Chapter 38: The Secret of Linhu Village 9

Will the trial-taker be drowned in the dungeon?

Su Qingyun really wanted to know the answer because she was about to die.

The air in her lungs could only keep her going for 30 seconds at most.

She stopped struggling and her consciousness even began to blur.

One second, two seconds...

The sound of water was heard, and Su Qingyun felt someone approaching her. Then a pair of large hands wrapped around her from behind, and then something like a mask was put on her face.

Water drained from the sides of her cheeks, and a voice spoke from behind her, "Breathe."

It was Xu Xinghe's voice.

Su Qingyun opened her mouth again, but this time no water poured into her mouth. Her exhausted lungs were relieved.

"Xu Xinghe." She called her name, and all that came out were bubbles, gurgling.

Xu Xinghe hugged Su Qingyun's waist from behind, and then swam deeper into the water with her.

Su Qingyun couldn't swim and was afraid of water. Although she could breathe now, the boundless fear still made her want to grab something.

She grabbed Xu Xinghe's arm.

His arms were very powerful, and the lines of his muscles reminded Su Qingyun of her Wu Teng stick.

Her black stick was still in her hand, and she did not drop it even when she was struggling in the water.

But how could a corporate executive, a workplace elite who was working overtime when he was pulled into the dungeon, have arms like a black cane?

Su Qingyun was lost in thought when Xu Xinghe held her head with one hand and they seemed to have entered a passage under the water.

After swimming for an unknown amount of time, Su Qingyun felt that the surroundings were getting brighter. The light was very dim. When Xu Xinghe carried her out of the water, she saw the sun.

Xu Xinghe dragged Su Qingyun ashore.

Su Qingyun climbed up, took off the mask on his face, and stumbled around.

There were woods all around them, and they were in the middle of the woods. At their feet was a clear pond. The mouth of the pond was not big but was about four or five meters wide.

Xu Xinghe threw away the oxygen tank on his back, shook the water off his hair, and then handed Su Qingyun's bag to her.

"My bag?" Su Qingyun stared at her bag in a daze. She remembered that Xu Xinghe had hidden the bag for her when they first entered the woods. How could he have taken it out again near the water?

"Is this near the village?" she asked Xu Xinghe.

"Maybe it's deeper." Xu Xinghe shook Su Qingyun's bag again and asked her to take it. "Go change your clothes."

Su Qingyun took the bag and went to a secluded place.

The clothes that had been changed before were indeed in the bag, but Xu Xinghe had no clothes. Thinking of how wet he looked, Su Qingyun decided to buy him a set of clothes from Yijiandali.

When Su Qingyun came out with the T-shirt and sweatpants she bought for Xu Xinghe, Xu Xinghe had already changed out of his robe, but not the one he had worn before. Instead, he changed into a suit that was very suitable for walking in the mountains, and also changed into a pair of hiking boots.

Su Qingyun felt that Xu Xinghe probably also had something like a one-click APP.

But she still handed him the clothes and said, "I bought them for you. You may not need them, but I bought them all."

Xu Xinghe looked at the clothes and did not refuse. He took them and stuffed them into a backpack.

Yes, he now has a backpack. Not only that, there are some outdoor items needed at his feet, such as mosquito repellent, flashlight, compass, hemp rope and other tools.

Xu Xinghe put the bag on his back, hung a hemp rope on it, and then sprayed some mosquito repellent on his arms, face and other exposed skin.

"Um... what are we going to do, look for the fairy in the forest and the monster in the center of the lake?" Su Qingyun asked him.

"Yes, the forest fairies and lake monsters that Wang Aping of Linhu Village told the village chief are not necessarily what we want to know, so we need to conduct a comprehensive investigation ourselves."

Xu Xinghe handed Su Qingyun a piece of white paper and a pen.

"We will start the exploration at eight points with this pool of water as the center, starting from..." Xu Xinghe pointed at a big tree, then walked over, pulled out a dagger from his boot, and cut a line on the tree.

"Start from this side."

After saying that, he inserted the dagger, took the compass, checked it, and walked in.

Su Qingyun also put the bag on her back, thought for a while, took out her mobile phone and ordered hiking boots and a jacket for herself.

After getting dressed, she quickly caught up with Xu Xinghe.

It was noon and the sun was shining brightly, but the forest was gloomy. Apart from the sound of shoes stepping on fallen leaves, there was not even a breeze.

Su Qingyun caught up with Xu Xinghe and asked him, "You just said that the forest fairy and the lake monster mentioned by the village chief are not the secrets we are looking for. Do you have any basis for this?"

"There's no basis for this, so we need to explore."

"Sixth sense?" Su Qingyun jumped onto a stone slope and said, "I have a sixth sense too. I think the boatman Xie Daqiang's death was not caused by the lake monster as the village chief said. His death may have been orchestrated by the village chief."

Xu Xinghe stopped and looked back at Su Qingyun. He hoped she would continue.

Su Qingyun continued, "Linhu Village should have an event every year on the Ghost Festival on March 3rd, but this event is to attract tourists to the island, not to drive away the lake monster. But the story of the lake monster eating people might be targeting me."

"Targeting you?"

"Yes." Su Qingyun talked about the content of her last dungeon. "I hope Ping knows that I am the whistleblower. I guess Xiaozhe must have told her."

"You mean they brought the event forward to allow you to get into the woods."

"Yes, Wang Aping lied to me. She told me that Xiaozhe's mother was from the city, but in fact Xiaomei should be the daughter of the village chief."

"How do you know?"

"I've seen Xiaomei before. She's in the family photo hidden under the eight-immortals table in the village chief's house."

Su Qingyun only wanted to share some of the information she had with Xu Xinghe. She said, "It must have been the village chief's last-minute idea to ask us to help protect the law. He just borrowed the legend of the lake monster. I don't think the lake monster has anything to do with the illegal activities they're engaged in."

Xu Xinghe smiled and asked Su Qingyun, "What kind of illegal activities do you think they are doing?"

Su Qingyun did not answer but told Xu Xinghe about her experience in the wilderness hotel.

"I read a newspaper in the hotel. Although it was the daily newspaper of the shopping mall, the shopping mall is a neighboring city of Qingyou City. The two cities are only an hour and a half drive away."

Su Qingyun was talking about the issue of missing persons. More than half of the missing persons notices published in newspapers were about students. They had one thing in common: they traveled together and then disappeared.

Xu Xinghe understood, "You mean human trafficking."

Su Qingyun nodded.

She guessed that this should be the clearance task for Huang Wentao and Zhong Xiaoli.

"I didn't expect that a dungeon would bypass the information I knew." Su Qingyun raised his eyes to the sky, "Could it be that the dungeon world also has an algorithm?"

Xu Xinghe turned the ring on his hand, smiled and said nothing.