Entrance
It takes seven or eight years for the weeds here to grow to this size.
Joe brushed aside a patch of dead branches, picked up the kerosene lamp, and cautiously took his next step.
Aier gazed in their direction from the lookout tower of the outpost.
Qiao turned around and squinted at the hazy figure in the distance, then shifted his probing gaze to the three people behind him. Gu Yan followed closely behind him, at about the same distance and angle as when they walked through the poplar forest many years ago, and even his long, deep-set eyes were strikingly similar to Gu Rong's.
“Your eyes are almost identical to your father’s, but your nose and mouth resemble your mother’s.” He took a few more steps forward. “That’s good, you have the best of both worlds. That kid looks more like his mother.” He pointed to Yang Guang.
No one had ever talked to them about this topic before; Jiang Ping and Xiu Luo kept silent about their parents.
Faced with such an unfamiliar topic, Gu Yan could only respond with silence.
Joe, however, didn't care: "It feels like I'm patrolling with my old teammates again—the dry grass here is really prickly, so be careful."
Gu Yan looked down at his surroundings. The withered branches were getting denser and denser. He looked thoughtfully at Ella's exposed neck and hands, and casually took off his work jacket and handed it to her.
Ella Zero quickly understood his meaning, silently took the coat, and draped it over her shoulders, insulating the last few inches of her skin from the surrounding spikes.
Joe whistled, still watching Yang Guang's sullen expression as he put his coat back on.
"I was going to spout some nonsense, but then I thought of El. I won't blame you, young people."
Gu Yan knew he had misunderstood, but the more he explained, the more guilty he felt, so he simply focused on memorizing the route.
Joe's arm had unknowingly acquired many shallow wounds, with blood gradually seeping out, clearly visible to the naked eye.
“If you insist that there is an underground passage here, I cannot say for sure that it is here, but if there is, it can only be here.”
The withered branches, woven like thorns, formed a natural cage, which the valiant man tore open.
“Here.” Joe grabbed a dusty iron chain and yanked it hard, sending dust flying.
"Hey, it's a bit rusty. Come on, young men, lend a hand."
It took four people working together to barely straighten the iron chain, and a stone door that was almost buried in the sand was slowly pulled open.
"...Look, this is the only entrance leading underground within a hundred miles. If this is what you mean, I highly doubt whether there is actually a passage underground."
"Ugh..." A chilling stench assaulted his senses, causing Yang Guang's face to contort in pain as he covered his face and stumbled back a few steps.
He felt his eyes were about to water from the fumes. He barely opened his eyes and saw Gu Yan decisively leap down. A second later, there was a thud as he landed steadily, looking up at them in the dim light of the diesel lamp.
Joe cautioned, “If you can be back in five hours, that’s good. We can pretend nothing happened. If it takes longer, how about we drag it out to six hours? After five hours, the escort team will have stealth aircraft patrolling—no,” he stopped Yang Guang from speaking, his eyes brimming with tears, “I’m not interested in your shady dealings. Don’t force me to become an insider. Money can’t solve this.”
Gu Yan extended his hand to Ella Zero: "The soil here is a bit soft, be careful when you land."
This surprised him; despite the arid climate, which was no different from a desert, the underground humidity was somewhat beyond his expectations.
Are you sure there's a passageway entrance here?
He heard some noises behind him, and without turning around, he knew it was Ella Zero who had followed him in.
"It was originally an underground reservoir, but it dried up quite a bit and was no longer used after several sections collapsed during the war."
Yang Guang pinched his nose and shouted from above, "You two monsters, don't you have a sense of smell?"
Ella Zero looked at his cowardly appearance and said, "No."
"real?"
"Just kidding."
"you!"
Gu Yan raised his voice and said, "If you don't want to go, you can go back to the outpost and wait for us."
“How can that be?” Yang Guang objected immediately and obediently climbed down the rope ladder. “To be honest, the smell wasn’t as strong after I came down.”
"Because your nose has fallen off." Ella Zero said the least scary nonsense in the flattest voice.
When Yang Guang reluctantly came down, Ella Zero had already been groping around on the edge for quite a while. Joe left with his men, carrying the diesel lamp; after all, no one wanted to mark the location for the patrolling guards.
"Why not just go directly to the direction of the central tower?"
"This is a side road; we need to find the main road first—here."
She tapped the ground in front of her; the sound was distinctly different from those coming from other places.
"Yang Guang must have brought his tools—"
Before Gu Yan could speak, Ella Zero punched through the reinforced nanofiber channel and turned around to ask, "What did you just say?"
"……nothing."
The pipe contained a rotten metal mesh that could be removed with almost no effort. It took the group no more than 5 minutes to step into the main passage.
"Five hours seems like plenty of time." Yang Guang was a little smug, even though fieldwork wasn't his forte.
Ella Zero immediately rejected his idea.
"It's safest to sneak in after turning on the lights."
"How is that possible?"
Gu Yan looked at him like he was an idiot: "Which is more conspicuous, the whole world being lit up or only the central tower being brightly lit?"
Even if they arrived early, they would only be able to wait around. Yang Guang rubbed his neck in annoyance.
When was the last time he lay on a soft sofa?
"If you want to rest, you can sleep here and wait for us."
Ella Zero didn't stop moving forward, turning her head to glance at him out of the corner of her eye.
"You're crazy, but I'm not. Who wants to sleep in a place like this, a rat in a sewer?"
After saying that, he paused for a moment, then awkwardly turned his face away. "That's not what I meant."
Ella Zero didn't respond, and it was unclear whether she hadn't heard the first sentence, the second sentence, or simply didn't want to respond to either.
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