Chapter 6: Mysterious Space

  Wu Wen and Wu Bin looked at me expressionlessly, waiting for me to come up with a solution.

  "Dig up that patch of ground." I said harshly, and then I saw the helplessness in two people's eyes.

  Wu Wen said: "We've tried it long ago. We even tried explosives, but as you can see, not a single point has been blasted open here."

  I said: "It's so solid, have you all tried it?"

  "Wu Wen nodded and said: 'All the means we can use now, we have tried.'"

  "So there's no solution?" I said, "There are four people below, four of us, we have to think of a way."

  Wu Bin said: "There is no way." Wu Bin doesn't like to talk, but whenever he does, it's always the key point. There is no way, he says there is no way, and perhaps there really is no way.

  A preposterous idea flashed through my mind, and in retrospect, it was indeed the result of blood rushing to my brain. If I had to choose again, I reckon I would find it hard to make the same choice. I quickly picked up Wu Feng's needle box that he had thrown on the ground, pricked my finger, and let a drop of blood fall onto the ground. Wu Wen and Wu Bin didn't stop me, perhaps they thought my blood wouldn't mix with the earth like theirs, but in fact, it did.

  When merging, Wu Wen and Wu Bin rushed to the place where Wu Feng disappeared in the first time, but nothing happened. The entrance did not open, this mechanism really knows how to pick people. I walked towards that place, Wu Wen and Wu Bin half-squatted beside me, Wu Wen even took out a soldier's shovel, it seemed they were ready to do something to that entrance at the moment I entered. I could only pray that Wu Wen's seemingly sharp soldier's shovel wouldn't fall on any part of my body.

  As I walked up, the entrance opened, accompanied by a spiral suction force. The last thing I saw was Wu Wen and Wu Bin being bounced off by something. Then it was all dark and dizzy, but the dizziness only lasted for a moment, and then I woke up. I felt myself rapidly sliding down, and in the darkness, I didn't feel like I was falling straight down. It should be sitting on something like a slide, very hard and cool, and still descending in a rotating way, just like a roller coaster. The surroundings were dark, a very even blackness, making me feel like I was blindfolded. I really wanted to stretch out my hand to feel the situation around me, but my will told me that this was not the time to make any rash moves.

  It was just over 20 seconds, and I felt the slide suddenly disappear from under me. My body fell straight down. I closed my eyes, thinking: "This is it," and a bright light seemed to flash before my eyes - that's what death feels like. With a splash, water rushed into my nostrils, and I was shocked. I struggled desperately for two seconds, and the backpack on my back also felt some buoyancy. My body floated out of the water. What entered my eyes were two silly-looking eyes and Wu Feng's familiar face.

  Wu Feng pulled me out of the water, and only then did I see the situation clearly. This was a vast and empty hall, about 500 square meters in size. The place where I fell was at one corner of the hall, below which was a five-meter-square pool of water. Although it wasn't large, it seemed to be quite deep. The hall was shining with a silver-white light, which seemed to be emitted by some unknown substance on the walls, giving off a hint of moonlight. In the center of the hall stood a stone stele, inscribed with characters that must have been hundreds of years old. The stele seemed to have undergone special craftsmanship, with a layer of something like preservative film on its surface, preserving it perfectly without any damage. From afar, I could sense that there were words on the stele. I saw Su Yi and an old man studying the characters on the stele, while beside it lay another person, whom I couldn't see clearly, but in such a space, one didn't need to guess - that must be Wen Long, the first to enter this place.

  Wu Feng patted me on the back and said: "I didn't expect you to come down too, I've already started, many hands make light work, come help out!"

  I followed Wu Feng to the stone tablet and saw Su Yu and Old Man Su, who had finally shown up after such a long time.

  Old Su stood up and saw me saying: "I didn't expect you all grew up so big, alas, what a pity."

  I was originally going to take a look at the stele, but after hearing the old man's two sentences, I quickly turned around and said: "Old man, it's been a long time since we met, you didn't even give me a red envelope this time, so I won't say anything else. What does 'this sentence is a pity' mean? Did I become ugly?"

  The old man looked at me, chuckled twice and said: "Just like your dad, always laughing, but this is a dead end, we can't get out of here, we're done for." He spoke very calmly, but it made me feel terrible, because in my memory, every time he spoke in this tone, what he said was definitely true.

  Wu Feng said: "Old man, originally it was just you and Wen Long, of course there's no way, now we have so many people, I reckon there must be a way to think about it."

  At this time, Wen Long, who was lying on one side, suddenly got up and said: "Vice Wu, don't think about beautiful things yet. You just arrived and don't know the situation. Take a closer look at the current situation before making a conclusion."

  I finally got to see the famous Wen Long, he's even taller than me by a head, at least around 1.9 meters, with a sturdy build, wearing camouflage uniform, standing there like a wall. I finally understand why this guy can take down dozens of people alone, with this physique, if I were to go up against him, I'd probably be done in with just one slap.

  The old man waved his hand and said, "You all take a look around, if you find anything, I'll be very happy." He didn't pay attention to us anymore, and continued to study the stele. Wen Long also made a please gesture, and lay down to sleep again. Wu Feng and I exchanged a glance, then put our backpacks on and started searching around.

  This place is actually not big, at a glance, there's nothing except for the pool, stone tablet, and five people who don't know how they got here. I saw something glowing on the four walls, which should be scratched by something, with uneven marks. So I pointed to it and walked to the wall with Wu Feng. The thing on the wall really can't be named, but it's visible that it's made up of small branches connected together into small spheres, each sphere branching out in four different directions. It looks like a plant, at least I think this shape shouldn't be an animal. There are also some on the ground, but these have clearly lost their glow and should have been scraped off with a sharp blade.

  I asked Wu Feng: "What is this? Tell me and open my eyes."

  Wu Feng shook his head and said: "I don't know, I've never seen anything like this before. It looks like some kind of plant."

  "Why is it glowing?" I continued to ask.

  Wu Feng glared at me and said: "I've already told you I don't know, I've never seen anything like this before."

  "I said: 'Forget it, there's nothing worth seeing here. Everything is clear and obvious, there's nothing at all. If you want to go back, we have to take the same road.'"

  Wu Feng pointed to the top of my head, I looked up, and there were also such plants on my head. Although the light was not very good, I could see relatively clearly that the ceiling was at least about 10 meters away from us. I estimated that even if we stood straight and piled up together, we might not be able to reach the top. I sighed, let alone this distance, when I fell down, there was a pool of water on the other side, who could stand on the pool and climb up.

  I asked again: "Then how did these plants grow?"

  "You've hit the nail on the head." An old man nearby chimed in, "This kind of plant should be living in water. There's a pool over there, and I found that a large part of these plants are submerged in it with no glowing spots."

  Just as I was about to speak, the old man continued: "Are you still wondering why the water in that pool hasn't dried up? That pool is on an underground water source channel, it's living water. As long as the water source isn't a problem, the water here won't be a problem either."

  I was stunned. The old man continued, "We've studied it for a long time, and there shouldn't be any mechanism, this is just a dead space, so we're doomed. Unless..."

  I felt a thread of vitality and hastily asked: "Unless what?"

  The old man pointed at the stone slab in front of him and said: "Unless you can decipher what is written on this stone slab, there may still be a thread of hope."

  I and Wu Feng rushed to the stone tablet at the first time, then we both stared blankly. The text on the stone slab was like heavenly script, no, it should be said that it is heavenly script, which is not human language at all.

  Wu Feng chuckled and said, "Hey, old man, this is a heavenly book, isn't it?"

  The old man nodded and said: "Yes, it's a heavenly book."

  Wu Feng looked at Su Yi and said: "High-achieving student, you're researching the written word, what's this stuff written here?"

  Su Yi raised her head and looked at him, then very calmly told him: "I don't understand it either."

  I stared at the stone monument, and when I first saw it, I felt that everything on it was heavenly script. However, after looking at it for a while, I found that some of the things looked a bit familiar to me. Where had I seen them before? It's impossible, I've been doing office work all these years and haven't traveled to this place, how could I have seen it? But it did look familiar, I gritted my teeth and thought carefully, I must have seen it before.

  Wu Feng looked at me staring blankly at the stone tablet and said: "What's wrong, looking so carefully, is there a beauty buried under the stone tablet?"

  I'm still staring at the stone tablet, gritting my teeth and saying: "Shut up, I seem to have seen this stone tablet somewhere."

  Right after I said that, I regretted it. Because when everyone was still reacting, Wen Long, who was originally lying on the ground, suddenly sprang up and grabbed my collar, saying: "Really? Where did you see it? Can you understand?" I finally understood what it meant to have hands like iron pliers. My feet were slightly off the ground, and I felt he had lifted me up a bit, but not completely off the ground.

  I hastily said: "Big brother, let's talk slowly, it's not good to use force."

  Wen Long seemed to sense his own rashness, and quickly let go of my collar, patting me lightly on the chest a few times as he chuckled and said, "Sorry, sorry, I've been in the army for too long. Haha..." It was fine when he wasn't laughing, but when he did, it gave me goosebumps all over. You can imagine what it's like to have a big gorilla grinning at you with its teeth bared, patting your chest lightly.

  "I hastily said: 'It's nothing, I just feel like I've seen it before, I must have seen this thing before, but I haven't thought of it yet, let me think...'"

  Mr. Su said at this time: "As long as you feel familiar, it proves that you should have seen it before, because when we came here and saw this thing, there was no clue." While speaking, he looked down at his watch and said: "It's noon, let's eat."

  Wen Long is an old hand at this, scooping water from the pool, setting up a pot, adding disinfectant tablets, lighting a smokeless stove, and cooking compressed food into a porridge. Everyone relaxes and waits for the meal to cook, chatting casually in the meantime.

  "Right," said Old Su, "how did you get in?"

  I was dumbfounded at the time, coughed dryly twice, and said: "Old man, your reaction is also... a bit too long. It took half a day to react that we are here."

  Mr. Su said, "I didn't mean that, I originally thought you should be like us, coming in occasionally. But just now I suddenly realized that your entry time is very tight, and you must have found a way to enter."

  Su Yi quickly explained the whole process of how they entered. The old man listened carefully and said, "So this mechanism will still select people, and only the few of us were able to enter."

  The three of us nodded silently. The old man thought for a moment and said, "Then this mechanism is not an ordinary one. I'm afraid it applies some scientific principle."

  I told the old man about the situation when I entered, and the old man smiled and said: "That's inevitable. Actually, when I came in here, I had already figured out some of the principles of this mechanism."

  I looked at the old man with a busy and seeking-to-learn gaze, saying: "Please enlighten me, sir."

  The old man was good at teaching, and when I was a kid, if I wanted to ask him about homework questions, as long as I gave him that kind of look, he would immediately start lecturing nonstop. Sure enough, the old man took one look at my expression and began speaking: "Actually, the moment I came in, I felt a spiral airflow, what's that feeling? That's the feeling of a tornado. The ancients didn't know what method they used to make the space below this mechanism exist in a vacuum state, and this space should also be threaded. When the mechanism opens, the vacuum will absorb air from the outside, and because the air quickly passes through the threads, it produces a spiral."

  The old man paused for a moment, but none of us said anything because the old man was the type who would say everything even if you didn't ask. This situation I knew, Wu Feng knew, Su Yi knew, as for Wen Long, he just needed to know how to cook.

  The old man continued: "And the position we are standing is the center of the spiral, so it was sucked in by the whirlwind, while Wu Wen and Wu Bin were standing outside, they were rolled out by the whirlwind."

  I applauded at the right time and said: "Old man, you're too powerful. How can you see through such a complex mechanism? Why did we faint and lose our voices?"

  The old man gave me a glance and said, "You've been like this since you were young, always flattering people." Although he said so, it was clear that he was pleased. I exchanged glances with Wu Feng and Su Yi, and we smiled at each other. The old man continued, "Because the whirlwind generated speed is extremely fast, the air around you suddenly becomes thin, in such a situation, people will definitely not be able to withstand it, thus causing instantaneous fainting, but the time is very short. If these are all situations that ancient people have considered, then I can only say that the ancient people who designed this mechanism had wisdom that transcends the ages." After finishing speaking, he let out a sigh, with a hint of heroic sentiment.

  "Wen Long's voice came: 'The rice is cooked, let's eat.'"