I stared intently at Old Bones and asked, "Who were those people?"

"I don't know!" Old Bones shook his head. "All I know is that even the Four Heavenly Kings couldn't afford to offend them."

"I heard Eastern Heavenly King say that this prison has seven levels. The deeper you go, the more powerful the prisoners. The people locked up on the bottom level could wipe us all out with a flick of their wrist."

I asked again, "You wanted to go down there?"

"Yes!" Old Bones said. "At the time, the Four Heavenly Kings were out of options. They wanted to go down into the dungeon to find those experts for help, to see if they could find a way to escape."

"But, back then, all the passages between the dungeons were blocked. We couldn't go down, so we could only huddle on this level and try to save ourselves."

Old Bones sighed and said, "The Four Heavenly Kings tried many methods before finally finding a source of water in a corner of the prison. Although there wasn't much water, it was enough for us to drink."

"As for food... we could only eat the jailers."

"After the jailers' bodies were all eaten, we started drawing lots to decide who would die. Whoever drew the death lot had to sacrifice themselves for the rest of us."

Old Bones didn't seem to want to say any more about that, and quickly changed the subject, "After we held out for a while, we heard the sound of construction outside."

"Before long, we saw people working on construction across the corridor."

"We could see them, but they couldn't see us. No matter how much we shouted, it was no use."

"Suddenly, one day, everyone in our cell just fell asleep."

"Before, we slept everywhere, wherever was convenient, the corridor was full of people."

"But when we woke up, we were back in our cells. The cell doors had been replaced with iron doors, and the locks had been changed to cross locks."

"After that, people started bringing us food."

"We thought someone had taken over the prison. Later, we realized that the prison was still the same as before. Other than someone bringing us food and water, there wasn't a single jailer."

"After some time, a map of the prison appeared on the wall. Every time a map appeared, the cell doors would open... You probably know what happened after that."

I pondered for a moment and said, "Before the dungeon had its accident, I mean, before it was isolated, did anyone come in? Jailers and prisoners alike."

Old Bones thought for a while and said, "Actually, yes!"

"A few days before the prison had its accident, some jailers came in. They used black cloth to block the cell doors with several layers. One person stood guard in front of each cell door, and they told us to all face the wall and not peek out, or we would be killed without mercy."

"At that time, someone on our level was actually shot dead on the spot because they were too curious."

"That day, I kept listening to the noises in the corridor. I heard someone pushing carts, about five or six carts! After those carts went in, they never came out, but the jailers who pushed them in did return."

"The next day, someone told me that they could tell from the sound of the wheels rolling on the ground that a few people must have been sent into the dungeon that night."

"If you want to talk about strange things, that's probably the only one."

I muttered to myself, "So, someone really was sent into the dungeon." Then, I asked, "Have you all seen the Iron Prison map?"

Old Bones nodded. "We've all seen it!"

I said quickly, "Draw the map for me to see, draw as much as you can, quickly!"

Old Bones pointed at a few people, and they started drawing the map on the ground and walls with broken bricks.

While Old Bones was concentrating on drawing, someone said in a trembling voice, "Elder Gu, behind you!"

Old Bones' body trembled, and he froze, gripping the half-brick. When I turned my head in the direction the person was looking, I saw the child floating behind Old Bones, blinking his eyes as he looked at the map on the wall.

The child pointed at the map and said, "You're all drawing it wrong! And it's so ugly. Let me draw one for you."

The child snatched the brick from Old Bones' hand and started drawing on the wall. Before long, he had drawn a complete map. He held the brick triumphantly and looked at Su Su. "Su Su-jie, did I do a good job?"

"Blood Child is awesome! Let's go over there and draw something else." Su Su praised the Blood Child and coaxed him away.

I turned to look at Ye Yang, who walked over and said, "This is the real Iron Prison map. The maps we saw before were incomplete."

As Ye Yang stared at the map, I realized that the Inverted Tower was only the core of the Iron Prison. Outside the Inverted Tower was a ring of buildings that seemed to be used to stabilize the tower, and that was the real Iron Prison.

No wonder I always felt like something was off.

Ancient towers can't reach the level of modern architecture, they can't be built too large. The diameter of the largest existing ancient tower base is only about thirty meters. Even if the bottom-level cells were on the tower base, it wouldn't be able to accommodate hundreds of people. What's more, we've been running around in the tower for so long?

It turns out that we've been active in the buildings outside the Inverted Tower all along, and we haven't even touched the tower core.