Everything happened in the blink of an eye; it felt like only a few seconds before these two had concluded a fierce, desperate fight, leaving me utterly dumbfounded.

After taking a long moment to recover, I turned to Da Xiong beside me and spat out, "When the hell did your marksmanship get so accurate!"

Da Xiong was still fiddling with the gun, cursing, "Don't even mention it, damn it, that last shot went wide!"

I was speechless for a beat. From my back, Grandpa coughed violently, gasping for air, "Hurry... hurry and chase them, get the map back, or it's all over!"

Just then, Da Xiong looked up and said, "Just rest for a while, Old Master. You're still thinking about the map? Escaping alive is the question now."

The moment he finished speaking, the entire ground suddenly shook violently, and a roar, like a howling gale, echoed throughout the vast cavern hall.

Numerous massive stones tumbled down from the ceiling. One chunk, about the size of a washbasin, smashed down right beside my foot, making me instinctively recoil.

Da Xiong lost his balance and fell flat on his face. Cursing as he scrambled up, he grabbed my hand and urged, "Let's go! It'll be too late otherwise!" With that, he dragged me and bolted outward.

But Grandpa, still on my back, managed to slap me hard and pleaded, "Save them! Save the people..."

Da Xiong stopped dead. "Old Master, forget it. These people are courting death one by one, and you're in this state—the three of us can't save them."

Grandpa ignored Da Xiong, struggling to climb down from my back, muttering, "I can't abandon them... Xiao Chuan, you run ahead."

I knew I couldn't leave Grandpa. I glanced at Da Xiong, then reluctantly followed him.

Da Xiong stomped his foot. "Fine, if we die, we die together!" I took two steps forward, almost catching up to Grandpa, but at that moment, the ground began to shake violently again, even more intensely than the last time.

I failed to keep my footing and landed hard on my backside. I heard a loud cracking sound from directly above—something immense was splitting apart.

Immediately following that, a massive boom resonated not far ahead. The ground seemed to strike ice shards that flew everywhere; the debris that soared up scraped my arms in several places.

I barely registered the pain in my arm before frantically opening my eyes, only to be instantly paralyzed with horror.

It turned out the tremor had caused the giant Buddha's hand overhead to fracture, and the entire palm had crashed down, completely sealing the well opening where the Ghost Eye was located. Grandpa and the others were crushed directly beneath it.

With that gigantic Buddha's hand, weighing thousands of pounds, pressing down, there was absolutely no chance Grandpa and the others had survived. If I had taken just a few more steps forward, I would have been crushed into a bloody pulp too.

An overwhelming surge of grief washed over me, my head ringing, everything turning blank.

Grandpa was dead. The person who loved me the most since childhood—Grandpa, who used to let me ride on his back when I was little and always brought back stacks of toys during every expedition—was gone?

I truly couldn't accept this reality for a moment. I blamed myself for not stopping him; Grandpa's death was all my fault.

Then, I charged toward the pile of rubble like a madman, screaming until my voice gave out.

"Grandpa!..." I had only taken two steps when the ground shook violently again, and the Buddha statue above started making that dreaded cracking noise.

Da Xiong had clearly been stunned by Grandpa's death at first, but now he seemed to snap back to reality. He shouted from behind me, "Comrade Nie Chuan! Look up! The entire body of the Buddha is about to fall! If you don't leave now, you’ll be done for too!"

I watched as several flying stones slammed into the ground around me and said, my heart withered, "You go. Grandpa is dead; I'll be buried with him."

That's truly what I felt at the time—it was the first time in my life I felt utterly hopeless. I felt I had lost the most important thing in my life.

Growing up, I idolized Grandpa. As a child, I often boasted to my friends that my grandfather was a famous scholar at the Academy of Sciences. Later, as I matured, I made him my life's goal. Under his tutelage, I studied paleontology from a young age, and I pursued biology in university. My entire life had been shaped by Grandpa's influence.

"Damn it, you're really forcing my hand, aren't you!" Da Xiong took several massive strides forward, seized me, clutched me under his arm like a captured chick, and began sprinting under the continuous rain of falling stones.

I was 1.8 meters tall, yet I was being carried like this. I didn't react for a moment, but after a while, I realized the posture was far too humiliating and started struggling.

Da Xiong’s hand was like a steel clamp; no matter how much I twisted, I couldn't break free.

Grief, despair, and frustration mingled within me. I stopped caring about dignity and resorted to a move usually reserved for women—I sank my teeth hard into Da Xiong's belly.

Da Xiong let out a howl and cursed, "You son of a bitch, that's the second bite! When we get out, I'm finding a ******* female Tibetan Mastiff and locking you both in a cage to repay this blood debt."

I thought that move was low. Recalling the time the Bitter Beetle tormented me and I bit him then, and remembering the countless times he had saved me along the way, a pang of guilt surfaced.

I knew this life wasn't just mine. Da Xiong had risked his life to save me multiple times; dying now without repaying him would be an unforgivable slight to him.

Although I didn't know what Grandpa had been secretly researching his entire life, now that he was dead, I had to fulfill his final wish. More crucially, damn it, I was still a virgin, and I couldn't die yet.

Once I sorted this out, I said in a deep voice, "Put me down, I'm not dying."

Da Xiong shot me a look, thought for a moment, and replied, "I won't believe you unless you give me a smile."

"What the hell kind of time is this to joke with me? Hurry up!" I snapped.

Seeing that I had the energy to argue, Da Xiong didn't get angry; instead, he laughed and put me down. "Now that's our Comrade Xiao Chuan!"

I wasn't in the mood to talk, so I quietly followed him as he ran ahead for a moment before asking, "What did you mean when you said that Giant Hui was about to come out?"

Da Xiong’s massive rolls of fat jiggled, yet he was still running incredibly fast. Such a huge, agile fatty was truly one of the oddities I had ever witnessed.

He panted out, "That’s a long story. It starts back in King Wei's tomb chamber. That was when we got separated from you. Jie Yuting and I arrived at another location—a place accessible by diving under the ice layer. Underwater, we ran into Liang Qian. She took something from the Giant Hui, which caused that thing to thrash around underwater now. The entire cavern will collapse sooner or later because of it. As for the details, I'll tell you slowly when we get out."

I frowned, pondered for a moment, and then asked, "Can we get out if we go back now?" Da Xiong answered irritably, "How will we know if we don't try!"

Recalling that headache-inducing maze, I felt utterly hopeless. And even if we got out of the maze, the Weimin residential ruins and that dark river lay ahead.

The current in that dark river was too fierce; our small boat could never manage to travel upstream! The only hope now was to see if the maze could lead directly outside. Perhaps entering a few more doors would open up a passage leading out?

Thinking this, I watched the 'people' kneeling on both sides of the path. They all seemed utterly oblivious, their expressions wooden, like walking corpses, which immediately killed any thought of urging them to flee.

Soon, Da Xiong and I had run past the crowd, threaded through layers of mist, passed the giant Bi Xi, and returned to the platform beside the Blood Lotus Coffin.

Because the Blood Lotus Coffin was so eerily unsettling, we had to stop. We both turned on our flashlights to check the situation below.

The sight instantly stunned me: the Blood Lotus Coffin in the center, previously bound by iron chains, had somehow broken free. The lid lay discarded to one side, and the surrounding area was a mess of wood shavings.

I cursed, "Damn it, these international thieves are too fierce, stealing even such a bizarre coffin!"

Da Xiong glared at me. "Steal my ass. Look over there!"

I followed the direction of his finger and saw several piles of hair amassed next to the coffin, resembling haystacks tied up, each one as tall as a person.

Recalling the hair mounds that had protruded from the ground earlier, a chill ran down my spine. I wondered, had that group of international thieves been entangled in the hair?

And where had the ancient corpse inside the coffin gone?

Just as I was thinking, Da Xiong pulled me. He whispered, "Look... the Zombie..."