Chapter 115: The Underground Palace Sewer

As soon as I finished speaking, He Yu pushed me away with a hand. “Go, go, go! Get lost! Seriously, this place isn’t even that big. The three of us must have searched it two or three times by now. Where’s this passage you’re talking about? There isn’t even a shadow of it.”

He draped an arm over my shoulder. “Little Yao, you didn’t remember it wrong, did you?”

I slapped his hand away and said firmly, “Impossible! That map is burned into my brain. The passage definitely exists, and it’s located right beneath this stone chamber, unless the person who drew the map made a mistake.”

Chen Canghai straightened up from the other side and shook his head at us, indicating that he hadn’t found any gaps or mechanisms either.

I was starting to feel puzzled. I paced around the stone chamber like a headless fly, but He Yu remained unhurried. He checked the time again, put his hands on his hips, and sat down right in the middle of the open space. He began pulling items out of his massive travel bag one by one.

“You two use your brains. I can’t think of a way out, so I’ll just handle the logistics.” He Yu pulled several coal briquettes out of the bag. He had snatched this bag from Qiao Sangui’s group during the earlier chaos, and the compression sacks inside were filled with coal and instant noodles.

I suspected he had planned this all along.

“Hey, hey, hey! Don’t you dare start a fire. We don’t even know if there’s enough oxygen in here for the three of us to make it out. If you light that coal, we might not find the exit, but we’ll certainly be poisoned to death by your carbon monoxide.” I quickly gave him a warning as I watched him tinker.

He Yu shot me a sideways glance and checked the sealed bags in the pack. “Little Yao, you underestimate me. Do you really think your Lord He is that dim-witted? I’m just checking what’s in the bags. Once we find the exit, we need to have a good meal. Eating nothing but compressed biscuits all day isn’t good for one’s health.”

This guy was still trying to argue with me. The greedy glint in his eyes earlier clearly showed he wanted to cook a meal right then and there.

I stood by and glared at him until He Yu sighed and silently stuffed everything back into the bag. I rested my chin in my hand and surveyed the stone chamber, my mind racing.

By normal standards, this stone chamber was built very simply. There were few stone beams or broken tiles, and the walls were reinforced with plain stone blocks. There were almost no decorative carvings, which should have made checking for mechanisms much easier. Yet, despite that, we were still trapped.

I soon noticed something was wrong. I went to feel the gaps between the bricks. These gaps were completely sealed with mortar, including the door we had tried so hard to push open. It had to be designed this way; otherwise, even a single one of those Red Fire Ants would have crawled in.

If that were the case, the oxygen levels here should be very low. However, we had been here for a long time without feeling any sense of suffocation. This meant there had to be some sort of ventilation facility.

Chen Canghai was standing near me. He moved to the center of the stone chamber and struck a fire starter. I immediately watched the trajectory of the flame. As soon as it caught, the flame began to tilt toward the door. Although the tilt was slight, it proved there was indeed a draft.

Chen Canghai held the fire starter and walked a full circle around the stone chamber. When he reached the area where Chen Jianguo’s body lay, I noticed the draft became significantly stronger.

I quickly shone my flashlight over there.

We hadn’t moved Chen Jianguo’s body much before. The spot where he had collapsed was in a corner of the stone chamber, quite far from the door. I slapped my forehead, thinking my brain had been out of use for so long it had short-circuited.

Since Chen Jianguo had already lost a lot of blood at the time, the fact that he entered the room and collapsed in the furthest corner was suspicious in itself. The only explanation was that this corner was different from the other three. Chen Jianguo was actually using his own body to give us a hint.

Yet, I hadn’t realized it until now.

He Yu stood before the corpse and bowed three times. “Truly a veteran. Even at the brink of death, he was thinking of leaving a way out for the younger generation. Don’t worry, we received your note. May your spirit in heaven protect us and grant us smooth sailing for the rest of the journey.”

After he finished his chanting, I also bowed to the body. It was a sign of respect before moving him. This old man, Chen Jianguo, really thought several steps ahead. He used his body to hide the mechanism’s location before he died, otherwise, that unknown team might have destroyed this place.

The three of us moved Chen Jianguo aside, and He Yu knelt in the corner to inspect it. He kicked the stone floor tiles a few times and clicked his tongue. “Something’s not right. The wind is definitely coming from here, but how do we get in? We can’t exactly dig a tomb robber’s tunnel, can we? Do either of you know how to do that?”

Chen Canghai took off his hearing aids and put them away. At this point, he probably didn’t feel like talking.

I certainly didn’t know how to dig a tomb robber’s tunnel, and Chen Canghai likely didn’t either. He Yu’s family didn’t deal in that sort of thing at all. The only one who might have known, Lu A’yao, was missing. This was going to be a major problem.

One trouble followed another. He Yu struggled to stand up and turned back to his bag to grab some tools, so I stepped in to take a look.

Thinking about how He Yu had just stomped on the floor tiles, I reflexively kicked the side wall. The moment my foot connected, I regretted it. My kick created a depression in the wall.

Crap! This sensation was wrong!

“Damn! It’s over! Why is it always me!”

Before I could even process what was happening, I let out a roar. The ground beneath my feet suddenly vanished. Chen Canghai rushed over to grab me but missed. I fell almost vertically through a gap in the shattered floor.

Fortunately, it was a rather smooth stone chute. I slid so fast I couldn’t stop myself. After falling vertically for a few seconds, the path turned into a slope with several turns. My screams echoed through the hollow space, sounding wretched and distorted.

Finally, I slid through the pipe-like passage and plunged into water. I got a mouthful and a noseful of foul-smelling water. The moment I hit the water, I struggled to lift my head above the surface and wiped my face. I realized this was a shallow waterway. When I stood up, the water only reached my thighs.

Just as I stood up, a strange “Yahoo!” echoed from the pipe behind me. I cursed inwardly and scrambled through the water to get out of the way, but I was still drenched by the splash from He Yu, who hit the water like a giant depth charge.

“Holy crap! Is this the underground palace sewer? Why does it smell so bad!” He Yu climbed out of the water and immediately covered his nose.

I was so disgusted by the water that I couldn’t speak for a while. When Chen Canghai finally slid out of the passage, I was quick and grabbed his arm, preventing him from face-planting into the filthy water like we had.

The surrounding stench was truly indescribable. He Yu pulled out a towel and used a knife to cut it into three pieces. Each of us tied a piece over our faces.

I used my flashlight to scan the surroundings and found that this was a continuous passage. Air flowed in from one side. The dirty water we were standing in seemed to be contaminated by something; every time we moved, a wave of stench rolled up from below.

The smell reminded me of the scent I had encountered when I fell from the stone pillar earlier. However, that hadn’t been a fully enclosed space, so the smell hadn’t been as pungent. Or perhaps my nose’s sensitivity had been dulled by the shock of nearly being smashed to pieces back then.

“Go right, walk against the wind,” I said.

He Yu tightened his makeshift mask. “I’m telling you, who built this underground palace? This smell is extreme. Having a stinking ditch like this directly under the palace, doesn’t that ruin the feng shui?”

The water in the channel was excessively murky. The flashlight couldn’t reach the bottom, and I had no idea what was deposited down there. It felt incredibly slimy and sticky as we waded through it.

Chen Canghai led the way, struggling through the muck with great effort. It was just as difficult for the rest of us, and before long, all three of us were drenched in sweat. Eventually, we were too exhausted to even speak, communicating only by flashing our flashlights at each other.

Two flashes meant stop and rest, while one flash meant we had recovered enough to keep moving.

By the third break, He Yu was leaning against the wall, looking like he was about to collapse. He groaned, unable to find a comfortable way to sit or stand. “Brothers, how long has it been? It feels like the ground is getting stickier. The walls too, they’re both slimy and slick.”

I wiped my hands on my clothes and pulled a bottle of mineral water from He Yu’s bag. After I took a sip, He Yu reached out. “Don’t put it away yet. I’m dying of thirst, give me a drink too.”

His hands were covered in the wet, slippery black sludge from the walls, so I simply unscrewed the cap and poured some into his mouth for him.

I scraped a bit of the black grime that had smeared from the water onto the stone wall and sniffed it. Frowning, I asked Chen Canghai, “Have you seen this stuff before? The water in this Underground Palace should theoretically be connected to the Underground River. Why is it so filthy?”

Just as I finished speaking, the sound of splashing water echoed from the pitch-black passage ahead. Ripples spread toward us in concentric circles. He Yu immediately drew his knife and stood straight. The sound wasn’t loud, but it made us all instinctively go on high alert.

A moment passed, but no one appeared from the darkness.

He Yu asked in a hushed whisper, “What’s the situation?”

As he spoke, I saw a dead flashlight bobbing toward us on the water from up ahead. I recognized the black flashlight instantly. I waded forward a few steps and fished it out of the water.

After a quick glance at the flashlight, I turned back and waved to them. “Hurry up! Lu A’yao might be right ahead!”