The Secrets of Heaven, Season 4

Chapter 22

The young wandering monk blinked wearily and headed deeper into the vast, boundless forest.

Yu Ling has made her choice.

At this moment, Li Xiaojun called out again with deep emotion, "Daughter! Come here!"

But she slowly retreated towards the door, her gaze still lingering on Li Xiaojun, while her body moved to Tong Jianguo's side.

"Okay, let's go!"

Tong Jianguo, still holding his pistol level, turned and rushed out of the room with Yu Ling, then immediately locked the iron door behind them and rushed into the boundless secret space.

23:00

late at night.

The streets of the sleeping city remained silent. The rain had lessened considerably, turning into a gentle drizzle, though there were still many puddles on the ground.

Ye Xiao drove the hospital ambulance, guided by Xiao Zhi, and sped towards the stadium.

Behind them was the sleeping headquarters. Dingding, Elena, Lin Junru, and Sun Zichu, who was lying in bed, remained in place. "Tian Shen" and "Xiao Bai" protected them in the living room.

The ambulance siren cut through the night in the drizzle, and Ye Xiao stared straight ahead with the high beams on. He was no longer worried that Xiao Zhi would run away, so he simply let her take him to the "Dragon TV" secret base. He was confident that he could protect her. But he still said coldly, "This is the last time I'll trust you."

"This may be the last time I help you."

Ten minutes later, the car had arrived at the foot of the stadium. The towering canopy, dozens of meters high, radiated countless white lights, which shone even more clearly and brightly in the night rain.

Ye Xiao stopped the ambulance and walked with Xiao Zhi into the drizzle, looking up at the huge stands in the darkness—the one that had almost cost him his life that afternoon.

"Come with me."

She calmly uttered a short sentence, then led Ye Xiao into the dark passage, quickly turning to the light sphere.

Inside the stadium, water was everywhere. They stepped onto the wet steps and entered the red stands.

Xiaozhi knew the place very well. The two of them walked to the upper level of the stands and found a small door hidden in a secluded spot.

They remained silent and quietly slipped through the door. Ye Xiao drew his pistol from his waist; the scars on his body no longer affected him, except for the bandage wrapped around his head.

Inside the door was a deep staircase. They practically tiptoed down, and it took them a full two minutes to reach the bottom. They must have gone deep underground—presumably the foundation space from when the stadium was built.

Push open another door, and you'll find the secret base of "Dragon TV" in Nanming City.

They crept along the corner of the wall, finding themselves in rows of small cubicles, each emitting the sound of a television. A large screen, several meters high, displayed the current broadcast from "Dragon TV." In the distance, several staff members approached, all looking exhausted, clearly heading back to their dormitories to rest. The entire secret base was enormous, roughly the size of an underground football stadium. The black concrete ceiling, like a night sky, was dotted with star-like lights; even a quick glance was breathtaking.

Xiaozhi dragged him to a secluded corner, and after making sure they wouldn't be discovered by others, she lowered her voice and said, "See these little cubicles? Each cubicle has hundreds of surveillance screens, responsible for monitoring a block. There are people guarding the cubicles all night long. If a tour group member is detected entering the frame, the system immediately switches to the control center, and then the data is transmitted to Los Angeles via satellite."

Tell me—where can I see the old footage?

She shook her head and replied in a whisper, "I've only been here for two or three days. I need to look for it carefully."

Ye Xiao stubbornly walked towards the cubicle in front of him, only to find it empty. All the monitors were completely black, with only a few red dots of light, presumably in areas without artificial light, relying solely on the cameras' night vision systems. They moved to the next small cubicle and found a staff member sitting inside, so they quietly withdrew.

They crept quietly to the last row of cubicles, thankfully no one noticed them. One of the cubicles had its door closed, which puzzled Ye Xiao. Why were the other cubicles without doors, but this one was the only one with the door tightly shut?

He gave it a gentle push, and sure enough, it was locked. Ye Xiao casually picked up a tool and pried the door open without making a sound. His movements were exceptionally light and he made almost no noise.

After glancing around, they quietly slipped inside. It was a completely enclosed small room; under the white light, there was a row of surveillance equipment and some machines they couldn't understand.

The screen shows a paused night vision image, clearly filmed from a hidden corner. A person is standing in the stairwell with their back to the camera, holding a flashlight in their left hand and an iron wrench in their right.

Ye Xiao pressed the play button, and the picture started moving—the person in the shot turned their face, and under the camera's night vision effect, the whole face appeared a terrifying red, but the eyes and nose were very clear and could be identified at a glance.

"Xiao Fang!"

The face in the shot was actually Xiao Fang, the tour guide of the group!

Xiaozhi leaned against Ye Xiao, but she didn't recognize Xiao Fang—the first person in the tour group to die.

That's right, a black background, a red face—it's that face, at least Ye Xiao would never mistake it.

He calmed his excitement and continued watching. Xiao Fang turned around in front of the camera; it looked like a corridor in a residential building.

Since Xiao Fang died in the early hours of the first day, this footage must have been taken on their first night in Nanming, in the corridor of the base camp.

Yes, where Xiao Fang went that night and what he saw remains a mystery. When everyone found Xiao Fang around 5 a.m., he was already a decomposed corpse, lying alone on the rooftop!

Ye Xiao stared intently at the screen, and saw a second figure appear in the frame. The figure swayed in front of Xiao Fang for a moment, then walked down the stairs, and Xiao Fang quietly followed behind.

The scene quickly switches to another shot, with the camera hidden in the stairwell, filming two men walking down the stairs one after the other.

The staircase had a bend at one floor, and when the person in front turned there, their face was naturally exposed to the camera. Although it was still a red night vision effect, the outline and features of that face were all too familiar to Ye Xiao—Sun Zichu!

Yes, it's that talkative guy! However, in the footage, he is expressionless and has a blank look in his eyes, completely different from his daytime appearance, walking downstairs like a robot.

A word flashed through Ye Xiao's mind in an instant—sleepwalking.

Yes, Sun Zichu had personally admitted to him that he had sleepwalked a few days ago.

Sun Zichu even suspected that he might have killed the tour guide Xiao Fang and Tu Nan while sleepwalking.

And in the surveillance footage, the person following behind Sun Zichu is Xiao Fang—could his suspicion be correct, that the sleepwalking Sun Zichu killed them?

The more he thought about it, the more horrified he became. He even started to imagine how to deal with Sun Zichu, but the scene immediately switched away.

The camera in the current shot appears to be installed at the entrance of the residential building, showing Xiao Fang and Sun Zichu walking out of the ground floor. Sun Zichu is clearly still sleepwalking, but his pace quickens, almost to the point of jogging. Xiao Fang is following him, appearing very cautious and careful.

The scene shifts again, this time to a dark street. Two figures can still be seen in the night vision lens, but they are now quite far apart. Sun Zichu disappears into the shadows by the roadside, gradually vanishing from the frame, clearly obscured by leaves or something similar, and perhaps has gone back into the residential building.

Only the tour guide, Xiao Fang, stood alone in the middle of the deserted street, shining a flashlight in all directions.

But he could no longer find Sun Zichu—he had clearly lost him. His actions showed that he was very anxious, but this was understandable in the dark of night.

Ye Xiao and Xiao Zhi stared intently at the small screen, just like television viewers watching a reality show called "Heavenly Secrets."

Suddenly, a dark shadow appeared in the shot and flew over Xiao Fang's head; it looked like a strange, large bird.

But why would a large bird fly by in the middle of the night?

The tour guide, Xiao Fang, looked up in fear and lunged at the "big bird" with his flashlight in hand...

The Complete Version of "The Secret of Heaven Season 4" Chapter 10: The Last Rakshasa Princess

Simultaneously, at the same minute and second.

Even in the same place.

A secret base deep within the stands of the stadium.

With his left hand still in a sling, Tong Jianguo stuffed the pistol back into the pocket under his arm, gripped Yu Ling tightly with his right hand, and rushed out of the dark passage.

He had already locked Li Xiaojun and the man in black in the secret room, so he was no longer afraid of being seen. He rushed onto the path made up of cubicles and bumped into several TV station staff members. They were all startled by him and Yu Ling, and an American girl screamed and hid in the toilet.

"Don't be afraid!"

Tong Jianguo knew that these staff members would not harm them, and of course, no one would have expected that the members of the reality show would actually find this secret base.

He pulled Yu Ling to the exit, only to find the door tightly shut. He could only move one hand and couldn't unlock it. He pulled out his pistol and stepped back a few meters, but then put it away, shaking his head helplessly. The door was made of special materials; Li Xiaojun, locked in the secret room, must have remotely locked it.

"What do we do? They'll be out soon!"

"Don't rush!"

He shouted for Yu Ling to calm down and pulled her to run to the other side of the secret base.

Upon seeing Tong Jianguo holding a pistol, the staff members hurriedly made way in fear, and chaos erupted throughout the secret base. They quickly ran to another passage and discovered a large ventilation shaft overhead—such a large underground space couldn't possibly have only one entrance and exit; there must be ventilation and exhaust pipes, otherwise no one could live underground.

Having grasped this principle, Tong Jianguo stuffed the pistol back into the pouch under his arm, moved a platform over, climbed to the ventilation duct, and quickly removed the metal shield, revealing a passage more than a meter in diameter. Although his left arm was in a sling, making things very inconvenient, he still climbed up with difficulty, the wound on his arm throbbing with pain again. Then he reached out his right hand and pulled Yu Ling up, and the two of them, heads down, walked towards the end of the darkness inside the ventilation duct.

It was clearly an uphill slope, and soon they encountered another isolation barrier. Tong Jianguo once again used one hand to remove it and pulled Yu Ling through.

Outside, however, was a vast, dark space, almost devoid of light, like being inside an ancient tomb.

Anyone in this situation would feel a desperate fear. Yu Ling trembled and leaned against Tong Jianguo, shouting around, "Hey, is anyone there?"

"Shut up! Do you want to lure them up here?"

Yu Ling immediately fell silent in fright. Tong Jianguo reached out and touched his body, only to find that the flashlight he had prepared was gone! It must have been dropped more than an hour ago when he was fighting with X in the stands.

He cursed inwardly, but pretended to be calm and whispered in her ear, "You can't see anything here, so you have to hold on tight to me. If you lose me, you'll never be found again."

They walked a few steps forward, but bumped into a concrete pillar. Tong Jianguo, enduring the pain in his forehead, reached out and touched the shape of the concrete pillar. After thinking carefully, he said, "If I'm not mistaken, this should be under the stadium stands—the entire stadium structure is actually hollow, supported by these reinforced concrete pillars, so there's not a ray of light inside."

He walked around the pillar and continued forward, this time much more cautiously, constantly reaching out to feel his way forward. Sure enough, he touched another concrete pillar. This place was no smaller than the secret base below, but even darker and more terrifying, separated by countless reinforced concrete pillars, resembling a giant maze.

In this absolutely dark world, not a sound could be heard, as if one had returned to the ancient passageway of the Rakshasa Kingdom. Even the fearless Tong Jianguo felt the hairs on the back of his head stand on end—was there really no way to escape?

Suddenly, a blinding light shone overhead, causing both of them to look down and squint.

He let out a low growl, only then realizing that the entire maze-like space was now illuminated by white lights. The ceiling, several meters high, was actually the base of the stands, a stepped, sloping surface with a large lamp hanging every ten meters or so.

Who turned on the light?

Another series of hurried footsteps sounded, and behind countless concrete pillars, an unseen ghost was hidden.

It's definitely the Men in Black!

They must have rushed out through the locked door and then tracked them here through the ventilation duct.

Yu Ling gripped his arm tightly, and the two of them looked around blankly, as if they were trapped in a maze of giant rocks, all of which were prehistoric pillars—there was nowhere to hide!

Fortunately, Tong Jianguo remained calm and pulled her to a corner of the wall in the distance. The shadow of a pillar blocked their view, making them difficult to spot unless they got close.

They had walked too fast and in too much force when they climbed into the ventilation duct, causing the wound on his left arm, which was in a sling, to reopen. Blood flowed out of the gauze and quickly stained half of his arm red.

"What’s wrong with you?"

Yu Ling asked in a terrified whisper, while Tong Jianguo took a deep breath, enduring the pain from his wound, and whispered to her, "Don't be afraid, child."

At this moment, the footsteps grew louder and louder. The entire space below the stands was like a huge resonating chamber, constantly echoing the X-shaped footsteps, like a noose tightly around their necks.

He's coming soon!

Finally, the stubborn Tong Jianguo sighed: "Yuling, you can choose again—go with Li Xiaojun. He is your biological father. He will not hurt you. He will treat you well and leave you with a very good future."

"No, my mind is a mess right now. No matter what happens in the future, all I want to do right now is get out of here." Yu Ling didn't dare to breathe too loudly, afraid that the assassins following her would hear. "I'm still the tour guide, and I have to fulfill my duty to get you out of here—and I already know how to escape!"

"What method?"

"There is a secret path that leads to the outside world."

Tong Jianguo frowned: "How did you know?"

"Alright, let me tell you everything now. This is how this secret passage works..."

Simultaneously, at the same minute and second.

The same place, but separated by a thick layer of reinforced concrete floor slabs.