The skeletons at the bottom of the lake were tethered by aquatic plants. Judging by their frames, they included men, women, old, and young, and their clothing belonged to various dynasties.
Crucially, every one of these corpses was floating head-up. Some of the bones still held the struggling poses they had struck in their final moments.
It was eerie and utterly bizarre.
A small temple sat right in the center of these corpses.
It was an ancient temple.
In size and style, it was similar to the roadside Land God shrines common before the founding of the country, covering about four or five square meters. However, the idol enshrined within was not a god, but something that looked like both a snake and a fish, yet was neither.
Based on the architectural style, the experts on-site judged that the small temple dated back to the late Tang dynasty. Looking at its design, it appeared to be a rustic minor god worshipped by the locals of Xixiang.
In the gloomy depths of the lake, it was so dark that one could not see their own hand in front of their face; only the searchlights of the probe provided any illumination.
The moss-covered idol, the lifeless and deathly silent lake floor, the piles of accumulated bones, the unconscious living people floating in bubbles, and the colossal creature that could burst into the camera's view at any moment...
A suffocating sense of dread loomed over everyone.
What exactly was that thing?
Could it be the strange fish worshipped in the small temple?
If it really was, wouldn't that mean this fish had lived for several hundred years?
An intelligent, man-eating, giant monster fish had been living quietly in Mulian Lake for centuries.
Yet the surrounding people knew nothing of it. They had built their homes and settled by the lake, living off the land and the water.
None of the tourists drifting down on rafts knew that beneath this deep, bottomless lake, a colossal creature lay in wait.
Its sinister, icy gaze pierced through the layers of water, staring greedily and longingly at all fresh life.
Everyone couldn't help but feel a chill in their hearts.
“Collect samples from the lake floor as quickly as possible. Capture as much underwater footage as you can and map out the surrounding area to prepare for the rescue,” Zhang Jin commanded, suppressing the discomfort in her heart.
“Notify the divers to be on standby twenty-four hours a day—”
Before she could finish, the footage transmitted back from the probe shook violently, as if struck by a massive object. It only had time to capture a dull, heavy “thud!”
【Bzzzt... Bzzzt...】
The signal was completely cut off.
“There really is something down there! Get away from the lake surface! Everyone, spread out! Spread out!”
The operator dropped the controls and ran outside without a second thought, hoping to salvage the equipment. But even with his quick reflexes, he only managed to pull back a length of electrical cable that had been bitten to shreds.
The equipment was made of classified materials; it wouldn't have been destroyed so thoroughly even with explosives.
Looking at the terrifying teeth marks left on the cable, everyone felt a cold shiver down their spines.
What kind of monster was that?
With just one bite, it had crushed military-grade equipment into powder.
The answer was soon revealed.
The final footage sent back by the probe was specially processed and enlarged. They barely managed to capture the moment the dark shadow appeared and attacked:
It was a catfish.
A plump catfish whose body length was estimated to be over nine meters, nearly the size of a killer whale.
This creature, which was practically a monster, was cunning and suspicious. It had noticed the probe from the beginning but had stayed hidden in the shadows to observe. It only struck boldly after confirming it was harmless.
All previous speculations about why there were no fish in Mulian Lake were overturned.
To sustain a monster of this size, the fish resources in Mulian Lake were far from enough.
And for a catfish this large, if there were no fish in the lake, what would it choose to eat?
The answer was self-evident.
“Director Zhang.”
Zhuang Sinan pointed at the final frozen frame on the screen and said solemnly, “We have to find a way to save those people as soon as possible. Their faces are dark and their lips are purple; they’ve entered a state of ‘suspended animation.’ Although they’re still alive, their souls are already extremely weak.”
“See? You see? I told you this thing was a menace! Hiding quietly under the lake, eating so many people that the bones have piled up like this.
“The fact that these people aren’t dead yet means the thing underwater used to only eat flesh, but now it’s switched to eating souls. If we hadn't found it early, and it stayed hidden for another few decades until it could come ashore, not a single person in the surrounding villages would have survived.”
Ma Lanhua took a sharp breath and shook her head repeatedly.
“A person's three souls and seven spirits are stuck in the spirit, which is both the hardest and softest part. This thing is clever; it knows it can't force the souls out, so it does it bit by bit, like grinding tofu to squeeze the soul out, and then—slurp—it sucks it right up.”
As she spoke, she made a squeezing motion, making everyone present shudder.
It sounded like opening a tin can; it was bone-chilling.
Zhang Jin looked at Zhuang Sinan, who merely spread his hands and gave a bitter smile.
“Director Zhang, you don't expect me to go into the water, do you? You’re overestimating me. Although our Baishan Temple has passed down internal martial arts, my cultivation isn't deep enough. I can't do what my master and uncles do—turning the physical body into a blade or externalizing internal energy.
“Against a massive monster like this, even if all those masters from Longhu Mountain came, they wouldn't be able to do anything.”
Even though there was a Spiritual Resurgence, cultivation still required time.
“Although the original goal was just to confirm the source of the toxic miasma, since we’ve found the missing persons, their safety must come first.”
Zhang Jin gestured for the others to continue recording data while she turned around and made one phone call after another.
“This is Zhang Jin. Put me through to Qu Mingliang...”
“This is Zhang Jin. Yes, there’s been an accident on-site...”
“The missing persons have been found, but the underwater situation is complex. There may be a large, unknown man-eating organism. We need support.”
“...Yes, I take full responsibility...”
The phones in the operations tent rang incessantly. The secretary was drenched in sweat, explaining the situation to the other side one by one.
The Mulian Lake incident involved many parties. Tonight, countless people were already tossing and turning, staring at their phones. Within a few minutes, the images of the bones at the bottom of the lake and the missing persons were reported up through the ranks. Soon, Zhang Jin received the answer she wanted:
Military reinforcements would be sent to co-develop an operational plan. If necessary, lethal force was authorized.
...
...
Knowing the military was stepping in, everyone finally felt a weight lift from their hearts. Someone couldn't help but raise a question:
“How could this catfish grow so large without being discovered? As far as I know, there hasn't been anything unusual about the drowning accidents in Mulian Lake over the years. Where did all those bodies at the bottom come from?
“The police in our Xixiang region aren't so incompetent that they wouldn't notice so many missing people, right?”
To be fair, that was a valid point.
Drowning reports for every region were updated annually. If the data for a certain area showed an anomaly, it would be impossible for the local leadership to ignore it.
Zhang Jin stared at the map around Mulian Lake for a while, then suddenly said:
“Mulian Lake is connected to Stone River, and Stone River leads to the Yangtze River. This massive number of corpses would seem extremely prominent if they were all attributed to the Mulian Lake scenic area. But if you spread these numbers across the surrounding drainage basins—”
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 just this water monster's nest, with its size, it could easily swim upstream to hunt humans in the nearby waters and then return quietly to Mulian Lake...”
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