In utter helplessness, Uncle Jiu cast a pleading glance at Lin Zhiyan, hoping she could rein in her runaway disciple.

Having roamed the Jianghu for half a lifetime, he doesn't claim much, but when it comes to reading people, Uncle Jiu has honed it to perfection.

He naturally could see that when Xiao Feng was present, he was undoubtedly the soul of the team, but in his absence, most of them looked to Lin Zhiyan for guidance.

What's more, Lin Zhiyan and the young girl shared a complex relationship, hovering between that of a master-disciple and sisters, so whatever Lin Zhiyan said surely carried weight.

However, Lin Zhiyan, who usually had a strong sense of the bigger picture, this time said nothing, letting the young girl intimidate Uncle Jiu, completely indifferent.

With no choice, Uncle Jiu had to brace himself and say, "Let go first, I will definitely figure something out."

"You better hurry." The young girl loosened her grip, placing a hand on her waist.

Uncle Jiu naturally was not unfamiliar with this action. It was the same motion Lin Zhiyan used before flicking her whip when catching bats.

Taking several deep breaths, Uncle Jiu gritted his teeth, his right hand's index and middle fingers together, with the other three fingers slightly bent, making a sword-finger gesture.

Then, his left hand opened, and the sword finger sketched across his palm while he recited, "First arrange the nine palaces on the palm, criss-cross fifteen within, then divide the eight trigrams into eight parts, one breath unifies three as orthodoxy!"

He chanted slowly, but this set of actions paired with the mystifying verses genuinely bewildered everyone temporarily.

But Uncle Jiu didn't feel relieved, because this trick couldn't stall for long. However, at this point, there was no better option.

Then, everyone saw Uncle Jiu go seemingly mad, singing, dancing, and shaking his head, none could hear any word clearly, comparable to a wizard dance from a movie.

"Stop these aimless antics, I want you to tell me right now, where is brother Xiao Feng!" The young girl shouted softly.

Uncle Jiu shivered, his face fell instantly, his brain racing on how to calm the little girl, who was on the verge of exploding.

Objectively speaking, the girl's actions at the moment were undoubtedly unreasonable or simply throwing a tantrum.

But any mature man knows, never reason with women, do that, and you lack sense!

Uncle Jiu, as an old man who matured decades ago, couldn't possibly be unaware of this truth.

"So… there's no getting out of this, huh!" Uncle Jiu lamented silently, already prepared for getting injured.

At that moment, a familiar voice came from above, "Is everyone alright?"

The voice belonged to none other than Xiao Feng.

Yet, before anyone could rejoice, a series of "pop pop pop" sounds came from behind.

This noise was also familiar to the group; the massive earlier sound finally stirred the bat swarm...

"Don't panic, make some torches and drive the bats away first," Xiao Feng said sternly, then started climbing down using both hands and feet.

The torn pants Zhao Guo'an had changed out of came in handy; the group ripped the fabric into strips, attached them to the tips of trekking poles, drenched them in oil, and quickly made simple torches.

As Xiao Feng landed, the bat swarm began their dive, the group raised the torches above their heads, swinging them whilst coughing violently from the emerging black smoke.

"Bang bang bang!"

The sound of bats colliding with torches echoed continuously, sparks flew everywhere, and the ground illuminated by the torches was filled with bat shadows.

Amidst everyone's full effort to fend off the bats, nobody noticed a spark hadn't fully extinguished had landed on someone's backpack...

Finally, after countless rounds with the bats, they began to retreat en masse; the few remaining, realizing they couldn't extinguish the torches, also flew away.

"Hoo… hoo…"

At this moment, everyone was sweating, hands on their knees, panting heavily.

The young girl wiped her forehead sweat with a sleeve and smiled, "At last…"

Mid-sentence, her expression changed, "Sister Lu Yao, your back is on fire!"

"On fire?" Lu Yao paused, turning her head to see the backpack behind her indeed burning just as the young girl said.

Zhao Guo'an behind her quickly helped remove the backpack, stomped on it several times, finally extinguishing the fire.

The burned backpack lay on the ground, spilling many items, food, water, and… a mechanically burnt, split-in-half commemorative mechanical keyboard.

Seeing this, the scene fell silent once more; apart from the three elderly figures, everyone knew how important the keyboard was to Lu Yao.

Especially bringing it along in such dangerous and unknown endeavor, its significance stood without saying.

Zhao Guo'an apologized, "I'm sorry, I…"

Lu Yao forced a smile, shook her head, "No worries, you didn't mean to, and what's most important was extinguishing the fire."

Although she said this, the sadness in Lu Yao's eyes was unmistakable.

Xiao Feng stepped forward, patted Lu Yao's shoulder through the young girl, and comforted, "Don't be sad, when we get out, I'll get you a keyboard that's unique, cannot be bought anywhere."

"Okay!" Lu Yao smiled, readily agreeing, her inner distress dissipated significantly.

This wasn't pretentious; most people probably have one or two items that mean nothing to others but are invaluable to themselves.

For Lu Yao, this keyboard, now broken in two, was such an item, the first prize she had ever won in her life, not worth much, but held great sentimental value.

"Let's talk business, that massive noise just now, was it your doing?" Lin Jiaxuan, from the back of the line, asked, though only her voice could be heard, not her figure.

Because she was impossibly short.

After organizing his words, Xiao Feng said, "To the right, there's a mechanism; once triggered, a hundred-meter-long, one-meter-wide wall will press into the corridor. The sound you all heard was the mechanism activating."

After speaking, he also mentioned the five people he saw crushed like meat paste.

After hearing this, everyone couldn't help but feel a chill down their spines, thinking about the fate of those five filled them with unspeakable despair.

At the same time, they also admired the designer of this mechanism.

To move a hundred-meter-long, one-meter-wide mountain face, what kind of mind could design such a thing?

"Alright, idle chat and sentiments can be discussed at leisure once we're out." Xiao Feng pulled the topic back, "Currently, although we know there's a mechanism to the right, the issue is it doesn't necessarily mean the path with the mechanism is the wrong one.

So..."

He turned his gaze to Uncle Jiu.

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