Ma Lu finally let out a small sigh of relief when he saw the platform. What had happened tonight had simply been too bizarre.
Whether it was the two people who had jumped off the platform and vanished, the absurdly long tunnel, or the one-yuan coin Zhang Heng had picked up along the way and the extremely retro gear he was now wearing, any one of those things would have been beyond anything Ma Lu had ever heard of.
Then there was Zhang Heng's earlier conclusion that they were trapped in a loop. Even an atheist like Ma Lu could not help but waver a little. Only after seeing this platform did his steadily rising heart rate finally begin to slow.
This time, Ma Lu kept his eyes open and carefully surveyed the platform before him. He was certain it was not the same one they had descended from earlier. Though the two platforms looked almost identical, there were still subtle differences upon closer inspection.
For one thing, there was no iron ladder above this platform leading to the tunnel overhead. For another, there was no construction debris piled on it this time, making it seem especially empty. More strangely, there was not much dust on the ground either. Instead, it had been rubbed somewhat shiny, as if something frequently scraped across it. To Ma Lu's disappointment, however, there was no sign of the two people who had vanished earlier.
He glanced at the pitch-black tunnel entrance some distance away and, unusually, hesitated. The stretch they had just crossed had been far too long, and Ma Lu had no idea whether the tunnel ahead would be just as long.
When he had led the search team, he had never expected the missing people to end up here, so he had