Ergou's house was very poor; the yard wasn't even earthen-walled but ringed with a fence of mixed branches and sticks.
Zhou Yuan poked about, found a foothold, and vaulted straight in.
The whole yard was pitch dark, not a speck of lamplight. He approached the one halfway-decent main room and crept warily up to the window.
"Ma, I'm cold."
"Quick, soak in the warm-water bucket. Boy's father, stop going to the Dragon Palace to steal treasure — a few more trips and Ergou won't have his life left."
"I daren't go again. Ergou nearly didn't make it back today; never again."
"What? Ergou didn't take it the way I told him? You mustn't offend the Dragon Palace guards — that's how my own man met his end. Ergou can't go playing the fool again."
A young woman's voice came through — Zhou Yuan guessed she was Cuiniang, Ergou's new bride.
"Cuiniang, you told us your family's Dragon Palace entrance, and we've all shared your good fortune; how could we not heed you?
It's just that people's strides differ. You said one could only take thirty-six steps, but Ergou drew the guards' notice at thirty-two.
Lucky he runs fast and isn't greedy, or he'd have been skewered for certain."
"Ah, and it's all that boy Shitou's fault for not coming round.
If he'd married into our family, he could have gone down in Ergou's place.
In this village he's the only one we could trust. He's a lone household; once he leaves an heir, our two families become one."
"Pa, why bring that up — how mortifying.
But you're right. I trust only our own family. Married into someone else's, I'd never dare speak of the Dragon Palace.
I'd fear they'd bury me alive over those pearls."
"Cuiniang, lend me a hand — top up Ergou's hot water, scald him through."
"Coming......"
Outside the room, Zhou Yuan listened in a daze. Ergou's family hadn't all come down with a fever, had they?
There was a Dragon Palace in the Clearsand River beneath the stone arch bridge, and Ergou could steal things from it?
"Whew... finally back among the living.
That Dragon Palace is no place for people — cold enough inside to gnaw your bones; one trip takes half a man's life."
"Ma, Pa, wife — we've got twenty-some pearls now, so we count as folk with money, only it can't see the light.
If I come back from service, we'll say they're my spoils of war.
If I don't come back and Brother Shitou does, you tell him they're my keepsakes."
"Pah, what wild talk — you'll come back for certain.
When you're back, we'll move to the city and live properly."
"That won't do, Pa. If we all leave, who'll keep marking the spot?
If a rainstorm changes the river course, later generations won't even find the Dragon Palace entrance."
"True enough — we've got to leave the young ones a path. When you're back, take Cuiniang to the city; your ma and I will stay."
After waiting a while longer, his ears full of one family's yearning for a better life, Zhou Yuan tiptoed away from Ergou's yard.
"I underestimated Ergou — didn't think this family had its own little calculations.
And here I thought Ergou truly meant to share everything with me. Turns out he'd set his eye on my lone, friendless, easily-won household."
"This Cuiniang's a clever one too. It's only that Ergou's family had no other choice.
Fall into a household with many brothers, and over that so-called Dragon Palace they might really have done her in."
Zhou Yuan didn't know whether that Dragon Palace was real, but the Clearsand River surely held some place that produced pearls and whose danger could be managed — else Ergou's family couldn't have gained such benefit.
Bathed in moonlight, he soon arrived beneath the stone arch bridge.
The river bore a thick layer of algae on its surface, the water somewhat turbid, the flow still fairly steady.
Zhou Yuan stripped off his clothes, clamped the hatchet firmly in his mouth, and plunged into the river with a splash.
He'd thought this so-called Dragon Palace entrance would be deeply hidden — else Ergou's family wouldn't speak of marking spots and counting steps.
But to his surprise, the entrance, so secret to Ergou's family, was strikingly obvious in his eyes.
He saw, upon the silt-and-weed-covered riverbed, a black whirlpool.
And upon it, plain as day, two lines of blood-red writing.
【Dungeon: Nest of the Clearsand General】
【Recommended challenge level 15; recommended party size 5-10】
Excellent — challenge level and party size marked perfectly clearly; his game-ified sight had rendered fresh service.
There was one small hitch, though: his attribute panel carried no character "level" at all.
"A bug? What the hell is a challenge level?
Is my game-ification not the same system as this dungeon's? How is there an incompatibility?"
Zhou Yuan wasn't puzzled that he could see the dungeon's information — health bars filled the streets and he was used to them; one more dungeon portal was no surprise.
What he couldn't work out was why the portal was marked with a challenge level when he himself had no such attribute.
"Ergou said thirty-six steps was the safe zone. His legs are short, I won't measure against him — I'll go twenty."
Zhou Yuan didn't mean to shrink back. Ergou's family had all run the experiment, after all; an opportunity this good was too good to miss.
He drove sharply downward and made contact with the pitch-black portal.
The next moment, he entered a broad passage — limited in length, but wide enough to rival a four-lane road on Blue Star.
Most striking of all, the ground was paved with dark-red coral, pearls of every grade set into the coral's seams, like a road of stars.
On either side of the passage stood six monsters with shrimp heads and human bodies, three-pronged forks in hand, utterly still as if hard stone statues.
Above their heads floated not only health bars but identity tags.
【Level 15 Cold-Tide Shrimp Soldier】
A bone-biting chill filled the whole passage; the water droplets on Zhou Yuan's body even showed signs of icing over.
"Plenty of pearls underfoot too — why would Ergou insist on going all the way to the edge of the safe zone?"
Zhou Yuan pried with the hatchet, and understood why Cuiniang's late husband and Ergou had approached the shrimp-headed creatures.
The reason was that these pearls were set very firmly and were hard to pry loose; he pried for a while and wrecked a good many, ending with just two in fine condition.
Wondrously, the closer to the Cold-Tide Shrimp Soldiers, the more brittle the coral ground, and the higher the odds of prying out an intact pearl.
Luckily Zhou Yuan hadn't come to collect pearls, but to inspect the Dragon Palace of Ergou's words — the dungeon of his own eyes.
So, having gathered six pearls and walked about twenty steps, he gave up the urge to press on.
These shrimp soldiers' names and levels made them look like gatekeeper small-fry, yet they could stir up a small-scale change in temperature.
Zhou Yuan, headstrong as he was, knew he couldn't beat them; no need to draw their aggro and sample their attack power in person.
The last one this headstrong had his wife remarry — Ergou's family owed that big brother proper thanks.
Still, not making contact and not testing didn't mean Zhou Yuan couldn't estimate these Cold-Tide Shrimp Soldiers' strength.
"Assume a game pace: starting character attributes of 1, each level granting at least one attribute point.
Then the gap between me and a Cold-Tide Shrimp Soldier is at least fifteen attribute points; skills can't be estimated."
"Of course, such an assumption is only the ideal case; the real gap could be more outrageous still.
Strength like that, plus the dungeon's respawn nature — they truly do deserve the name of deathless, undying demons."