He chuckled and said, "Just looking at you, Tianjian, is enough for me!"
Fu Ying thought the first half of Zhou Xuan's words were acceptable, but the second half made her pause for a moment. Then she smiled and said, "Zhou Xuan, I always thought you were very honest. How come you've become so glib now?"
"That depends on the person!" Zhou Xuan said smugly. "As for other female servants, in my whole life, hehe, I'll only ever seduce you!"
"You're just spouting nonsense!" Fu Ying said with a smile. "But I love hearing what you say!"
Just as Zhou Xuan was about to tease the extremely beautiful Fu Ying again, he heard Wei Xiaoqing's voice calling from the cave behind him: "Zhou Xuan, where are you? Can you hear me calling?"
The sound came with a thud, a buzzing echo that reverberated through the giant stone passage.
Zhou Xuan immediately knelt down by the small opening and called out, "Come over here, everyone! This is a man-made passage!"
Zhou Xuan's words, "artificial passage," immediately excited Li Jinlong and Lan Gaozhang. Wei Xiaoqing was the first to call out to Zhou Xuan, but after hearing a safe voice come back saying that the other side was an artificial passage, Li Jinlong and Lan Gaozhang climbed in through the small hole first, while Wei Xiaoqing and Wei Haihong were almost the last to go in.
After all sixteen people gathered in the giant stone passage, Li Jinlong was especially excited and carried a powerful flashlight to illuminate the way forward.
Zhou Xuan wanted to tell him to be careful, but the group of people behind him all followed, leaving only him, Fu Ying, Wei Haihong, and Wei Xiaoqing.
Wei Haihong was clearly worried about him. After entering the cave and seeing Zhou Xuan again, his expression improved a lot. Wei Xiaoqing's face was a little pale, and she was indeed a little scared.
Zhou Xuan wanted to say a few words to her, like, "Why is a girl getting involved in this?" But seeing that she was already extremely frightened and had just been concerned about him, he didn't want to say anything. He would have to wait until they were out of this place. He couldn't afford to upset Wei Xiaoqing right now.
Zhou Xuan slung his bag over his shoulder, pointed ahead, and said, "Put your bag on properly, let's go, it's all over now!"
The further you get from the bottom of the cave, the more important the food and drink you bring in your bag becomes. Everyone has their own; you can't ask others for it later, can you?
Zhou Xuan pulled Fu Ying along, while Wei Xiaoqing, frightened, walked in the middle, gently clutching Zhou Xuan's vest. Wei Haihong walked at the very back.
There was no one in the passage ahead, because the passage about ten meters ahead turned in another direction and took a bend.
After rounding the bend, Zhou Xuan immediately saw more than ten people standing together with bright lights ahead, so he quickly walked to the front.
The group of high-ranking officials all stared at the two identical passageways in front of them. When the bright lights shone in, they could see that the two passageways, about five or six meters apart, turned left and right respectively, and they didn't know which passageway to go into.
Zhou Xuan stepped forward and secretly channeled the ice energy out. The ice energy turned a corner and reached a distance of more than ten meters. He couldn't help but frown. Both passages were the same, and there was still a passage more than ten meters away. He couldn't sense any danger, so he didn't know which side to take.
Li Jinlong murmured, "Nine Turns and Eighteen Caves, Nine Turns and Eighteen Caves, this is the real Nine Turns and Eighteen Caves!"
No one else cares what scriptures he's reciting.
"Never mind that, let's go to the right first. Isn't it said that pedestrians keep to the right? Let's go to the right!" Li Quan said, shining a high-powered flashlight on the right-hand passage. There always has to be a choice, and dawdling won't do. Let's just pick one and go.
Zhou Xuan had no objections; when the ice energy revealed nothing, he had no idea what to do. Li Quan carried the lantern and walked ahead. These boulder passages were much easier to traverse than caves. The bright lantern illuminated the path ahead as they strode forward.
Zhou Xuan wanted to go ahead and scout the way, but everyone crowded to the front, so he could only follow behind.
The distance between the sixteen people, one at each end, was twelve or thirteen meters. The icy aura that Zhou Xuan released was only two or three meters in front of Li Quan.
While Zhou Xuan used all his ice energy to probe ahead, he kept up as closely as possible to avoid falling too far behind Li Quan, who was at the front.
After walking for another twenty minutes or so, covering at least five hundred meters, Li Quan, who was at the front, exclaimed in surprise.
Zhou Xuan also detected that five identical passages suddenly appeared in front of him. Including the passage they were currently walking through, there were a total of six passages. At the intersection of the passages was a stone chamber of about twenty square meters. After everyone gathered in this small stone chamber, they looked around at the passages. After turning around a few times, they found that the six passages on the east, west, south, and north sides were all exactly the same.
Even more surprisingly, after Zhou Xuan released his supernatural ice energy to detect the channels, he found that all the channels were the same, and he could not detect any difference between them.
After a moment of stunned silence, Zhou Xuan suddenly exclaimed, "Oh no, which way did we come from?"
Everyone was taken aback, then looked at the passageway in front of them again, turning to look at it from one side and then the other. It was exactly the same. They couldn't even tell which one they had come from!
“Nine Turns and Eighteen Caves, Nine Turns and Eighteen Caves!” Li Jinlong exclaimed, “This is the Nine Turns and Eighteen Caves, it’s a huge maze!”
The senior executive asked, "Old Li, since you know it's a labyrinth of nine bends and eighteen caves, do you know how to get through it?"
Li Jinlong shook his head and sighed, "It's been too long. For more than ten generations of our Li family, this has been passed down. The secret has been forgotten because it's too vague. It's like a story, a legend. And the mechanism diagram passed down by our ancestors is only a fragmented piece."
After thinking for a moment, Li Jinlong added, "However, there is also a saying passed down from our ancestors: 'Nine bends and eighteen caves, turn left when you encounter a road.'"
The senior executive frowned and asked, "Left? Who knows where the left side is now?"
Everyone was dumbfounded. They couldn't even tell which passage they came from, let alone which side was left.
Li Yong took a colored pen out of his backpack, drew a circle on one of the passages, and said, "There are only a few passages. There are far fewer passages than the cave, right? We can still go through them one by one. Let's choose one for now, and we'll find one that might lead to the end."
As he spoke, Li Yong held up a lamp and shone it on the circled passageway, saying, "Let's start with this one!"
Neither Lan Gaozhang nor Li Jinlong had any objections. Lan Gaozhang was probably the highest-ranking leader among this group, and Li Jinlong was likely the most experienced. Basically, their opinions were taken into account. If neither of them objected, then there was no problem.
Zhou Xuan hesitated for a moment. Li Yong and a police officer had already walked ahead, followed closely by Li Jinlong, his uncle, and his nephew.
Zhou Xuan pulled Fu Ying into the passage, and they were about ten meters away from Li Yong. He quickly released more icy energy, but after only ten meters, Zhou Xuan suddenly sensed danger and shouted, "Li Yong, stop! Stop!"
Volume 1, Chapter 104: Mass Grave and Poisonous Corpse Worms
When the two shouted, Li Yong and another police officer stood side by side, shouting. Li Yong reacted quickly and retreated.
But at that moment, the stones beneath their feet suddenly began to fall.
Li Yong stepped back, but remained on the fallen rocks. Another officer in front of him fell down without any warning.
Fang Jianjun was right behind Li Yong. He reached out and grabbed Li Yong's arm, pulling him out with all his might.
Fortunately, when Li Yong heard Zhou Xuan call out, he stepped back a little, making it within Fang Jianjun's reach, leaving the police officer helpless.
Lan Gaofeng and Li Jinlong quickly stepped forward and shone a powerful flashlight into the pit that had been exposed by the collapse. What they saw there shocked them!
This area is several dozen feet deep, appearing to be at least twenty meters deep. Its length and width are impossible to discern, as a stone pillar is built every ten meters or so, and it is impossible to tell how many stone pillars there are.