As Lin Qiao went deeper and deeper underground, she sensed the scorching hot wind blowing up. But weirdly, she didn’t see any lava. By the time she saw the water at the bottom of the crevice, she felt that she was at least two more miles away from Long Qingying and the others.
She controlled the dark mist under her feet to allow herself to float in the air while looking down at the bubbling water.
Yes, that was an underground river with steaming hot water. The water temperature was at least eighty degrees, so hot that it could even boil eggs!
The river wasn’t small; the water surface was wide. Lin Qiao looked around and found that the river under her feet was over ten meters wide.
She narrowed her eyes to observe the river water, which was not only hot, but also contained a thick energy. It was the same type of energy which had been gushing out of the ground where she came in from.
She spent a short while observing the river water, but heard no noises from it. Then, she turned to look at the rock faces on both sides of the river. As she expected, she found some different shaped caves. Those caves were located one or two meters away from the water, seemingly created to provide the users with the convenience to fetch water from the river.
The vibes of a large numbers of different creatures could be sensed from those caves.
…
At that time, Wu Chengyue and his people returned to Sea City Base to hear from Xiao Yunlong that Dong Lijia and his people had left, also bringing away quite a few high-grade hunter groups.
“What? They just left? Without any hesitation?” Wu Chengyue looked at Xiao Yunlong and asked with surprise.
“No! They handed in the application of leaving the base in the morning of the third day after they had a meeting with Lin Wenwen,” Xiao Yunlong sighed.
Wu Chengyue thought for a moment. It was about Lin Wenwen again. Was that a coincidence?
He thought of the pure and fresh catmint that Lin Wenwen brought back and figured that those people might have something to do with her during the period she was missing.
That made sense. Dong Lijia and his people had been mysterious ever since Wu Chengyue met them. Right after the apocalypse, they were already capable enough to build their own armed force. Wu Chengyue was surprised to learn about that from their files. They stayed calm when everybody was in panic. They never hesitated to kill zombies, and they seemed to have stocked a sufficient amount of supplies.
At first, Wu Chengyue felt that those people seemed to know about the apocalypse in advance. He didn’t really believe so though. After all, no one would ever believe something that even if they were told so. At least, no normal people would believe it…
Now, as he thought about it again, he figured that they did foresee the apocalypse! That was why they were fully prepared! They had been keeping a low profile in Sea City Base, but every time they left the base to collect supplies, they brought back a huge batch of precious and highly useful things. Also, they had always been hunting zombies and harvesting nuclei actively!
It turned out that they were prepared for the apocalypse before it even started.
But unexpectedly, the one they had been waiting for was Lin Wenwen. Wu Chengyue wondered what the girl had done to them while she was in the past.
“Well, so be it! After all, she’s the one that they’ve waited for,” Wu Chengyue smiled.
“Eh? Are you willing to just let them go?” Xiao Yunlong looked at him questioningly.
Wu Chengyue looked at him and said smilingly, “Why wouldn’t I be? After all, they’ve made their choice already.”
Xiao Yunlong didn’t understand his meaning. He only felt as if a juicy slice of meat that he and his people had been having their eyes on was eaten by Lin Wenwen at last. However, since Wu Chengyue had said that, what else could he say? He decided to just focus on other stuff.
“Oh, do you know why Si Kongchen’s people suddenly left our base for All Beings Base last night?” Before, Wu Chengyue only delivered the message that those Huaxia People would ambush outside Sea City Base, but didn’t tell the reason why.
“Because their targets weren’t in Sea City Base,” said Wu Chengyue with a smile, “So at last, they decided to leave.” As a result, those people were all hunted down by All Beings Base, and not a single one of them survived.
On hearing Wu Chengyue’s words, Xiao Yunlong looked at him with confusion. The latter glanced at him and explained, “Si Kongchen was planning on kidnapping Teng or Ling Ling, then threaten me with them. That was only one plan of his. He has other plans.”
That man had many plans against Wu Chengyue.
On hearing that, Xiao Yunlong was infuriated. “What? Si Kongchen cast his eyes on the kids! How dare he! How shameless! I can’t believe he was going to play such dirty tricks!”
“He was never a decent man, so it’s normal that he’d play this kind of a trick. War allows deceit. To defeat the enemy, any means can be used. The man doesn’t have many principles. Besides, that was a smart plan indeed,” Wu Chengyue maintained the smile on his face and said.
Lin Qiao gave the two kids to Wu Chengyue before leaving Huaxia Base, not bringing them down to the underground world. She had a space that was able to keep herself safe, but accidents might still happen. She prepared herself for the worst-case scenario, so she would not bring the kids down to the underground realm.
According to Teng, Lin Qiao’s condition wouldn’t get worse any time soon, and she still had at least three months. The journey underground wouldn’t take her three months, would it?
“When do you think they’ll come out?” As same as Wu Chengyue, Xiao Yunlong was also thinking about the underground mission.
“That depends,” said Wu Chengyue, “Anyhow, she’ll send someone up in ten days to inform us about whatever is happening underground, no matter how the mission is going. If she still can’t come out after that, she’ll send up another person in another ten days. That’s what we agreed upon.”
In that way, the people on the earth’s surface would be able to learn something about how the team was doing underground.
Xiao Yunlong nodded and said, “That’s a good idea! I wonder what’s going on underground right now. Maybe something changed in the flowing layer underground and caused the most recent eruption of the virus. What do you think?”
“Who knows?” Wu Chengyue said, “Not even lava can kill the virus. I don’t think it’s just some kind of virus. I think it’s some special kind of energy.”
“Do you think there’s a chance that it’s from the earth’s mantle? You have to know that the rock density and pressure near the earth’s mantle are both especially high. If the virus can survive under that kind of condition, it’d surely be invincible. The environment has made it indestructible,” Xiao Yunlong had roughly heard about the structure of the earth. He never had a chance to verify his guess though.
The earth’s mantle was located between the core and crust. Among all parts of the earth, it had the largest volume and quality.
