Chapter 68: Return from the Deep

“Ha, haha, hahahahahaha…”

At first, Tan Wenbin just let out a chuckle, but he couldn't hold back. His laughter grew louder and more exaggerated, soon drawing Runsheng and Xue Liangliang into it as well.

Li Zhuiyuan didn’t bother pretending to join in this time. He didn’t laugh out loud, but the corners of his lips did lift slightly.

They had braved danger, encountered the unknown, and after a whirlwind of terror, they had emerged alive.

It’s human nature to forget pain once the wound heals. No matter how bitter or hard the experience, once you survive it, the brain tends to soften the memory, even infusing it with a faint sweetness—like tasting flower nectar plucked from roadside buds on the way to school.

Right now, Tan Wenbin felt a head-to-toe sense of euphoria.

Adventure was addictive, no doubt about it.

But just as they were laughing, the ground began to tremble.

Startled, Tan Wenbin blurted, “Did we laugh hard enough to cause a quake?”

It wasn’t their laughter, of course. But the tremor was real—stones started tumbling from above.

The four of them immediately got to their feet and moved to a flatter area below.

After a while, the shaking stopped and calm returned. The place where they'd just been sitting had caved in, and the narrow crevice they'd crawled out of had vanished completely.

Not that it mattered even if they could still find it—the tunnel beneath had surely collapsed.

Xue Liangliang said, “It’s probably a chain reaction caused by the underground palace caving in.”

Tan Wenbin frowned. “That big thing was really that fierce? Went back to wreck the place and buried itself too?”

Xue Liangliang shook his head. “Who knows? Maybe it went back to find its mother.”

At those words, Li Zhuiyuan couldn’t help but recall the snake-faced woman sitting on the bed.

Xue Liangliang climbed to a higher vantage point to reorient himself, then led them toward the base camp.

The distance wasn’t far, but the terrain was rough, and it took them a long time.

Fortunately, by afternoon they spotted a militia unit—armed and carrying explosives.

They were likely the first reinforcements dispatched after the incident.

Once the four were identified as the “missing members” of the expedition, the team quickly arranged for their return. Along the way, they encountered some geologists who were still assisting with operations in the area. These folks were warm and grateful, greeting them with enthusiastic thanks.

The gratitude felt oddly misplaced—until they found out that the story going around was that Xue Liangliang had led a few people to lure the giant creature into the cave, saving everyone.

Xue Liangliang hurriedly clarified that the creature had charged into the cave on its own, and they had merely been fleeing for their lives.

But clearly, his colleagues only nodded out of courtesy—they didn’t seem convinced.

This made Xue Liangliang uneasy. He had no desire to claim a false hero’s glory.

Tan Wenbin, meanwhile, whispered to Li Zhuiyuan, “Think this kind of credit could boost your college entrance scores?”

The four were first escorted out of the mountains, then driven back to the town. Afterward, they were taken to a hospital in Wanzhou city for thorough check-ups. Once cleared, they were settled into a guesthouse to rest.

During their stay, many officials and personnel came by—some to visit, others to take statements.

Xue Liangliang handled most of this, as they'd previously agreed to keep the underground palace confidential for now.

It wasn’t about hiding the truth, but they'd been told Luo Tingrui was on his way. Xue Liangliang and Li Zhuiyuan planned to report everything to him directly and let him decide how to handle it.

Unlike those rural incidents where a random death would be quietly covered up to avoid disrupting daily life, this now involved a national infrastructure project—it had to be disclosed properly.

Before Luo Tingrui arrived, their team leader Ma Yiming came first. Unshaven and visibly exhausted, he gripped Xue Liangliang’s hands tightly when they met. Then he visited Li Zhuiyuan and the others, murmuring “Thank you, thank you,” over and over.

Thank you for making it back alive.

He hadn’t slept since the incident. Including temps and contract workers, he had essentially lost eight people under his watch.

With four returning alive, he could finally breathe a little easier.

Right after Ma Yiming left, Luo Tingrui arrived with two associates—clearly having staggered the timing on purpose.

Xue Liangliang met privately with the two aides, telling them everything about the underground palace—except for Li Zhuiyuan’s unique role.

After questioning Xue Liangliang, they also asked a few brief questions to Li Zhuiyuan, Runsheng, and Tan Wenbin before leaving.

Now, five people remained in the room.

Luo Tingrui grabbed Xue Liangliang’s shoulders and shook him hard a few times. “You nearly scared me to death.”

At his age and with his status in the field, it’s no exaggeration to say that a true protégé could matter more to him than a son—especially since he had no sons, and his only daughter wasn’t in the profession.

Next, he walked over to Li Zhuiyuan and bent down to give the boy a firm hug.

The top minds in the field all knew that the country would be launching many massive construction projects. But from design to completion, these projects spanned decades. For Luo Tingrui to see his vision realized, he needed true successors.

Luo Tingrui grinned and waved. “Come on, let’s go get some late-night food.”

The snack stall wasn’t far from the guesthouse. It specialized in Wanzhou grilled fish.

Looking at the trio, Luo Tingrui asked, “You boys want a drink? I’ll join you if you do.”

Tan Wenbin immediately waved it off. “We don’t drink.”

Truth be told, Wenbin sometimes shared a couple of shots with his great-grandfather at home. But since the senior-most person at the table wasn’t drinking, he knew not to press the issue.

“Then let’s get some soft drinks.”

“On it.”

Tan Wenbin returned with a crate of soy milk. “Heh, this place only has this stuff.”

He used a bottle opener to crack open a bottle for each of them.

Luo Tingrui turned to Xue Liangliang. “Don’t let it go cold—eat while we talk.”

Everyone picked up their chopsticks and dug into the fish.

Xue Liangliang recounted the events in the underground palace once more for Luo Tingrui.

After listening, Luo Tingrui just nodded and smiled.

Tan Wenbin chimed in, “Now that’s someone who’s seen the world.”

Taking a sip of soy milk, Luo Tingrui said, “Unless the authorities come asking, don’t talk about this to anyone else.”

All four nodded at once.

Then Luo Tingrui smiled again.

“Honestly, I’ve seen this kind of thing a few times before. We modern folk walk this land, but we have no idea what’s buried beneath—history and mystery far beyond imagination.”

Construction sites never lack strange phenomena. Especially with massive engineering projects, the deeper and broader they dig, the more likely they are to unearth bizarre things.

Many urban legends begin like this: “My dad, my uncle, my friend—once, back when they were working on such-and-such a project…”

For Luo Gong, he was the guy in those stories.

He began recounting one of his own experiences.

It happened quite a few years ago. He had just started working and was temporarily assigned to a project in Jilin. He’d found it odd—even though the country was one big chessboard, at the time it was usually the northeast sending talent and industry inland, not the other way around.

The site was in the mountains, but not remote—close to Ji’an.

Once there, he received his task assignment. It wasn’t to design or build anything new, but to inspect an existing underground facility.

It seemed to be a classified project—most likely a civil defense shelter—of considerable scale, but suffering severe water leakage.

Multiple teams were dispatched to inspect different points. Some marked zones were off-limits—they would be handled by others.

One day, Luo Tingrui and a teammate found a dried-up outflow pipe—huge enough for a cow to pass through.

Under normal conditions, even with natural wear and tear, engineering quality wouldn’t degrade to the point of leaving a gaping hole like that. Most puzzling was that the previous day, that hole wasn’t there.

Leaving one person to guard the entrance, Luo Tingrui and the other teammate crawled inside to investigate.

He chuckled at this part.

“We were young and fearless back then. The slogans on the walls gave us courage. The poor guy left to watch the entrance had lost at rock-paper-scissors—he was sulking hard.”

The breach was deep, with sections so narrow they had to squeeze through sideways. It seemed endless.

They had clearly gone past the official project boundaries. Yet the surroundings didn’t resemble natural fault lines—some corners even bore tool marks.

The two young men got excited—thinking it might be enemy sabotage.

But the deeper they went, the stranger it felt. Primitive tools lay scattered on the ground. Then bloodstains appeared. Further in, they even heard voices from deeper still.

Whoever it was heard them too—footsteps approached, and flickering torchlight could be seen.

They were using actual torches.

Not scared, but knowing they had to report this, Luo Tingrui told his partner to run back while he stayed behind to cover the rear. The space was so tight that even a body could block the way.

They still suspected foreign agents were sabotaging the facility.

But the voices and footsteps gradually vanished without a trace.

Figuring his teammate was far enough and reinforcements would arrive soon, Luo Tingrui decided to head deeper instead of retreating.

As he continued, he began to feel dizzy. His legs weakened, and his vision blurred.

“At first, I thought it was oxygen deprivation. But later, I realized I must’ve been…”

He paused, glancing at the four in front of him.

Tan Wenbin and Runsheng were riveted.

Xue Liangliang leaned forward. “Poisoned?”

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