46: The Wall of Sighs in the Canyon

After that nauseating feast of "electrocuted insect swarms" just now,

the black iron ghost finally broke out of the densest self-detonation zone.

But as the warship continued deeper along the canyon waterway known as the "Red Water River," Jiang Ran soon noticed something was wrong.

The smooth feeling of cutting through the waves had vanished.

In its place was a sense of stagnation, as if they had sailed into semi-dry cement.

"The flow rate has dropped to zero."

Jiang Ran glanced at the hydrological data on the dashboard, his brow furrowing slightly.

Logically, this was the confluence of a Yangtze River tributary; with the narrow canyon terrain, the current should have been swifter.

But now, let alone spray, not even a single ripple of movement could be seen on the river's surface.

The entire channel was like a giant toilet with a clogged drain.

The searchlight's beam swept across the water.

The tide of corpses that had been flowing was now completely piled up here.

Countless pieces of white trash, bloated corpses, and broken tree trunks washed down from upstream.

They were forced together by an invisible power, forming a "hard shell" several meters thick on the water's surface.

As the black iron's sharp bow sliced through this hard shell, it no longer made the sound of splashing water.

Instead, it was a muffled "squelch" like cutting into a rotten watermelon, and the "crack" of crushing bones.

That viscous, heavy stench that had fermented for who knows how long.

Even with the air filtration of the Klein Field, it seemed to penetrate human pores, causing a sensation of greasy suffocation.

"This doesn't look like a river."

Su Qingyu looked at the nearly solidified black-red sludge outside the porthole, her stomach churning as she spoke while suppressing her nausea:

"This is practically a super septic tank."

"Because the way is blocked."

Jiang Ran turned off the meaningless flow rate alarm in front of him, his gaze piercing through the layers of miasma to lock onto the darkness at the end of the canyon:

"The water can't flow down, so the filth naturally accumulates here.

It seems something big up ahead has cut off the entire river."

Jiang Ran slowly raised his hand, controlling the searchlight's beam to continue climbing up that disgusting wall of corpses.

The light pierced the darkness, first illuminating a massive barrier dam piled high with debris from landslides, shipwrecks, and architectural ruins.

And atop those forty-meter-high ruins stood an even more absurd and incomprehensible structure.

It was a crooked spire that looked as if it could be blown over by the wind at any moment.

It used dismantled crane arms as a skeleton, wrapped with bent rebar and countless long poles that originally belonged to streetlights.

Like a rusty finger stabbing toward the sky, it stood aloof and crazed in the canyon's wind path.

The tower was draped in colorful "flags." No, those weren't flags.

They were bright clothes stripped from corpses—

red down jackets, yellow raincoats, and blue overalls.

They were torn into strips and tied densely to the rebar like prayer flags.

In the cold river wind, thousands of dead people's garments flapped loudly, making a "fluttering" sound like ghostly wails.

And at the very top of the tower hung several giant sheet-metal discs several meters in diameter.

On them, hideous and exaggerated Peking Opera masks were painted with poor-quality red and black paint.

Under the flickering light of the searchlight, those masks seemed to come alive.

They stared with copper-bell-sized eyes and gaped with bloody mouths.

With a mocking and crazed expression, they looked down upon the waters below, filled with death and rot.

"Is this the so-called 'Dragon King Stockade'?"

Jiang Ran looked at that spire, which was filled with the sense of primitive totem worship,

yet entirely pieced together from industrial trash, a hint of mockery flashing in his eyes.

This was a "Tower of Babel" in the apocalypse.

It did not lead to heaven, nor did it possess any divinity.

It was merely a throne a madman had built for himself using trash and corpses.

It was the only, twisted symbol of order in these chaotic waters.

Beneath this tower, civilization was dead, leaving only the most primitive savagery and madness to revel upon the ruins.

Jiang Ran's finger was already hovering over the weapon system's fire button.

If those dark muzzles on the dam dared to spit even a single spark of fire,

he would immediately use the Close-In Weapon System to level that trash-piled tower to the ground.

However, the expected sound of gunfire did not ring out.

"Qiang—! Qiang—! Qiang—!"

Instead, a sharp, clattering sound of gongs suddenly exploded in the deathly silent canyon.

Following that was the shrill and high-pitched, yet wildly out-of-tune sound of a suona.

The sound was as sharp as fingernails scraping a blackboard.

Mixed with some unknown operatic singing, it drifted out from the shadows beneath the dam.

"What kind of show is this now?"

Jiang Ran's eyebrows raised slightly as he released the fire button, turning his gaze toward the source of the sound.

There, on the turbid and viscous corpse-water,

a simple bamboo raft, made from a few thick stalks of moso bamboo lashed together, came wobbling out.

The raft was extremely crude, lacking even proper propulsion, relying entirely on human power at the oars.

However, all around the raft were planted tattered red and green triangular command flags, fluttering wildly in the cold wind.

Even more absurd were the people on the raft.

Four "eccentrics" stood upon it.

They wore opera costumes clearly scavenged from an old era troupe, so filthy their original colors were unrecognizable—

the bright red dragon robes were covered in black oil stains, and the feathers on their headgear were half-broken, hanging behind their heads like the tail of a defeated rooster.

Exaggerated Peking Opera masks were painted on their faces: red, black, and multicolored.

But beneath the crude greasepaint, festering skin and frantically rolling eyeballs were faintly visible.

They rowed while twisting their stiff bodies to the jarring beat of the gongs and drums.

They babbled out strange operatic lines that no one could understand, their eyes devoid of fear, filled only with a near-idiotic fanaticism.

Against this backdrop of corpses and trash,

this group of "actors," looking as if they had crawled out of the underworld, appeared both comical and possessed a bone-chilling sense of Chinese horror.

"It seems this isn't an army."

Jiang Ran watched the approaching "opera troupe" and sneered, his finger lightly tapping the armrest.

"This is a circus from an insane asylum."

The bamboo raft, draped in tattered rags, did not pull directly alongside the black iron's hull.

After all, facing a steel giant with a freeboard height exceeding five meters,

their shabby little raft was like a child's tricycle parked next to a tank.

"Halt—!"

In the center of the raft, the lead "actor" with the Big Red Face and greasy dragon robe suddenly stopped singing.

He offered a clumsy cupped-fist salute toward the bridge and, with a raspy voice ruined by smoke and alcohol, shouted in an extremely exaggerated operatic tone:

"Great hero up there! The Dragon King Master requests your presence!"

"Since it's our first meeting and we don't know your tastes, he specifically ordered us to deliver a 'greeting gift' to serve as a snack for you!"

With that, he kicked out a bamboo basket from behind him, also covered with a red cloth.

There were no ladders, nor were any mooring lines thrown.

It seemed to be some sort of strange ritual, or perhaps a test.

Jiang Ran stood on the high bridge, coldly watching the farce below. "zero, receive the goods."

"Understood."

With a low hum of electric motors, the folded engineering Mechanical Arm on the right side of the black iron ghost slowly extended.

The cold metal claws,

reached down precisely from the air under the greedy yet fearful gazes of the "actors,"

grabbed the handle of the bamboo basket, and lifted it steadily back to the deck.

From beginning to end, Jiang Ran never opened the hatch, let alone showed any intention of letting them board.

"What is this? It looks quite... festive?"

Su Qingyu looked at the basket covered with a red cloth that the Mechanical Arm had placed on the foredeck.

Although she had an ominous premonition in her heart,

she couldn't help but lean closer to the monitoring screen.

On the screen, the red cloth was even embroidered with a crooked character for "Longevity" in gold thread.

Against the gray background, it exuded a sense of eerie refinement.

"We'll know once we open it."

Jiang Ran manipulated a finger of the Mechanical Arm, as if defusing a bomb, and gently lifted a corner of the red cloth.

"Whoosh."

The red cloth slid off.

A strong, sour odor mixed with cheap aged vinegar, garlic, and some indescribable stench of rotting meat instantly wafted toward them.