The Forgotten Memory?

As for this person's specific identity... Yu Xing already had a guess.

His expression turned calm, no longer as relaxed as usual; in fact, the clearer he thought about it, the more bewildered he felt.

Time, resurrection, the black coffin—was something wrong from the moment they opened their eyes?

Yu Xing turned around, her brows furrowing for a moment as she looked at the empty space behind her. She tentatively asked, "What do you want me to do? I can't see you, right?"

No one answered him, but a few seconds later, three knocks came from the ghost mask embedded in the center of the stone door.

It's as if an unseen person is using the surrounding environment to give him feedback.

Of course, such feedback can only prove that the other party exists and has no malicious intent, but it cannot provide a more specific answer.

Yu Xing turned to look at the ghost face, hesitated for a moment, and then drew his Tang sword.

He used his Tang sword to make a cut on the demon's face, leaving a sharp mark on the rough stone. Yu Xing stared at the mark for a long time before asking, "Are you alive?"

I need a definite answer. Tell me, and I'll believe you.

The scene was quite inexplicable. Yu Xing, facing the empty stone gate, made a certain suggestion in a tone he rarely used.

Two seconds later, Yu Xing heard a laugh so soft it was almost an illusion. On the stone door, below the mark he had made, a new engraving appeared.

That was a rather modern-looking question mark.

Yu Xing's pupils contracted, then she laughed, "I really didn't expect that. If that's the case, how can I leave?"

In the mural of the coffin on the right side of the stone gate, there is a scratch on the bottom of the coffin.

"The coffin," Yu Xing said, "Should I go back into the coffin?"

The unseen person tapped the ghost mask twice more. The ghost mask, which looked like it had its mouth wide open, was now being used as a communication tool, and suddenly it wasn't so scary anymore.

"I understand." Yu Xing lowered her eyes and placed her hand on the ghost's face. "If you continue along this path, you'll encounter other coffins. When you see one, lie down in it, right?"

This time, there was no response.

But Yu Xing seemed to have already gotten the answer. He reached into the masked man's mouth and grasped the tongue hidden inside.

Yu Xing tried it and found that the tongue could be moved, which should be the mechanism to open the door. Just as he was about to pull it down, a whooshing sound suddenly came from inside the door.

He reacted quickly and pulled his hand back, but it was still touched by the thing inside. Instantly, several small, hard barbs pierced his flesh, and blood gushed out.

Yu Xing in pain, not giving the thing a chance to leave. He grabbed it with his backhand, and the hooked barbs pulled at his hand with his movement, tearing off a whole piece of skin. The hooked barbs were also deeply embedded in his palm.

The price was that this thing was pulled out of the door by Yu Xing's power and exposed to Yu Xing's sight.

This is a bone vine with a very lone wolf-like temperament. The bone vine stands upright like a snake, and the deep purple vine exudes a chilling aura. The thorns on it stand up in all directions as if they have bristled.

Yu Xing looked at his bleeding left hand, then at the bone vines poised to struggle, and a cruel smile appeared on his face.

"Since you've come to provoke me, don't blame me for cutting you down by the roots!"

With a flash of cold light from his right hand, the Tang sword was so sharp that it was impossible to see how he drew it, but the bone vine was severed into more than a dozen pieces. Each piece was separated from the bone, and the bones fell to the ground, rendering the bone vine unable to move at all.

The part that was stuck in his hand lost its life, its color slowly faded, and the hook softened.

Yu Xing took advantage of the fact that the thorns hadn't softened before pulling them out; otherwise, the thorns would be difficult to remove if they were still soft inside the flesh.

He had temporarily placed the flashlight in a small pocket on the side of his backpack, letting out a tiny bit of light.

Having dealt with the remaining bone vines, Yu Xing let his injured left hand hang limply at his side, allowing the blood to drip onto the ground.

With his right hand, which was holding the knife, he managed to pull down the masked mantle's tongue. Accompanied by the roar of the machinery turning, the heavy stone door slowly opened.

"I believe you," Yu Xing said as a final word, then stepped into the darkness behind the door with a smile.

Carlos's little paper figure stood listlessly at the end of the coffin. Yu Xing had just entered and didn't know how long he would have to wait on the coffin lid.

Coincidentally, his team was also retreating towards the shrine. Carlos kept an eye on the black coffin through the paper figures while continuing to move with his own team.

They are moving away from the altar and will be able to reunite with Yu Xing in about an hour.

In the swaying shadows of the woods, Carlos, dressed in a brightly colored jacket, jeans, and black sneakers, stood out conspicuously among a group of fully armed men.

His emerald green eyes scanned the jungle when a lean, crew-cut man beside him patted him on the shoulder and asked in slightly awkward Chinese, "Carlos, is your friend safe?"

The team consisted of eleven people, five of whom were foreigners, including the man with the buzz cut.

In reality, he would probably be considered someone from Southeast Asia. As soon as he spoke, the others started discussing it.

How long until we see our new friends?

"Magician, did that person really discover the true entrance to the tomb?"

Even a blonde woman with bandages wrapped around her abdomen, who was further back, asked weakly, "Did you tell him to stay put? This mountain is too dangerous; if he runs off, we might not be able to get help in time."

So far there have been no deaths, everyone is in good spirits, and they even have time to worry about the stranger they've never met but who indirectly helped them.

"Hmm... if you're referring to his environment, then it's not necessarily safe." Carlos ignored the barrage of questions that followed and answered the first man with the crew cut directly, "But if you're referring to him personally, then don't worry, he's perfectly safe."

The crew-cut man sighed, "Carlos, I can tell you trust that friend a lot."

"It's not that I trust him, it's that he's inherently very strong." Carlos's turquoise eyes appeared incredibly deep in the forest, like a wolf poised to strike. He didn't stop moving, and even with his exposed skin, no mosquitoes bothered him. "Ash, you know what? A truly strong person never boasts of their strength; instead, they constantly feign weakness. That kind of person..."

Carlos smirked. "Either he's sick, or he's hiding something."

"You're right, but aren't you afraid he might have a lot of illnesses?" Shi Jiu laughed, or rather, like the homonym "A Shi" for Ash, her name was actually "Shi Jiu" (meaning "Nineteen").

She left Brother Sun's team ahead of time, and only managed to rejoin the team via the shortest route after her teammates kept reminding her.

Carlos chuckled, "What's there to be afraid of? The fact that a sick person has survived this long means he's seriously ill."

He was very ill.

Carlos: It means that he was very sick.

Everyone laughed in unison. Tomb raiding was a very dangerous business, and they didn't hold back their interest in anything interesting.

Speaking of San, Shi Jiu felt she had a say, "I went into the mountains with him, and he really disguised his mediocrity and weakness very well; even I didn't notice anything wrong with him."

"He's an old actor," Carlos said.

"Isn't he an artist?" someone in the group raised an eyebrow.

"Being a painter is indeed his main profession, but I think his acting skills are no less than those of a professional actor." Shi Jiu laughed heartily. "If the Magician hadn't said so, who would have thought that his painting tube didn't contain painting paper, but a long knife?"

The banter lasted only a short while, no more than three minutes.

Carlos wanted to see from the paper doll's perspective, wondering what might happen to the coffin after Yu Xing entered it. He diverted a bit of his consciousness to the paper doll and took over its vision.

As a result, he found himself no longer on the coffin lid, but somehow lifted to the ground.

"Has something happened!?" Carlos tensed up, scrambled to his feet, and looked toward the coffin, then paused, stunned.

Yu Xing had already sat up, but didn't climb out. He rested his arm on the half-pushed coffin lid, propping up his chin, his gaze blank, as if contemplating life.

He was probably just shaken down by the force of Yu Xing opening the coffin.

"Are you alright?" Carlos asked.

Yu Xing turned her head, her gaze still somewhat vacant, which made him feel a little uneasy.

"I'm fine; I'm contemplating the mysteries of the universe."

Carlos: "...?"

Okay, he knows San is in pretty good shape and even has the mood to ramble on.

"What's inside? Have you changed at all? Let me see!" He manipulated the paper figure to float up, looking at Yu Xing with excited eyes.

Yu Xing rubbed her temples, pushed away the paper figure that lunged at her, and asked first, "How long have I been inside?"

Carlos: "A little over three minutes."

"Only three minutes?" Yu Xing turned to look at the sky outside the ancestral hall. "I thought I had slept for a whole day and night..."

"Huh? You fell asleep in there?" Carlos said in disbelief. "I kept watch for you for a few minutes, I thought you'd lowered your guard a bit, but you still won't tell me anything?"

"You've misunderstood, I'm telling the truth." Yu Xing coughed lightly, pushed the coffin lid open completely, and jumped out, bracing himself against the coffin wall with his right hand. He looked back at the coffin with a puzzled expression, then said, "After I lay down inside, I felt a coldness that came from my very soul, an intense coldness, and a profound loneliness. If my consciousness were unstable, I might have thought I was a corpse lying in the coffin for a thousand years, and that I would remain there forever, never to rise again."

"Anything else?"

"And..." Yu Xing hesitated, stretching her leg, "I feel like my leg has split open, but that could be an illusion, since there's no trace to prove it ever split open."

"Anything else?"

"That's it. I struggled for a while in the illusion of loneliness, and then I got up. As you said, I imagined fighting against it all day, but in reality, only three minutes passed." Yu Xing was telling the truth. He had experienced a century of solitude in the coffin, and now that he was out, he was very happy to chat with Carlos to ease his mood.

"Aside from that hint of eternal damnation, there's nothing else in this coffin, nothing else. To be honest, I'm a little disappointed; it's more boring than I imagined." Yu Xing pursed her lips and patted off imaginary dust.

Although he always felt that his memory seemed to be slightly affected, and that the sensations he experienced in the coffin had not all remained in his mind, he didn't care too much.

It's like someone having a dream where they experience ten years of life. When they wake up, they only remember the feelings they had, not what they did every day during those ten years in the dream.

He probably only forgot some trivial things.

Carlos glanced at him suspiciously, but Yu Xing's tone was so natural that it was hard not to believe him.

Yu Xing noticed his gaze and said sarcastically, "Why don't you go inside and take a nap?"

Carlos waved his hand. "No, I'm not like you. I would never put myself in unnecessary danger. Besides, didn't you already say there's nothing inside...? I trust my teammates!"

Before Yu Xing Yu Xing refute the term "teammate," he waved goodbye. "Now that you're out safely, I won't keep an eye on you anymore. The team and I will reach the ancestral hall in about an hour. Please don't wander off again; stay where you are, okay?"

An hour? I can wait that long.

Yu Xing reluctantly agreed, and the little paper figure immediately collapsed on the spot, motionless and dead.

Knowing that Carlos had withdrawn his mental energy and was probably planning to lead the team forward at full speed, Yu Xing closed the coffin lid, plopped down on it, and rested while waiting.

Since no one was buried inside, his sitting on the coffin lid was not considered disrespectful to the deceased.

Yu Xing rubbed his arms and legs, feeling a strange soreness all over his body, as if he had been skinned and re-wrapped. He narrowed his eyes and began to doubt the authenticity of the sensations in the coffin.

If that's all there is in the black coffin, why would a hunchbacked person need to sleep in it every day? Is there some kind of special constraint on the hunchbacked person?

Yu Xing didn't remember, but he felt that there would definitely be a chance for him to remember during the journey that followed.

More than an hour later.

Yu Xing, who was resting with his eyes closed, heard a commotion outside. He opened his eyes, turned his head, and saw several beams of bright flashlight light outside the ancestral hall.

"Look! That's an ancestral hall!"

Ash from Carlos's team was overjoyed; he couldn't wait to meet his new, powerful teammates, so he jumped up at the front.

Carlos was two steps behind him. His gray-blue hair and emerald green eyes were very conspicuous. He saw Yu Xing standing in front of the ancestral hall from afar, and then pretended to put two fingers together in front of his lips and kissed her. He then blew a kiss to Yu Xing, not caring whether Yu Xing could see it or not.

If Yu Xing were standing next to him, she would probably laugh and compliment him, saying, "You're so flirtatious!"

Separated by a grove of trees, Yu Xing leaned against the doorframe, counting the twelve people approaching her in a large group, feeling a sense of anticipation.

He was eager to see just how powerful the team, which had made it this far without losing any members, truly was.

Soon, the group approached, and the man with the crew cut at the front seemed to want to give him a hug. Yu Xing smiled shyly and subtly stepped back.

"Finally, I've met you! My God, you're much more attractive than I imagined!" The injured blonde woman made no attempt to hide her surprise, and Carlos gave her an "I knew it" look.

Unica, a notorious womanizer on the team, a remarkable woman who has slept with half the team.

Yu Xing glanced around, her gaze lingering a second longer on the smiling Shi Jiu's face, before saying politely but somewhat reservedly, "Thank you, it's a pleasure to meet you all too."