Chapter 503: Everywhere Reveals Eeriness

"Ah!" Pei Mianman cried out in surprise, but immediately realizing that revealing her location in such a strange environment was not wise, she quickly clapped a hand over her mouth. She instinctively grabbed Zu An's arm and pressed herself tightly against him, as if only his proximity could offer her some warmth.

Feeling her body tremble slightly, Zu An silently mused that despite her usual commanding presence, she was still a young woman at heart. It was natural for her to be frightened by such a visually disturbing sight. Not just her, even he, a man, felt a chill run down his spine at the sight. If he had been alone, he probably would have screamed in fright. But with a woman beside him, and a beautiful one at that, for some reason, his fear instantly subsided.

It was no wonder that in his past life, companies often assigned men and women to work together on various tasks. Women could boost a man's courage and hormones, significantly improving efficiency, and men had a similar stimulating effect on women.

He cleared his throat and tried to comfort her, "Don't be afraid. They're just bones; they've been dead for ages."

Pei Mianman's face flushed slightly, clearly embarrassed by her reaction. "Hmph, I wouldn't be afraid if they were alive. By the way, is this an ancient battlefield?"

Zu An squatted beside a nearby skeleton, observing it for a moment. He then shook his head. "I don't think so. I haven't seen any weapons around here, so it's unlikely to be a battlefield."

"What if the victorious side massacred prisoners of war?" Pei Mianman countered. "Naturally, they wouldn't leave weapons near them. There's a legend that an ancient demon god once buried 400,000 surrendered soldiers alive. That's truly horrifying."

Zu An was momentarily stunned. Was she referring to Bai Qi? He hadn't expected such a legend to exist in this world. He had always felt an intricate connection between this world and Earth from his previous life. However, he had studied the geography of this world extensively at the academy, and if those descriptions were accurate, this world was far larger than Earth, making it impossible for them to be the same.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he replied, "It's also unlikely to be a massacre of surrendered soldiers. Their postures don't suggest they were bound with their hands behind their backs, nor are they kneeling. It doesn't look like a massacre of prisoners." He had just closely examined several nearby skeletons, so he had naturally noticed these details.

"What about being buried alive? I noticed you couldn't get a grip on the wall earlier." Pei Mianman approached the wall, poking it with a finger. It was hard, and coated with what felt like a layer of oil, making it incredibly smooth. "This seems designed to prevent anyone in the pit from climbing out."

"Buried alive?" Zu An's expression turned odd. "Didn't you forget something? There's no soil here."

Pei Mianman's face instantly reddened. She realized her mistake; if they had been buried alive, the skeletons would still be underground. The reason they fell was because the pit was hollow, with only a thin, fragile layer of soil above.

"Then what do you think happened?" she huffed, feeling quite flustered.

"I don't know how they died, but one thing strikes me as very strange: all their heads seem to be facing in the same direction," Zu An said, his expression serious.

Pei Mianman paused, then quickly scanned the surrounding skeletons. She had felt something odd before but couldn't quite place it. Now, with his observation, she finally understood: although the skeletons lay in various positions, they all shared one commonality—nearly every skull was lowered, as if staring at something beneath its own feet.

Zu An examined them further. "They weren't hanged, either; a hanged person's neck breaks backward, not causing the head to lower. I also specifically checked other areas: these skeletons have no obvious wounds on their bodies, proving they weren't killed by weapons. And their bones aren't blackened, so they don't appear to have been poisoned."

Pei Mianman's face went pale. "Don't scare me! You're making it sound more and more bizarre."

Zu An sighed. "This place is already strange. Anyway, there's no need for us to investigate their cause of death right now. Let's focus on finding a way out."

As he spoke, he approached the nearby wall and examined it. "Huh," he said, puzzled, "I remember we rolled down a long slope when we fell. How are these walls perfectly vertical now?"

"This place is too strange," Pei Mianman echoed, recalling how Zu An had held her as they tumbled down from above. Yet now, the surrounding walls met the ground at a perfect ninety-degree angle. Where was the slope they had just descended?

Zu An also felt a sense of unease. Shaking off the jumbled thoughts in his mind, he looked up, muttering to himself, "It doesn't seem that high, actually." The pit was about twenty meters deep, certainly too high for ordinary people to climb. But for cultivators, that distance was still worth attempting.

"Wait here for a moment. I'll try jumping up first," Zu An told Pei Mianman. He had jumped similar heights before, but usually needed a mid-air foothold. However, with these walls so smooth and hard, he could only attempt to jump out in a single leap. If he fell alone, he'd be fine, but Pei Mianman was injured. If he failed while carrying her and she was thrown down, that would be a problem.

"Mm, be careful!" Pei Mianman replied, standing obediently to the side, like a young wife.

Zu An nodded, then took a deep breath, bent his knees slightly, and pushed off the pit floor with a powerful thrust. His body shot upwards like a cannonball.

"I should be able to make it out," Zu An said with a smile as he neared the surface. He felt he still had plenty of upward momentum, so carrying Pei Mianman out later would certainly be no issue.

"Careful!" Pei Mianman's startled cry echoed from below.

Suddenly, with a *thump*, a sharp pain shot through the top of his head, and his ears buzzed painfully, as if he'd accidentally walked into a tempered glass door at a mall in his previous life. If his body hadn't been exceptionally resilient, he would have likely suffered a severe head injury and been covered in blood from that impact.

He cried out and plummeted from mid-air. Pei Mianman, nearby, rushed to catch him, but her severe injuries left her with insufficient strength, and both quickly tumbled to the ground.

Zu An quickly looked up. He seemed to have vaguely glimpsed a shimmering blue barrier appear above him. Sure enough, a transparent seal had materialized at the top of the pit. The pale blue runes etched upon it were incredibly strange, entirely unlike any he had seen in this world, yet they struck him as faintly familiar. What could they be? His mind raced, and then he suddenly exclaimed in surprise, "I remember now! These are *Taotie* patterns!" He had seen them before in museums and on television documentaries. Many bronze artifacts unearthed from the Shang and Zhou dynasties featured such patterns, sometimes called "*Taotie* patterns" and sometimes "beast patterns," but they essentially referred to the same thing.

"Can you get your hand off me?" an annoyed voice interjected.

Zu An looked down and realized he was sprawled directly on top of Pei Mianman. In his fall, one hand had instinctively reached out to brace himself and had landed precisely on her chest.

"So soft!" This was Zu An's first thought.

"So large!" This was Zu An's second thought, but he quickly snapped back to reality and released his hand. "Uh, would you believe me if I said that wasn't on purpose?"

"I know," Pei Mianman replied, her face slightly flushed, as she stood up with his help.

Now it was Zu An's turn to be dumbfounded. She wasn't angry at all? He recalled how, back at the academy, anyone who even pretended to accidentally brush against her would be relentlessly pursued by her black flames, often requiring a teacher's intervention to rescue them.

"How can there be a seal up there?" Pei Mianman asked, seemingly unfazed by their proximity, simply continuing to gaze upwards. "We just fell from up there."

As they spoke, the seal above, shimmering with blue light, slowly faded, eventually becoming transparent again. But both knew it was still there, ready to reappear if triggered.

"It seems we'll have to look for another way out of this pit," Zu An concluded. He could sense that the seal above was almost identical to the stone tablet they had encountered earlier, completely beyond their power to break.

Pei Mianman hummed, about to respond, when her voice suddenly trembled. "Why are those skeletons over there... their eyes are glowing..."

***