But Xie Lian had clearly seen with his own eyes that the Waning Moon Officer had entered here. It was silly to think he’d sneak around just to meditate and reflect in a dead-end tunnel. There had to be some sort of mechanism involved, so the two scrutinized their surroundings in greater detail.
Soon, Xie Lian pointed. “Lord Wind Master, take a look at the ground. There seems to be something.”
Shi Qingxuan dropped his palm immediately, and the two squatted around the spot Xie Lian had pointed out.
The ground of this tunnel was paved with numerous square bricks, each one about the size of a small door. The brick that they were standing on, right in front of the stone wall, had a drawing upon it. It wasn’t a large picture, but it depicted a little person throwing dice.
Shi Qingxuan looked up. “So does this mean it’s the same method as before—that we have to roll the right number to open this stone wall?”
Xie Lian nodded. “That appears to be the case, but I didn’t come in here with that Waning Moon Officer, so I don’t know what the correct roll is.”
“We’ve come this far,” Shi Qingxuan said. “It’s not realistic to turn back just to find that out. Let’s roll a random number and see.”
Xie Lian agreed. “Lord Wind Master, why don’t you give it a go? I…don’t know how long my borrowed luck will last.”
Shi Qingxuan didn’t refuse. He picked up the dice and tossed them to the floor.
“How about that?”
He rolled a two and a five. They waited briefly, but the stone wall didn’t move. Xie Lian picked up the dice.
“That didn’t work as expected.”
Shi Qingxuan suddenly cried, “Your Highness, look under our feet! The image has changed!”
Hearing this, Xie Lian immediately looked down. Sure enough, the image on the square brick beneath their feet had been a little person rolling dice, but as they watched, the colors slowly faded and filled in once more, transforming into a different scene. It looked like a long, fat, thick, black creepy crawler.
“What in the world is that?” Shi Qingxuan wondered.
“An earthworm? A leech?” Xie Lian guessed. “That’s what it looks like. There are plenty of them in the paddy fields, so I’ve seen a lot.”
Shi Qingxuan wondered some more. “What on earth were you doing that you saw a lot of these things…”
Before his words were finished, he vanished.
It wasn’t just him—Xie Lian himself disappeared as well. Just as the words “were you doing” were uttered, they both felt the ground give way beneath their feet. The next moment, they were free-falling into another tunnel.
Turned out, that stone wall wasn’t a door after all, it was literally a stone wall. The square brick beneath their feet was the real door. After tossing the dice, the door opened abruptly and closed instantly. Xie Lian and Shi Qingxuan fell for only a moment before crashing heavily to the ground.
Thankfully, the ground was soft, otherwise the two would’ve cratered in deep. They didn’t suffer any pain from such a tumble and were just pulling themselves up when their heads knocked into each other, and they both gave a cry of “Aah!” at the collision. Xie Lian, with one hand covering his head, felt around above with his other hand but only made contact with the same soft, wet, muddy earth as the ground they were on.
There were no stone tiles. That stone door was long gone.
When they fell, the palm torch Shi Qingxuan ignited had been extinguished. Now that he had relit it and brightened their surroundings, the two discovered that they were in a mud tunnel.
The tunnel was round with muddy walls and didn’t appear to be man-made. Shi Qingxuan rubbed his forehead.
“What is this place? Did we get thrown here because we rolled the wrong number?”
Xie Lian pondered briefly and replied, “It’s very possible. That stone door is already gone, meaning we have no way to turn back. Let’s think of a way to escape first.”
The two talked it over and decided to keep following the tunnel path. The tunnel had numerous twists and turns, and if a full-grown adult wanted to stand up straight in it, they’d have a bit of a hard time. They could only walk by bending at the waist, or crawl, making their movements both slow and tiresome. The air in this tunnel was warm and moist, the mud clingy and annoying; each of their steps sank and dragged, watery and gross. Sometimes, they would even step in the rotten remains of plants or animals. Xie Lian’s face never changed, but Shi Qingxuan had goosebumps popping up all over. But the longer they traveled, the more Xie Lian felt something was off.