Chapter 182: Internal Strife

He Yu squinted as he leaned forward in front of me. After observing for a moment, he let out a sound of confusion. “Huh? That’s not right. This doesn’t look like it was built out of stone. Look at the material. How does it look so much like concrete?”

His eyesight had always been good, at least much better than mine. Hearing him say that, I hurriedly leaned into the beam of his flashlight to take a look. At a glance, I realized He Yu might actually be right this time. The material of the wall at the end of the tunnel looked far too new. Compared to the truly ancient stone walls on either side, the contrast between old and new was stark.

“It really does look like it.”

Curiosity tempted me to go over and check, but with Lu Ayao blocking the way ahead, I couldn’t see what was happening. In the end, Lu Ayao held his knife and stepped over to investigate.

Crouching behind him, I saw that the arm embedded in the wall was nearly touching Lu Ayao’s face, yet he showed no hint of fear whatsoever. He carefully felt all around the far wall with his hand, then turned back and met my eyes.

My heart instantly sank. Damn it, it really was concrete.

“Strange. How could it be concrete? Logically, these things shouldn’t be from such a recent era,” He Yu turned and asked me. “Xiao Yao, since it’s concrete, do you think the people embedded inside are from the 434 Archaeological Team, or someone else?”

“How could so many people from the archaeological team have come in here? Since it was built with concrete, there must have been at least two groups, and those two groups had to be enemies. That’s the only way someone gets encased in concrete,” I said.

Tian Xiaoqi had been silent for a while now. Whenever this woman went quiet and didn’t say a word, I instinctively felt like something was wrong everywhere. So I looked at her. “What are you thinking?”

Tian Xiaoqi hadn’t expected me to ask her so suddenly, and I caught the guilty look in her eyes dead-on. I turned to face her directly, taking on a posture that made it clear she had to spill something right now.

She stammered for a moment, but under the pressure of my gaze, she finally caved. “I just suddenly remembered something. A while back, Tian Yuqing brought a stack of documents home. I thought they were related to the Old Master, so I sneaked into his room and looked at the pages inside the file folder. They were mostly serial numbers and basic information for the Nine Rings Project, but that information ended on the penultimate page.”

“You saw the last page of the document too, didn’t you? What was written on the last page?” I didn’t feel like playing charades with anyone right now, so I confronted her directly.

Tian Xiaoqi looked up. “The last page recorded the prototype of something called the ‘Corpse Driver Initiative^[1].’ But it only listed the name of the plan and the execution time. There were no specific details, so I don’t know what it actually entails.”

After she finished speaking, He Yu and I both frowned at the same time. I was turning this new piece of information over in my head. Sometimes, having too much information isn’t a good thing; these scattered, disconnected bits of intel were very likely to clutter our thoughts.

“Why do I find it so hard to believe a word out of your mouth, lady?” He Yu tilted his head back, put his hands on his hips, and aimed his chin at Tian Xiaoqi with an expression that practically screamed ‘like hell I believe you.’

I thought for a moment and asked her, “What did it say for the execution time?”

Tian Xiaoqi said, “20 years.”

I sucked in a breath of cold air. That time span was far too long. Tian Xiaoqi had spoken with such detailed conviction that the plan’s name didn’t sound like something she had just made up.

Usually, when someone crafts a successful lie, they keep things vague overall and fabricate a single point of contradiction to draw all the attention there. The point is to make people ignore the details, which is where almost all lies share the same flaw: a lack of logic.

I was still wondering if there was a connection between these things when Lu Ayao suddenly crawled back from the concrete wall. He said firmly, “Stop thinking about it for now. The wall is solid. We need to find another way.”

“Huh?” He Yu cried out. “B-b-but the Stone Tortoise Mouth is closed behind us, and we didn’t see any other forks on our way here! Are we really trapped in this hole?”

“This was once a passage for the Can Tong^[2] to crawl through, which proves it definitely leads to the Main Hall. I don’t know why this concrete wall is here now, and I didn’t see any forks just now either. Since a passage was left here, this must be the only way into the Main Hall,” I said, my speech quickening instinctively.

“Hey! The space behind this wall is full of corpses. Can we dig a robber’s tunnel through the stone wall here? Dig sideways and go around this section?” He Yu immediately proposed a bold idea.

Tian Xiaoqi countered him directly. “We don’t even know how far we are from the Main Hall. None of us is an Old Chief, and there are no descendants of the Mojin Xiaowei here. We can’t even tell where we are right now, and the compass isn’t working. If you dig a tunnel sideways from here, how are you going to keep your direction?”

In less than a second, He Yu’s idea was unanimously shot down. Digging a tunnel blindly without understanding the situation would undoubtedly only make things harder. If the tunnel veered off course midway, we might end up in an even more troublesome situation.

“Then you tell me! What should we do? We’re really stuck here now! If you ask me, damn it, we would’ve been better off staying in the Yin-Yang Thirteen Palaces. At least that place was big. We don’t even know where the hell we’ve crawled to. Even if Chen Si sends people down to look for us, they might not even find this place.”

He Yu’s composure was clearly beginning to crumble. He angrily threw his backpack onto the ground beside him, kicked the opposite wall, and lay down across the tunnel. Giving up in despair, he turned his head against the stone wall and sulked. I realized his anger wasn’t out of blame, but rather regret that he hadn’t stopped us when we decided to enter the tunnel.

Beside me, Tian Xiaoqi, who had been relatively calm just a moment ago, also began to grow inexplicably anxious. Covering her face, she curled up in a corner. “I can’t die. I really can’t die here. Great-Grandfather hasn’t been found yet… how can I just die here…”

“Can you stop your fucking crying!” He Yu cursed. “What are you putting on an act for now? Weren’t you trying to kill us earlier?”

“Why are you yelling at me! Do you think we wanted to be trapped here?”

The atmosphere in the cave turned hostile in an instant. After Tian Xiaoqi yelled at him, He Yu’s neck flushed red and his temper shot straight through the roof. Seeing things taking a turn for the worse, I quickly crawled over to get between them, hoping to stop He Yu. But his punch came too fast; the moment I got there, I took the blow full in the chest.

Before I could react, the force sent me crashing into the wall behind me, my scalp practically scraping against the ceiling. I felt like the skin on my head had scraped open, and at the same time, a metallic sweetness rose in my throat as I spat out a mouthful of blood.

Lu Ayao probably hadn’t expected He Yu to actually throw a punch. He quickly lunged forward and grabbed He Yu’s wrist, preventing any chance of a second hit. He Yu’s fist was still frozen in midair. When he realized it was me in front of him, he froze, completely stunned that he had just struck me.

Once I spat out that blood, my breathing actually felt much clearer. Taking that blow from He Yu had somehow restored my focus.

Seeing the blood on the ground, Tian Xiaoqi hurriedly crawled over, trying to help ease my breathing.

He Yu had clearly snapped out of it. The redness had faded from his face, and he stammered as he reached out to help me up. “I-I-I didn’t mean to hit you! Xiao Yao, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

I snapped my hand up, refusing to let anyone touch me.

I could feel blood starting to trickle down my forehead, but I had no intention of dealing with it yet. I turned to glance at Tian Xiaoqi, then looked back at He Yu in front of me, speaking in an unnervingly calm voice. “I’m fine. But all of you had better check yourselves carefully. The murals here are silently affecting our emotions.”

“It wants us to turn on each other.”