"Where do you think you're looking?" The thick, ridged leg engraved with a human face jabbed toward Chen Ge, stopping just in front of his eyeball. The boy seemed to hate being looked at like that.
"Sorry, I got a little carried away." Chen Ge pulled his gaze away and stopped staring at the place where the boy's abdomen merged with the spider's body.
If the "door" to the White Dragon Cave Tunnel really was on the child, he certainly wasn't going to tell Chen Ge. And if it wasn't, there was no point continuing to dwell on it. So Chen Ge decisively ended the topic: "If you don't want to talk about it, let's move on to something else."
Chen Ge's expression turned serious: "This is my last question, and it concerns the safety of all of us. So I hope you won't hold anything back."
"Go ahead." The boy retracted his terrifying, grotesque forelegs.
"In the late hours over the past few nights, have you seen a shadow enter the White Dragon Cave Tunnel?"
The moment the word "shadow" came up, the boy's expression changed immediately: "You came because of him?"
"So you know something." Chen Ge felt a surge of excitement—he had finally found someone who knew something about the shadow.
The temperature inside the tunnel dropped sharply. Howling cold wind surged from the deeper reaches. The child and the tunnel's female ghost both fell silent.
They stayed like that for a long while. Finally, the child leaped down from the wall, supporting his body on several legs so that he looked down at Chen Ge from above.
The creature was massive, and this looming posture gave Chen Ge an overwhelming sense of pressure.
"Go back. The more you know, the deeper you'll sink into fear." As the boy said this, his voice trembled ever so slightly.
"You're scared?"
"I'm not!" The child's emotions suddenly turned volatile. A leg swept up and slashed toward Chen Ge's chest.
Chen Ge crossed both arms over his chest to shield himself. Countless human faces roared forth from the leg, but at the last moment it stopped.
"We share a common enemy. I can help you—in any way." Chen Ge looked at the leg hovering right in front of him and slowly lowered his arms. If the boy had wanted to hurt him, he would have already been sent flying.
After a long moment, the boy's body slowly lowered until they were eye to eye: "That guy is a lunatic. He hasn't come to the White Dragon Cave Tunnel just once."
"He's been here before? Years ago?" Chen Ge recalled the bizarre scene he had witnessed the last time he was in the White Dragon Cave Tunnel—the young version of himself being killed by someone.
"Do you know why my mother and I have been hiding inside the tunnel, never stepping even half a foot outside?" A flicker of unease passed through the boy's eyes.
"Is it because of the shadow? He wants to hurt you?"
"Who knows? That guy shows up once every year, and each time he's stronger than the last. I can only use my own abilities to hold him back." The boy hadn't sensed any threat from Chen Ge, but he had a vague feeling that this person's shadow made him very uncomfortable: "I hate shadows."
"I've run into the shadow a few times recently too. In just one week, he's already gotten stronger again. I have no idea how he does it."