As the last of them entered, we too began to move.

Initially, the cave was cramped and low, forcing us to stoop as we walked. A careless straightening of the back would result in a bumped head.

No longer seeing those things, we quickened our pace.

Gradually, the space opened up.

Ahead, an exit loomed like a door, with faint light filtering through.

"Is this the end?" Chen Jiansheng asked.

Red Sister shook her head. "Unclear. Let's hurry over and take a look; don't get left behind."

I, being agile, ran the fastest.

But I nearly went over the edge when I couldn't stop in time.

Stones tumbled down as Chen Jiansheng yanked me back from behind.

"What's the rush, kid? Got a death wish?"

I stepped back, my heart still racing.

Before us, the drop from the cave's mouth to the ground below was at least twenty meters.

A vine-made rope dangled, clearly the only way down.

"Chen the Logistician, with your skinny arms and legs, think you can manage?" Chen Jiansheng turned to ask.

"Don't worry about yourself dying; no need to fret over others," Red Sister retorted.

"Fine then," he said, gripping the vine. "I'll slide down first and scout ahead."

His descent revealed his experience; he knew to use his legs against the wall to regulate his speed.

In just five or six minutes, he had slid down the twenty-odd meters to the bottom.

Chen Jiansheng let go of the rope and waved at me and Red Sister, signaling us to follow.

Red Sister went next. She wasn't as quick as Chen Jiansheng, but her descent was steady, showing she had some training too.

Compared to them, I was rather clumsy. Lacking technique, the rope chafed painfully against my hands.

Reaching the bottom, I saw my palms were raw and bleeding.

Seeing my sorry state, Chen Jiansheng teased, "Kid, you need more practice. Use your legs when sliding down a rope, don't stubbornly cling so tight."

The three of us continued onward.

The space below was vast, with marks of human excavation on the walls and two stone pillars standing in the center, with steps leading underground between them. It was very dark.

"Is your flashlight still working, Cloud Peak?" Red Sister asked.

I turned on my flashlight to check.

"There's a bit of battery left, Red Sister, but it won't last more than an hour."

"Hmm," she frowned, eyeing the steps that led into the darkness below, "Let's go down and have a look."

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

And so, we began our descent along the steps.

Initially, we had our flashlights on, but as we walked, torchlight started to flicker ahead of us.

Chen Jiansheng cursed under his breath, "Damn, these freakish things know how to use fire. I wonder if they can cook. I'd genuinely like to taste what a Mountain Goblin's cooking is like."

After he spoke, for a fleeting moment, I saw him as my Second Brother. When I came back to my senses, I felt a pang of sadness because Second Brother was just like that—careless with his words, speaking whatever came to mind, regardless of the situation.

The stone-paved path under our feet, we had only walked for a few minutes when Red Sister suddenly cautioned, "Stop, don't move. Listen, do you hear that?"

There was a turn in the path ahead. I pricked up my ears and listened intently; indeed, I could hear a squeaking noise coming from the front.

It was those creatures.

Hiding around the corner, we cautiously peered inside.

We saw the short-statured beings chattering away noisily.

In front of them was a circular stone platform, and atop it lay one of their dead.

Soon, they stopped their squeaking, as if they had come to a consensus.

Suddenly, one of them jumped onto the platform. It fumbled over its body for a moment and pulled out something pale green, resembling a small axe.

Chen Jiansheng's eyes bulged as he suppressed his excitement, "Look, do you see it? That's what I was talking about earlier, those damn beasts actually stole it! That's the Yue Axe! This proves I wasn't lying to you—look closely!"

With a smack, the creature raised the pale green Yue Axe high and brought it down with force.

Strike after strike.

The scene was gruesome; in just a few blows, the dead creature's head was smashed to pieces, with yellowish-white substance oozing all over the circular platform.

Seeing this, the others swarmed forward, jostling and leaping onto the platform, their hats forgotten as they began to frenziedly lick up the yellow-white substance.

The spectacle was not just terrifying but nauseating.

The air was thick with the stench of blood, and my stomach churned, the nausea almost making me vomit.

Red Sister was hardly faring any better.

Both of us were terribly sickened when we suddenly heard Chen Jiansheng mutter, "What the hell are they doing, slurping up Tofu Pudding?"

After they had licked the platform clean, the creatures gradually paired off and disappeared into the darkness.

Once they were gone, naturally, we emerged.

On the circular platform, the creature's head was no longer recognizable, having been devoured clean by its companions, leaving behind some of the yellow-white remnants.

Chen Jiansheng was the first to notice that there were inscriptions on the stone platform.

The engravings were likely in Bird Seal Script, but due to the passage of time, some of the characters and radicals in the Bird Seal Script had become illegible. Suppressing our revulsion, we pushed the corpse aside, revealing a clearer row of Bird Seal Script below.

"Red Sister, do you recognize this?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Out of these several dozen characters, I can only make out one," she said, pointing to one of the Bird Seal Script characters. "I've seen this one on other pieces of bronze ware before; it should be a character for 'sacrifice'."

"Sacrifice?" I asked curiously. "As in, the sacrifice used in rituals?"

"Yes," she replied, her expression growing solemn with a nod.

"Looking at it this way, this place must be an altar," Chen Jiansheng surmised, taking in our surroundings.

The practice of sacrifice is ancient and persists to this day—burning paper during Qingming Festival and incense in temples are modern forms of ritual offerings.

However, during the Shang Dynasty and the early Western Zhou Period, the word 'sacrifice' was synonymous with blood and death.

Due to the prevalence of the slavery system, the Shang-Zhou era rarely involved the sacrifice of the Six Livestock; instead, human sacrifices were disturbingly common.

Slaves would be beheaded on the sacrificial altar, and afterwards, their skulls would be placed in a type of bronze ware called a 'lian.' Within this bronze 'lian,' the wizard presiding over the ritual would take a knife and puncture a small circular hole in the crown of the skull. The circular hole was made because people at the time believed the heavens were round.

This act was meant as an offering, to release the soul of the tribute to the heavenly gods. This was just one use for the sacrificial altars of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. There were many other methods, all of them cruel and malevolent forms of sorcery.

In the tombs of the Western Zhou, there was often a pattern: once a sacrificial altar was discovered, it was almost certain that within a five-meter radius, there would be a pit for human head sacrifices or a pit for human bone sacrifices.

And indeed, we had found this human sacrifice pit.

It lay to the northwest of the round altar. (To be continued)

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