He waved Meng Jingwei away again, wanting to bear the danger alone.
"Or... maybe we shouldn't look? What if something is deadly?" Meng Jingwei hesitated, afraid of "curiosity killing the cat."
"We are currently in a secret chamber. If there is unknown danger and we don't know what the other party is, that would be the most dangerous."
For now, the two of them could not leave the secret chamber.
And in the secret chamber, they had found more than one skeleton. Although it was highly probable that they died of dehydration or starvation, other external factors could not be ruled out.
If this jar truly contained any life-threatening organisms, the sooner they knew, the better they could prepare.
"That makes sense."
Meng Jingwei nodded and stayed put.
Qing Muye took a few steps closer and picked up a large bowl from the side. The bottom of the bowl had three white circles, a very retro ceramic bowl.
Placing both bowls on the table, Qing Muye tilted his head and cradled the jar, pouring the water into the bowls before setting the jar down.
Illuminated by the candlelight, the water in the two bowls swirled for a moment before settling down.
The water was crystal clear. Under the candlelight, it shimmered with tiny specks of light, and the patterns at the bottom of the bowl were clearly visible, without a hint of impurity.
Meng Jingwei craned her neck, looking at the two bowls from a distance. There was no movement at all. Her brow furrowed into a knot. "Holy crap, this is too weird. The water is too clear, which defies common sense. The key is that there was nothing, so why was there such a loud noise earlier?"
The numerous doubts made her shudder with fear.
Qing Muye moved closer, but maintained a certain distance, carefully observing the water without noticing anything unusual.
The danger seemed to have vanished.
Meng Jingwei was no longer as fearful. She walked to Qing Muye's side, looked at the two bowls of water, and muttered, "These are just two bowls of water. The only oddity is that the water is clearly old, but it has no impurities and is crystal clear."
As she spoke, she took the dagger from Qing Muye's hand and stirred the water with its tip.
"Ah!"
Suddenly, Meng Jingwei let out a scream, flung the dagger away, and wiped the back of her right hand, which had been holding the dagger, with her left hand, as if something had stuck to it.
"Awei, what's wrong?"
Qing Muye pulled Meng Jingwei back a few steps, grabbed her wrist, and lifted her hand. He carefully examined the back of her right hand and was shocked to find a small, fingernail-sized anomaly protruding from her hand, moving across her skin.
"Knife! Knife! Qing Muye, quickly get me the knife!"
Meng Jingwei reacted quickly, wanting to cut her skin with the dagger to remove whatever was inside her.
"Okay."
Meng Jingwei turned and quickly went to the side to pick up the dagger. "Give me your hand."
As he spoke, he held her hand, intending to use the dagger to extract the thing that had entered her body. To his surprise, her hand looked perfectly normal, with no bulging object at all.
Everything happened so suddenly, like a dream, as if it had never occurred.
Meng Jingwei stood frozen, stunned for a moment. She reached out and touched the spot where it had previously bulged, feeling absolutely no abnormality.
"This... Qing... Qing Muye, am I... going to die?"
She pursed her lips, her entire being on the verge of collapse. "What on earth is it... Ah... It hurts..."
Before Meng Jingwei could finish her sentence, she suddenly clasped her head tightly with both hands. "It hurts so much, my head, my head hurts, Qing Muye, my head hurts so much..."
An instant burst of pain coursed through her body. Her head throbbed as if it would split. Meng Jingwei collapsed to the ground weakly, curling into a ball. Her hands, initially holding her head, began to repeatedly pound against it.
"It hurts... Help me, it hurts so much... Ow... It hurts..."
Meng Jingwei, who was known for her high pain tolerance, writhed on the ground. The pain, as if her head were about to explode, made her wish she were dead. She then desperately banged her head against the ground, creating dull thuds.
What seemed like a long time had actually happened in an instant.
Seeing her repeatedly banging her head against the ground, Qing Muye immediately pulled her into his arms. "Awei, what's wrong with you? Don't do anything foolish, here, bite my hand!"
Extreme pain can numb the brain, making one prone to accidentally biting their tongue or harming themselves.
Qing Muye, consumed by anxiety, was caught off guard by the situation. He could only extend his hand towards Meng Jingwei's mouth, urging her to bite it for her own safety.
"Hurts... Mmm... Mmm..."
Tears uncontrollably streamed from Meng Jingwei's eyes due to the pain. In a brief moment, her eyes turned red, her expression contorted and terrifying, a truly horrifying sight.
She kicked her legs frantically, pounding her head with one hand and gripping Qing Muye's hand with the other, biting down hard.
"Hiss~"
A pain that felt like tearing spread through her limbs. Qing Muye gritted his teeth in pain but forced himself to endure. "Bite, as long as you don't hurt... yourself... that's all that matters..."
Perhaps it was because Meng Jingwei was enduring immense suffering that she bit his hand with such force, almost tearing off the flesh.
Despite the intense pain, Meng Jingwei did not completely lose her senses.
When a bloody taste filled her mouth, her mind, which had been in a state of near blankness due to the pain, cleared slightly. She immediately released Qing Muye's hand and pushed him away. "Get away from me..."
Before Qing Muye could respond, he found the woman in his arms go limp and collapse.
"Awei? Awei?"
The sudden event startled Qing Muye. Even though he was usually calm and composed in the face of adversity, his heart pounded now, and he held his breath in fear.
He reached out to test her breathing and then felt her neck, confirming that the woman still had a pulse. Only then did his worried heart settle.
Gently laying Meng Jingwei flat on the ground, the man, eager to investigate, turned back towards the jar. He stood before the table, hesitated for a moment, and then cast a cold glance at his right thumb's thenar eminence, which was bitten open and bleeding profusely, with two deeply indented marks revealing the raw red flesh.
Qing Muye's hand trembled uncontrollably. Staring at the dripping blood, he raised his hand and let a drop fall into each of the bowls.
If the clear water contained colorless and odorless organisms, then it would become visible when mixed with blood.
Drop by drop, the blood fell into the bowls.
The water, which had been still moments before, began to ripple and splash again, as if something were struggling and thrashing within, causing large splashes.
Not only the two bowls but also the jar splashed water outwards. However, this was different from the vigorous churning of boiling water.
Qing Muye gasped and glanced back at Meng Jingwei lying on the ground. After a moment of silence, he reached his hand towards a bowl of water.
If something in the water had harmed Meng Jingwei, then he intended to find out what it was that had injured her.