Chapter 49 Part 1

On the third day within the dungeon, Bai Lianxue stood before a mural, scrutinizing it for a moment before taking her clay pot and walking toward the lake in the oasis.

Sun Ningning followed beside her, indignant, tearing at blades of grass as she cursed, “What kind of attitude is that? If she doesn’t want to say, fine—so be it!”

Bai Lianxue said calmly, “You spent all of yesterday on the ground. Did you find any hidden secrets?”

Sun Ningning: “…”

Bai Lianxue continued, “If you’re weaker than someone else, you need to show a better attitude. But none of that matters. What matters is who the final victor is.”

Her two sentences of advice made Sun Ningning’s expression ease a little. Then, as if recalling something, she sneered. “No matter what anyone says, Zhao Shanhai is dead. Even if everyone claims Zhu Ming didn’t do it, the Sword and Shield Group is bound to hold a grudge.”

After all, Zhao Shanhai was the only one who died, and it just had to be Zhu Ming who went over there—well, not the real her, but did that even matter?

Seeing Bai Lianxue not taking the bait, Sun Ningning stepped forward and asked, “What’s the deal with that water?”

This question, Bai Lianxue was willing to answer. “Did you see the murals? The egret and the baboon stood beside the Six-Armed Goddess from the very start. Even later on, they are depicted as being stronger and more noble than ordinary believers. This means those two aren’t just ordinary animals; they possess divinity. They are likely manifestations of the god, or something of that nature.

As believers, it’s naturally impossible for us to rebel against them. We can only choose to appease them. That means besides giving offerings to the goddess, we also need to give offerings to the giant egret birds. The offerings are already shown in the paintings. During times of peace, people would offer frog meat to the egrets. So, we just need to catch frogs and give the meat to them.”

“I see!” Sun Ningning suddenly understood.

By now, they had moved far from the main group. No one else from outside the Ruler Group was around. Sun Ningning glanced around several times, and only after making sure no one was tailing them did she mysteriously bring up another matter. “When do you think the Harp Group took their item back? Who do you think did it?”

Bai Lianxue tossed a caught frog to an egret. After one of the egrets swallowed it, it suddenly lifted its head and cried out twice, then voluntarily spat a stream of clear spring water into the pot in Bai Lianxue’s hands.

Having obtained the water, Bai Lianxue wasn’t in a hurry to go back. She continued walking slowly.

She thought for a moment, then said, “It was probably Yin Yu…”

Time rewound to the previous night. As darkness fell, the three members of the Ruler Group gathered inside their dormitory.

The day’s busy work was over, and it was time to exchange information about their respective gains. Sun Ningning ate something while watching Wang Ziwei lay out the items he had found.

“Our group’s task is to build the golden temple. These are the materials we’ve discovered: a golden cube and a golden cylinder,” Wang Ziwei said. “But there are no tools. That’s so strange.”

Sun Ningning tugged something over. “Look at this!”

Before the three of them lay a small can of white glue. Wang Ziwei was overjoyed. “You found this?”

“Of course.” Sun Ningning recounted how she had found the tool, then gave a mysterious smirk and pulled another item out of her pocket.

“A needle?” Wang Ziwei asked. It was dim, and hard to see clearly; the tiny thing was only a speck.

“Correct.” Having Xiao Lang as a comparison, Sun Ningning now found Wang Ziwei to be not completely useless and felt her opinion of him improve. “The Sword and Shield Group received two tools. While Wei Yuan was busy digging for one, I found the other first and took it.”

This way, the Sword and Shield Group would be unable to complete their task.

“If it’s just a needle, couldn’t they substitute it with a wooden thorn?” Wang Ziwei chuckled, pulling an item from his own pocket. “Why don’t you take a look at what I’ve got… Huh?”

“Look at what?”

Wang Ziwei’s expression shifted. He rummaged through his pocket frantically. “How is it gone? Did it accidentally fall out?”

“What are you talking about?” Sun Ningning, seeing him fumble around for ages, grew impatient. “You didn’t lose something belonging to our group, did you?”

Wang Ziwei couldn’t find it no matter how hard he searched and shook his hand in frustration. “How could that be possible? I just did the same thing as you and took something from another group.”

Wang Ziwei’s supernatural ability, politely termed “Clever Hands,” was bluntly called theft. When he and Bai Lianxue entered the underground labyrinth, their relatively weak combat strength meant they had to flee whenever danger struck, leaving their progress severely behind.

If their own group couldn’t have it easy, Wang Ziwei didn’t want other groups to have it easy either. He stole from whoever he encountered. The downside of this ability, however, was that he could only steal items directly on a person’s body, and the result was highly random.

During this labyrinth trip, Wang Ziwei had stolen a large crystal that the Harp Group had excavated. Losing that piece meant their group definitely couldn’t complete their task.

But now, feeling his pocket, there was nothing at all.

Could he have accidentally dropped it? Impossible. Wang Ziwei considered himself very meticulous. Everything was properly stored. Besides, he had kept that crystal together with the Ruler Group’s materials. There was no reason it would vanish while everything else remained perfectly intact.

“Could their group have a similar ability? Did they take it back when I wasn’t paying attention?” Wang Ziwei said unwillingly. “Then we still don’t have an advantage!”

“You’re right. We still don’t have an advantage,” Sun Ningning said, biting her finger thoughtfully. Her gaze gradually drifted toward the floor door in the center of the dormitory.

A sudden inspiration struck her. “What do you two think? If I sit in the stairwell like last time, could my ability be activated on the surface?”

“What are you planning to do?” Bai Lianxue, who had remained silent, asked.

“Nothing much.” The corner of Sun Ningning’s mouth curled into a smug, self-satisfied smirk. “Just relieve some pressure for our group. Xiao Xue, do you think what I’m doing is wrong?”

In the dimly lit room, Bai Lianxue leaned against the wall, sitting. She watched Sun Ningning silently for a moment, then lowered her head and smiled. She neither objected nor agreed. “I respect your ideas.”

…

Back in the present, Sun Ningning and Bai Lianxue had successfully brought the water back and discovered that the Harp Group’s seed had also already sprouted. Now, among the four groups, only the Sword and Shield Group was still bumbling through the first question.

Xiao Lang swept a glance at the four groups’ situations, gave a light snort, and continued carving the crystal with his carving knife.

The Moon Group’s vanilla was growing the best—vibrant green and exceptionally lush, not looking at all like it had only been planted for two or three days.

The Harp Group’s vanilla, only planted yesterday, had slower progress. But the sprouts that had emerged were very vigorous and growing rapidly, showing signs of catching up from behind.

The Ruler Group’s vanilla was still wilting and drooping. Though planted first, its size wasn’t much larger than the Harp Group’s.

As for the Sword and Shield Group, they seemed to have completely given up on the first question, using the most ordinary soil and water for planting. Their vanilla had barely sprouted and was growing the poorest of all.

With half the exam time already passed, everyone was only just gradually collecting some craft question topics. One could say the four groups’ scores were about equal. It all came down to who had the better luck to find the necessary materials faster.

That day, Zhu Ming and Yun Zouchuan swapped positions. Zhu Ming went to the underground labyrinth, while Yun Zouchuan stayed inside the temple, using a small hammer to work the metal.

“Question: A particle moves along the x-axis. The relationship between its coordinate and time is given as… What should I choose, A, B, C, or D?”

Wenren Tu stared at the physics question before her, feeling a headache blooming. She shook her head violently, preparing to just press any answer, when Zhu Ming grabbed her hand.

“You can’t just wait a moment?”

“Wait for what?”

“Wait for me to calculate it.”

Zhu Ming crouched on the ground and began scooping sand from her pocket. All of this sand had been collected from the surface before she descended.

She smoothed the sand flat, then took out a small wooden stick. Zhu Ming started calculating. After some scratching and scribbling, she said, “Choose A.”

Wenren Tu pressed it skeptically. Unexpectedly, this time the large door actually swung open!

“Damn, you came pretty well-prepared.”

Zhu Ming gathered the sand back into a small pile and returned it to her pocket, leaving a tiny bit behind to form the shape of a “3.” She huffed, “The first time in the labyrinth, I had no experience. But now it’s the second time—I should be prepared.”

The two continued onward and found another treasure chest.

Zhu Ming discovered a pattern. This labyrinth’s interior seemed to be divided into segmented zones. Participants inside couldn’t see the full picture and had no idea how large each zone was, but the divisions were definitely related to the large doors.

And each zone contained one treasure chest. Once the chest was opened, the entire zone would shift.

“From now on, every time we pass through a large door, we’ll leave a little pinch of sand nearby and number it,” Zhu Ming said, distributing sand to Wenren Tu. “When the door’s question is solved, the door rises and disappears, making the passageway look ordinary. But the sand will tell us that there was once a door here.”

“What are you planning to do?”

Zhu Ming replied, “Nothing. I just want to understand the movement patterns here and how large this place actually is.”

Time ticked by slowly. The two gradually began to feel hungry and squatted down to eat on the spot before a treasure chest that had yielded food.

Zhu Ming munched on a fruit while fiddling with the treasure chest. Her fingertip paused at the lock mechanism.

“What are you looking at?”

“This. A-Tu, how much do you know about chess?”

“Not much. Just what I’ve picked up from watching American TV dramas.”

“Then don’t you think this symbol looks exactly like the half-box of white chess pieces we dug up?”

Wenren Tu leaned in for a closer look and thought back. She couldn’t help but be surprised. “Now that you mention it, they really do look alike! We’ve seen several different lock symbols on treasure chests, and they really are chess piece symbols.”

A conjecture gradually took shape. The movement pattern of this underground labyrinth was related to chess!