Yang Hao and Liang Wan each chose a direction to leave at the intersection. After weighing their options, they decided to look for Liang Wan; after all, girls have a lower chance of survival in such environments and need help more.

The passageway has a curved ceiling, and all the walls are made of cement painted with black asphalt. Because the walls are not smooth, the traces of the asphalt application resemble some kind of skin disease in humans. The purity of the asphalt is very high, and its surface has a sheen.

“This is still not as good as what the ancients made,” Su Wan remarked. “There’s no aesthetic appeal at all.”

“Building complex structures in a desert area is already quite impressive,” said the man with the black glasses.

“You understand this? Aren’t you illiterate?”

The man with the black glasses smiled, seemingly pleased by the remark. After a moment of thought, he replied, “I’ve heard things.”

After walking about ten meters into the passage, there was no sand on the ground. The bottom of the passage became very clean. After walking several hundred meters, they still hadn’t seen any forks in the road; the passage didn’t turn or undulate. Every thirty meters or so, there were large white letters on the wall stating, “North Area, Section Two, Sixth Passage.”

Li Zu looked at a few of these signs and began to recall something: “Oh, we need those maps that Liang Wan has.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you remember the first dry corpse that was sent to your home? That corpse was found in the third passage of the sixth area in the north. The date was 1984,” Li Zu said. “This is Area Two, also in the north. This place is not just large; it’s quite complex. The chances of us getting lost are significant.”

Su Wan frowned, “Discovered in 1984? That doesn’t add up.”

“What do you mean?”

Su Wan didn’t answer immediately but thought for a moment. “That corpse must have died before 1984. This project, isn’t it said to have been built in the 1980s? Such a large project, even if construction began in 1980, assuming it was a large engineering team working quickly, it would still take about two years. At that time, it would have been a very new building. Why would there be corpses found in this building, and not just one?”

“What do you mean?” Li Zu asked. “Just say it directly.”

Su Wan replied, “Huo Zhongshu is a dry corpse, but maybe when he was discovered, he wasn’t a dry corpse? We think these dry corpses are the results of archaeological exploration, but we might be wrong. These dry corpses are actually processed fresh bodies that were found in these passages not long after the buildings were completed. Do you remember Huo Zhongshu’s name tag? He was number 487, and the person who discovered him was number 037. What does this indicate? They belong to the same organization, which means these people were staff members here. On a certain day after the building was completed, many of them died in different places within this passage. What happened that led to their deaths?”

Li Zu pouted, “Didn’t you say back then that 487 represented over 400 corpses? I just rented a warehouse to use as a mortuary.”

Su Wan shrugged, “Now it proves that we didn’t analyze it properly at the time. Let’s first discuss why these people died. Was it a massacre? A shootout?”

“The name tag says ‘discovered,’ indicating that these corpses were found during a search,” Li Zu said. “This means they went through a phase of being missing.”

“Stop making wild guesses. Focus.” The man in the dark glasses said. The two of them stopped, and before them appeared the first fork in the road.

At the fork, it was marked “Zone 3, First Passage.” If they continued forward, it would lead to the First Passage of Zone 4. The depths of both passages were shrouded in darkness, giving the feeling that they led to some otherworldly realm.

“Which path did my sister take?” Su Wan muttered to himself.

“Do you have a compass?” Li Cuo asked. Su Wan pulled one from his backpack and handed it to him. Li Cuo looked at it and said, “Alright, let’s guess why Liang Wan and Yang Hao went their separate ways. In a place like this, there are only two types of thoughts: one is to go in, and the other is to come out. Is Sister Liang part of the ‘going out’ group or the ‘going in’ group? Zone 3 leads toward the central area, while Zone 4 leads to the outer area.”

“With Sister Liang’s adventurous wisdom, by the time she reached this fork, she probably wouldn’t even know left from right; she wouldn’t think that deeply.”

“This way.” The man in dark glasses pointed to Passage 4. “The stride of their footprints when they separated was very large. After they reached the shore, they didn’t stop; they ran apart. There’s no reason for that. They must have had a time difference when coming ashore, and something was chasing them. One got ashore first and chose this side, while the other came ashore later and chose the other side. The girl had very little stamina, so she must have been behind the guy in the water. The thing chasing them probably caught up with the girl. After the girl dashed into this passage, she must have run wildly, and at most had one flashlight. When she passed here, she wouldn’t have had time to notice the fork and would have continued forward.”

Li Cuo and Su Wan stared at him in shock, stunned for a long time. Li Cuo said, “Are you a famous detective from Japan?”

The man in dark glasses put his arms around their shoulders and ruffled their hair, saying helplessly, “I really shouldn’t have agreed to this job; you two aren’t as fun as Boss Wu.” After saying that, he pushed them both and urged them into Passage 4. At that moment, he suddenly felt something was off and glanced back at the entrance of Zone 3.

He took off his sunglasses and immediately realized what he saw. Suddenly, he turned around and pressed himself against the wall.

Li Cuo and Su Wan saw this and quickly copied him. The man in dark glasses broke the glow stick in his hand, grabbed both of them, and smeared the chemical substance onto their palms. Then he threw it to the ground and stepped on it a couple of times. “Follow my footsteps; you won’t bump into anything. Trust me, and follow me as fast as you can.” After saying that, he began to sprint into the darkness of Zone 4.

Su Wan and Li Cuo exchanged glances and immediately chased after him.

In the beginning, there were still traces of the glowing substance on the ground, but soon they saw two beams of light racing ahead at an unimaginable speed.

Both Li Cuo and Su Wan played soccer and didn’t hold back, gritting their teeth and keeping their eyes locked on that light as they followed.

The speed of the man in dark glasses increased, and Li Cuo and Su Wan gradually reached a critical speed. It was truly a trust without distractions because they couldn’t see anything. Just one obstacle could kill them.

It’s not that they truly trust the black bear, but rather they heard a strange sound coming from behind them. It resembled the sound of wooden clogs walking, but the frequency was very slow, with each sound occurring almost every two or three seconds. However, with each sound, the distance between them and whatever was making the noise decreased significantly. After a few moments, it was almost right behind them. They didn’t know what it was, but if it was something wearing clogs, each step it took in pursuit of them was nearly ten meters long.