"Wait, wait, let's take it one step at a time!" The dungeon's progress, which had been moving slowly, suddenly jumped forward two steps. Xi Xi was a little confused, but she decided to follow the established steps for the time being and proceed step by step without daring to get distracted and look around.

She watched as the moss-covered key clung tightly to some magnetic object inside the pouch, then picked up the fishing rod and placed it in the remaining water in the ditch, letting the flowing water wash the surface of the filthy pouch before finally lifting the rod.

Sallyman stepped forward, knelt down, and took the pouch without any hesitation. She gave it a sharp tug, separating the key from the pouch: "It's so tight, it feels like there's a really strong magnet inside..."

Sallyman drew her longsword, aimed it at the pouch, and with a light slash, the sturdy pouch strap was torn open with a "rip".

Xi Xi and Chu Zhiqin quickly stepped forward and peered into the pouch. Inside, besides half a tattered diary, lay a square magnetic box.

Xi Xi took the diary and discovered that it was just an empty shell with only half a torn and incomplete page inside.

Sam's Diary Day 8

"This is clearly a sewer."

"Everything was so unfamiliar, but for some reason I felt a sense of familiarity."

"I seem to have encountered similar environments more than once in my childhood dreams; I can even clearly perceive the road ahead..."

"In my dream, I felt like a fish swimming freely, darting and swimming through clear water."

"But in fact, I can't swim at all."

"The irrigation ditch in front of me is a mess, with piles of garbage floating in the water. It's a far cry from the scene in my dream!"

"But in any case, this is better than that horrible tunnel. I think I can just follow the sewer water and climb ashore from the drain!"

"This was a blessing in disguise for me. I ignored my leg injury and walked for a whole day and night."

"The temperature was getting lower and lower. Fortunately, I brought out some coal ash with me. However, the sewer was too damp, so I had to tear off pages from my diary to start a fire."

"Looking at the joyful words I once wrote, I burst into tears and earnestly prayed to God that I could see my wife and children again."

"It was pitch black all around. If I still had my amulet, I wouldn't be so uneasy."

"That damned deputy train conductor, he must have stolen my amulet!"

"I remembered the way the deputy train conductor sneaked off the train with his bag on his back, and I was instantly furious."

"We didn't find any stolen smuggled items in the packages in the car, so I guess he must have hidden them in that forest!"

"Now look what's happened. I've lost my precious amulet, and he can't go back either. In a sense, this is a kind of retribution for evil."

"That amulet contains a glowing bead left by my father, which accompanied me through every night of my childhood."

“I had promised Pierre that I would give him this protective bead for his eighteenth birthday, but now it seems that will be a long way off…”

"God, I hope I can get out of this hellish place safely."

The three of them read together the hard-won, and so far, last fragment of the diary, and sighed with emotion.

Clearly, this is a tragic story.

Xi Xi remained calm. Connecting the eight fragments of the diary with the previous ones, she suddenly realized what was going on and let out a long sigh.

Damn it, she got the dungeon progression order wrong!

After careful consideration and a thorough review of all the clues, Xi Xi finally understood:

Originally, the purpose of this instance was not for her to fish for the giant sewer fish king, but rather to cleverly use the moss key in her hand as bait and use the strong attraction of the magnet to attract the iron key hidden in the fish king's belly.

In this way, it would be logical to remove the crucial sac from the fish king's belly.

However, to everyone's amusement and dismay, Xi Xi, with her brute strength, managed to drag the enormous sewer fish king from the water onto the shore.

In doing so, she inadvertently skipped the steps of the level that she was supposed to complete step by step, causing the entire game to lag.

Following the normal dungeon progression, the correct approach should be to first successfully extract the sac from the sewer king's belly. Then, based on the key information provided in the Day 8 diary fragments, it can be reasonably deduced that the glittering bead is actually the king's eye.

Next, simply throw this precious glowing bead accurately into the sewage ditch. In this way, the Fish King will regain its purifying eye, and the severely polluted sewage ditch will be completely purified.

Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. The poor fish king was not only hooked tightly by Xi Xi's incredibly sharp fishhook, but its mouth was also pulled with all its might, and even its body was not spared.

Struck mercilessly by Xi Xi's passive lightning skill, the fish was instantly paralyzed, and even its fins suffered considerable damage.

"Poor fish king..." Xi Xi couldn't help but rub her forehead and think. She wondered why the fish king was so strong. No matter how hard she tried, it wouldn't budge. In the end, she had to be struck by lightning to pull the guy ashore.

It turns out that in the initial design of this game, there was never any intention to allow players to inflict any damage on the Fish King...

Xi Xi suddenly felt an awkward sense of relief, like she had exploited a bug to break through the invisible wall of the game and inexplicably beat up an innocent NPC...

Xi Xi then remembered that the glowing fish eye was taken from the car of the three Wei brothers, and combined with Wei Chenghao's boast on the public screen that he had collected a lot of wood in the forest before entering the tunnel...

It must have been around that time that Wei Chenghong secretly obtained the items that the deputy train conductor had stolen.

Everything makes sense!

While Xi's mother was still reading the fragments of the diary with only a vague understanding, Shaliman, standing to the side, began to study the magnetic mechanism box with great interest.

The box was cleverly assembled from several magnets of different sizes, fitting together perfectly so that it could not be moved or shaken in the slightest.

Sallyman frowned, unable to understand what use such a seemingly complex but unpredictable mechanical box could possibly have.

"Let's go! Let's go check out the statue first! Maybe we can find some useful clues." Xi Xi patted Shaliman on the shoulder, gesturing for her to come along.