The Secret Passage at the Bottom of the Lake

Yu Xing erased the vocal characteristics he had left in the white flower, and incidentally prepared a surprise crosstalk performance for the next person, then ignored the flower and carefully moved away.

The second mountain was very large. He walked for almost two days in the low-visibility mountains, stopping and starting along the way. He encountered nearly a hundred vines trying to attract him, as well as two nests of large gray insects, before finally reaching the end.

By this time, he could already find many traces left by humans on the ground, such as hastily discarded supplies, messy knife marks on the ground, markings carved on trees, and wet shoe prints. It seemed that the further back in time they went, the less time the people before them had to cover up their tracks.

Whether they encountered danger or sensed that the tomb was just ahead, they were too excited to think about anything else.

After rounding a tricky bend, Yu Xing heard the sound of flowing water. Judging from the sound of the splashing water, there should be a mountain waterfall ahead.

As expected, Yu Xing brushed aside the dense, slender leaves and tiny ginkgo fruits in front of him, and the thick fog suddenly lifted, revealing a bright and clear view.

A two-meter-wide waterfall flows down from the mountain in front. Although the water volume is not large, it has formed a lake below over the years.

Yu Xing's eyes lit up, and he went to the riverbank to take a look.

The lake was of unknown depth, but the water was crystal clear and clearly flowing. Several small fish swam in it. He reached out and scooped some up, finding the water to be fine. The cool, damp sensation on his wrist soothed his skin, which had been suffering from the harsh mountain weather.

There were no vines or other dangerous things around, because several small birds with gray backgrounds and white spots fluttered down from the other side of the lake. They hopped and skipped on the ground as usual, speaking bird language that Yu Xing couldn't understand.

"Uh, taking a shower here, I hope... no one will see me." Since the conditions allowed, Yu Xing didn't want to make himself uncomfortable by wearing uncomfortable clothes. He hesitated for two seconds, then took out a stand from his bag, set it up, gathered a bunch of branches, built it by the lake, laid a layer of leaves on top of the branches, and lit it with a lighter.

He deftly took off his jacket, T-shirt, and work pants, revealing his forearms and legs covered with a thin layer of firm muscles. He washed his clothes in the lake, hung them on a rack to dry by the fire, and then gazed at the lake in contemplation.

Should I take off my underwear or not?

Who knows what might happen in this place? After all, he's all alone, and there won't be time to react if something happens... Oh well, he'll just have to keep wearing it and let his body dry off.

He took off his vest, cleaned it in the same way, and slid into the lake along the shore.

Despite his height of 1.85 meters, Yu Xing didn't touch the bottom when he went down. He exclaimed in surprise. Generally speaking, lakes like this are shallow to deep, with the deepest part in the middle and the two sides gradually sloping inwards.

But this lake is shaped like a water glass, with its shores resembling cliffs. Once you enter, you can't see the bottom. This is clearly not a natural formation. Considering the layout of the waterfall and the lake, Yu Xing guessed that there must be a water outlet at the bottom of the lake, connecting to another body of water. Moreover, this lake has most likely been artificially developed.

He squinted, returned to the shore, retrieved a waterproof, high-powered flashlight, held his breath, submerged in the water, and shone the flashlight towards the lake wall.

The aquatic plants and plankton on the lake walls cannot be faked; they blend perfectly with the surrounding environment without any sense of incongruity. This indicates that the lake was developed not recently, but a long time ago.

Yu Xing then shone the light into the lakebed. The extremely penetrating light pierced straight through, dispelling the darkness that had lingered at the bottom of the lake for many years. Even with Yu Xing's eyesight, it took him a while to adjust before he could see clearly.

The lake bottom is about four or five meters deep from the surface, a depth where it is extremely easy to drown. Yu Xing a special physique and can float and sink freely in the water. He can stay in the water for a long time without deliberately holding his breath, but others cannot. To find the hole at the bottom of the lake, one would probably need professional diving equipment or a trained swimming expert.

He didn't stay where he was, but swam downstream. The fish gradually disappeared into the darkness, and his surroundings became quiet and oppressive, with only the rumble of the water in his ears.

The flashlight beam swayed, finally stopping as it flashed past a small slope on the lakebed. Yu Xing approached the slope with the agility of a fish, then turned to hide behind it.

Sure enough, the direction of the surrounding water flow made him realize the location of the hole at the bottom of the lake, just below the small slope!

Behind the slope was a deep, narrow corridor that descended into darkness. Yu Xing's powerful flashlight could not see the end of it; he could only see the neat and flat side walls of the corridor.

There is no other explanation besides its man-made construction.

Aside from the recent legends of demon daoist cultivators attracting tomb raiders, who else would have invested so much manpower and resources many years ago to transform the lake into a secret passage?

There is only one answer, and that is the demon daoist himself!

When he was building his mausoleum, he left a passage at the bottom of this lake leading to other locations. Yu Xing is still unclear about the specific reasons, but it is definitely a very important discovery that may affect the progress of the entire tomb exploration.

Yu Xing thought for a moment, then swam back to the surface instead of entering the passage. His belongings were all on the shore, and it would be a pity to lose them.

He surfaced, clung to the lake shore, and took a deep breath. His slightly long, wet hair obscured his eyes, preventing him from immediately noticing the extra object on the shore.

When he wiped his face and his vision returned, he saw a pale, small face with dark eyes staring at him intently.

Yu Xing: "..." What the heck?

He leaned back sharply, finally getting a clear view of what was in front of him.

It turned out to be a three-dimensional paper figure as big as a human head, with black facial features drawn on its face with a marker, giving it an innocent look.

Seeing Yu Xing reaction, the paper figure grabbed Yu Xing's forearm and wouldn't let go. The expression on its little face could even change, becoming extremely aggrieved, as if Yu Xing was a bad father who had abandoned his child.

"Carlos?" Yu Xing looked at the cute and coquettish paper figure with a complicated expression, unable to understand why a man like Carlos would have such a girlish heart. Then, without the paper figure opening its mouth, a familiar voice came from inside.

San, long time no see.

Yu Xing's gaze became even more strange. He expressionlessly reached out his left hand, picked up the paper figure clinging to his right arm, and tossed it far away. "Long time no see, Magician. You really do enjoy peeping at people taking baths."

Last time on the ship, he had just finished showering when he accidentally stepped on and flattened a small paper doll that had been standing there for who knows how long at the bathroom door.

"Don't throw it away yet!" came Carlos's urgent yet helpless voice from inside the paper doll. "I'm not a pervert, why would I watch you take a shower? Although you're handsome, I'm not interested in men, it's all a misunderstanding..."

The paper figure landed on the ground under Yu Xing's gaze. It rolled over, disoriented and searching for its way for a while, before finally wobbling back towards Yu Xing with its short legs.

As they ran, Carlos's voice rang out. "It's like this~ I left too many paper figures in the mountains while searching for you, and my power has been scattered. Now I can't control them; I can only see the scene through their vision and transmit my voice. It's hugging you, not me hugging you, so don't overthink it~"

"If you can't control the paper figures, how can they obey you?" Yu Xing made no attempt to hide her doubt.

"They are now acting exactly according to the commands I left when I created them. In fact, I gave each paper doll the same command: hide until you see them, come forward to make your presence known, and then notify me." Carlos's explanation was flawless, and his reasoning was logically acceptable to Yu Xing, so Yu Xing didn't pursue the matter further.

He watched as the little paper figure pounced on him again, clinging to him and refusing to leave. It was hard to imagine what was happening on Carlos's side.

"So where are you? Have you already entered the tomb?" Yu Xing pulled the paper figure down again and warned it with his eyes that if it moved again, he would tear it to pieces.

The paper figure became obedient this time, plopped down on the ground, and insisted on staring at Yu Xing.

"Not yet. I see you're in Live Tail Lake right now, right? From this waterfall upwards, you're in the Heavy Yin Mountain area. After my team and I went up, we found that the terrain of Heavy Yin Mountain is too complicated. There were three paths at the beginning. We took the left and the middle paths, but neither worked. The end of the path was either a dead end or an insurmountable trap. Obviously, the demon daoist set up a trap to prevent tomb raiders in later generations."

Yu Xing listened quietly to Carlos's almost detailed explanation and understood that this was Carlos's sincere intention to invite him to join the team.

Why not take advantage of free intelligence? Yu Xing listened and then summarized and analyzed the information.

Carlos's team entered the mountains more than three days earlier than Brother Sun's team, which Yu Xing had joined, and they were even faster, having reached the waterfall four days earlier.

Now Yu Xing knows that this waterfall is called "Live Tail Waterfall", the lake is Live Tail Lake, and above the waterfall is Heavy Yin Mountain, which everyone is looking for, and is also the first line of defense of the tomb palace in the true sense.

Carlos's team made a mistake by going to the left or the middle; each route took them more than a day to travel back and forth. Now, the team is heading forward on the fork in the road to the right.

"If nothing unexpected happens, this should be the right way," Carlos said. "Once we've located the entrance to the tomb, I'll come back and get Yu Xing so we can go in together."

Because the tomb is dangerous, having more reliable companions increases the chances of survival. Carlos, who acts as the explorer in the team, has quite a bit of say. He recommended San, also known as Yu Xing, to the team leader, who has agreed to let San, who belongs to the Weird Event Investigation Studio, share the spoils.

"Besides the terrain, how is Heavy Yin Mountain different from the previous two mountains?" Yu Xing wanted to know if there were any new strange things inside.

"Yes," Carlos said. "It's especially cold here, with a constant chill in the air. I always feel like someone's watching me, but I can't pinpoint their location. My teammates feel the same way. In Heavy Yin Mountain, it's easy to be driven crazy by that ever-present feeling of being watched. But it's okay, we're almost there, and then we'll be able to get rid of this gaze."

Upon hearing Carlos mention the situation on Heavy Yin Mountain, Yu Xing raised an eyebrow.

Two of the three paths had already gone astray, and everyone exploring the third path breathed a sigh of relief, because they believed that even if the demon daoist didn't leave a way out for his own grave, the workers who built the tomb would definitely have.

So there must be a way through. Carlos's tone had relaxed, but Yu Xing thought of the lake where she was soaking, which was itself a passageway!

Carlos's team has yet to find the entrance to the tomb. A thought suddenly flashed through Yu Xing's mind—perhaps the lake is the real entrance to the tomb, and the so-called Heavy Yin Mountain is just a means to lure tomb raiders.

Since the demon daoist wanted to prevent tomb raiders from future generations, he would not have given them a chance to choose again. It is illogical that one could choose one of three paths and then choose again if it was wrong.

If it were Yu Xing, he wouldn't place roadblocks at the ends of two wrong paths; he would only place deadly traps, otherwise all this planning would be for nothing.

If that's the case, then the third path that Carlos's team took wasn't a guaranteed path to success at all, but rather a path to death that lowered their guard!

While Yu Xing realized the truth, he also had some doubts. He didn't think Carlos was unable to discover the loopholes in the story. For the time being, he could only assume that either Carlos had impure motives towards him and wanted to trick him into the right fork in the road to kill him, or that Heavy Yin Mountain had a certain influence on Carlos and disrupted some of his thinking.

"Be careful, the path we're on might not be the right one. If you encounter danger again, come back to Live Tail Lake. I have a new idea," Yu Xing, bowing to the paper figure. "Of course, if you really find the exact location of the tomb palace, then pretend I said nothing."

Carlos paused for a moment. "You have a new lead?"

"It's not really a clue," Yu Xing denied, feigning sincerity. "It's just that we've made some discoveries along the way, and maybe we can find the tomb palace with them."

"Hmm... alright, with that in mind, I have a backup plan. Now that I've found you, I only need to leave one paper figure by your side to confirm my location, and I can put the others away. That way, my strength won't be hindered." Carlos chuckled. "I'm still moving forward. We can talk more when we meet."

After saying that, the voice inside the paper figure disappeared, and the little paper figure stood up on its short legs, suddenly turning the back of its head towards Yu Xing.

Yu Xing glanced at it sideways, ready to see what kind of trouble it was going to cause, but suddenly a line of text appeared on the paper figure's white back of its head.

"You stay here and don't move. I'm going to find a tomb."

Yu Xing: "... Young man, you're a bit arrogant."

The message was clearly telling him to stay at Live Tail Lake and wait for Carlos's findings, but they chose to use such irritating language.

He unilaterally declared that he wouldn't listen to Carlos and wait there; he needed to see what danger the team that made the wrong judgment would face, and also assess the strength of the new team.