As Chen Mo stood at the cave entrance and looked inside, the Green Jade Sword in his Dantian trembled several times again. This time, however, the frequency was not as intense as before, indicating that there was something here the Green Jade Sword wanted, but it was not as important as what it had sensed earlier.
He took down the rope, found a crack between the rocks, fastened it with a carabiner, tied a slipknot, and lowered one end.
"It's secured! I'll pull you up!" Chen Mo shouted to Nangong Xue below.
"Okay!" Nangong Xue answered, hurriedly fastening the rope to her safety buckle.
"Ready!"
Once Chen Mo heard her, he slowly pulled her up. Nangong Xue weighed only a little over a hundred pounds, so the weight was effortless for him, and he easily hauled her up.
"This passage is so deep!" Nangong Xue said after climbing up and seeing the tunnel ahead.
As Chen Mo helped her untie the rope, he said, "This may actually connect to the passage we came through. It should all be one tunnel."
"How is that possible? This is a whole separate space!" Nangong Xue said.
"Heh. This space probably hasn't existed for long—maybe only a few decades." Chen Mo explained his earlier deduction to Nangong Xue piece by piece.
After making some preparations, the two of them set off again, with Chen Mo in front and Nangong Xue behind, connected by the rope.
They had rested for a long time below, so Nangong Xue was not very tired. Their pace after setting off was therefore fairly quick.
This time, there were still blocked sections throughout the mine tunnel, but they were all loose obstructions that could be cleared away with brute force. They moved through without much trouble.
After stopping and going