Zhang Yuanqing and the others arrived at the mouth of the pool. The water was clear but bottomless, like a round, dark blue moon embedded in the cave.

Hongjige lightly stepped on a rotten waterwheel, looking around:

"What's the problem here?"

"Speaking of which, it should be lunchtime now. I wonder if there are any fish in the pool? Maybe we can have some sashimi, tsk tsk, fresh."

Please, let there not be fish, because after lunch, afternoon tea won't be far away. What if this guy wants to eat afternoon tea halfway through the boss fight... Zhang Yuanqing muttered to himself.

Guan Ya said, "We can't find any secret passages in the entire mountain cave. This pool is the only possibility."

Zhang Yuanqing nodded in realization, "You mean, the entrance to the next level is at the bottom of the pool?"

Guan Ya ignored him.

Princess Yinyao's heart stirred: "The entrance is at the bottom of the pool?"

Guan Ya smiled and praised, "So clever."

Qiang Yuan didn't say anything.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Hongjige took out a fish skin coat and put it on, "Let's go into the water. I have a Water Ghost item now. Cost me five million."

He was saying this to Xiahou Aotian and Yuanshi Tianzun.

Back in Yasha Sea, he had to borrow diving equipment from Yin Ji.

"I'll send a Yin corpse down to scout the way first," Zhao Chenghuang took out a bronze box. As the lid opened, a water-attribute Yin corpse leaped out and plunged into the pool.

"White waves and bubbles churned, the calm pool rippled, and the Yin corpse, like a nimble fish, swayed its body and darted towards the bottom."

Zhao Chenghuang closed his eyes, wholeheartedly manipulating the Yin corpse.

Zhang Yuanqing looked at Sun Miaomiao, "Speaking of which, I haven't seen you use a Yin corpse along the way, didn't you bring one?"

"Didn't bring one!" Sun Miaomiao gave a definite answer.

Zhang Yuanqing looked shocked, "I'm very happy that you have so much confidence in me, but isn't this too frivolous?"

Sun Miaomiao immediately rolled her eyes, "I have average talent in controlling corpses, but I have a high affinity with spirit servants, so I mainly train spirit servants."

Her eyes were big and round, unusually pure and charming, with a childlike brightness and aura. Even when she rolled her eyes, she looked cute.

"Oh, I see," Zhang Yuanqing breathed a sigh of relief, "Then I'm relieved. I don't have to worry about you."

Sun Miaomiao said angrily, "Why wouldn't you worry about me?"

"Why would he worry about you?" It wasn't just one person speaking. Xiao Yuan and Guan Ya asked in unison, with perfect understanding.

Sun Miaomiao was choked for a moment, snorted softly, and turned her gaze to the pool.

In reality, she was a well-behaved girl who wouldn't argue. If this were online, she would have launched a heavy attack, using a keyboard to let these two women know what a strong person was.

Princess Yinyao folded the small speaker and put it in her pocket, tugged at Zhang Yuanqing's sleeve, tilted her head, and signaled him to speak aside.

Zhang Yuanqing followed her to the side. Princess Yinyao used the Night Wanderer's unique way of communication, whispering, "Their crimes are all recorded by the Cat King speaker. With this handle, you can drive them and control them. That's how Father controlled his followers back then."

After a pause, she said, "This trick is also effective on the concubines."

Cyberbullying grandpa, cursing mom, putting contraceptives in dad's drink—what kind of leverage is that?

Zhang Yuanqing whispered, "Keep it safe. Watch how I manipulate them later."

As he spoke, he glanced at his teammates, gaining a deeper, clearer understanding of these friends.

Zhang Yuanqing was quite satisfied with this confession. Except for Hongjige, who had done a lot of bad things in the underworld, the others were fine.

And even Hongjige had gradually stopped engaging in underworld activities in recent years.

"Lending money at high interest rates only earns a few bucks, and the aftereffects are so bad. My grandpa just gives me a few projects, enough for me to earn a few small goals, and it's all clean money," Hongjige had said.

Secondly, there was Tianxia Guihuo. His problem was more serious. In the eyes of the Devil Eye Heavenly King, the shame of the Fire Master should commit seppuku.

But Tianxia Guihuo and Sun Miaomiao and others were different. He came from a common background. If he wanted to stand out, he would inevitably be covered in mud.

As a high-ranking and powerful Saint, receiving bribes of several million wouldn't even buy him a decent house in Songhai. At most, it would be used to improve his life, so Zhang Yuanqing thought it was okay.

Princess Yinyao's red pupils lit up, "Are you giving me the speaker to keep?"

"I can!" Zhang Yuanqing whispered, "But you and it must both be within my sight. You can't take it out of my sight."

Princess Yinyao nodded happily, then suspiciously said, "You're suddenly being nice to me... We made an agreement, don't expect me to serve you in bed."

You don't have a chance, because you're cold~

Zhang Yuanqing didn't say much to her and returned to the pool.

At this moment, Zhao Chenghuang opened his eyes and said, "There's a passage at the bottom of the water. There's no danger in the passage. It connects to another pool. Outside the pool is a cave. There's a strange metal machine in the cave."

"Beside the pool stand two stone tablets, one with the words 'Non-fate' and 'Non-joy,' and the other with the words 'Serve the Country Faithfully.'"

Xiahou Aotian stroked his chin, "Non-fate means not believing in fate. My fate is in my own hands, not in the heavens'."

Hongjige was rarely clever for once, "Then Non-joy means not believing in music?"

"Obviously not. Can you read more books?" Xiahou Aotian scoffed, "Music is just the appearance. The 'joy' in Non-joy refers to the ritual and music system. The ritual and music system is complicated and extravagant, wasting manpower and money, which is not in line with the Mo family's concept of frugality in use and burial, so we must resist the ritual and music system."

"Then what does 'Serve the Country Faithfully' mean?" Hongjige was not convinced.

Xiahou Aotian pondered, "Perhaps it's... smoke rises, the country looks north, the dragon rises, the horse neighs, and the sword is as cold as frost? There's no such thing in Mo family thought today..."

"Okay, shut up!" Zhang Yuanqing, as the gang leader, interrupted the meaningless bickering in time, and said, "Zhao Chenghuang, use a Yin corpse to test it out, see what dangers you encounter."

Zhao Chenghuang nodded slightly and closed his eyes again.

After half a minute, he suddenly opened his eyes, his tone solemn: "The Yin corpse has broken contact with me."

Zhang Yuanqing knew that for a Night Wanderer, this meant the Yin corpse had been destroyed. He quickly asked, "What did you encounter?"

Zhao Chenghuang's expression suddenly became strange: "I only saw the machine turning, and then my spirit body returned. I didn't even know what happened."

"This..." Zhang Yuanqing also became solemn. The unknown danger was the most terrifying.

Because you can't make targeted defenses. When danger comes, you'll die without knowing why.

Guan Ya and Xiao Yuan and the others understood this, so their expressions were a little serious. Only Hongjige was still fearless and full of fighting spirit, "Why don't we go down and take a look? It's useless to speculate here."

I have to say, sometimes the words of a mindless person are impossible to refute...

But Zhao Chenghuang still felt that he should be cautious, gritted his teeth, and said, "I'll try again." After speaking, another Yin corpse jumped out of the bronze storage box and plunged into the pool.

Amidst the dense white bubbles, the Yin corpse clumsily paddled its hands and feet, diving towards the bottom of the pool.

As everyone waited in silence, Zhao Chenghuang, who had been closing his eyes, suddenly said, "I saw the previous Yin corpse. It was beheaded and completely destroyed."

Guan Ya immediately said, "Observe whether there are any hidden blades nearby, observe whether there are any knife or sword marks left at the 'death' location of the Yin corpse."

Sword marks and knife marks, like ballistic trajectories, can be used to reverse-engineer the direction of the attack and find the location of the mechanism.

"No..." Zhao Chenghuang frowned.

"Control the Yin corpse to approach and try. This time, pay attention and see clearly what the danger is," Tianxia Guihuo said.

Xiao Yuan and Asano Ryo remained silent, watching intently.

Because of their profession and nationality, the two were out of place with the small team, so they were silent along the way.

Zhao Chenghuang kept his eyes closed and hummed in acknowledgement.

A dozen seconds later, he suddenly opened his eyes, his mouth twitching a few times, "The connection is broken again. I still didn't see where the danger came from, but I found a detail."

"What detail?" Zhang Yuanqing asked for everyone.

"The words on the metal machine seem to have changed."

"What words?" Zhao Chenghuang's mouth twitched again, "Ancient words, I don't recognize them."

Everyone looked at Xiahou Aotian, who put his hands on his hips and raised his head: "Write it down."

Zhao Chenghuang took a short blade from his item bag and wrote a character in the mud by the pool.

Everyone looked blank.

Xiahou Aotian "Oh"ed, "Bronze inscription. This character means dog."

"Dog?"

Everyone was still blank.

Xiahou Aotian shrugged, "Anyway, that's what the character means."

"Enough, your ink marks are unbearable, let's go into the water!" Hongjige, seeing nothing but useless information, couldn't bear it any longer and plunged into the pool.

Zhang Yuanqing thought for a while and said, "Let's go into the water. It's useless to guess here. Zhao Chenghuang has already lost two Yin corpses. Letting the Yin corpse be cannon fodder won't yield any results. It's just a waste."

He put on his Yin-Yang Dharma Robe and plunged into the pool, following Hongjige.

The others by the pool took out their Water Ghost items and jumped into the water one after another with splashes.

The pool water was cold and clear, with many dust-like microorganisms floating in it. After five meters, the bottom of the pool completely lost light.

The gang's team members lightly swayed their waists, controlling the water flow, and went all the way down, reaching the bottom of the pool after two or three minutes.

Zhang Yuanqing saw Hongjige's figure in the distance. The mindless Fire Master was crawling into a dark tunnel.

He quickly followed and entered the tunnel with Hongjige one after the other. The tunnel twisted upwards, and it ended in a few minutes.

"Splash!" Hongjige jumped out of the pool, cautiously looking around.

Zhang Yuanqing emerged from behind him, gently propped himself up on the edge of the pool, and leaped out.

A dark red light rose, and the water on his body "hissed." Zhang Yuanqing, while drying his wet body, scanned the cave.

The cave was not too big, about twice the size of the "Frugality" and "Understanding Ghosts" caves.

In the center of the cave stood a three-meter-high metal machine. It had a heavy, bronze-cast square base, one meter in length, width, and height.

On the base stood a crescent moon cast in brass, like a crescent boat floating on the water.

Between the two pointed crescents, a soccer ball-sized brass sphere floated, composed of square small blocks, like a Rubik's Cube.

Each small Rubik's Cube block was printed with distorted bronze inscriptions.

"Splash...splash..."

The sound of emerging from the water rang out one after another, and Guan Ya, Xiao Yuan, and the others successively jumped out of the pool.

Tianxia Guihuo held down Xiahou Aotian and Zhao Chenghuang's shoulders, using his excellent fire control ability to dry the water, while observing the scene in the cave.

"Dry the water," Zhang Yuanqing threw the Yin-Yang Dharma Robe to Guan Ya.

"There really is 'Serve the Country Faithfully,'" Hongjige kicked the stone tablet, then pointed to the metal machine in the distance, and said, "Is the danger from that thing?"

Xiao Yuan, who was always silent, suddenly said, "Not necessarily, it could be above." She pointed to the top of her head.

Everyone looked up. The top of the cave was covered with black holes the size of water tanks.

"Why?" Sun Miaomiao asked while looking up.

"The death locations of the two corpses are different," Xiao Yuan explained, "The first Yin corpse died below the holes, the second Yin corpse died next to the machine."

"That makes sense," Sun Miaomiao nodded.

Guan Ya chuckled, "Both Yin corpses were beheaded with sharp blades. If the danger came from above, there would be sword marks on the ground, but there aren't any. So, the danger comes from the metal machine."

Xiao Yuan glanced at her, "Whatever you say."

Guan Ya smiled insincerely, "Thanks!"

"Ahem!" Zhang Yuanqing interrupted the "dispute" in a timely manner, saying, "Zhao Chenghuang, use a soldier puppet to try. The most important thing now is to figure out the rules of this stone cave, its attack method, attack strength, and so on."

Zhao Chenghuang immediately took out the bronze box, summoned a spirit servant, and manipulated a bronze soldier puppet to approach.

Everyone stared at the soldier puppet, waiting patiently. At this time, the advantage of having a Night Wanderer in the team was evident. There was always cannon fodder to step on the mines.

The soldier puppet passed through the metal machine without hindrance, circled around the cave, and didn't encounter any attacks.

This result made everyone both confused and surprised.

"Yin corpses will be attacked, but soldier puppets won't? What's the difference between the two?" Zhang Yuanqing asked.

"Soldier puppets are inanimate objects, they're items, while Yin corpses, although they have no life, are still a kind of creature," Sun Miaomiao's professional knowledge was still solid.

"What if I put you in Little Red Riding Hood, and then use the ability to control objects to throw it over?" Zhang Yuanqing had a sudden idea.

No sooner said than done, he immediately took out Little Red Riding Hood and summoned Ichikawa Mi, using the spirit servant's ability to control objects, and threw Little Red Riding Hood out.

Under everyone's gaze, Little Red Riding Hood drifted forward. When it passed through the metal machine, a "buzzing" vibration suddenly came from inside this mechanical weapon.

As well as the sound of gears turning and connecting rods pushing.

Zhao Chenghuang reminded in a deep voice, "That's the sound. It's going to attack."