Chapter 253: The First Real Crisis

Hearing Qin Yun say that on his return trip he would bring the corpse along with him, the livestream chat instantly erupted.

The Italian netizens in particular were overcome with excitement.

Fabio Rossi was a household name in Italy, a god-tier cave-diving master known to everyone, yet such a legendary figure had met his end in Guangxi, China — a loss that left people immensely惋惜.

Once, Fabio's family had spent an enormous sum trying to recover his body, but unfortunately they never succeeded.

As time wore on, they gave up, and later, once the Dashiwei Tiankeng was banned, the people who had once been here were forgotten by everyone.

Now, a full ten years later, Qin Yun was pushing the limits of cave diving and had actually run into Fabio within such a vast expanse — it was the most uncanny coincidence imaginable. Perhaps Fabio himself had grown lonely down there, and had actively sought Qin Yun out, hoping he could bring him away.

"Thank you, great Qin."

"Wishing Qin a smooth journey."

"……"

On TikTok, the Italian netizens' comments had nearly flooded the screen, but sadly Qin Yun couldn't see a single word.

After securing Fabio, he turned around, grabbed the guide rope, and continued downward. Before long, he saw the bottom, and by now the depth gauge read: 235 meters.

The pressure here had already reached 25 standard atmospheres; an ordinary person in such a place would likely be unable to move an inch, facing the threat of suffocation.

But for Qin Yun, although this level of pressure did have some effect on him, his body showed no sign of anything unusual.

And if his body showed nothing unusual, then there was even less need to mention any high-pressure syndrome.

If it weren't for the fact that any equipment failure in a place like this would almost certainly mean certain death, Qin Yun guessed he wouldn't feel any pressure at all.

As he descended, the riverbed below gradually drew closer, but the sight that met his eyes was hair-raising. Not a single one of the waterway openings recorded in the data was within view — all of them lay silent beneath an endless expanse of floating matter.

And that floating matter was thick, heavy silt!

"The silt is probably more than three or four meters thick, completely blocking the waterway openings. The official data is already fifteen years old, and over those fifteen years, this place has clearly undergone enormous changes."

Qin Yun didn't rush downward. With branches spreading like streams and waterway openings as dense as river sand, now all clogged up like this, he had to be careful.

"What is Qin Ye going to do?"

"Don't tell me he has to find a hole through the silt?"

"Holy shit, that's ridiculous."

"Even the original waterways can't be located — how is Qin Ye supposed to tell them apart?"

By comparing the data with the actual situation, Qin Yun could in fact still pinpoint the waterways' positions, but since one was a picture after all, working out the true location still required touching it in person.

So without much hesitation, he kicked his fins and his whole body slowly sank downward.

He tried reaching his hand toward the silt and passed through it easily. The moment the silt was touched by an outside force, it flew up at once, scattering about and turning the surrounding view hazy.

Some netizens were puzzled.

"Didn't they say the water pressure down there is huge? This silt looks no different from what you'd see in shallow water."

"Right, at this depth with over twenty atmospheres of pressure, shouldn't the silt have been compacted?"

"The poster above should go learn some physics."

"That's because silt particles have high water content and high porosity — the internal and external pressures are balanced, so its permeability is extremely strong. High pressure can't harden it; the moment it's disturbed, it turns soft and flows."

Qin Yun pulled his hand back, judged the direction, and then his whole body sank into the silt in one go.

With a *poof*, a large swath of silt was instantly flung up. At once, most of the camera feeds turned into a chaotic mess, with only a handful of cameras on the outer edge capturing the entire panorama.

The moment Qin Yun entered the silt, he felt enormous resistance. He didn't try to swim; instead, he kept sinking downward until his feet touched the riverbed, and only then did he stop.

By now his vision was long gone — this was truly a blind dive!

Following the bearings from the data, he walked step by step toward the waterway's location, and at the same time his voice came through.

"This silt really is deep enough — over four meters. As you can all see, I can't see a thing right now and can only feel my way based on the data in my memory. But the waterways are right around here, and there are many of them, so finding them isn't hard for me."

Even as he spoke, his steps faltered — he had noticed a change in the terrain ahead.

"I've already felt the location of one of the waterway openings. Let's go in and take a look."

Having said that, Qin Yun kicked forward, grabbed the edge with both hands, lunged his whole body ahead — and then *bang* — slammed straight into the rock wall.

"Ouch, holy shit!"

Qin Yun nearly saw stars from the impact; his whole head was dazed.

Damn it — it was clearly a waterway opening, so how had it been sealed off and turned into a rock wall?

Hearing Qin Yun's cursing, the netizens nearly laughed themselves silly.

"Hahaha, I don't know what's going on, but it sounds like Qin Ye just had bad luck."

"I'm dying — Qin Ye, hurry up and tell us what happened."

"That was loud — sounds like he crashed into something."

Fortunately his face mask was strapped on tight enough; otherwise that impact might well have knocked the helmet visor clean off.

"Damn it — I thought it was a waterway opening, didn't expect it was a rock face. Smacked right into it. Son of a bitch."

Qin Yun cursed and grumbled, clearly quite frustrated.

But while he was frustrated, the netizens were laughing themselves to death.

"Haha, even Qin Ye has his moments of failure."

"What a reliable source of entertainment."

"I'm dying — that's why he was grumbling and cursing."

Qin Yun felt the area of his forehead, confirmed his gear was intact, and continued feeling his way toward the left.

But after spending so long beneath the silt, with his vision gone and every movement meeting enormous resistance, even he had no choice but to increase the flow rate of his air cylinder.

After a while, he finally felt another waterway opening. He inched his way in along it, and after roughly a dozen steps, his right foot suddenly felt a *snap* as it touched the ground — then his ankle ached and his entire right foot sank straight in.

His whole body lurched forward and he nearly fell.

He crouched down and felt around, and this time his expression truly changed.

At some unknown point, his fin had slipped through a crack in the rock and gotten completely wedged inside — no wonder he couldn't move.

He said helplessly, "My swim fins along with everything below my ankles are stuck in a rock crevice."

As he spoke, he tried to kick outward, and found that the size of this rock crevice was just right — it could fit in, but couldn't get out.

Hearing Qin Yun's calm voice, the netizens also assumed it was just a small problem.

But what they didn't know was that Qin Yun's first real crisis of this dive had already arrived.

Qin Yun tried a few more times, and helplessly discovered that this rock crevice was freaking perfect — his ankle bones were wedged tightly by the rock edges.

But pulling outward was exactly where it got stuck, just like the principle of a buckle — forcing it won't work.

He simply took off his swim fins, but the result was still the same — he still couldn't break free. After some time passed, the netizens in the livestream, the staff, and Han Sisi all noticed something was wrong.

"Holy shit, it's been ten minutes and Qin Ye is still stuck?"

"Damn, there won't be a problem, right?"

"What's the situation with Qin Ye?"

"Damn, being able to trap Qin Ye is something else."

Seeing that clever force wouldn't work, Qin Yun could only resort to brute force. He took down the mallet from his waist and began striking the rock surface.

"Luck's not great — the spot I'm stuck in is too perfect, it perfectly caged my foot. Right now I can only first break the surface of this rock layer and see if it works. If even this doesn't work, then I can only go with brute force."

Hearing that Qin Yun's tone was still calm, the netizens who had always had full confidence in Qin Yun also relaxed.

After Qin Yun hammered a few times, he quickly discovered that the mallet had absolutely no effect on the rock layer. Because this mallet wasn't an iron hammer, but a plastic mallet. And being in the silt, the resistance was huge, so the final force when striking the rock layer was too small.

He groped around nearby, but couldn't feel a single rock — meaning his idea of striking the rock layer to physically destroy the fixed lock was directly shattered.

After thinking for a moment, Qin Yun waved his hand randomly, directly stirring up the silt, then grabbed a drone and pulled it close.

"Now it's no longer possible to destroy it on the physical level. I can only change my approach."

"Those who know me should all know that I, your buddy, am slightly proficient in a tiny bit of martial arts. So, I'm actually quite familiar with human body tissue. The spot I'm stuck in now, if I force it out, it will only cause bone fractures and ligament tears, ruining my ankle. But if I actively separate from the inside and adjust the angle, it might just work."

Every word Qin Yun said, the people in the livestream could understand individually, but strung together they couldn't make sense of it.

"What does Qin Ye mean by this?"

"Don't understand? What's this about internal active separation?"

"Is Qin Ye slightly proficient? That's called killing without blinking an eye."

"Damn, can Qin Ye explain it in a bit more detail?"

Qin Yun's right hand groped around his ankle as he said in a muffled voice, "Everyone knows that a large part of the human body's bones can be separated — this kind of separation is commonly called dislocation, and the ankle joint is no exception."

Hearing these words, the netizens in the livestream instantly couldn't stay calm.