The enormous figure was almost as tall as the stone tablet, and one could vaguely make out a head and neck, indistinguishable from a human. However, the way it stood there, hunched over, was so bizarre that it sent shivers down one’s spine.

Wen Jin was sweating profusely. The group stood at the junction of the stone steps and the bottom of the pool, only five steps away from the giant, a distance that was neither long nor short, making it extremely awkward. The mist at the bottom of the pool swirled, and the lighting relied solely on a few low-powered flashlights, making it impossible to discern whether the figure was human or ghost. Just moments ago, so many people had searched this area, inside and out, and apart from the four stone monkeys at the center and a blank stone tablet, there was nothing else in the ten meters of the pool’s bottom. When had this enormous ‘person’ appeared? No one knew.

And that damned Zhang Qiling seemed completely oblivious, still engrossed in studying the stone tablet, unaware of what he was investigating. Wen Jin was so frustrated she could hardly contain her anger, but as the person in charge, she couldn’t just leave him behind. At this moment, she had no strategy and could only warn the others behind her not to move recklessly.

After about five or six minutes, the giant figure still lingered behind the mist, seemingly with no intention of moving.

At that moment, Huo Ling couldn’t hold back any longer and softly called out, “Xiao Zhang, why are you still squatting there? Come over here quickly!”

Wen Jin was startled and hurried to stop her; Zhang Qiling was too close to that thing. If the situation changed, it would be difficult to retreat safely in just two steps. The best course of action was to maintain the status quo for now.

Wen Jin quickly analyzed the situation. Although there were many dangers in the ancient tomb, as long as one knew what they were dealing with, there would naturally be ways to cope. What was truly frightening was being in a perilous situation without any clues, often leading to a vague and untimely demise.

Upon some analysis, Wen Jin felt that there couldn’t be any zongzi (mummies) in this place because the location of this ancient tomb was exceptionally good. The Xisha Islands had seen little human disturbance for hundreds of years, and while there were several circular reefs scattered on the surface of the sea, they were connected underwater, forming a continuous underwater mountain range. The mountains were hidden beneath the sea, gathering wind and energy; with the dragon’s head to the east and the dragon’s tail to the west, it represented a rare underwater dragon vein. In feng shui, a water dragon is considered superior to a mountain dragon, as dragons first belong to water before ascending to the sky.

In such a place, if there were a coffin, it would undoubtedly contain wealth and power, especially if this ancient tomb truly belonged to Wang Cang Hai. Given his name, he would certainly lack water in the five elements, which would further enhance the feng shui of a sea tomb, essentially claiming all aspects of heaven, earth, and humanity in terms of feng shui.

Therefore, unless feng shui texts were completely fabricated, there would definitely not be any zongzi here. With this thought, Wen Jin felt relieved; since it wasn’t a zombie, it had to be a human or an animal. As long as it was a living thing, with so many people here, it wouldn’t matter if it was two meters tall; even if it were three meters tall, we could take it down.

At that moment, one of the boys said, “Wen Jin, I think something’s off. I remember that position should be where the stone monkey is. Could it be that something has climbed onto the stone monkey?”

Wen Jin’s heart stirred as she suddenly thought, could it be that Uncle San has woken up, realized they were missing, and come here to look for them? This person has a rather improper way of doing things; he might blame them for not obeying his orders, so he hid behind the mist and climbed onto the Stone Monkey to scare them.

If that were the case, it would be utterly detestable. Wen Jin thought this was the most plausible explanation. With that in mind, she shouted at the shadow, “Wu Sanxing! Stop playing around! Come down here right now!”

If the person really was Uncle San, this shout would surely reveal that she had seen through him. There would be no need to keep pretending. Uncle San was an open-minded person; for such a trivial matter, he would just laugh it off and wouldn’t mind at all.

But before she could finish her words, the shadow suddenly stretched out a hand and gestured for them to be quiet!

Wen Jin looked at his figure; the length of his hand was disproportionate to his height. It was indeed someone standing on top of the Stone Monkey. Without thinking, she concluded it must be Uncle San. Angered, she stomped her foot and quickly ran up, leaping onto the Stone Monkey to pull his ear.

This was her last resort for dealing with Uncle San. They had agreed never to argue, but whenever Wen Jin was extremely angry, she could pull Uncle San’s ear to let him know just how upset she was. Generally, in such situations, even if Uncle San was bold, he wouldn’t dare to act recklessly anymore.

Just as she leaped onto the Stone Monkey and hadn’t yet made a move, the person on the Stone Monkey suddenly grabbed her, covering her mouth with one hand and whispering, “I’m Xiao Zhang! Don’t say anything! Just look below!”

Wen Jin was already furious, but upon hearing the voice, she froze. This was indeed Zhang Qiling’s voice! How could he be standing on the Stone Monkey?

As she thought about it, a cold sweat broke out; something was wrong! If that were the case, then who was the person squatting in front of the stone tablet?

She quickly recalled the scene from earlier. At that time, she had only seen someone squatting in front of the stone tablet, holding a flashlight, and the only person missing from the crowd was Zhang Qiling. So she had jumped to a conclusion. Could it be that she had made a preconceived error?

With that thought, she leaned out to look. When she did, she was stunned. She saw that the person squatting in front of the tablet was wearing the same diving suit as they were. Judging by the body shape, it was none other than Uncle San!

Moreover, Uncle San seemed a bit off. At first, Wen Jin didn’t understand what he was doing, but upon closer inspection, she realized he was actually combing his hair in front of the smooth, mirror-like stone tablet. What was chilling was the awkwardness of his movements, which were clearly something a woman would do.

After combing for a while, Uncle San turned his face, carefully examining himself in the stone mirror, like a young girl checking her appearance after finishing her makeup.

In the stone mirror, Uncle San’s face was half-smiling, half-serious, looking eerily ghostly. Such a scene would normally be quite funny, but now, Wen Jin felt her hands and feet turn cold, and she didn’t even dare to breathe.

The people below looked at the two figures embracing the stone monkey, completely still, and thought it was really Uncle San pretending to be a ghost to scare them, which made them breathe a sigh of relief. Huoling, worried about Zhang Qiling, suddenly ran up behind the person in front of the stone tablet, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Xiao Zhang, what are you dazed about here?”

This caught everyone by surprise. Zhang Qiling silently exclaimed that it was bad and realized it was too late to stop her. He saw the person in front of the stone tablet suddenly stand up, scaring Huoling into a sharp scream. However, she quickly realized that the person in front of her was Uncle San. From fear she turned to anger, shouting, “Wu Sanxing, it’s you! Why aren’t you sleeping? What are you doing squatting here acting crazy?”

Uncle San saw Huoling and suddenly covered his face with his hand, let out a strange cry, and pushed her hard, knocking her to the ground. Then he turned and ran. Zhang Qiling sensed something was wrong and immediately jumped down from the stone monkey to chase after him. His speed was extremely fast, but as he passed by Huoling, he paused for a moment to check if she was hurt. However, this brief delay caused a major problem. When Huoling saw Zhang Qiling looking at her on the ground, she rushed over, thinking he was concerned for her. Her heart warmed, and she unexpectedly went to hug him.

Zhang Qiling couldn’t help but sigh inwardly. This few seconds of delay was enough to make him lose all his advantage. He rolled over and slipped past her arm, and when he looked back at Uncle San, he had already run into the thick fog, almost reaching the edge of the pool.

Zhang Qiling shouted, “Watch the stone steps! Don’t let him go up!” As he spoke, he chased after him. At this moment, he vaguely saw Uncle San suddenly turn sideways and, in an instant, seemed to have passed through the wall. However, the fog was too thick, and he didn’t see the process at all.

Zhang Qiling reached the edge of the pool, but found no one to chase and had to come to a stop. He didn’t believe that Uncle San had actually gone through the wall. Although he wasn’t the kind of person who strictly adhered to materialism, this scene was too bizarre, and there had to be something fishy about it.

He paused for a moment and immediately reached out to touch the stone wall. However, the stone wall was solid and real. Zhang Qiling didn’t believe that this world had something like wall-passing techniques. He extended his long fingers and pressed them against the stone wall. In an instant, his extremely sensitive fingers felt that the stone wall was actually rotating very slowly!

His mind buzzed, realizing it was over! He hadn’t noticed at all that this pool was actually a huge mechanism!

He suddenly felt a deep sense of emotion; this could be described as a miracle of ancient engineering. His so-called experience seemed childish in front of the tomb owner.

But what was the purpose of this mechanism? In the few minutes they had been down here, it seemed that the entire bottom of the pool hadn’t changed at all! That damned Wang Canghai couldn’t possibly just want to create a rotating restaurant in his own tomb.

Zhang Qiling was not unfamiliar with the principles of mechanisms. To put it in his own words, his understanding of traps and mechanisms in Chinese ancient tombs surpassed that of anyone else in the world (his exact words). He was very familiar with the working principles of mechanisms, their origins, shortcomings, and even the names of their inventors.

According to his experience, this mechanism must operate on the simplest principles. He knew that so-called clever spring mechanisms, wooden bows, and crossbows, regardless of how good the materials are, would have their firing mechanisms rotted and unusable after a few hundred to a thousand years. What can effectively deter tomb raiders is often the simplest layer of protective sand outside the tomb wall (once tomb raiders dig into the sand layer, the large amount of quicksand above will collapse and suffocate them, but this is also a very passive method; nowadays, tomb raiders can instead determine the actual location of ancient tombs based on the sand brought up by the Luoyang shovel and directly break through twelve layers of blue bricks from the top of the tomb).

For a mechanism to operate for hundreds or thousands of years, it is necessary to use materials that will not decay over such a long time, such as stone and living water that will not dry up. These materials are available here, and the water even provides a form of power that changes with the tides, making it more convenient to utilize.

If the tomb owner is Wang Canghai, then this person, given his obsession with and mastery of ingenious techniques, has likely reached a level unmatched by anyone else in the world.

As Zhang Qiling thought while feeling along the stone walls, he already had a vague idea in his mind that there must be an entrance on this wall. Just a moment of hesitation had caused the entrance to shift position. As he felt his way forward, he took just a few steps and indeed discovered a hidden door.

It couldn’t be this easy to find, he shook his head, hesitant to enter, and continued walking forward. The more he walked, the more puzzled he became. In this small area, he ended up finding eight hidden doors. He calculated in his mind and seemed to realize, isn’t this just the art of strange gates and escape?