...
Zhou Mo threw a confused glance at the claw marks on the ground that looked like the handiwork of a dog. He turned over in his mind the crocodile's gestures just now, yet found himself utterly unable to associate them with that statement.
"Has anyone approached here before?"
Chen Fan asked again.
The crocodile nodded, then shook his head.
Zhou Mo silently guessed what this motion meant. Had anyone approached or not?
"You mean some people have."
"But you sensed them and drove them away, right?"
The crocodile nodded.
"Have any Eerie Creatures approached?"
The crocodile nodded again, then shook his head.
"You mean, there were before, but it's been a long time since any Eerie Creatures approached, right?"
The crocodile nodded.
"When was the last time an Eerie Creature approached?"
"A year ago?"
The crocodile nodded as his front claw patted the ground.
"Got it."
Chen Fan let out a light sigh, something complex passing in his eyes. "Now everything is clear. This is Heyhey's parents' cave."
"But his parents left a long time ago, though for some reason they didn't take Heyhey with them back then."
"After that, although Heyhey has had his own home, he has always protected his parents' lair, not letting anyone approach. The aura from his parents' habitation has also kept ordinary Eerie Creatures away."
"The last time Eerie Creatures approached was a year ago."
"And that was exactly when Dayu's village was destroyed."
"Heyhey's lair is right by the cliff."
"A group of intelligent Eerie Creatures tried to lure Heyhey away by breaking in here, then plunged into the abyss pit to attack Dayu's village."
"If that's the case..."
He narrowed his eyes, then continued.
"This group of Eerie Creatures clearly acted on command, but not from the Eerie King we have known about; last night was obviously the Eerie King's first time sending troops to Nameless Mountain. So they were most likely subordinates of another unknown Eerie King."
"An natural Eerie Fire Zone."
"A small village."
"What was worth such elaborate tactics? Unless there was what they were seeking down there. Did they get it?"
"Most likely not."
"That night, Dayu exploded with power and killed all the Eerie Creatures."
"That is to say—"
"There should be treasures both inside this cave and beneath the Eerie Fire Zone."
"The treasure that the unknown Eerie King was after obviously wasn't the 'Mountain Embryo Skeleton,' but something beneath the Eerie Fire Zone..."
"Let's go."
After thinking for a moment, Chen Fan looked at Zhou Mo beside him and said softly, "Now we have a clear picture. Heyhey, you lead the way. We are going down to take a look."
...
Zhou Mo stayed expressionless, not voicing any questions.
He thought of his name as well-chosen. (Mo is the pronunciation of '默' in Chinese; it means 'silence'.)
It was best to keep silent.
In fact, he was curious how the Station Master had understood the crocodile's simple and contradictory body language. If the crocodile nodded and shook his head at him, he'd think the crocodile was having a seizure.
...
The inside of the cave was brightly lit.
Every few steps, the wall was inset with a pebble that glowed a cordial yellow—the same as in Heyhey's cave. Even the size and spacing of the "pantries" perfectly matched Heyhey's cave.
The only difference was that this cave was wider.
"Heyhey."
Chen Fan suddenly laughed as he followed behind the crocodile. "Have you never seen your parents as long as you can remember?"
The crocodile didn't look back, just whimpered.
The distance between every wall-mounted pebble was the same as in Heyhey's cave.
This suggested that Heyhey had done nothing but copy.
And this one-to-one imitation was usually adopted when a small child had no idea how to survive an unfamiliar environment. That sense of insecurity was terrifying to a child, so they imitated all the traces their parents left.
Actually, he had felt a bit puzzled when he first saw Heyhey's lair. The entrance of that cave was slightly higher than the ground.
That was a design to prevent rainwater from flowing into the cave.
But—
When he first came to this mountain, he noticed that all rainwater would turn into a dissipating mist, unlike in the wasteland, where rainwater would seep into the cracks.
Unless there was a great downpour, even a puddle was unlikely to appear here, much less a flood.
Given this, it seemed unnecessary to design a raised entrance. Rainwater couldn't possibly inundate the cave.
Of course.
The rainwater in the rainy season was special. Outside of it, rainwater wouldn't be absorbed, and there was still a risk of flood, which Chen Fan had guessed might have prompted this design by Heyhey.
But now it struck Chen Fan that when Heyhey dug his own lair, he probably had designed little, if any.
He had done no more than copy one-to-one the cave his parents had dug.
...
"Station Master."
"Maybe something's amiss?"
Zhou Mo, seated beside Chen Fan, glanced back uneasily and muttered.
The passage was well-illuminated.
Nothing unusual.
But...
It was too deep. The crocodile had crawled for half a shichen(1 shichen equals 2 hours) with the two of them on his back.
Heyhey didn't speed along; he seemed to be proceeding with great care, much slower than when going up the mountain, but still faster than they could run. The cave seemed bottomless.
He even believed that they were already at a great depth underground.
And they were still heading deeper and deeper.
"Wait and see."
Chen Fan gave a concise reply, watching silently from Heyhey's back as he carried them deeper underground. He had roughly guessed why this guy had moved out.
Every trip out or back took too long.
It was indeed tiring.
Even after eating your fill, you'd get hungry again before reaching your bed.
But given Heyhey's meticulous manner, in fear of shaking off even a speck of dirt, he clearly cherished the lair of his parents. This was probably Heyhey's only emotional support.
And the fact that Heyhey had brought him here meant, in a way, that it considered him family besides his parents.
Actually...
This little guy was just a baby crocodile abandoned since childhood.
They passed another pantry.
He looked over, and sure enough, another empty one.
Along the way, he had seen many pantries, all empty. He strongly suspected that when Heyhey's parents had stayed here before, filling all these pantries would have cost the Rivernorth Wasteland at least a tenth of the Eerie Creatures.
Just then—
The view ahead opened up. The passage came to an end, and at the end was a massive cavern, where the crocodile drew to a slow stop.
Finally, they had arrived.
This was the deepest part of the cave.