Requesting Recommendation Tickets
The night was deep. Though they were inside the underground fortress, the various lighting devices in the warehouse courtyard—the Glass Gas Lamps, Blazing Fire Crystal Clusters, and even Floating Iridescent Nautiluses—had all been turned down to their lowest brightness or simply shut off. Only a few Black Oil Torches stuck at the corners of the passageways gave off a dim, wavering glow, barely driving back the heavy shadows in the corners of the yard walls.
The air was filled with the cold, damp chill unique to the underground, mixed with the faint scorched smell of burning black oil and the earthy reek of soil.
Inside one room, the delicate-looking woman—registered under the name "Qingluo"—quietly opened her eyes in the darkness, her pupils adjusting to the dim light in an instant.
She half propped herself up, her gaze like that of the most cautious nocturnal animal as it slowly swept over the other seven sleeping "roommates" on the earthen bed.
They were curled up on the earthen bed, which was covered with a thick layer of Yin Moss Grass—a fern-like plant that grew along the edges of underground rivers, its fibers tough and able to effectively block the chill rising from the ground. Their breathing was even, and they had clearly sunk into dreams.
Even in summer, the underground fortress remained damp and cold.
After confirming everything was fine, "Qingluo" gently parted the warm Yin Moss Grass beneath her. Her fingers searched briefly along a spot at the edge of the pit, and her fingertips touched a small, cold, hard object.
She pried it out. By the faint leftover torchlight seeping in from outside the window, it could be seen to be a strangely shaped bone key.
She inserted the key precisely into the hole on the