Once again, I sat down in the treasure tomb, and the atmosphere was completely different from before. Everyone was silent, their faces a mix of pale and green, and the golden light reflecting from the smokeless furnace began to evoke a profound sense of disgust in me.

No one raised any questions; everyone appeared to be deep in thought, but I knew that, like me, their minds were utterly blank.

The situation had spiraled beyond our control. I even believed that the initial assumptions about the mechanisms were no longer valid; we had entered an indescribable state. Any scientific reasoning had completely failed after such a simple experiment.

No human power could cause a bullet to make such a drastic turn in mere seconds. To explain this phenomenon scientifically, one might even have to invoke quantum mechanics, which might not suffice.

“This is really like a ghost wall!” Shun Zi’s face was extremely pale as he glanced at his father, who was set aside, revealing an expression of deep sorrow and fear.

I knew what he was thinking; he understood why the mummified corpses among the jewels wore such expressions of despair. In such circumstances, attempting again and again, returning to the starting point time after time until they ran out of ammunition—how could they not be desperate? They must have died in utter hopelessness, still unable to grasp any semblance of a clue.

And we might be the next batch; soon there would be four more withered corpses here, all wearing expressions of profound despair, leaving the next victims to ponder what we thought before we died.

The reason I hadn’t despaired before and hadn’t anticipated this step was that I believed my intelligence would prevent me from being trapped by any kind of mechanical trap. But now, things were different; clearly, the situation we faced was far more bizarre.

“Should we continue?” After about ten minutes of silence, Pan Zi asked in a dry voice.

But no one answered; several gazes turned toward the Fatty.

On the ground in front of the Fatty were two of our hypotheses remaining, while the third was my offhand suggestion: spatial folding.

The reason I suddenly brought this up was that I recalled how the oil bottle had disappeared for a few seconds in front of me when we were at the volcanic fissure. I had been utterly perplexed at the time, but now I thought it might indeed be related to spatial folding. Given how terrifying the recent experiment was, it was almost a pseudoscientific test. Suddenly, my mysterious notion of spatial folding became the most plausible explanation.

If Fatty hadn’t listed these things out, I would have likely forgotten everything in a panic after witnessing this experiment.

After a long silence, Fatty finally said, “Alright, we’ve all seen it with our own eyes, so let’s skip the nonsense. How do we prove the third hypothesis?”

“No! No need to prove it.” Suddenly, Pan Zi spoke up again.

Panzi has a very thorough way of looking at problems; he can always see the essence of things directly. Just like when the fat guy was still hoping that the tomb passage would open up, Panzi immediately completely denied it. This is related to the fact that Panzi has come down from the battlefield; he thinks about problems without a shred of wishful thinking. So when I hear him speak, I feel scared, afraid that he will state many facts that shouldn’t be said.

I heard him say, “There are only six corpses here. Let’s assume that a total of eight people came in, which means two people must have gone out. Although we don’t know how they got out, if it’s like what the Third Young Master said about the third option, then absolutely no one could have gotten out. So we don’t need to consider that option; considering the third option is tantamount to admitting that we are doomed.”

His words sent chills down the spines of several people, and the fat guy protested, “How can you be sure that eight people came in? Maybe only six came in from the start.”

Panzi sighed and said, “You foolish fat man, you still don’t understand. It doesn’t actually matter how many people came in.”

This can’t be proven, and arguing is useless. I thought to myself, “Right now, the number of people who came in is not important to our situation at all, but it is crucial for our morale. If two people managed to get out, our mindset would be completely different. We could think about how they got out, and at least there would be a glimmer of hope.”

Thinking this, I ignored them and walked over to the corpses to look at their notes, hoping to find some clues. Perhaps someone had written a diary or something. If someone had recorded their thoughts at the time or mentioned that someone had managed to get out, at least we would have a bit of hope.

However, when I looked at the notebook earlier, I had only skimmed through it. There were no lengthy passages; most of the short entries were just accounts or brief information, offering no insights.

I pondered whether these people would still be writing when faced with death. Perhaps when they were dying, they had no light, the batteries were long dead, and there was no heating source, which is why they huddled together in the dark. If eight people came in, when would the last two have gone out? It certainly wouldn’t have been while they were still conscious; if that were the case, the others should have been able to get out too. Could it be that they were so weak from hunger and in total darkness that they didn’t even notice when two of them left?

Could the key to getting out have been the darkness, going without light?

Thinking about this sent a chill through me. I remembered that this was an ancient tomb. Walking through such a narrow tomb passage in complete darkness would truly be deadly.

Seeing that I was looking for information, the others gathered around to help. Sitting there and daydreaming was not a solution; sometimes, we needed to look at something to stimulate our thoughts.

Considering the issue of the lack of light, I told them not to waste battery power and to turn off their flashlights. The remaining heating stove could also provide some light. We gathered around the stove, with three notebooks and a novel, and each of us began to flip through them, searching for clues word by word.

The notebook I flipped through has neat handwriting, likely written by a woman. I turned several pages, and it was filled with names and phone numbers. There was also a list of people she invited to dinner, the phone number for a hotel in Changbai Mountain, some simple maps drawn in certain places, addresses, and memos. I saw that in 1994, it seemed this woman had been ill and hospitalized, as there was a note about needing a follow-up appointment.

Flipping further, I found only blank pages, but I continued to turn them one by one, hoping she had written something. Just then, the fat guy said, “There’s a clue here.” He read aloud, “Today, I sold the last item I brought out from the sea for 3,000 yuan, paid back 1,500 to Old Li, and cleared my debts. This guy is a fisherman.”

I smiled wryly and shook my head, then looked over at Panzi. His notes were the thinnest, almost empty, and he had already finished reading. I turned to Shunzi, only to see him engrossed in a novel, apparently having skipped to the most exciting part where the protagonist was about to act.

The fat guy was displeased and snatched it away, scolding, “I told you to look for clues, and you’re reading smut! Your conscience is seriously lacking! Confiscated!”

In the scuffle, the novel suddenly fell apart, and pages flew everywhere. I cursed and scolded the fat guy while opening my flashlight to pick them up. Suddenly, Panzi said, “Hey, there’s a photo here.” He picked up a yellowed black-and-white photo from the papers.

I took it and, upon a closer look, suddenly felt it was familiar. Another glance made my mind buzz, and I nearly lost my breath—this photo was none other than a group picture of my uncle and the others at the dock before they went to the Xisha Islands!