In the narrow tomb passage, Jiang Man heard a voice coming from ahead and pointed her gun at the fork in the road: "Duan Shenxing, retreat quickly!"

"I can't move, you retreat!"

After stepping on the pedal, before I could even check the surrounding mechanisms and without anything unusual happening, I didn't dare to make any rash moves. I quickly said to Jiang Man, "You immediately step back. If something happens to me, don't go any further. Guard the main passage behind and wait for the others to come and regroup with you!"

When Jiang Man heard me say that, she pretended to rush forward and pull me away: "Stop talking nonsense, let's go together!"

"Don't move!"

I heard footsteps behind me, turned around and shouted to Jiang Man, "The trap has been triggered. There's no need for us all to put ourselves in danger! This isn't the time to act rashly, and besides..."

Before I could finish speaking, Jiang Man had already raised her pistol and pointed it at me.

"Bang! Bang!"

Two gunshots rang out, and the bullets accurately blew the head off a spear-wielding monster that pounced on it. After being hit by the bullets, the monster screamed and fell to the ground. Its body began to convulse and twist violently like an earthworm on a hot plate. It thrashed about for a good seven or eight seconds before it went still.

Seeing that Jiang Man had killed the monster, I breathed a sigh of relief: "I don't know where the pedal under my feet is connected to. You step back first, I need to check it."

Jiang Man looked at me nervously: "There's blood everywhere here, let me stay and help you!"

After listening to Jiang Man's words, I thought for a moment: "After I stepped on the pedal, the mechanism wasn't triggered, which means that the mechanism isn't instantaneous, but rather something is connected to the pedal under my feet! Come here and stand behind me to add weight!"

"good!"

Jiang Man agreed, stepped behind me, and stood close to me on the stone slab.

With Jiang Man as a counterweight, I squatted down, used my knife to cut off the hair of the long-haired monster, found the edge of the stone slab on the ground, and then began to wipe it clean.

The stone slab under our feet is located at the edge of the passageway, and is about half a square meter in size. Because of the weight it bears, it has sunk about two centimeters into the ground.

I pressed my fingers on the stone slab, felt a slight vibration, then used the fur in my hand to clean the ground before pressing my ear against the ground.

Beneath the stone slab, besides the buzzing sound, there was also the splashing sound of water. Hearing the sounds below, I quickly got up from the ground and beckoned Jiang Man to retreat: "The mechanisms here are interconnected. Our mechanism here is just to disrupt the valve below and use the water flow and pressure to open the mechanism. The trick is not here, but in the road behind!"

Hearing that I was so fast, Jiang Man followed me back the way we came: "You mean the mechanism we just triggered blocked the passage behind us?"

“That’s right. This mechanism was built using an underground river. It’s very likely that the waterway was sealed with pottery or jade. When I stepped on the mechanism, it sank and broke the sluice gate.”

As I explained to Jiang Man, I returned to the horizontal corridor at the back, but the path we had taken before was now blocked by a huge rock.

Jiang Man saw the blocked road and turned to me, asking, "You said before that the mechanisms here can all operate on their own, so the stone gates outside must also be opened by the underground river. Do you think if we wait here, the gates will open by themselves?"

"Uncertain!"

Looking at the blocked road, I shook my head and said, "The mechanism outside can keep operating. I don't know exactly how it works, but the fact that it has been running for so many years means that its power source is a continuous flow of water. The mechanism we just triggered should be a branch! I think the stone rose from the ground like a seesaw. After the deep groove behind it was filled with water, it used the lever principle to lift the boulder! Now the water in the branch is flowing. Unless the underground river dries up, we won't be able to open this boulder."

"Then aren't we going to be trapped here?"

After hearing my answer, Jiang Man patted the heavy boulder in front of her: "We left marks outside before. If Monkey and his gang can successfully enter the haunted house behind it, they will definitely be able to reach our location. However, they didn't bring any explosives. Even if they get in, it will be difficult for them to rescue us from the outside. In that case, we will definitely be trapped inside! I think that apart from the correct path, the rest of the area we are in is probably a dead end like a rat trap!"

"The original route is definitely blocked. Let's go inside and take another look."

Seeing that the original path was blocked, I walked back to the passage where the mechanism had just been triggered.

Seeing the direction I was heading, Jiang Man asked, "A hairy monster just appeared on that road ahead, and people died there. Since we're going to scout ahead, why don't we take the other way?"

"While exploring the route, I also wanted to figure out why the people of Ping'an Village wanted to enter this passage."

I explained to Jiang Man, "If that person was attacked and dragged here, there would definitely be bloodstains along the way, but we didn't find anything. This means that the person came to this place on their own and went to the right passage! When we chased them in just now, the flashing light was from left to right, which means they came from the left. It's more dangerous to go over there!"

Furthermore, I don't believe the people of Ping'an Village would come here alone. If they were traveling in groups, then the others either turned back the way they came, or they went ahead, which means this road isn't a dead end!

"Oh no!"

After hearing what I said, Jiang Man suddenly became nervous: "Duan Shenxing, when that monster attacked you just now, did you see it glow?"

"I was talking to you at the time, and by the time I turned around, the monster had already been killed by you."

I thought about the scene for a moment and shook my head: "But when that thing was rolling on the ground, I really didn't see any light coming from it."

Jiang Man gripped her pistol tightly: "That means the hairy monster we just passed wasn't what we saw before. There's still danger in the passage ahead!"

"The hairy monster is good at mimicking speech. We just made such a commotion, but it was unusually quiet inside. It doesn't seem like there are any other monsters there."

I led Jiang Man back to the right passage, past the corpse she had just shot, and looked at the empty corridor ahead: "Perhaps the problem lies in the cave on the left. This monster just accidentally got something on its body."

Jiang Man removed the magazine, checked the number of bullets, and sighed, "I hope you're right, otherwise, I don't know how long these five bullets will last."