"Hm?"
Lu Xin looked at Gecko in confusion, not quite understanding what he meant.
Gecko lowered his voice, as if afraid someone else might hear, and said softly, "Brother, Qinggang City is pretty formidable these days. We've more or less explored all the major forces and abandoned cities nearby. Even if we haven't finished exploring them, we at least have some understanding of them."
"But apart from those places, there are also some extremely mysterious areas that remain completely unknown to this day."
He looked at Lu Xin and said, "Places like that are called mysterious forbidden zones!"
"Forbidden zones?"
Lu Xin frowned slightly. "No one's ever explored them?"
"They have—and they've explored them many times!"
Gecko's brows drew together as he said quietly, "But whether it was the Pioneer Team or researchers and armed personnel sent out by the city, once they entered a forbidden zone, they either went mad or disappeared. Countless people have died, yet not a single piece of useful information was brought back..."
"If there's one useful thing those expeditions brought back, it's this: the area cannot be explored!"
"Because no one knows anything about them, those places are called mysterious forbidden zones!"
"..."
At this point, Gecko lightly tapped the map and spoke with greater emphasis.
"The place you mentioned is one of them—and the most dangerous one at that."
"I heard that this place once swallowed an entire hundred-man Pioneer Team in full gear. Those people had generous investors backing them, equipping them with the most advanced instruments and the heaviest firepower. They also had an information team maintaining real-time communication with the outside world. But after they entered, all contact was suddenly lost all the same. No one has seen them since..."
"..."
Lu Xin quietly listened to Gecko, his gaze shifting