Chapter 256
256 Trapped?
The next morning.
The sky was not yet clear when the sound of crowds on the mountain near the cold rock cave attracted the attention of BeiYau who was on guard in front of the stone cave. There were several Medicine Valley disciples running towards the Ou healer who was nearby.
“Teacher, look at this, everything has turned to stone” cried YoTang carrying some fruit-like objects in a big basket, but all of them hardened like stone.
“This is so weird, did all the fruit that was near there turn out like this?” asked the healer Ou, some of the students behind YoTang nodded,
“Yes Master, everything is like this, and the leaves are also all withering, almost all the trees that were fertile look old and dead”
YoTang frowned a little worriedly.
“What are we going to do, Master? Many important medicinal plants are there, and today its all turned like this, we have lots of patients who need it.”
Other disciples exclaimed in unison.
“Yes Master, this is very troubling, what if all the medicinal plants can’t be used anymore? So many people come for these”
.....
Physician Ou took a deep breath, he looked around the Cold Stone cave which is now changing like an area with four seasons, different colors of plants, soil, on the other part it gets cold to below normal temperature, on the other part the trees die from drought, and other parts again, all the plants turn to stone and dirt, this has never happened before.
Physician Ou turned his head when he saw the Crown Prince coming out of the cave, for a moment the Crown Prince looked at BeiYau.
“Bei where is lord Shin at?” he asked.
BeiYau pointed towards the front where ShinYa was seen observing the strange event with the other disciples, healer Ou approached the Crown Prince.
“Your Highness”
LuoXiang briefly looked at ShinYa, then responded to healer Ou.
“Healer Ou, YingYing’s condition has nothing to do with all this right?”
Physician Ou lowered his head while saluting.
“Report Your Majesty, this has nothing to do with His Majesty the Viceroy, all these natural phenomena have indeed happened in the past, as I said last night when my Master was still around because he was the only one who mastered the science of temperature change, but, this is very strange since Teacher isn’t here. All of this hasn’t happened in a long time.”
“And this coincidence happened when YingYing was here? You think this is just happening by a chance?”
Physician Ou stuttered, the old man himself did not know what was happening at this time.
“Eh that, Servant also still think about how this can possibly happened”
LuoXiang was about to return to the cave again when the shouts towards ShinYa and the Medicine Valley disciples caught his attention.
“Wahhh!”
Crown Prince glanced at BeiYau ordering him to see what was going on, screams of panic were seen near ShinYa, before long a fire was burning rapidly in front of the young shaman, the disciples of the medicine valley were running around while one of the youngsters was seen trying to extinguish the fire that was burning his clothes.
“Ah, where did this fire come from?”
...
While in the stone cave.
BaiYing who was sitting back in the hot spring pool opened his eyes, a faint scream from outside woke him up, the young man looked around, not finding the Crown Prince anywhere.
“Your Majesty”
While he suddenly felt so hungry, this time he felt very hungry as if he had not eaten for days.
“Your Majesty”
BaiYing glanced around, his hoarse voice probably only reached the front of the entrance, the young man slowly got up from the pool, grabbed the pile of clothes on the rock, and quickly put them on, the air somehow warmed up for a while now, where he just felt so cold before entering the hot tub.
BaiYing will just go out and immediately look for food on his own, the Crown Prince must have been so tired of waiting for him that he left first, that bastard, he grumbled in his heart.
When he was about to head towards the exit, suddenly a voice from the inside of the cave made BaiYing stop in his tracks, he had never heard that sound before, but was quite curious about what was inside for days there.
But, his stomach is already very hungry, does he still have the energy to find out? BaiYing was about to ignore it, but just one step towards the exit, the sound from the inside of the cave which was only a stone wall made him turn his head again.
“What’ is it? It’s very noisy” resembling a scratching sound on a stone wall, maybe an animal is trapped inside?
BaiYing approached the inner wall of the cave, looking for the origin of the sound, there were several recesses in the wall that were overgrown with moss because it was very humid, armed with light from a makeshift oil lamp on the wall he slowly approached.
“Em hello, who’s there?” the young man slowly stepped closer, glanced at the recesses in the wall, trying to see what was the cause of the sound, until his feet stepped on a mossy stone,
“Ouch!” BaiYing tried to hold on to anything so as not to slip,
“Wow” he tried to hold his body by holding on to one of the rocks sticking out of the wall, however, the rock moved and he can’t avoid the fell down with it.
“Ah!”
There was such a big tremor in the cave as if an earthquake had occurred, BaiYing tried to get up but the rock beneath him was moving as if spinning in another direction.
“No” BaiYing’s eyes went wide, the stone circled the wall to the other side of the cave.
Vibrations were felt until they came out of the cave, the Crown Prince’s eyes widened, without thinking twice he ran back into the cave.
“YingYing!”
As fast as he could before the tremors actually stopped, and something really happened, he didn’t see YingYing in the cave that had only one front room and one part of the hot spring pool, the young man wasn’t in there.
“No Ying Ying!” LuoXiang had a bad feeling, this cave only had one way out and BaiYing didn’t come out of it, then where was he?
“YingYing!”
While on the other side behind the cave wall, BaiYing tried to stand up and hit the wall that had stopped spinning, he was trapped in another room.
“No, Your Majesty!” he cried, hitting the stone wall and screaming, how could he be so unlucky? And the room behind him was very dark, he was very afraid of the dark, there must be something terrible in it and he did not dare to look at it.
“Your Majesty, oh no”
While outside.
The Crown Prince was restless trying to look for BaiYing everywhere, but there was no sight of the boy anywhere, he immediately shouted for BeiYau and the others to come in to help search.
“YingYing!”
His loud voice echoed but did not reach BaiYing’s ears who were behind the inner wall of the cave. BaiYing opened his eyes wide, the surroundings were dark and cold, there wasn’t any sound there, according to YoTang’s story if inside the cold cave there is an ancestral tomb that is very hidden, could it be that he has already entered the tomb.
He was cold and hungry, the sound of the worms in his stomach was even louder than any sound at the moment, instead of staying silent he had to try to find a way out, there was a speck of light not far in front of the road, hopefully not far away, be careful not to slip again BaiYing staggered, his leg had sprained when he fell earlier and it was very painful, why did he have to be so unlucky?
That speck of light led BaiYing to another room in the cave, his eyes widened, as soon as he stepped into the cold cave floor, all of the torches lit up, from where he stood until he circled a very large room, bigger than he could imagine.
“Wow, what room is this?
The room was so beautiful, BaiYing didn’t expect that in the cold cave there was a room resembling his room in the Medicine Valley bungalow, this looked like a room complete with a table and bed, also a couch, and some decorations near the stone wall.
Not far in front of him, BaiYing saw something was on the bed, he almost fell backward surprised by what he saw, someone, or, maybe a figure as if sitting cross-legged on the bed, looking from a distance maybe a little dirty and frail like a skull wrapped in thick clothes.
“Oh, this is really a tomb, right?” he mumbled inside his head.
How did he get there? Isn’t that tomb on the other side of the cold cave? According to Physician Ou even the entrance was so tightly guarded that not a single snake could enter, then, how did he get in?
######