Qi Zhiheng took out a red spiritual fruit, but this spiritual fruit was not for eating; it was for marking.
Qi Zhiheng drew a large circle on the wall where they were standing.
Whether the stone corridor is truly that long or they are simply going in circles, they will soon find out the answer.
"Let's continue." Qi Zhiheng led Yang Yitian forward. At the same time, he also perked up his ears, trying to hear any sounds other than their footsteps.
Unfortunately, after walking for about half an hour, they still hadn't heard any sound.
About an hour later, they stood at the spot they had marked earlier.
After walking around once, he returned to his starting point and said after a moment's thought, "Let's walk around again." This time, he took out two sticks and handed one to Yang Yitian.
Yang Yitian, holding the stick, said, "I'm not tired, you don't need to give me a cane."
Qi Zhiheng rolled his eyes and said, "I'm not here to be your crutch. You stand on the right, and I'll stand on the left. We'll take a step and then tap the wall. I'll see if there's anything different about the two walls."
“Okay.” Yang Yitian and Qi Zhiheng walked step by step, tapping the stone wall as they went.
These walls are solid, and when you tap them, they only produce short, sharp thuds.
Unfortunately, even after returning to the marked location, they found nothing.
Qi Zhiheng sat down to recover his strength, realizing that he had clearly gone the wrong way earlier.
Yang Yitian, bored, tapped around with a stick and said to Qi Zhiheng, "Dinner was tasteless tonight."
"Hmm?" Qi Zhiheng casually struck up a conversation with him: "Isn't it the same as usual?"
"How can that be the same? Didn't you notice that you didn't get to properly smell the aroma of the food tonight? Without that aroma, even the most delicious food loses a lot of its appeal!" Yang Yitian retorted.
Qi Zhiheng thought for a moment and said, "What you said makes some sense. You can eat a midnight snack to restore your sense of smell."
"Let's have a late-night snack now." Yang Yitian looked at Qi Zhiheng with some anticipation.
Although Qi Zhiheng was somewhat speechless, he still took out the steaming hot food that was placed in the talisman array for him.
Once this was served, Yang Yitian was no longer willing to hold his breath! He opened his nose, took a deep breath, and squinted his eyes in enjoyment.
Qi Zhiheng also took out a meal. Whether it smelled good or not didn't really affect him much.
After taking a couple of bites of rice, Yang Yitian said, "Actually, the air in this passage isn't that polluted. It's much better than when we first entered. The air even has a pleasant fragrance."
Qi Zhiheng chuckled: "The air is filled with the aroma of food, how could it not smell good?"
"No, this smell isn't from the food, it's just the aroma of this place, a faint one, quite different from when we first came in," Yang Yitian explained.
Qi Zhiheng asked nervously upon hearing this, "Do you feel any discomfort?"
"No, I feel fine." Yang Yitian was perfectly normal at the moment, and there was indeed nothing wrong with him.
Qi Zhiheng said with some concern, "You should hold your breath after you finish eating. There might be poison in the air."
Yang Yitian looked at Qi Zhiheng and said, "Then I'll finish my meal first."
Qi Zhiheng reluctantly agreed.
After finishing their meal, the two continued their walk. Qi Zhiheng decided to tap on the floor to see if there were any secret passages leading to other places.
As the two walked halfway, hammering and banging away, Yang Yitian suddenly stopped.
Qi Zhiheng asked in confusion, "What's wrong? Are you tired?"
Yang Yitian said, "The smell here is a bit strange."
"The taste? Didn't you hold your breath?" Qi Zhiheng stared straight at him, as if demanding an answer.
Yang Yitian felt a little guilty: "Um, um, I forgot to hold my breath..."
"What's with the fragrance you mentioned?" Qi Zhiheng asked about the crucial details first.
Yang Yitian said, "There was a pleasant fragrance all the way here, but the smell changed when we got here. I think there might be a problem."
"Oh? You could smell the scent the whole way and forget to hold your breath." Qi Zhiheng deliberately dragged out the last syllable of "oh," making Yang Yitian's tailbone go numb.
Yang Yitian hugged his arm and rubbed against him a few times, trying to appease him: "I really don't remember, it's just a habit, isn't it? I definitely won't do it again next time, and if I hadn't let go of my nose, I wouldn't have found this clue either. Can we just let this go?"
Qi Zhiheng thought about it carefully and realized that they had indeed overlooked a problem. They held their breath as soon as they entered the passage, which might have been a trap. It was instinctive for cultivators to hold their breath after sensing the polluted air inside! The builders of this tomb had taken advantage of this rule to keep Qi Zhiheng and Yang Yitian circling in the same spot.
Qi Zhiheng said, "Alright, you can accept the punishment after we get out."
Yang Yitian smiled knowingly: "So, how do you want to punish me? Whatever you say~"
"Stop talking nonsense!" Qi Zhiheng was now completely accepting of Yang Yitian's flirtatious remarks!
"Tch!" Yang Yitian ignored Qi Zhiheng and carefully examined the stone wall.
Qi Zhiheng also searched the stone walls in this area, including the stone walls within a five-meter radius and the ground, but still found nothing.
Yang Yitian said somewhat dejectedly, "Isn't it because of the fragrance?"
Qi Zhiheng did not answer him. He thought for a moment and was organizing the information.
"You're not blaming me, are you? Why aren't you saying anything?" Yang Yitian was a little unhappy. Wasn't this just a false alarm?
Qi Zhiheng shook his head and said, "I don't blame you." After he finished speaking, he looked up at the ceiling.
Aside from the misleading sense of smell, there might be other misleading aspects, such as the ceiling overhead. The top of the stone corridor is at least five meters high. Where in a normal place would a ceiling be built that high? So, the place where problems might arise after construction is the top.
Normally, he would never have thought of these things, because it was too dark here, and the ceiling was too high. The light was dim, so he would subconsciously forget about the ceiling.
Another possibility is that this might be a tomb. Generally, Qi Zhiheng would think of tombs as being underground, so he might pay attention to the floor but not the ceiling. Given the height above his head, it's unlikely anyone would bury a tomb above the passageway.
In addition, his spiritual sense was damaged when he first entered, which meant he would be more careful to keep his spiritual sense in check and not explore the passage casually, thus making the real passage even more concealed.
Qi Zhiheng raised the luminous pearl in his hand to look at the top of their heads.
The cultivator's eyesight was good; although he couldn't see very clearly in the dark, the faint light from the luminous pearl allowed him to see the situation above clearly.
They walked within those few meters and quickly noticed something different. It was a square about one square meter in size, its color similar to the surrounding area, but with some subtle differences that could easily be missed if one wasn't paying close attention.
"Found it!" Yang Yitian said, "You went up from here, right?"
Qi Zhiheng stopped and picked up the stick in his hand. He planned to poke that unusual spot.
"Stand back a bit. I'm worried about what dangers might come up here first. If you're too close, you might be the first to be hit." Qi Zhiheng waved for Yang Yitian to move away.
Yang Yitian said, "Alright then." Although he felt that with his agility, he should be able to dodge some situations without much trouble, he would avoid as much trouble as possible, so he stepped back a few meters away.
Qi Zhiheng leaped up and poked the white patch with the stick in his hand. Unexpectedly, the stone-like surface was as easy to poke as if he were inserting it into a block of tofu. When he tried to pull the stick out, it seemed to be firmly sucked in. Qi Zhiheng frowned and pulled it out with even more force.
With that force, he tore off almost a square meter of space, and the contents inside poured out like spilled black beans!
Qi Zhiheng shouted, "Get away from here!" As soon as he finished speaking, seeing that the thing was about to fall on his head, Qi Zhiheng released the stick that was firmly attached to his hand and hid in the space.
Yang Yitian, who was outside, also got a clear look at what had fallen. From a distance, it did indeed look like beans. After they landed on the ground, he circled around a few times before realizing that they were actually a swarm of insects crawling everywhere. They were so densely packed that they made Yang Yitian's scalp tingle. He quickly slapped a bunch of levitation talismans on himself, and his entire body levitated into the air!
"My god! What are these things? Luckily, they can't fly." The black bean worms quickly crawled away, densely covering a large area. The worms from the entrance were still falling down incessantly, dropping for a good two or three minutes. The black bean worms on the ground were piled up in layers, making Yang Yitian's face contort in horror. This was too terrifying!
Finally, a skeleton fell down, its pit crawling with black bean worms. Yang Yitian felt like vomiting at the sight. Qi Zhiheng, being right at the entrance where the worms fell, couldn't get out until they completely stopped. Besides, he was relieved that Yang Yitian was alright.
After the black bean worms and the skeletons had all fallen, Qi Zhiheng also affixed a levitation talisman and left the space.
He immediately flew towards Yang Yitian's side.
Yang Yitian asked nervously, "We're not going to go up from here, are we?"
"What do you think?" Qi Zhiheng shattered his illusions: "We've gone around in circles so many times, do you think there's another way?"
Yang Yitian was crying, but he had to face reality; there really was no other way out.
Qi Zhiheng comforted him, "It's alright. I have some magical artifacts here that can create a barrier. Even if there are insects on it, they won't be able to reach us for a while."
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