Zhou Xuan immediately approached the coffin, placed his hand on it, and unleashed his ice-energy. When he reached under the large stone coffin, Zhou Xuan was both surprised and delighted!
Fu Ying held up her finger and shook it in front of Zhou Xuan. She scolded playfully, "Is it really that good-looking? Are you crazy?"
Zhou Xuan didn't even register Fu Ying's coquettish tone and asked blankly, "What's so pretty?"
Fu Ying snorted and glanced at Wei Xiaochai. Wei Xiaoqing had already blushed and pulled up her pants. She understood what Fu Ying meant, but she was just too frightened.
She knew about the corpse beforehand, but she never imagined it would be so horrific. Its chest, face, and thighs were covered in cuts, making it look incredibly gruesome.
Zhou Xuan wasn't thinking about this at all, nor was he considering Fu Ying's feelings. Realizing what was happening, he quickly waved to Li Jinlong and the Blue executives, "Come here quickly! Come here quickly!"
When Lan Gaofeng, Li Yong, and Wei Haihong saw Zhou Xuan's agitated expression, they didn't know what had happened, so they all rushed over.
Zhou Xuan pointed to the inside of the large stone coffin. After catching his breath, he said, "It's inside."
Li Jinlong shone a powerful flashlight inside. After looking around, he said, "Nothing much, the treasures have all been distributed!" Zhou Xuan, after trying to calm himself, finally spoke up, "There's a passage under the large stone coffin!"
These words stunned everyone!
Then everyone looked at the stone coffin carefully. But they couldn't find any passage or even a trace of it.
What passages are there?
Zhou Xuan said to Li Jinlong, "Give me your shovel."
Although Li Jinlong found it strange, he still handed him the shovel.
Zhou Xuan examined the area with the shovel, then forcefully scooped at a spot in the middle, sending sparks flying. Pebbles flew out.
However, the bottom of the coffin was not broken, and Zhou Xuan's hands were numb from the shock.
Zhou Xuanwang just detected it with ice energy. There is a one-meter square passage under the stone coffin, but the entrance is right inside the stone coffin. The coffin is made of a large stone and is connected to the floor below, which is very ingenious.
Zhou Xuan didn't detect the passage at first because he had detected everything else, but he missed the large stone coffin, which was indeed unexpected.
Li Jinlong snatched the shovel and said, "I'll do it!"
Although Zhou Xuan possessed supernatural abilities, he was not particularly strong and lacked experience. His ice energy detected that the stone coffin was less than ten centimeters thick from the passage below, but he did not have the skill of a stonemason and could not break it open even with a steel shovel.
Li Jinlong, on the other hand, was much more experienced. He was a professional tomb raider and excavator, and he knew exactly where to apply force, which angle would save energy, and where the best position was. After taking the steel shovel, he dug down into the spot where Zhou Xuan had just dug.
To be honest, a shovel isn't a good tool for dealing with stones, but there weren't any other tools available, so they had to make do. However, Li Jinlong was indeed an experienced expert. With one shovel stroke, he didn't seem to have as much strength as Zhou Xuan, and no flames flew out. But a crack appeared at the bottom of the stone coffin.
Li Jinlong was overjoyed. This meant that the bottom of the large stone coffin was hollow and very thin!
Volume 1, Chapter 112: The Most Difficult Choice
Ding Lingwu let out a deep breath, then with a "heh," he gripped the steel shovel with both hands and scooped up some soil with a knife. With a "clang," the shovel snapped open, but the bottom of the coffin also cracked open, revealing a deep, dark hole. Lan Gaofeng and Wei Haihong were both surprised and delighted. They quickly shone lights into the hole.
Li Jinlong moved closer and used his shovel to hammer and repair the opening. Once the hole was made, it was much easier to work on. In just a few minutes, Li Jinlong had created an opening about 40 to 50 centimeters wide, big enough for one person to pass through.
Although they had emerged from the passageway, no one could be certain that what lay beneath was a tunnel from which they could escape. However, the possibility of escape was always exciting.
After making the entrance a bit better, Li Jinlong stood inside the coffin again, bent down, shone the lamp into the entrance, and looked around before raising his head and saying, "It's definitely a passage, but I don't know where it leads, or if there are any dangers!"
"Whether they have it or not, we have to go down and check now!"
Zhou Xuan said calmly.
This is true. In fact, even without him saying it, Li Jinlong and the others would have regarded this passage as their hope for survival.
Zhou Xuan had also been using his ice energy to probe deeper into the cave, but after probing five or six meters down, he still found himself in a small passage. By this time, his ice energy had been depleted too much to probe any further.
Lan Gaozhang also shone a bright light on the person lying at the bottom of the coffin and looked inside, saying, "This hole is seven or eight meters deep, and it seems there's another way out on the right side of the bottom."
Li Jinlong took off his backpack, unzipped it, and took out a nylon rope. The rope wasn't big; it was only about twenty meters long.
The Blue executive glanced at the few people around him—there were actually only seven of them left—and after thinking for a moment, said, "Everyone, let's get ready. Who will stay up here, and who will go down to scout ahead?"
Wei Haihong immediately said, "Xiaoqing and Boying, the two girls, will stay up there and we five men will scout ahead!"
Bo Ying disagreed and said it directly: "Whether I'm up here or down here, I want to be with Zhou Xuan. You can divide it up however you want!"
The senior official pondered for a moment, then said, "I think we should do this: this place is a dead end anyway. Since we're going to die here, there's no difference between staying up here and down here. But we've placed our hopes on this cave, so let's all go. If it's a way out, then everyone can get out. If it's a dead end, then we can just consider it as starving to death in this stone palace. There's no difference!"
Indeed, they were practically in a desperate situation. They couldn't find a way out, had no food or water, and would die in another two or three days!
Li Jinlong wrapped the rope around the stone coffin once, tied a knot, threw the other end into the hole, and asked hesitantly, "Who wants to go down first?"
Li Jinlong didn't want to walk in front, which was very obvious. Zhou Xuan thought to himself that he couldn't push Brother Hong and Yingying and Xiaoqing in front either. He had his ice energy protecting him, so he could defend against any danger. If he couldn't stop them in front, then there was no way anyone could escape. If it was a minor danger, he was better able to defend against it than they were.
Stepping forward into Stone Coffin Village, Zhou Xuan said calmly, "I'll go down first."
Tingying naturally followed. When Zhou Xuan wanted to go down first, she didn't stop him. Anyway, she was going to be with him, so there was no difference between going up and down.
Wei Haihong handed the flashlight to Zhou Xuan, patted him on the shoulder, and didn't say anything. At this moment, it made no difference whether he said anything or not.
Zhou Xuan tore off a piece of his shirt, threaded it through the handle of the bright light, tied it to his belt, gripped the rope tightly with both hands, and slowly slid down into the cave.
The opening inside was only slightly wider than a person's body. As Zhou Xuan slid down, he used his ice energy to probe ahead. At the bottom of this opening, the hole on the right was about 1.5 to 1.6 meters high.
Zhou Xuan shone a powerful light on the front of the cave. The cave was very deep, and Zhou Xuan's icy aura could not reach that far. He looked up again and saw that Fu Ying had also slid down. Zhou Xuan supported her waist and helped her slowly fall to the bottom. Then Wei Xiaoqing came down.
Zhou Xuan walked a few steps ahead, followed by Bo Ying and Wei Xiaoqing, and only those who came down later had a place to sit.
After the others had all come down, Zhou Xuan started walking forward. The passage was not very smooth. The first few dozen meters were a stone slab passage, but after walking for about ten minutes, the artificial stone path disappeared, and what followed was a natural stone cave. The cave gradually widened and started to rise.
After walking for another half hour, it seemed to be along a hillside going uphill. The cave could accommodate three or four people walking side by side, and the terrain was getting higher and higher, almost like climbing a mountain. When everyone was panting, Zhou Xuan saw that Wei Xiaoqing was the most tired, so he said, "Let's take a break. We don't know where this cave leads. Let's rest before we go on."