The passageway was still the same as always, perfectly flat with no bumps, one could walk to the end with their eyes closed. But this time, there were no faintly glowing Soul Bugs to greet us; we had to grope our way to the end in the dark.

Xiao Shu skillfully felt around up, down, left, and right, found a switch, and with a click, pulled it open, lifting the wooden board blocking the way just a crack. A sliver of golden sunlight pierced through the gap, beautiful as the colors of the setting sun.

"Whoa, why is the sky that color?" Xiao Shu mumbled, then pushed the board fully open, exposing the entire mouth of the passage.

I leaned over the edge of the passageway, poked my head out, and took in the surroundings, finally seeing the structure of the tunnel clearly. From the outside, it appeared the passage was just a small black hole suspended in mid-air; the walls and the hundreds-of-meters-long corridor were invisible from the exterior, like a fold in space and time—tangible, perceptible, and occupiable, yet defying spatial orientation. If the wooden board at the entrance were closed, perhaps even the little black hole would vanish. An uninformed person would never know there was an exit to the sunlit world here; of course, this was just my speculation, as we had never closed the board when entering this world before.

"Let's go, old routine," Xiao Shu said, taking a deep breath before leaping into the clear, transparent lake water.

I didn't have his swimming prowess, so I pinched my nose, curled my limbs, and threw myself down like a plumb bob.

Two plops echoed in my ears, followed by a splash, and a gurgling sound enveloped me. A few seconds later, my entire body sank beneath the surface, and quiet returned. I opened my eyes, released the hand from my nose, and found myself slowly drifting downward. A few small carp swam near me, seemingly coming to gauge whether I would suit their taste; seeing me stir, they scattered in fright.

The lake bottom was covered in deep, dense water weeds, growing like an underwater forest. Sinking into it alone gave me a chilling sensation. I paddled my arms and kicked my legs, trying to swim upward, but found I couldn't move at all. Looking down, I saw that my left foot had been ensnared by a cluster of weeds at some unknown moment. That mass of weeds gripped my left ankle like a pair of dark green hands, preventing me from swimming free. Foot entanglement is a major danger in swimming; many good swimmers have met disaster in lakes because of this very thing. Once it wraps around a leg, it’s hard to undo quickly, and the more you struggle, the tighter it binds.

I thrashed my arms desperately upward, trying to minimize the movement of my legs in hopes of keeping my body level, waiting for Xiao Shu to rescue me. But despite all my effort, my body continued to sink unstoppably. Just as I was about to be swallowed by the tangle of weeds, with more and more growth crowding toward my chest and back, I realized the situation had become critically serious. I tried to look up for Xiao Shu, only to find many weeds already pressing against my neck; instinctively, I tried to shout for help, but as soon as my mouth opened, lake water gushed in.

Sigh, I sighed inwardly! To perish before even achieving my goal—was this dangerous predicament destined to snuff out Old Ming!

While I was fretting, a pair of large hands reached down from above. Holding a sickle, they sliced with a swish-swish-swish a few times, cleanly severing the weeds entangled on me. I wondered when Xiao Shu had brought a sickle. Looking up, however, I saw it wasn't Xiao Shu. A dark-skinned, agile young man floated beside me. He shifted the sickle to his left hand and raised his right thumb, giving me a sign of success.