Chapter 202
Chapter 202
“Did you investigate this complex?” Qin Ying asked.
Zhang Lang nodded silently. “We conducted a preliminary survey.”
He was still in his Monstrous Beast Transformation State, making him look wildly out of place as he walked through the concrete passage.
“This place is enormous. It was probably built sometime in the last century…”
“It was left over from when the railway was built,” Yin Minmin cut in before he could finish.
Zhang Lang immediately caught on. This explanation was for Zhao Jixian and Feng Meiyu’s benefit.
With these two life-forms from 1910 present, Qin Ying and the others had to be extremely cautious about what they said.
After choosing his words, Zhang Lang continued, “The complex was modeled after a maze, with numerous rooms and corridors. No one knows what its builders truly intended it for.
“We ran out of food and water, so we never had the chance to explore all of it.
“Wu Qian… Director Wu had planned to return and excavate the place after we escaped, but…”
But Wu Qian had misjudged the situation.
Of course, no one could blame him for that.
Qin Ying had quietly questioned Zhang Lang about what happened.
When Yin Minmin and the others saw Zhang Yuqin tied up, they responded as any proper government personnel would: they tried to persuade the villagers to stop breaking the law and arranged for Yin Minmin to temporarily serve as the bride.
After Yin Minmin touched the crown and lost her senses, the others followed her.
Everything they had done up to that point had been perfectly reasonable.
They had simply failed to understand the logic behind the actions of Qingzhai Village’s residents.
They fell into the trap laid by Zhang Yuqin and her companions, never realizing that Yin Minmin’s loss of awareness was connected to the Yellow Springs Eye Stone hidden inside the crown.
One wrong step led to another. From then on, they went down a path entirely different from Qin Ying’s.
The entranced Yin Minmin did not board the Alternate-Spacetime Train as Zhang Yuqin had.
Instead, she walked into Qingzhai Tunnel like a wandering ghost.
By the time Wu Qian and the others realized they could not get out of the tunnel, it was already too late.
What had changed to cause such an enormous difference between Zhang Yuqin’s and Yin Minmin’s actions?
No matter how Qin Ying considered it, she could not come up with an answer for the time being.
She had no choice but to turn to Zhao Jixian and Feng Meiyu. “Mr. Zhao, Meiyu, do either of you have any other leads?
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s a rumor or something you heard from someone else.”
They continued cautiously forward as they spoke.
Zhao Jixian’s nerves had been stretched taut ever since they were on the train. After one crisis after another, he was now somewhat dazed.
It took him a moment to process Qin Ying’s question.
He also understood that even the smallest clue could become their chance to escape, so he racked his brains for a long while.
Feng Meiyu, on the other hand, seemed much more animated. Perhaps it was because she had lost the basket she used to sell edamame, or perhaps Yin Minmin’s mention of tomb robbing had perked her up.
When Qin Ying questioned her, she hesitated and glanced around evasively. “I might have heard a little something.”
She swallowed and began with a disclaimer. “I have a neighbor who’s, well… a tomb robber.”
Qin Ying knew at once that Feng Meiyu had invented this neighbor out of thin air.
She did not expose the lie and merely listened in silence.
Feng Meiyu continued, “My tomb-robbing neighbor said that while the railway was being built, a local magnate on Qingzhai Mountain paid a fortune to have work done on the tunnel.
“He publicly claimed that the tunnel ran along a dragon vein stretching from north to south and that he wanted to build his ancestral home atop it.
“But according to my father… no, according to that neighbor, no feng shui master would have been blind enough to choose a foundation site like that.
“What’s more, there was a rumor.
“That supposed local magnate might never have existed at all.
“He was nothing but a front.”
When Feng Meiyu finished speaking, Qin Ying and the others could not help slowing their steps.
Zhao Jixian, in particular, seemed to have had some nerve in his mind struck by her words. Several things buried deep within his memory abruptly resurfaced.
He let out an exclamation, stamped his foot, and clapped his hands. “I remember now too.”
“I once heard there was a major theft during the construction of this railway. Large quantities of cement and other building materials were illegally resold. In the end, the only insider they caught was some consumptive scapegoat, and the stolen materials were never recovered.”
Where else could those stolen building materials have ended up?
Qin Ying reached out and touched the cold wall beside her. “What a clever bait and switch.”
As they spoke, the group arrived at a fork in the passage.
The branch was marked with red fluorescent paint.
Qin Ying looked at Zhang Lang, who said, “We’ve already explored this way. There’s nothing but empty rooms inside.”
The markings followed a simple rule: green meant passable, while red meant blocked or irrelevant.
Qin Ying nodded in understanding.
They continued forward, following the green markings.
The sole kerosene lamp was almost out of fuel, its flame now so faint it could barely be seen.
Feng Meiyu, who had been relatively quiet all this time, suddenly cried out, “There’s someone ahead!”
Her voice was far from soft, and everyone with her felt their hearts lurch.
They looked in the direction she was pointing. Yin Minmin whimpered and pressed closer to Qin Ying.
A dim patch of red hovered in the darkness ahead.
Like a red lantern on the verge of going out, it swayed silently from side to side.
Zhao Jixian sagged against the wall and began sliding down. He couldn’t even scream, managing only a few breathy gasps.
After his initial shock, Zhang Lang quickly recovered. “It’s a person.”
Qin Ying suddenly remembered something.
She hurriedly pulled out her phone.
She had carefully conserved its battery precisely for a moment like this.
When she switched on the flashlight, the entire passage lit up, illuminating what lay ahead.
A dozen or so paces away was the back of a figure dressed in a red dragon-and-phoenix bridal jacket.
Her head lolled to one side as she tottered along on tiptoe, swaying with every step.
Who else could it be but Zhang Yuqin, whom Qin Ying had lost track of?
“Don’t touch her.”
Delighted, Qin Ying stopped Zhang Lang.
The bait they had lost had reappeared. In their current predicament, there could be no better news.
They followed, and Qin Ying carefully examined Zhang Yuqin.
She had wanted to see whether Zhang Yuqin’s face was still covered in black lines, but one glance left her stunned.
“She’s… dead?”
Zhao Jixian’s entire understanding of the world took a severe blow as he stared in horror at Zhang Yuqin walking with her neck twisted sideways.
Her neck was unnaturally elongated, her head drooping over one shoulder.
She no longer looked remotely alive.
Judging by the shape of her neck, it seemed to have been broken in a fall.
None of them dared touch Zhang Yuqin recklessly. Zhang Lang, whose hearing was especially sharp, listened closely for a while.
With a strange expression, he said, “No heartbeat or breathing.”
A living person couldn’t possibly lack both.
The thing tottering along on tiptoe before them was a corpse.
A chill ran down Qin Ying’s back. She couldn’t help asking, “Can you tell how she died?”
She raised her phone and studied Zhang Yuqin more closely.
There were numerous footprints without any tread pattern on her bridal jacket.
From their shape, they looked like…
“Cloth shoes!”
Qin Ying and Yin Minmin blurted out in unison.
They exchanged a look.
Could Zhang Yuqin have been shoved off the platform by the panicked crowd when chaos broke out aboard the train, breaking her neck in the fall?
And afterward, her corpse had continued tiptoeing along to play the bride?
Was she really that determined?
Before Qin Ying could pursue that train of thought, her foot came down on some loose gravel.
The beam from her phone swept into the distance, and the stench of gunpowder smoke mingled with blood drifted toward them.
Yin Minmin pointed ahead. “The new chief!”