's three souls and seven spirits are trapped inside their body—it's both the hardest and softest state. This creature is clever, too. Knowing it can't force the souls out, it grinds them out bit by bit like making tofu, and then slurps them right up—”
As she spoke, she made a squeezing gesture, sending a shudder through everyone present.
It sounded like opening a can, creepily unsettling.
Zhang Jin turned her gaze to Zhuang Sinan, who merely spread his hands with a bitter laugh:
“Director Zhang, you don't expect me to go underwater, do you? You think too highly of me. Although our Baishan Temple passed down mental arts and internal cultivation methods, my cultivation is lacking. I can't turn my flesh into a blade or project my inner qi outward like my master and senior uncles. Against a giant monster like this, even if all the Daoist Masters from Longhu Mountain came, they'd still be helpless.”
—Even with the Spiritual Resurgence, cultivation required time.
“Although our original purpose was only to confirm the source of the toxic miasma, now that we've found the missing people, their safety must take top priority.”
Zhang Jin motioned for everyone to continue probing and recording, while she turned around and placed one phone call after another:
“This is Zhang Jin. Put me through to Qu Mingliang...”
“This is Zhang Jin. Yes, an unexpected situation occurred at the site...”
“We have located the missing persons, but the underwater situation is complex. There may be a large, unknown man-eating creature down there. We need reinforcement.”
“...Yes, I take full responsibility...”
Telephones rang non-stop inside the command tent. Sweating profusely, the secretary explained the situation to the callers one by one.
The Mulian Lake incident involved many interests. Countless people were tossing and turning while staring at their phones tonight. Within a few minutes, video footage of the underwater bones and missing persons was escalated through the ranks, and Zhang Jin soon received the answer she wanted:
Military reinforcements would arrive to jointly formulate an operational plan, with authorization to open fire if necessary.
...
Knowing the military was stepping in, everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief. Someone couldn't help asking in doubt:
“How could this catfish grow so large without being discovered? As far as I know, the drowning accidents in Mulian Lake haven't shown any anomalies over the years. Where on earth did all those corpses underwater come from? The police departments in our Xixiang region aren't so incompetent as to miss that many missing people, are they?”
Indeed, that was an honest truth.
Drowning reports across regions were updated annually. If an anomaly appeared in local data, local leadership could not possibly turn a blind eye.
Zhang Jin stared at the map surrounding Mulian Lake for a moment, then spoke up:
“Mulian Lake connects to Stone River, and Stone River flows into the Yangtze River. Such a massive number of corpses would look extraordinarily prominent if confined to the Mulian Lake scenic area alone. But if we spread those numbers across the surrounding river basin—”
She spread out the map and drew a large circle around Stone River and the Yangtze River:
“Large animals have their own territories. If Mulian Lake is merely this water monster's lair, with its size, it could easily swim upstream, prey on humans in nearby waters, and then quietly return to Mulian Lake...”
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