Chapter 450: Strange Events in the Tunnel

All the processes were almost the same as before, only this time they were more exhausted. They searched the stone tunnel walls inch by inch. In Fatty's words, Poker-face's two antenna-like fingers had touched every inch of those stone walls, but there was no result all along.

Just when they thought they would soon walk out again, this time the situation changed. They quickly entered a dead end. This tunnel had actually become a dead end, and a stone wall appeared before them.

After participating in three talent shows, the prize for the talent show really turned into shit.

Without any clear reason, Poker-face felt something was wrong, so they immediately turned back, intending to figure it out after getting out. After walking only ten meters, they discovered that this time the prize wasn't just shit, but stinky dog shit.

They quickly found the entrance, and when they walked out, they immediately realized something was wrong. This was actually not the opening they had come in through. They had arrived at a strange place.

Before them was a small cave. The bottom of this cave was full of potholes and puddles.

At first they thought they had somehow stumbled upon the location of the Ancient Building. This cave was the site of the Ancient Building, and these pools were the key. So they began to study these pools. The pools were not deep, and Fatty immediately noticed that the bottoms of the pools were covered with a large number of white bones, all human bones. Just as they were wondering what this was about, Old Mrs. Huo quickly began to show a reaction.

"It was also thanks to Old Mrs. Huo being weak in constitution. As we went along, we only felt the air was very stuffy, without realizing much else. It wasn't until Old Mrs. Huo suddenly had subcutaneous bleeding that we realized the air in the cave was problematic. The air in that cave was toxic, probably due to the accumulation of underground minerals and gases. We wore gas masks, but it was useless. The toxicity of the gas was highly corrosive and was absorbed directly through the skin," Fatty said. "We immediately retreated to the tunnel entrance, then back into the tunnel, where we could hold out a bit longer."

At this point, the situation was very clear. The mechanism in this tunnel could only be wrong twice. On the third try, the mechanism would lead everyone into a cave full of toxic gas.

If modern technology were used, this mechanism would not be difficult to achieve; a three-way valve would suffice. But after Poker-face had confirmed with 100% certainty that there could be no mechanism here, this phenomenon still occurred. Thus, both groups began to feel distrust.

In that situation, Fatty and Old Mrs. Huo began to doubt Poker-face's judgment, but the others had no convincing ideas. Later, Old Mrs. Huo used her authority to suppress the crisis. The next few hours were extremely difficult. They used everything to block the tunnel entrance to prevent the toxic gas from rushing in too quickly.

Walking the same road twice but with completely different exits sounded incredible. How could such a soft mechanism be built? There was a spatial paradox.

I couldn't help but think of what happened at Cloud Summit Palace. Did the ancients truly have this kind of technology? They could only try again and again. But almost every time, they came out from a different exit. Who knew how many exits there were inside this mountain, allowing them to come out at a different one each time.

They first discussed the possibility of a fetal corpse existing there. Fatty's touch-gold talisman was burned again, but this time it had no effect at all.

The feeling of being unable to hit or dig out drove them nearly to collapse. The entire team had no idea where they were. At that time, they even thought that the entire Zhang Family Ancient Building was not in their space but in another space. It was just a pity that the passage to that space had not yet been connected to this one.

While listening, I knew that Fatty and the others eventually found the Zhang Family Ancient Building. I was very glad that the wrong password hadn't killed them, although I really wanted to know how Fatty finally escaped. But now I was more eager than usual to know what happened later in the Zhang Family Ancient Building.

"Don't tell me these details. Just tell me the result," I said. "How did you finally enter the Ancient Building?"

Fatty shook his head: "Not 'we,' 'them.' I didn't go in. I don't know how they got in either. Don't worry, I'm not starting from the beginning. What I said above has meaning. What happens next is the key. I can only tell you the process and the reason why they must still be alive."

After being at a loss for a long time, they finally stopped and began to think about the truth of the matter, making some assumptions. Fatty listed his enumeration method.

This time, the options were as follows:

First, there existed in this tunnel a delicate mechanism they could not understand, and the operation of this mechanism caused the result.

Second, this tunnel did indeed transcend the limits of time and space.

Third, their consciousness had been influenced by something, something different from a fetal corpse, something that the smoke from burning rhinoceros horn could not find.

In fact, these were all clichés, just the previously speculated possibilities.

They tested and refuted them one by one. After Poker-face repeatedly confirmed that there could be no mechanism in this tunnel, Fatty used his own method. He chiseled several small holes in the stone wall, placed some explosives, and then performed small-scale blasts.

To his surprise, the stone here was not as hard as he had thought. He blew away a large part of the stone wall, creating a big deep pit. He continued blasting inward, hoping to find evidence of space behind the stone wall, but after several blasts, the pit got deeper and deeper, yet all that was exposed was still stone.

He did similar blasting tests in several places, with the same results.

It was impossible for the mechanism to be buried too deep behind the rock. The first hypothesis was proven impossible.

Fatty didn't believe the second hypothesis at all. He was fixated on the fetal corpse, thinking that something in the tunnel had enchanted them. He wanted Poker-face to sprinkle blood all the way to see if it worked. Poker-face ignored him, but proposed the only possible method to save them at that time. They would station one person at each end of the tunnel. The person at the entrance would certainly not change, but if the exit of the tunnel could move, then when someone walking in the tunnel turned back and came in through the entrance again, the person guarding the exit might see the truth of the tunnel exit moving.

Because the situation at the tunnel exit might be unbelievable, this person had to be Poker-face, while Fatty would guard the entrance. The others would, as quickly as possible, find the entrance again and pass through the tunnel.

The reason Fatty was chosen to be at the entrance was that, among Old Mrs. Huo's team at the time, only he and Poker-face still maintained considerable mobility. This was inseparable from Fatty and Poker-face's many previous incredible experiences. So while the others were nearly collapsing, these two were practically working alone.

At that time, they divided the work. Poker-face put on gloves, tied up the gaps in his pant legs and sleeves, and entered the cave.

From then on, he never appeared again.

One of them went out to check the situation. He ran back in only three minutes, saying that Poker-face had disappeared.

Everyone collapsed. Fatty also went out to look, checking each pool one by one, and found that Poker-face was indeed gone.

"A professional missing person lives up to his reputation," I thought to myself.

"A lot of things happened afterward. Our poisoning became more and more serious. Later, I passed out," Fatty said. "When I woke up, I found that everyone around me was gone."

It was also thanks to that that Fatty could now talk to me. Because this time, the team that entered the tunnel had not returned yet.

Fatty waited until dawn the next day before confirming that things were bad. He had no choice but to walk into the tunnel again. This time, he found that the tunnel had changed. After walking inward for ten minutes, he came out of the tunnel again, but this time, he did not return to the outside of the mountain. Instead, he entered a dark place.

He turned on his flashlight and immediately found himself at the edge of a completely different cave pool. This was a very peculiar pool, shaped like a gourd. Below was water, above was empty, and in the middle, a stone bridge ran across the water surface to the other side. Fatty walked over, and found that the other side was a dead end. At the midpoint of the stone bridge, he saw something under the water surface.

That was a flat surface beneath the water. I didn't know what material it was carved from. Fatty reached down and pressed it a few times, found it was relatively solid, so he got into the water and got close to the surface to look. This flat surface reflected a very dazzling light.

He discovered that it was a mirror — a palm's depth under the entire water surface, there was a mirror about two or three zhang wide.

In this mirror, he saw a huge reflection — it was a massive ancient building with carved beams.

Fatty's first reaction was that the ancient building was suspended from the top of the cave. He immediately looked up, but found nothing above. Very surprised, he looked down, and the ancient building in the mirror, tattered and worn, was clearly below him.

If it wasn't above, then could it be that this wasn't a mirror but a piece of glass? Was the ancient building actually sunk in the water? He shouted a few times, but no one answered him. He had to walk to the edge of the mirror to see if the ancient building was sunk underwater. Then he immediately knew it was impossible. It turned out that the pool was very shallow; the mirror was under a palm's depth of water, and the water itself only came up to his waist. He bent down and dove under the mirror, swam around, and found that the bottom of the pool was that shallow. Not to mention hiding an ancient building, even lying down and raising one's head would be difficult.

So what was going on? Fatty climbed back onto the mirror. He even began to wonder if the ancient building in the mirror was just a painting.

If the cold cave and eerie ancient mirror didn't make him feel fear, then when he lay on the mirror and carefully examined the ancient building in it, what he saw made him break out in a truly hair-raising cold sweat.

In the ancient mirror, he came across an ancient building, and on a corridor of that building, he suddenly saw Poker-face and Old Mrs. Huo and the others resting there. He saw the light of flashlights flickering in the gaps of the corridor.

This was just too bizarre. Fatty's cold sweat was pouring out uncontrollably, as if he himself was existing in a plot from some strange tale. He knocked on the mirror, hoping to attract the attention of the people inside, but the people below couldn't detect his presence at all.

After hearing this, I was completely stunned. I asked Fatty back, "Are you saying they are inside a mirror?"

Fatty nodded: "Yes. This Zhang family ancient building is inside a mirror."

"How is that possible?" I thought to myself, and asked, "Are you sure you saw it? Not an illusion?"

"Third Master, I may not have robbed as many tombs as you, but I'm still a well-known name in Beijing. Do you think I can't tell real from fake? Absolutely true, that building is inside a mirror, and they're all on the floors in the mirror."