Chapter Seventy-Six: The Pool of Quicksilver

Following the direction indicated by the plump man's finger, Zhou Yi looked over. Indeed, right at the center of the pool, there was a flickering point of light. Looking closely, it appeared to be a stone—a red, luminous stone. The constantly churning magma rolled around it without ever engulfing the stone. There was no visible support beneath it; it seemed to float above the magma.

Only one term came to Zhou Yi's mind—spirit stone.

Perhaps this was a spirit stone.

He turned to look at Cheng Zhi. When it came to sensing such things, Cheng Zhi was no less perceptive than himself.

"Do you sense anything?" he asked.

Cheng Zhi shook his head. "I don't know. It's just hot, but it's a comfortable kind of heat, like it's warming me through and through."

Zhou Yi nodded. They were two or three hundred meters from the center of the magma pool. At this distance, even if it were a spirit stone, they wouldn't sense much—just a pleasant feeling.

He remembered when he first visited the geology department; he too had felt this comfort before investigating further.

Zhou Yi surveyed the area. There was no other exit from this cave. Occasionally, a drop of water would fall from the ceiling, hissing as it hit the magma and instantly turning into steam, having no effect whatsoever on the pool below.

"Let's pull back for now. We'll come back to this spot later—let's see what the other caves hold first."

At his words, the plump man was the first to crawl back to the entrance, followed by Cheng Zhi, with Zhou Yi bringing up the rear.

The passage had already seemed long and included a bend, but the return journey felt even longer, with two more turns than before. Zhou Yi's heart sank.

The plump man at the front grew increasingly anxious as their exit eluded them. After several twists and turns, they finally caught sight of the opening and scrambled out, only to cry out in shock.

"Shit! That thing is gone!"

Cheng Zhi, quick on his feet, grabbed the plump man by his belt and yanked him back, pressing him against the edge of the entrance and edging them both sideways to take a closer look.

This wasn't the place they'd entered from. The cave was roughly the same size—about two hundred square meters—but the pool in the center no longer held that ghostly statue. The flashlight revealed only rippling, icy water.

At this point, Zhou Yi climbed out as well.

He glanced around, then jumped down a step, approached the edge of the pool, and bent over to peer in. The liquid was no longer transparent; under the light, it gleamed with a silvery sheen. Zhou Yi froze.

He quickly turned back.

The others, puzzled, followed him and, seeing his troubled expression, asked, "What's wrong, boss? Are we somewhere we shouldn't be? This is some evil business—a statue that can just up and leave?"

Zhou Yi shook his head, growing even more cautious. He jerked his chin toward the entrance and then looked around before saying, "This isn't the stone chamber we just passed through. The previous chamber's pool was filled with water, and the statue—we might as well call it the water ghost. But this pool is filled with mercury—completely different. So, even though we took the same passage, we ended up in a different stone chamber."

Cheng Zhi hurried forward, examining the top of the small entrance. Sure enough, their hexagram mark was missing, though, like before, this chamber also had four exits.

"Sir, have we run into a ghost wall?" The plump man shivered.

"Don't say things like that," Cheng Zhi warned, "or I'll give you a beating. Boss, what should we do?"

Zhou Yi pondered for a moment.

He knew caution was necessary now. Crawling through the passage just now, he'd already sensed something was wrong—the way back seemed longer than before. And now, even if they retraced their steps, there was no guarantee where they'd end up.

But this was a mercury pool. In such a sealed environment, people would be poisoned if they stayed too long.

Still, there had been something like a spirit stone in the previous pool. What might be hidden here?

Zhou Yi sat down, facing the mercury pool and focusing his senses on its depths. It felt as if a spring was bubbling below. He probed downward for over ten meters but could go no further—something was blocking his perception, not the bottom of the pool, but a deliberate barrier.

This made Zhou Yi nervous. He quickly withdrew his consciousness upward, but just as he was about to pull back, he sensed a voice calling to him from the center of the pool.

Following that call, he probed further, and a face-like shape appeared within his perception, startling him. As he tried to withdraw, that familiar feeling surged back.

He cautiously investigated. In the very center of the pool floated a stone egg, rising and sinking as if it were joyfully dancing, though clearly bound to this place.

This discovery startled Zhou Yi, who immediately opened his eyes.

The first pool had been filled with water, and visibility was decent. Everyone's attention had been drawn to the statue, so no one had thought to sense the depths of the pool.

The second pool was magma, with the spirit stone floating visibly above. Now, this pool held the stone egg. It seemed as though everything here was balanced—each object perfectly placed.

The plump man, growing anxious, moved closer to Zhou Yi and pressed, "Boss, so what's inside? Anything?"

"There's a stone egg," Zhou Yi replied, "I can sense a warm energy from it—very similar to one of my own attributes. Otherwise, I wouldn't feel it this way."

The plump man slapped his thigh. "So what are we waiting for? Let's take it!"

Zhou Yi shook his head. "There was a spirit stone in the magma pool earlier—I could feel its fire nature. We've now found two spirit stones in two chambers. This place is anything but ordinary. In the vast expanse of the Gobi, to find such a bizarrely designed complex of stone chambers—each one dangerous, yet all maintaining some kind of balance—and the spirit stones are the key. If we take them, I think the balance here will be destroyed. We should explore further and understand the layout of the chambers. Once we find an exit, then we can consider taking them all at once. Otherwise, we risk being trapped here."

The plump man instantly understood and looked at Cheng Zhi, resignation on his face.

At that moment, Zhou Yi tossed over a bottle of water and a packet of compressed biscuits, and the plump man's stomach rumbled in response.

"Eat something. Save your strength. Conserve water as well—we don't know how many more chambers there are. Whatever happens, we can't stop."

The other two said nothing, immediately sitting down to eat. They each took only a few sips of water before tucking the bottle back into their belts.

Once they'd finished, Zhou Yi stood up and marked the entrance they had just used with a flame symbol.

He then looked at the three exits opposite. The situation was complicated, so splitting up was out of the question. Shining his flashlight around, he saw that only the central passage was straight. At its entrance, he drew a hexagram.

"We go down the middle."