Infinite Ebullience
Chapter 285 - 34 Stone Statue Courtyard and Spider Castle

Chapter 285: Chapter 34 Stone Statue Courtyard and Spider Castle

"Demon City sounds like the name of a European castle, so we must be staying in a stable." Tang Zheng, bored, was playing with a dry straw, and through a crack in the wooden door above his head, he had already seen a thin black horse.

"Achoo! How long do we need to wait?" The smell of horse dung in the air was irritating, and Lu Fan, who was waiting on the steps, didn’t want to continue. "It has been twenty minutes. Can’t we go yet?"

"I’ll go and check." Qin Yan stood up, saw Tang Zheng didn’t refuse, pushed open the wooden door overhead, and then raised her head in the creaking sound of the door hinge to reveal her eyes and scan the surroundings.

Just as Tang Zheng had said, it was a dilapidated stable. The wooden boards of the roof had rotted away, leaving holes everywhere. Warm sunlight was shining down on piles of hay. An old horse got startled by the sudden appearance of a head and ran off into the distance.

Surrounding the stable were stone walls. A stony path led to the front yard, but it was blocked by an iron gate. In front of that was a grand but decayed castle. The walls were covered with weeds and green moss, and in some places, the stone had collapsed. Even under the midday sun, the place looked dark; obviously, it had not been maintained for decades.

"Come out. It’s okay." Qin Yan called, then climbed out vigilantly with her guns raised.

Pang Meiqin couldn’t wait any longer. She stood up straight, climbed over the half-person-high exit, and Yin Shangwu, holding Little Lolita by her collar, tossed her out before climbing over himself and then turned to help Tang Zheng.

"Thank you." Tang Zheng stood in the stable, shading his eyes with his hand to look at the blue sky. The few floating white clouds significantly lightened his gloomy mood.

"Look at this lazy horse. How lazy does it have to be to be skinny even with all this hay around?" Lu Fan pointed at the old horse and burst into laughter.

"Maybe it’s starving because there’s no meat." Tang Zheng, disappointed, didn’t find any footprints on the ground. "This area has not been visited in a long time. Let’s leave. Qin Yan and Meiqin, you lead."

Pang Meiqin did not dare to refuse. She held up her K74 and went ahead of the rest of the group. As though to bolster her courage, she whispered, "Even though the sun is shining, why do I feel such a chill? Could there be a monster lurking in the castle?"

"Quiet. Keep your focus in front." Tang Zheng reminded her, not bothering to answer her trivial question.

Pang Meiqin pouted and reached the iron gate, stretching her hand to pull the rusty lock.

"Wait. Everyone back off." Tang Zheng stopped her, studied the gate attentively, aimed his gun at the lock and shot it off.

With a loud clank, the lock dropped to the ground, and the iron gate slowly creaked open.

"From now on, nobody is allowed to touch anything in this castle." Tang Zheng didn’t want to be branded with another magic array.

Following the path into the front yard, their surroundings changed once again. The lawn was overrun with weeds, a few wild cats were chasing each other playfully, and a 300-meter stone road that could accommodate three carriages abreast lay in the middle of the courtyard, connecting the castle to an iron gate tangled with roses and vines.

The people naturally chose the iron gate. Lu Fan’s gaze fell on the dried-up fountain in the middle of the stone road.

"Look at that statue. It’s scary." Lu Fan tugged at Tang Zheng’s sleeve, pointing at the stone sculpture in the fountain. It was an executioner with a black hat, chopping off a child’s head with a halberd. Despite being a stone statue, the terror on the child’s face was lifelike. Furthermore, the cut-off neck from which the halberd had stricken was eerily oozing a dark red liquid.

"Disgusting." Pang Meiqin raised her gun, intending to destroy this fountain sculpture.

"Don’t be rash. Try not to damage anything." Yin Shangwu hurriedly stopped her. "Look."

The entire courtyard was filled with stone statues of various designs: lions, demons wielding steel forks, and unicorns of different sizes.

Tang Zheng noticed a stone under his foot. He looked down and found it to be another statue, this one depicting a witch being burned at the stake.

The five of them hurriedly quickened their pace. After rushing to the iron gate, they had to stop again. The iron gate, three meters high, was a single piece, with no lock. Tang Zheng threw a stone at it, and it instantly ignited. Yet the vines entangling it remain unscathed.

Qin Yan picked up a stone, intending to throw it over the gate, but before the stone could cross the gate, the vines, as if having come to life, shot out like crossbow arrows, wrapping around the stone, and reducing it to dust.

Yin Shangwu took out his Desert Eagle and fired a few shots at the gate, but it didn’t budge. Some severed vines dropped to the ground and began writhing like earthworms, creeping towards Little Lolita.

Lu Fan was frightened and quickly hid behind Tang Zheng.

"Try climbing over the wall." Tang Zheng gritted his teeth. He never expected escaping from Demon City to be so troublesome. "Can it be that we need to defeat the boss to get the key to open the gate?"

Five minutes later, all of them were filled with disappointment.

"Let’s go into the castle to look for a solution." Before Qin Yan could finish speaking, the sky darkened, a large cloud blocked out the sun, and the wind began to blow.