The space below was much larger than they expected, like the bottom of a trapezoidal square well.
The top gradually closed into an arched stone cover, and there was a narrow opening in the corner on one side. They fell in through the opening that resembled a ventilation duct.
After standing still, Feng held the candle and looked around. The surrounding walls were made of many large stone bricks. The gaps between the stone bricks were tightly filled. The wall should have been painted with some kind of special paint. If you touch it with your hands, It goes on very smooth.
Feng secretly thought that this seemed to be an underground darkroom where something was stored.
Zhang Haixing took one step back and landed on the ground. After half-crouching to remove the impact, he turned back to look up. It was obvious to the naked eye that his face became very bad.
"We will probably be trapped here and unable to get out." She said solemnly.
The opening they entered was at least seven or eight meters away from the ground beneath their feet, and the surrounding walls were very smooth. Even if they jumped up on a ladder and grabbed the edge, the opening was so small that it would be difficult for them to use their strength to climb up.
"Oh my God, going down here is really a terrible decision." Feng was annoyed. "This is a trap specially set for intruders."
"Not necessarily." Zhang Haixing didn't know what he saw and walked towards the corner where the green light couldn't reach.
"What did you find?" Feng didn't understand. Then he saw her using the tip of her dagger to pick up a lump of gray-white cotton wool, and asked hurriedly, "What is this?"
"Snake shed." Zhang Haixing replied.
Feng Ruo thought thoughtfully, "Then according to what you said, this should be a place dedicated to raising snakes."
"But what about the snake? Where did the snake go?" Feng wondered, "This place is empty. From the time we entered until now, not a single shadow of a snake has appeared."
As he spoke, he stepped forward and accidentally kicked something with his toe. The thing rolled around Feng's feet several times.
He looked down and found that it was the rhinoceros horn candle that Zhang Haixing had lost before. He then bent down to pick it up, lit the green flame in his hand, then walked to Zhang Haixing and handed it to her, "Here, take it."
Zhang Haixing took the candle, stood up and said, "These snakes have been here for a long time. Even if there were snakes in the past, they may have disappeared due to some accident."
"The surrounding walls are made so smooth, perhaps to prevent the snakes trapped inside from climbing up. Therefore, there should be other exits here, let's look for them."
The two of them each held candles and searched separately, and soon found a familiar fire symbol in a corner covered by a snake.
The symbols were very messily carved on a stone brick, and the scrawled and random handwriting showed that the person who carved it was in a hurry. The situation at that time was probably very critical.
Zhang Haixing squatted down and tried to tap the brick with her fingers. When there was an empty sound, she said happily: "The bottom is empty. It seems that the group of people who came in before also encountered the same situation as us."
Feng was noncommittal about her guess, "Try to pry it open before talking."
At that moment, he suddenly had an idea. The timing of the appearance of the two fire patterns was so coincidental. It didn't feel like an early warning, but rather like a deliberate mark left to guide the way for those who followed.
He suppressed this thought in his heart and did not tell Zhang Haixing immediately.
The two of them spent a lot of effort to pry up the stone, move it aside, and shine a light on it. They found that there was an iron plate with a diameter of more than ten centimeters underneath, with the image of a series of Bagua buttons written on it in seal characters.
Feng raised his hand to make a gesture of invitation and complimented, "Please, Miss Wang. I have been following the Zhang family for many years, so I think this little mechanism shouldn't be a problem for you."
Zhang Haixing glanced at him and said nothing. He stepped forward and easily rotated the two rings to the correct position, then pressed them down hard.
After waiting quietly for a few seconds, there was no reaction on the wall.
Feng said "Oh", shrugged, and said with some disappointment: "It seems that I overestimated. The evaluation of you by the contactor is somewhat untrue."
Zhang Haixing ignored his weirdness, frowned and stared at the iron plate carefully recalling the steps he took to solve the mechanism. He didn't find any mistakes, and he was confused, "Strange, why doesn't it move? Is this mechanism just a decoration?"
Feng observed the surrounding walls to make sure there would be no changes. He took a step forward and opened his mouth to say something. Suddenly there was a cracking sound under his and Zhang Haixing's feet. The two looked at each other and immediately I want to dodge to the side.
Unexpectedly, as soon as he raised his feet, the stone beneath him suddenly cracked from the middle. Zhang Haixing made a quick decision and kicked Feng on the body before falling, using his strength to jump up and grab the edge of the crack.
Feng screamed and fell down. It was dark and bottomless below. Thick smoke-like fog kept rising upwards. Feng's figure was swallowed up by the smoke in an instant.
I don't know if the mist was poisonous, but Zhang Haixing felt a slight sting on her lower leg, as if something was pulling her leg.
She hurriedly grabbed the edge of the pit and climbed up. When she took a closer look, she found that there was a light green thread as thick as a hair wrapped around her ankle. Maybe it was an illusion, but the thread even glowed faintly.
Zhang Haixing didn't pay attention at first. He stretched out his hand to pull the thread. Unexpectedly, his fingers suddenly hurt. The thread was like a blade. It cut directly through the glove and got stuck in the flesh. It seemed to be chasing the blood deeper. Drill.
Zhang Haixing took a breath, "What the hell is this."
Click, click, click - a chilling sound of chewing came from the thick fog, like a beast gnawing on bones. Zhang Haixing's expression changed drastically. He immediately picked off the thin thread with a knife, stood up and wanted to retreat to the corner.
Unfortunately, it was too late. The moment Zhang Haixing turned around, countless light green translucent vines suddenly emerged, penetrating through the thick fog, twisting and intertwining like a big net to cover her back.
Zhang Haixing turned around and used her knife to knock away the nearest vines. However, her fists were hard to beat. No matter how fast she moved, she couldn't resist more vines swarming up and binding her legs, making it difficult for her to move.
Immediately afterwards, her upper limbs were tied up, and the vines wrapped around her like a snake. Her neck tightened, and the suffocation feeling accompanied by dense pain instantly swept through her body.
Several stronger vines flew out of the mist, tying up the green cocoons on the ground and dragging them into the deep pit.
The stone bricks slowly closed together, and the ground returned to its previous calm.
——
"They have been trapped in a fantasy for almost twenty-four hours. Will they never wake up?" Wu Xie looked at Zhang Haixing and Feng lying in the haystack of corpses and asked in a low voice.
Zhang Zhuoxun was using chopsticks to carefully pick out the ginger slices in the bowl one by one. When he heard this, he said calmly: "Don't worry, you will wake up in less than two hours." (End of Chapter)
