She extended a finger and pointed toward the very front of the main hall.
There was nothing but darkness ahead, the faint firelight unable to penetrate it.
“There’s a path over there leading all the way down.” Her voice held a hint of excitement. “And I can sense something good down below.”
“So?” An Changqing asked, his expression betraying nothing.
“So…” Santai’s smile widened. “I have a suggestion.”
“A temporary truce. How does that sound?” She spread her hands, putting on an innocent, harmless act. “This place looks pretty big. Exploring it alone would be boring. With more people, it’ll be livelier.”
“And besides…” She drawled out the words, unable to conceal the teasing glint in her eyes. “If we run into any danger, you can help shield me from it. I can lend a hand too, of course. Fair deal, right?”
The suggestion was shamelessly self-serving, but An Changqing had no other choice at the moment. He could only sigh helplessly. “Deal.”
After reaching an agreement, they continued deeper inside.
Naturally, Santai led the way. She even clasped her hands behind her head and hummed an unfamiliar tune, looking completely relaxed.
Her composure left An Changqing feeling embarrassed on her behalf. Was she not worried at all about what would happen once they got out?
With such a huge commotion taking place here, the nearby administrators would certainly rush over at once. When that happened, powerful experts would inevitably be present.
An Changqing admitted that Santai was indeed very strong, but she was not so powerful that she could look down on every hero under heaven, was she?
What exactly was she relying on?
“Are we really just going to follow her like this?” Long Ao lowered his voice and glanced back.
“If not, do you want to turn around and go back the way we came?” An Changqing did not even turn his head.
The remark left Long Ao choking with frustration. The fireball in his fist flickered twice, its light turning half his face bright red.
He knew An Changqing was right. Since they had come this far, how could they possibly turn back?
But following behind this madwoman who had nearly beaten them to death made him extremely resentful.
Santai’s footsteps paused for a moment. She turned her head slightly and cast a sidelong glance behind her.
It wasn’t as if she were deaf. Vermilion Bird was talking about her loud enough for everyone to hear.
Hmph. She must have gone too easy on him just now. This kid was completely unlikeable. Little Xuanwu was much better.
“Shorty, can you make that fireball of yours any brighter?” Santai pointed at the darkness overhead, deliberately provoking him. “I’ve been afraid of the dark since I was little. If I can’t see the road and lead us the wrong way, that would be awkward.”
Long Ao clenched his back teeth. He desperately wanted to smash the fireball in his hand straight into the back of this woman’s head.
His emotions surged, and the flames in his palm shot upward uncontrollably, rising nearly a yard.
The corridor was suddenly illuminated over a wide area.
The full scene that had been hidden in the darkness was finally revealed.
Chen Guan narrowed his eyes as he surveyed the surroundings. With one hand tucked into his pocket, he discreetly stroked a small, furry bundle hidden inside beneath the cover of his clothes.
The little creature shifted restlessly in his pocket, rolling over and rubbing its head against Chen Guan’s palm.
Chen Guan curled his finger and scratched beneath its chin a couple of times. Only then did the little creature settle down again.
The corridor was even wider than they had expected. Its floor was paved with smoothly polished bluestone slabs.
On either side of the walls stood stone pillars as thick as two people wrapped their arms around them, spaced at regular intervals.
As the firelight licked across the walls, Chen Guan noticed the dense holes concealed beside the pillars.
Long Ao, walking at the front, stepped on a slightly raised stone slab.
Crack.
The sharp sound was magnified endlessly as it echoed through the gloomy corridor.
Long Ao’s body instantly went rigid. His right leg froze in midair as if he had been electrocuted, while a layer of golden protective light rapidly circulated across his body.
The others also assumed guarded stances, treating the situation as a matter of life and death. They had been thoroughly traumatized by hidden mechanisms; the sound just now was exactly the kind of warning that usually meant a trap had been triggered.
Three seconds passed.
Then five.
Aside from their heavy breathing, nothing moved in the corridor.
Santai turned around and let out a soft scoff. She sauntered over to Long Ao’s side and glanced down at the stone slab he had crushed.
She raised her boot and casually nudged the fragments around.
“All right, you can stop using your protective shield.” Santai bent down and picked up a section of wood that had almost completely weathered into dust.
Long Ao stared at the piece of wood. His face flushed red, then paled. Slowly, he lowered his stiff right leg and moved the fireball a little farther forward.
The firelight drove back the shadows.
Various rusted metal remnants and rotten wooden components littered the ground, their original forms concealed beneath thick layers of dust.
An Changqing stepped forward and crouched down, using the tip of his sword to sift through a pile of dust.
A rust-covered lump of metal was exposed. It appeared to be a complex mechanism made of several interlocking gears.
“There’s something underneath.”
An Changqing shifted his sword to his left hand and grasped the metal lump with his right.
With the slightest exertion, the unknown metal crumbled into several pieces between his fingers.
He raised his head and examined both sides of the walls, as well as the ceiling.
“Arrow slits, trapdoors, and concealed channels for dropping stones.” An Changqing stood and pointed toward the mottled traces illuminated by the firelight.
His gaze followed the walls into the depths of the darkness. The entire length of the corridor was covered on both sides with densely packed traces of deliberate construction.
“This place was once equipped with an extraordinarily sophisticated defensive system,” An Changqing said, his voice filled with amazement.
“Judging by the arrangement of these openings, even a high-level Esper who forced their way in would have been turned into a pincushion in an instant.”
“But now they’re all useless,” Chen Guan added at the appropriate moment.
He looked at the remains of the mechanisms on the ground, which turned to powder at the slightest touch.
No matter how precise a killing machine was, it could not withstand the erosion of time.
The exterior of the main hall was still reasonably intact, but its interior had long since decayed.
“It must be at least several thousand years old.” An Changqing dusted the rust from his hands.
“I’ve only seen this kind of forging technique in the ancient-era exhibits at museums.” An Changqing reached his conclusion.
Santai, who had remained silent until then, suddenly laughed.
Her laughter echoed through the empty corridor, carrying undisguised mockery.
“Students from Huaqing can’t even get the basic historical dating right?” Santai toyed with the piece of rotten wood in her hand. With a light pinch of her fingers, it turned into a scattering of ash.
An Changqing was not offended in the slightest. Instead, he pressed on. “Then, in your esteemed opinion, what era does this come from?”
Santai walked over to the wall and stopped with one finger resting against the indistinct markings of a mural carving.
“Much older than several thousand years.” The playful edge vanished from Santai’s voice, replaced by solemnity in the firelight.
“Look at the degree of weathering on the stone, as well as those rune-carving techniques that disappeared from the modern world long ago.” She turned her head, her beautiful eyes fixed on An Changqing.
“This self-circulating trigger mechanism guided by spiritual energy had already been lost before the ancient era.” Santai’s words were startling.
“The foundations of this place probably date all the way back to the Lost Era.”
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
saw a female celebrity tied up and stuffed in the trunk! Little did he know, countless cameras were aimed at him at this moment - this was a new type of reality show. The first randomly selected passerby was caught in less than an hour. But when Xu Moru was selected, things started to take an unexpected turn. "Damn, this isn't how the script goes. This Xu Moru is too bold, he's not following the rules at all." "Crap, is this guy taking it seriously?" "The female celebrity has been scared to tears!"
