The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 714: The Bottomless Pool

Shimmering stars dotted the dome, creating the illusion of a beautiful night sky.

Lu Li knew it wasn't real.

The walls behind him rose sheer, making it impossible to see the night sky from the ground.

This was an underground cavern.

After climbing out of the crevice in the rock, Lu Li found himself in a more spacious... prison.

The stars twinkling on the cavern's ceiling were likely fluorite with radioactive properties, or some other mystical light source. Thanks to them, the cavern was not plunged into darkness.

A river originated from a lake at the far end of the cavern, gushing from its depths to form a current that rushed toward the crevice.

The roar of the water pouring into the narrow passage subsided after Lu Li overcame the watery obstacle and pulled himself onto the shore.

Standing in the shallows, he could feel the icy currents washing over his ankles.

Lu Li stepped out of the water and onto the cavern's bank.The walls were beaded with moisture, and about two meters up, he could see dried vines.

Lu Li tore off a piece of vine and gave it a pull. Saturated with water, they were surprisingly strong and flexible.

He stripped several finger-thick vines and wove them into a rope about twenty meters long. Then he found a rock larger than a human head, rolled it into the water, and tied the rope around it.

Holding the other end of the rope, Lu Li returned to the crevice and dived back in.

He wanted to go back into the crevice for Friday.

A familiar sensation washed over him, but unlike last time, the path ahead was clear.

Before the air in his lungs ran out, Lu Li saw the light of a campfire on the surface. He broke through the water from under the rock and climbed out.

A campfire crackled on the rock. Next to his spread-out coat lay the Beacon and his knife.

Other than that, there wasn't another soul, not a single other object.

Suddenly, a headache pulsed in Lu Li's skull. He frowned, feeling his clear memories begin to blur as reality intertwined with illusion.

The image of Friday was gradually fading, as if their last meeting had happened a very long time ago.

Did Friday even exist, or was she just a hallucination born of his desperation?

Lu Li climbed onto the rock and examined the fire and the marks on the stone. But all signs of life indicated that he had been living here alone.

There was no pot, no dried book, no wooden bowl, no fish, no meat, no spices, no empty cans.

Lu Li suddenly stuck his fingers down his throat, trying to make himself vomit. But nothing came up besides the water he had drunk earlier.

Perhaps Friday was waiting for him in the cavern.

Wiping his mouth, Lu Li gathered everything he could carry from the rock and plunged back into the dark river.

The fire in the crevice burned quietly, but soon it would run out of fuel and die, leaving only darkness.

...

Lu Li surfaced from the crevice.

Wet hair clung to his forehead. Lu Li scanned the cavern, but he didn't see Friday.

Picking up his dripping coat, Lu Li walked onto the bank and wrung out the wet garment. But in the damp cavern, it was unlikely to ever dry completely.

Lifting his head to the cavern's ceiling, he saw the glowing points still twinkling. Since they were more than ten meters high, Lu Li couldn't make out what they were.

The water on his body gradually evaporated, but the chill seeped deep into Lu Li's bones. He needed to either build a fire or find a way out of the cavern.

He circled the cavern's perimeter but found no other exits, only the deep lake with the spring gushing from it.

Lu Li decided not to dive into the lake just yet; he needed to get warm.

The cavern was relatively clean, all the light debris and stones having been carried away by the current. The only thing that could possibly burn were the dried vines on the walls.

While searching for fuel, Lu Li found proof of Friday's existence: without a source of fire, it would have been impossible to light the damp branches, even by using friction.

Thinking of this, Lu Li mechanically opened his palm.

It was covered in blistered burn marks.

...

Lu Li couldn't say for sure if the burns had been on his palm before.

Silently, he returned to the bank with a few damp branches and tried to start a fire with friction.

It didn't work. Every time he rubbed the branches together, a piercing pain shot through his palm. Lu Li could endure it, but the pain slowed his movements, and he couldn't generate a spark, especially from damp wood. The blisters on his palm spoke for themselves—if, of course, they had really come from trying to start a fire.

Lu Li's gaze fell upon the only way out of the cavern. It was about ten meters in diameter, and the bottom of the clear lake was not visible.

Now, all he could do was find a way out of here before his strength and warmth gave out.

That left only the lake.

Taking the Beacon, Lu Li walked to the edge of the lake and jumped in.

The light from the Beacon illuminated the dark water. Lu Li dived three meters, but the upward current prevented him from going any deeper, and the lakebed was still nowhere in sight.

The lake was deeper than he had thought.

Lu Li surfaced, picked out a rock weighing about 15 kilograms from the bank, and, clutching it, jumped back into the lake.

The rock quickly dragged Lu Li down, and the shimmering lights on the cavern ceiling soon vanished from sight.

Five meters, ten, fifteen.

The pressure of the water squeezed his body from all sides, but Lu Li could still bear it.

But the bottom of the lake was still nowhere to be seen.

Twenty meters, twenty-five, thirty.

He was nearing his limit, but there was still no bottom.

Lu Li stopped conserving his humanity. The Beacon in his right hand flared brighter, and a seemingly physical force pushed back the darkness. The walls of the lake became visible, and his underwater visibility increased.

But even at a depth of forty, and then fifty meters, there was no sign of the bottom. Only ghostly shadows flickered at the edge of the light.

The air in his lungs was running out, and Lu Li had to drop the rock and start his ascent.

Lu Li controlled his ascent, only speeding up when the burning in his lungs became unbearable. Finally, he broke the surface.

The world suddenly came into sharp focus. Lu Li crawled into the shallows and lay in the water, fighting a wave of weakness and an unbearable itch.

He had ascended too quickly and was suffering from symptoms of decompression sickness.

After a few minutes, the symptoms subsided, and Lu Li, dizzy from lack of oxygen, returned to the bank.

The lake was far deeper than he had anticipated. If Lu Li couldn't find something to help him breathe underwater, he had practically no chance of finding an exit through it.

Aside from being more spacious and not inducing claustrophobia, this cavern was no different from the crevice.

Was there another way out of the cavern?

Lu Li wondered, looking up again at the false stars.

He held the Beacon high, and as humanity flowed into the wick, it filled the cavern with a soft light, like the dawn. Everything became as clear as day.

The dark yellow fluorite crystals embedded in the cavern's ceiling dimmed. They weren't the main feature, but merely a frame for an oval opening that led outside.

What was encouraging was that the opening was large enough for Lu Li to climb through.

But another problem immediately arose.

How was Lu Li supposed to scale the nearly vertical, damp wall to reach the opening in the center of the ceiling?