He himself couldn't figure out the reason now. Scientifically speaking, the first possibility should be the most reliable. If it were something beyond natural phenomena, then the second possibility would be the most likely. In today's world, what can't happen? Men can get pregnant, and women can keep ducks.

If he absolutely had to make a choice, he thought the first option was probably more dependable, since he studied science; everything should be based on facts. He stopped overthinking and decided to let it be.

He shifted his direction of movement, not drilling out of that large ear shape, but heading towards the very center of the room. He noticed that right in the middle, about fifteen paces away from him, there was a protruding object. It looked like a rectangular prism, though slightly wider and more convex at the front.

His first reaction was that it was a coffin.

Even so, he felt compelled to go and investigate. He cautiously approached the coffin, ignoring the continuous shouting of "Lu Zong!" from Gandama Xiong behind him. He didn't have the mind to pay attention to the two of them; he just kept walking toward the coffin, hoping to discover the true nature of the protrusion.

That short fifteen-step distance took him a full five or six minutes. As he drew closer, he noticed that the protrusion was actually made of something like scales—dense, black things arranged neatly, resembling a fearsome, mighty black dragon. The sight shocked him to his core the moment he saw it.

He sensed that this was more than just simple black scales. He recalled for a moment and felt something strange. If this protrusion was here, he should have noticed it the moment he entered. Why did he only notice it when looking closely now? Was there something secretive about this place?

He touched the scales with both hands and found them loose and flaky. When he swept his hands over them, they crumbled away into nothing but black, decaying scales. He brought them close to his eyes for a detailed look—they were all soft material, like chunks of black charcoal.

At that moment, Gandama Xiong shouted again from behind, "Lu Zong, hurry up!"

Lu Zong only glanced back politely and gave a casual acknowledgement, then continued observing the coffin-like object. In that brief moment he looked back, he noticed a slight hint of tension in Gandama and Ma Xiong’s expressions, a vague feeling. He didn't sense anything else.

He didn't bother thinking too much about it; he just called for the two of them to come forward and help figure out what this thing was. But after waiting a long time without a response, he resigned himself to puzzling over it alone, thinking the two must be resting, utterly exhausted after the ordeal.

He continued brushing away the surface scales with his hands, wanting to see what lay beneath. To his surprise, the scales disintegrated with a light brush. Overjoyed, he kept brushing away the black, charcoal-like matter. After clearing away about twenty centimeters deep, he finally touched something hard. He hastily cleared the remaining black residue and lit a chemical light stick for illumination.

He saw that beneath the charcoal layer, there was hard, timber-like wood, seemingly carved with patterns. He was even more astonished. Given how perfectly it was preserved, it must be some kind of ancient artifact.

He eagerly cleared the surface layer of black matter, working until his waist ached from bending over. This was strenuous labor—brushing away nearly twenty centimeters of thick dust. Only someone utterly devoted to artifacts could complete this alone, especially after enduring so many hardships and trials.

When he finished cleaning the last bit of dust and stepped back to look, he was completely stunned.

He saw that it was, in fact, a black hardwood coffin. The four corners were studded with glittering objects. Although he couldn't immediately identify what treasures they were, they had to be worth more than diamonds. If they were diamonds, this one would be the second largest after the Ocean Star of America. His heart pounded violently, not just for the potential diamond discovery, but for uncovering the glory of Chinese civilization.

He continued to admire the coffin.

The face panel of the coffin was bisected by a white band. The upper section was slightly wider, with more intricate carvings, while the lower section was narrower with slightly coarser patterns. He surmised this must be a double coffin—a burial style that had vanished centuries ago, yet he found it here in this cavern, which stirred his excitement.

He wondered who was buried inside. He desperately wanted to know what lay within, so he bypassed further admiration of the panel carvings and walked directly to the front of the coffin, his brow furrowed with concern.

This coffin was made of hardwood, formed by two coffins stacked one upon the other. A large amount of gold was inlaid at the junction of the two lids, polished smooth so that when closed, the seam was invisible. Finally, molten steel was poured into the seam to tightly encase the coffin, preventing any external air from intruding. He realized that if there were two bodies inside, they would likely be two perfectly preserved mummies. Would opening it now constitute damaging a national treasure?

He thought it over and ultimately decided against dismantling it. He couldn't destroy perfectly preserved mummies just to satisfy his curiosity; that would cause a major loss to the nation.

He turned, about to leave, when he suddenly felt the coffin vibrate slightly. He spun around quickly to check; the coffin appeared perfectly still. He felt a moment of relief, assuming it had been a hallucination, and turned again to depart.

But in that instant, he clearly heard a delicate, young girl's voice call out from inside the coffin behind him: "Help me."

Startled, he whipped his head around to look. At that moment, the two behind him urged him again, "Lu Zong, let’s go, ignore the coffin!"

He paid no heed to them but kept staring at the coffin, hoping it would make another sound. His heart trembled: "Could the corpse inside still be alive?"

A corpse alive? The very thought sent a jolt of fear through him. What kind of logic was that—a corpse, alive? Forget it, I’ll chalk it up to hallucination.

This time he decided to be smarter. He turned his body away and then quickly spun back around, only to witness an astonishing sight:

As soon as he turned away, the front end of the coffin gently hopped up and moved a little toward Lu Zong's direction.

Is the coffin following me?

His first thought scared him deeply. In his entire life, no girl had ever chased him. Now, the thing chasing him was a coffin. It was just like what girls always told him when he pursued them: "You won't shed a tear until you see a coffin." Well, now he'd seen one. But he couldn't feel any joy.

He was terrified now, too, but he remained convinced that there was something extraordinary about this coffin, and opening it must benefit him, otherwise Gandama and Ma Xiong wouldn't be trying to stop him.

His suspicion of the two men intensified. Ma Xiong clearly had amnesia, so why stop him from opening the coffin? If he truly believed this was a Vietnamese prison, why wasn't he questioning the environment? And Gandama—he wasn't wearing night-vision goggles, yet he could see the coffin. Was he naturally able to see in the dark, possessing a Yin-Yang eye?

His mind was utterly chaotic now, unable to process any explanation. He now suspected that the environmental changes had made the two of them unreliable. Even if the setting had altered their appearances, could it change their personalities too?

Perhaps the two people before him were the men from thirty years ago. Damn it, what did it matter if it was thirty years ago or thirty years later? He was still going to open this coffin and see what was inside.

Even saying that, he felt a sense of difficulty—how could he possibly open this coffin? It was sealed so perfectly; opening it would not be easy.

He called out to the two men behind him to help figure out a plan. Although he didn't trust them, he figured they held no malicious intent toward him. If they wanted to hurt him, they would have done so already; there was no need to wait until now.

Seeing Lu Zong call them, the two men reluctantly walked over, looking dejected. They seemed unhappy that Lu Zong ignored their advice, showing hints of fear as well.

Lu Zong asked them to work together to figure out how to move the coffin, then fell into a deep reverie.

How easy was it to even partially open the coffin? There wasn't a single gap, especially since it was plated with gold and filled with molten steel, with diamonds embedded at the corners. The edges were indistinguishable, making the two stacked coffins seem like one solid unit—the difficulty was obvious.

He glanced at the two worried men, not expecting them to come up with any solution. Everything here would require his direction; those two could offer little more than muscle.

He decided to use the most primitive and quickest method to open the coffin: using brute force to wrench the lid open.

He and Gandama stood on one side of the coffin, and he had Ma Xiong stand on the other. He grabbed a lead bar extending from inside the coffin and told them, "When I count one, two, three, we all pull together. Let's see if we can yank this damned lead out."

The two nodded mechanically, then crouched down, preparing to exert force.

One, two, three… When Lu Zong shouted "three," he distinctly felt the coffin shake violently. He looked at the two men straining with all their might; it seemed their pulling on the lead bar was causing the coffin to move. But something else astonished him even more: he noticed that the initially stiff, thick lead bar was actually straightening, thinning, and lengthening under their pull. It was clear the bar was being stretched by their efforts. He hadn't expected their strength to be so immense that they could physically elongate a lead bar to this extent—it truly exceeded his expectations.

He looked at their hands: veins bulged, teeth were gritted, and blood trickled down their fingers, dripping onto the ground. Their feet kept slipping backward due to the counterforce, grinding away the fabric of their trouser cuffs until they lay in a pile on the floor. Their shoes were long gone, and the ground was stained with blood.

Lu Zong was terrified. He rushed forward to stop them. They looked completely mad, acting like machines driven only by the task.