Chapter Seventeen: Reborn as Human

  Wen Long had already let go of my hand, and Su Yi handed over some toilet paper and cotton swabs for us to clean up the wounds on our hands. I took the toilet paper and wiped away the blood on my hands, saying "Ah, now that we've mentioned it, there's nothing much to explain about this thing. It's absolutely an unexpected mechanism, completely different from what we saw in this formation. How should I put it...". I paused, because at that instant, I suddenly felt like I might have figured out the principle behind this mechanism. I looked up at the stone statue and said "It can't be there, right?"

  Su Ai waved her hand in front of me and said, "Are you okay? You suddenly spaced out again."

  I didn't respond to her, but instead said to Wen Long: "Do we have anything that can help me climb up to the position of the stone statue's hand?" Because the entire height of the stone statue was nearly four meters, so the position of its right hand was more than three meters high, and in my current state, I couldn't reach it no matter what.

  "Nothing, I was just jumping up and down to reach that hand, I've tried it, can't budge it or turn it."

  I shook my head and said, "Not by turning or flipping it over, I want to see the inside of that hand."

  Wen Long said: "I also touched it, there's nothing, the whole thing is stone, no switches or anything."

  I sighed and said: "It's hard to say for the time being, I mean, can I stand in such a high position and take a look at the palm of this stone statue? Maybe there are some clues."

  Wen Long thought for a moment and said: "To say that you can go up so high and see the palm of your hand, it's actually very simple."

  "What should I do?"

  Wen Long walked up to the stone statue, squatted down, and at the same time, he put his hand on the statue and pointed to his shoulder, saying "Up".

  The human ladder, what a good idea, of course it's easy for Wen Long, but a bit difficult for me. I haven't exercised in years, and to climb onto Wen Long's shoulders, Wu Feng and Su Yi had to help, using half a day's effort to finally get up there. Then, holding onto the stone statue, I slowly moved upwards. As soon as I lay on the right hand of the statue, with just one glance, I knew I was in the right place.

  "How is it? What's going on?" Wen Long asked from below. This guy really had stamina, he could still speak while being pressed down by someone.

  "Found it," I said, "Let's get out of here."

  I jumped down from Wen Long's shoulder and pointed at the stone statue's right hand, saying: "This mechanism is another blood mechanism."

  The old man also sat up at this time, looking like he hadn't slept either from the noise we made. He said: "You're saying that if you drip blood into that palm, it can open the mechanism."

  I nodded and said: "I went up to take a look, there were many bloodstains in the palm of his hand, all blended into the stone, so it can't be felt by touch."

  The old man said: "Maybe we can try, we are ready to go."

  A few people quickly packed their bags and stood in front of the door. Wen Long pricked his right index finger, jumped up, grabbed the stone statue's right hand, and dripped blood into his palm. Then he jumped down, shouldered his bag, and lined up at the end. Time slowly passed, but nothing happened.

  The old man behind me asked: "Are you sure this is a blood organ?"

  To be honest, I don't dare to guarantee it either, because all I saw was that there were bloodstains on the palm of his right hand. But there's no real evidence to explain it. I said: "After entering here, what can be certain? It's just that there are indeed bloodstains on the palm of that hand."

  Put the dragon in the backpack, jump up again to grab the hand of the stone statue, a pull-up, and then see the palm. Then say: "There is indeed bloodstain, and my blood has melted into the stone just now, but the mechanism didn't move, will it be broken?"

  "Wu Feng said: "Damn it, I've walked through so many places and the mechanism didn't break, why did this one break in the end? Isn't that cheating?"

  Wen Long looked at the several mummified corpses that had been moved to one side and said, "It can't be them who messed it up, that would be terrible. Senior predecessors, please spare us a few."

  The old man was clearly an atheist, saying: "Don't mention those unrealistic things. If we can't destroy this mechanism, they won't be able to either. And if they could destroy this mechanism, they would have escaped long ago and wouldn't have become mummies here."

  "The old man is right. But if we say it like that, then there's only one possibility left. That is... " Wu Feng looked at me and said, "Brother, your ancestors don't recognize our blood, so I can only ask you to make an exception."

  Everyone was staring at me, the implication couldn't be clearer. At this point, if I didn't go up, who would? I forced a smile and said: "No choice, only I can go up now, you'll have to help out as well."

  Wen Long lifted me up to the height of his palm again, I pierced my finger, and a drop of blood fell onto the right palm of the stone statue. After about ten seconds or so, the blood merged into the stone, then we heard a "creaking" sound, and the tightly closed door opened.

  "Fast forward." Wen Long shouted, at the same time he squatted down and let me jump down. At this moment, Lao Ye Zi led the way, Su Yi and Wu Feng had quickly entered the cave entrance. Wen Long pulled me, and the two of us carried the backpacks placed at the entrance of the cave, rushing to the final destination at high speed.

  The old man in front of me was running much faster than I was, and at first, I could still see the light from his flashlight. As we ran further apart, the light grew more and more distant. I had to rely on Wen Long's wolf eye flashlight behind me to determine the direction.

  Wen Long felt my speed slowing down behind him and hastily shouted: "Take off your backpack, run lightly." Damn it, this guy is still clear-headed, how did I not think of taking off the backpack? I quickly threw my backpack to one side while running. Indeed, it's much better to fight with a light load, I feel like my speed has increased a lot. In the distance, a bright light appeared in front of me. I saw that light flash three times and knew someone had run out.

  Right away, a voice came: "Hurry up, this door is moving and will close."

  I went, I accelerated my speed. Soon the light appeared in front of me, now it's just a small square with a side length of more than one meter, and it's still shrinking. I saw a hand stretching out from the square, and there were two backpacks on the ground below. I quickly grabbed that hand, and the person above was using force. At this time, Wen Long behind me had one hand grasping my belt and the other holding my left leg. I felt a surge of power coming from both sides at the same time, and then I was pulled out of the hole by someone.

  I immediately turned my head to look at the situation of the dragon, but saw that this guy had already propped up the hole with both hands, jumped upwards, and half of his body was already exposed. Then, with a forward roll, he escaped from the hole. At this time, the hole had shrunk to the point where it was impossible for people to enter or exit, and it completely closed in just over ten seconds. We were panting heavily, looking around at this place. We were out, because I saw that this space was filled with sunlight, rather than those glowing plants.

  Wen Long seemed like he didn't know what fatigue was, and with a stretch, he stood up and said, "I should be out by now, where is this?"

  "Sui Yi pointed with her hand and said: 'There's a door over there, go out and take a look, you'll know.'"

  I followed Su's finger and looked over, and indeed saw a door-shaped hollow on the wall, as well as windows. I raised my head, and there was also a skylight above. I couldn't help but smile wryly: "This place looks very familiar."

  Wen Long rushed out, took a look, and quickly retreated back in, saying: "It really came out, this house is number one."

  The old man looked at his watch and said to Wen Long: "It's been exactly seven days since you went missing."

  I lay on the ground with my face up to the sky and said, "Anyway, I've completed my task, after all, I've found everyone. As an expert, I should be considered competent."

  Wu Feng also lay on the ground and said: "Alright, quite alright, everyone is here, let's take a rest, we'll leave soon."

  A noisy commotion came from outside, seemingly not far away, as if many people were doing something there. Wen Long leaned on the now empty window frame and took a look, saying: "It's Fat Three, they're still thinking of ways."

  The old man said: "This guy is indeed a down-to-earth person."

  I chuckled and said, "Want to scare them a bit?"

  Su Yu's childlike heart was greatly stirred up. She was the first to jump up and said: "This is really a good idea, let's scare them."

  Wu Feng also stood up and said, "What's so scary? It's broad daylight, if we went out at night, who knows, maybe we could even scare them. Now, I reckon they'll just laugh at us."

  The old man said with a smile, "It's not necessarily to scare them, giving them a surprise is also good. Hehe." I found that this old man was indeed not a simple person, he could play along with us just like that.

  So we quietly walked out of No. 1 house, with Wen Long leading the way, bypassing the crowd searching at No. 3 house, and slowly approached the rope ladder, and indeed no one discovered us. We followed the rope ladder back to the camp. There were still a few people left in the camp cooking, and they happened to be watching the camp, seeing us return, and they all stood there in stunned silence.

  The old man walked by with a sullen look on his face and said, "What's wrong, haven't seen you for just a few days and you don't recognize me as your captain?"

  One of them, who looked like a chef, finally reacted and shouted: "Captain, Deputy Wu, oh no, and Wen, how did you all get out?"

  The old man waved his hand and said: "Forget it, forget it, don't mention these things. You hurry up and prepare dinner. They'll be back soon, and we can have a good gathering."

  The chef nodded and said: "Right, right, right... I'll go make it now. We're having pancakes and braised pork for dinner tonight."

  "Hmm" We all reacted immediately, and even Wen Long couldn't take it this time. The old man should also be uncomfortable, so he hurriedly said: "No, no, let's have some vegetarian dishes tonight, too greasy for my stomach to handle at once, slow down."

  "Alright." The chef nodded and took the person to prepare. We also changed our clothes, washed ourselves thoroughly, as the camp conditions were not ideal, taking a bath was indeed a difficult task. After Su Yi finished washing up quickly, she came over and took away that piece of clothing that she had vomited all over, from then on I never saw that piece of clothing again, only later did I find out that she too was afraid of the trouble, so she just casually threw it away somewhere.

  It wasn't until dusk that we heard the sound of a crowd coming from the soft ladder, probably around ten or more people, who climbed up one after another, with Fat Three being the last one. Not having seen him for a few days, this guy seemed to have lost weight, although not very noticeably. I took a rough look and apart from Fat Three, Xiao Du, Xiao Jia, Wu Wen and Wu Bin, there were six or seven people who looked like migrant workers, all of whom appeared to be doing manual labor. Everyone was hanging their heads in despair, looking listless. Then, they saw us sitting in the middle of the campsite playing cards with great enthusiasm.

  The scene was quiet, I guess they must have thought they were hallucinating, and it was silent for at least half a minute before I heard a sound that was even more unbearable than killing pigs.

  "Teacher." Chubby Three's voice was now trembling with sobs, this guy was really a straightforward person, he loudly rushed towards the old man, I found that this guy actually wasn't slow in running, especially considering his large size. He ran all the way to the old man's side, "thud" and knelt down, kicking up a cloud of dust, and then burst into loud wails.

  I saw Su Wei fanning the dust with his hand, and at the same time, he gave me a helpless smile. The old man patted Hei San and said: "Okay, okay, a big old man, don't be so sentimental, get up."

  "Wu Wen, Wu Bin." Wen Long stood up and shouted: "Don't hurry to move the table and wine, let's celebrate properly."

  The crowd finally burst into bloom. Xiao Jia and Xiao Du came over to chat with Su Yi and the old man about the past few days, while Wu Feng followed Wen Long to arrange the tables and chairs for dinner, leaving me alone on one side. I didn't mind, after all, I had only been here for a day before disappearing and then reappearing, so it was natural to feel a bit estranged. However, as the commotion died down, I couldn't shake off the feeling that there was something I hadn't done, but what was it? For a moment, I really couldn't remember.

  The campfire was lit in the center of the camp, and several exquisite vegetarian dishes were spread out on the table. Although there was no braised pork belly, there were ordinary roasted chicken and whatnot. However, at this moment, I really couldn't muster up any appetite for these things. After drinking for half a day, I discovered that I was the one who drank the most. It turned out that Old Man didn't drink at all, Su Yi was a woman and only took a sip each time, Wu Feng was the sneakiest, always busy with something, as if he had some important matters to attend to, but actually he was also hiding a lot. Wen Long, on the other hand, wasn't hiding, but his capacity for liquor was apparently as impressive as his martial arts skills.

  After drinking a lot, I didn't get dizzy at all, but instead became much clearer-headed. It's as if my body got dizzy, but my mind became even clearer. Suddenly, I realized what it was that I had forgotten.

  I grabbed Wu Feng, who was sitting on one side, and said, "Hey, kid, there's something I need to talk to you about."

  Wu Feng was much clearer than me and said: "What's up? Speak."

  I pointed at Wu Feng, and Huanhuan, who was already a bit dizzy, said: "You little brat, running to my house is equivalent to being forcibly brought here by me."

  Wu Feng held a beer in one hand and drank with me, saying: "What's up?"

  "What's going on?" I said, "You little guy came to me initially and said you'd introduce me to a job. As a result, you got me into this mess here. And we haven't even discussed salary yet."

  Wu Feng pointed at me and laughed, saying: "You little brat just think about making money."

  "Cut the crap," I interrupted him, "who would do this job if it didn't pay well? This kind of work, without at least a hundred or eighty thousand yuan, ordinary people wouldn't do it. It's got bureaucracy, puzzle-solving, bloodshed, and ancestor worship - I haven't done anything like this in eight lifetimes."

  Wu Feng nodded and said, "You also make sense, but I really can't take out 1.8 million. Our organization makes money based on results. The previous salary was only a few thousand, barely enough to spend."

  I felt a bit more awake and hurriedly said, "What, what, 1,800, you guys are crazy, just for this little money you're working so hard. Are you sick?"

  Wu Feng said, "You don't understand, we are guided by research results, not every time we go out can get research results, the salary is a bit less, but it's all-inclusive, five insurances and one fund, for such activities, all expenses are reimbursed, overall it's still okay."

  I waved my hand and said, "That won't work either. Even if... even if you can save all your salary, you still need to buy some daily necessities every month, and occasionally have a gathering with friends. Are you out of your mind?"

  "You'd be surprised, people in this line of work all have a few screws loose. But... " Wu Feng patted my shoulder and said, "But thanks to you this time, I reckon the results from this trip will at least get us 3-5 million in funding. We'll make sure to give you a cut, how about that."

  I'm going crazy with this kid, just then Su Yi walked over and heard our conversation, saying "What's wrong, are you guys going to split the money?"