Strangely, these mechanical figures seemed unable to leave the formation and could only move within the area beneath their feet, which resembled a diagram of the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams.
Chang Lili crawled out of Meng Yuxiu's arms and looked at the mechanical figures surrounding the training posts, as if they were practicing martial arts.
"It seems like everything's alright. They don't seem to be attacking us," Chang Lili said, surprised and delighted.
Meng Yuxiu quickly grabbed her, frowning as he said, "Don't go over there. If you had been a step too late, it would have snapped your neck."
Chang Lili subconsciously touched her neck, feeling a chill run down her spine. She said with lingering fear, "No way...they..."
She thought for a moment, looked around, and found some pebbles on the ground. She rubbed her hands together, picked up the pebbles, and threw them with all her might.
In the blink of an eye, the mechanical figure at the front waved its hand, as if it had grasped something in its palm.
"No way..." Chang Lili said in shock.
Then, a sharp sound like something breaking came from the mechanical figure's hand. A moment later, it opened its hand, and a handful of fine sand fell out.
Chang Lili was stunned and murmured, "This... is even worse than Chan'er. We've already exhausted all our strength dealing with Chan'er, with so many mechanical puppets. How can we possibly get past this?"
She watched the mechanical figures continuing their training. Through the test just now, she knew that if she and Meng Yuxiu rashly went over there, their fate would be just like that of the broken stone.
Looking into the darkness ahead, where even the oil lamp couldn't reach, she felt that their path ahead was the same, devoid of any light.
A warm current flowed from his hand. Meng Yuxiu gently held Chang Lili's hand and whispered softly, "Don't be afraid, I won't let you get hurt."
Chang Lili turned to look at him. Although his face had regained some color, it was still somewhat pale.
She said apologetically, "Don't say that. This is a trap formation. I didn't even get to use it much, and you got so many injuries."
Meng Yuzheng wanted to offer words of comfort, but Chang Lili said with a determined look, "Then I must find a way to break this formation and walk through it openly and honestly."
As she spoke, she approached the mechanical figures, but Meng Yuxiu hurriedly grabbed her, saying, "What are you doing? You can't go over there!"
A warm feeling welled up in Chang Lili's heart. She grasped Meng Yuxiu's large hand and said obediently, "Don't worry, I won't get too close. Didn't I just use a stone to measure the safe distance? I'm just getting closer to take a look at the formation, otherwise we won't be able to break it."
Meng Yuxiu loosened his grip on Chang Lili's hand slightly, but was unwilling to let go. He said firmly, "I'll go with you."
The two slowly approached, standing just outside the reach of the automaton. Chang Lili's eyes swept over the automaton, and she was startled to discover that there were no black buttons on the back of its neck.
She looked closely for a long time but couldn't find a similar button anywhere else.
"Could they have deliberately hidden it? How are we supposed to get through this formation then?" Chang Lili frowned and said in annoyance.
Meng Yuxiu, of course, didn't find the button either, and comforted him, "Don't worry, this formation is not so easy to break, otherwise the Light Machinery Division wouldn't have so few members."
Chang Lili sighed in disappointment, thinking that she probably couldn't find a way to break the formation from the mechanical man, so she began to wonder about the formation on the ground.
Why is there a Five Elements and Eight Trigrams formation drawn under the feet of the mechanical man? And why can this mechanical man only move within the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams formation and cannot step out of the formation?
However, these mechanical figures were arranged so closely that even if they didn't leave the formation, Chang Lili and Meng Yuxiu didn't have enough space to get through.
As Chang Lili looked around, she noticed something strange.
"Look at this mechanical figure, why doesn't it follow the metal grid in the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams?" Chang Lili asked, puzzled.
Meng Yuxiu held her hand tightly, afraid that she would get too close.
“Perhaps this is a clue,” Meng Yuxiu said in a deep voice.
"Are other government employees like this too?" Chang Lili curiously leaned forward, but was pulled back by Meng Yuxiu before she could succeed.
She exclaimed in surprise, "That one over there isn't like that! That one doesn't step on the squares with the character 'wood' in it. Why is that? The others don't step on any squares. There must be some kind of pattern."
As she spoke, a hint of worry crossed her face as she looked ahead. The oil lamps on the wall, those not within the array's range, were all lit, but they couldn't clearly illuminate the array beneath the mechanical figures' feet.
Meng Yuxiu smiled faintly and said, "Do you want to see what the formation behind it looks like so you can find its flaws?"
Chang Lili sighed softly: "Of course, how can we break the formation if we can't see what the entire formation looks like?"
“I have a way,” Meng Yuxiu said.
Chang Lili looked over expectantly, but Meng Yuxiu pulled her aside and instructed her, "You just watch from here, don't come any closer."
She nodded obediently. At this moment, Meng Yuxiu took out a piece of satin from his sleeve. Wrapped inside the satin were silver needles.
"This is..." Chang Lili asked in confusion.
"I thought we might need them later, so I kept some," Meng Yuxiu said casually.
Chang Lili became excited and said with admiration, "You really have foresight. But what are you going to do?" She raised her hand and gestured, "Are you going to use this needle to pierce through the mechanical man's body and make them fall to the ground?"
Meng Yuxiu looked at her as if she were an idiot, too lazy to explain anything, and directly picked up a silver needle and threw it at the mechanical man. His movements were so graceful that Chang Lili couldn't even see it.
I only felt him wave his hand, a silver light flashed by, followed by a sharp, crisp sound, and then the silver needle fell limply to the ground, broken in two.
Chang Lili exclaimed in surprise, "Invulnerable to swords and spears..."
“I also wanted to break through them directly, but the person who set up the formation clearly wouldn’t allow it,” Meng Yuxiu said helplessly.
"What should we do then?" Chang Lili asked dejectedly.
Meng Yuxiu squatted down and began to carefully tear off the hem of his clothes.
"What are you going to do?" Chang Lili asked, puzzled.
Meng Yuxiu tore a slit in the hem of his clothes, then tore it into thin strips, and slowly wrapped those strips around the silver needles.
Seeing this, Chang Lili quickly did as he was told. After wrapping all the silver needles with thin strips of cloth, the silver needles turned into the shape of small torches.
Under Chang Lili's astonished gaze, Meng Yuxiu picked up the dozen or so silver needles, walked to the oil lamp, and lit the end wrapped in cloth.
After lighting three needles in a row, Chang Lili watched quietly from the side. Once the three silver needles were lit, they quickly flew out of Meng Yuxiu's hand like hidden weapons, but instead of shooting at the mechanical man, they were aimed at the ground.
So fast that the mechanical man couldn't catch it even when he reached out. Fortunately, they didn't react to the light. The silver needle fell to the ground and remained still. Then, the light illuminated the array on the ground.
Chang Lili looked at Meng Yuxiu with admiration, and the latter shot out a few more silver needles, illuminating the darkness.
She quickly looked down at the ground and saw that the mechanical figures all had the same Five Elements and Eight Trigrams formation under their feet.
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