Chapter 14

Yuan Hanshuang was hanging on the rock wall.

The cold wind blew and dried the sweat on her back.

After kicking away Young Master Gu, at the critical moment, she avoided vital areas with her exceptional reflexes, curled up to reduce the impact of falling rocks, and accurately threw her Tang sword towards a crevice in the rock wall.

“Bang!” The Tang sword deeply embedded itself in the hard soil and stone, sinking more than a meter.

Fortunately, due to lack of funds, she didn’t choose the wireless high-tech retrieval version, but the one with a steel wire connection, which inadvertently saved her life.

Strangely, during her descent, Yuan Hanshuang felt an irresistible force that forcefully brought her out of her resonance state.

Now she had lost the amplification of her resonance state and was relying solely on her exceptional physical fitness to endure.

For the past two years, Yuan Hanshuang had never stopped her basic training. Rain or shine, she ran ten kilometers, did ten sets of push-ups and pull-ups, and climbed the stairs three times.

In her opinion, although she awakened her psychic power and can use resonance, as a former martial arts champion, she preferred to believe in her own physical strength.

It was also thanks to Yuan Hanshuang’s persistent training that she was now able to use the steel wire ejected from the tip of her dagger to hang herself on the rock wall like dried meat.

“No, this won’t end well.”

Yuan Hanshuang glanced at the deep hole beneath her feet, probably several tens of meters deep, with red magma flowing in. Instantly, she gave up the idea of a hard landing and started looking above.

After all, she had fallen from a collapsed cave and was already deep in the mountains, a distance away from the edge of the pit. With her current condition, it was difficult to climb the cliff barehanded.

Fortunately, there’s always a way.

There was a passage above that hadn’t completely collapsed, only the middle section had collapsed, and some winding tunnels had been cut off, leaving a gap to hang on the rock wall.

Yuan Hanshuang took a deep breath and pulled out another dagger from her spatial pocket.

Thanks to the small package given to her by Teacher Xiao Yunmeng before leaving, today’s situation could be salvaged.

So she held the two daggers and, without the resonance with her manifestation, struggled and suffered through the climbing movements, inch by inch, moving herself upwards, painfully climbing nearly ten meters.

“Haha, finally!”

Finally, she retracted the daggers, grabbed onto the cold and smooth surface of the tunnel floor, used the last of her strength, her arm veins bulging, and with a burst of energy, she forcefully threw herself inside.

Afraid that the tunnel might collapse further, Yuan Hanshuang stumbled and ran a distance inside before collapsing like a dead fish on the ground.

The near-limit climbing exercise made Yuan Hanshuang feel a buzzing sensation in her head.

If she hadn’t eaten enough before, she wouldn’t have had the strength to climb up.

She lay there for a good half an hour, recovering some strength before getting up again, starting to treat the wounds on her body, and dealing with her slightly dislocated ankle.

“Thanks to the emergency healing spray, hiss—”

With the bandage in her mouth, she grimaced as she wrapped a thick layer around her back, finally tying a crooked bow on her chest.

The emergency healing spray wasn’t very effective; it could only heal the surface of the wounds, but the internal injuries still remained.

With a slight anesthetic effect, it greatly alleviates pain and can be considered a great invention for the benefit of humanity.

“This place is really strange. I can’t resonate with my manifestation, and there’s no signal.”

Yuan Hanshuang didn’t have a neural implant, only a second-hand communicator used for sending messages.

The distress signal couldn’t be sent out, so she could only rely on self-rescue.

Since she had already fallen into this situation, Yuan Hanshuang didn’t rush to leave. Instead, she skillfully took out several crystal cores from the space pocket and put them in her mouth.

There was no one around, so she didn’t need to hide her actions. She chewed on the crystal cores like eating candy, making a crunchy sound.

Since her appetite had increased, her dental health had improved exponentially. Once, she discreetly tried biting on a steel plate and was shocked to find her teeth marks left on it, almost scaring herself to death.

After eating a few crystal cores to calm her nerves after the near-death experience, Yuan Hanshuang readjusted herself to her best condition. She patted off the dust from her body and gripped her knife handle again.

She walked along the wall, observing her surroundings and listening carefully to any sounds nearby.

“The artificial traces here are quite heavy. Could it be that the earthquake threw me into an ancient tomb?”

Unlike the pit cave she fell into, the walls of this passageway were adorned with intricate and mysterious patterns, including some exquisite reliefs and painted pigments, clearly the work of intelligent beings.

Yuan Hanshuang knew next to nothing about various interstellar relics, but through the ancient and obscure patterns on the surrounding walls and the thick layer of dust on the ground, she could tell that this passage had existed for an extremely long time.

“This passageway doesn’t seem to be made of compacted soil and stones. It’s strange, I’ve never seen this material before. Could there be some mechanism?”

After such a long time, the pigments still maintained such vibrant colors. This reminded her of the pyramids from her past life, where some of the wall paintings were said to be poisonous, delivering a fatal blow to tomb raiders once the tomb was opened. There were also countless peculiar mechanical devices.

Just to be cautious, Yuan Hanshuang took a mask and a hiking stick with her.

She always made thorough preparations before coming here.

“Hmm? Why does it smell so good?”

Just as she finished all this, a strong fragrance suddenly wafted from deep within the passageway.

This fragrance was quite distinctive and alluring, not a physical hunger but a soul-deep, intense thirst that one wished to devour in a single gulp.

Yuan Hanshuang immediately became alert.

Ever since the insect crystal was added to her luxurious menu, smelling something delicious in this pitch-black passageway meant there was an advanced insect ahead.

Her grip on the knife handle and hiking stick tightened a bit.

Soon, she reached the first fork in the road.

“The left side smells good, the right side is scentless and deceptive. Let’s choose the right side.”

Three seconds later, Yuan Hanshuang looked at the broken hiking stick shattered by a hidden weapon, cold sweat forming on her forehead.

It was impossible to resonate with her manifestation in this peculiar place. She could only rely on her basic physical abilities. If she had stepped on it without any precautions, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

Silently, she retraced her steps back to the fork in the road and chose the left side.

Nothing happened.

Next

“The left side is scentless, the middle smells good, the right side is scentless. Let’s choose the left side.”

This time, Yuan Hanshuang had foresight and threw a stone over.

In an instant, the stone…

The invisible laser shattered the stone into a flurry of powder, which disappeared when an unknown gust of wind blew.

Yuan Hanshuang’s scalp tingled.

For the third time, the fourth time, the fifth time…

Yuan Hanshuang no longer hesitated and simply followed the scent.

She realized that every few steps were a fork in the road. From the beginning, she encountered dozens of forks, filled with hidden traps and invisible dangers. Fortunately, she could smell the scent to determine the correct path.

The further she went, the more treacherous the forks became. Some paths were even hidden behind mechanisms.

Death doors were everywhere, but there was one path that led to life, guided by the scent.

“Did I accidentally stumble upon the right path?”

Yuan Hanshuang walked past another fork in the road.

In the empty corridor, her footsteps echoed quietly.

She had no idea how long she had been walking. She could only judge from the terrain that she was gradually descending. The air became hotter and hotter, scorching her.

As she walked, Yuan Hanshuang couldn’t help wiping away sweat, feeling increasingly hungry.

Finally, after descending a flight of stairs with a drop of over ten meters, a dilapidated archway appeared in front of a corridor, with an obvious fault line underneath.

The faint scent suddenly became intense, making her mouth water.

“Crack.”

A faint light appeared in the darkness.

The light wasn’t very bright, but it hovered in the air, giving off a mysterious glow.

As Yuan Hanshuang cautiously stepped into the area, extinguished candles around the square suddenly ignited, illuminating the entire underground hall.

Startled, Yuan Hanshuang quickly took two steps back, holding her blade horizontally in front of her, assuming a Tai Chi sword stance. After confirming that she was the only one there, she relaxed a little and surveyed the hall.

The hall was vast but empty. Apart from the circle of candles around her, there was only one carved pillar in the center, with a silver crystal floating above it. The intoxicating scent emanated from the crystal.

“Is this the crystal core?”

To be honest, it was hard to tell from a distance. But up close, this crystal core was almost as big as several people’s embrace.

Yuan Hanshuang spent ten minutes confirming that there were no other mechanisms around before she reached out to touch it.

She couldn’t lift it at all.

Helpless, Yuan Hanshuang could only squat beside this huge crystal core in astonishment and carefully examine it.

You see, the crystal core of a Tier 3 insect species is only the size of two finger joints. Yuan Hanshuang had seen the crystal core of a Saint-level insect species in an illustration book, and it was no bigger than a skull. In terms of size, it paled in comparison to the one in her hand.

“If even the crystal core is this big, then the size of this insect species must have been incredibly exaggerated. Could it be the crystal core of the Insect Queen? Thankfully, it’s dead, or else I would have to stay here forever.”

But if the Queen had died, humans would have been celebrating and popping champagne bottles across the entire galaxy. How could they keep the news hidden until today?

Yuan Hanshuang  didn’t understand, but that didn’t stop a feeling of imminent fortune from hitting her.

With such a large crystal core, she could make a fortune if she sold it outside. As for the relics at the bottom of this cave and the countless mechanisms along the way, and why there was a crystal core here, only money mattered.

“In great peril, there is great fortune.”

Luckily, her spatial pocket was large enough.

With a triumphant smile, she transferred the massive crystal core.

Pressing the button to close her own space, she prepared to return the way she came.

When she had just walked halfway here, there was a fork in the road on the cliff. Yuan Hanshuang deliberately measured the location. If she operated it properly, she should be able to climb a further distance.

If she could go up, maybe she could encounter a rescue team or something. Finding some signal to send a rescue message would be good.

However, just as she retraced her steps to the cliff, Yuan Hanshuang heard voices from outside.

After narrowly escaping death and walking alone in this place where nothing seemed to respond, hearing human voices was as joyous as meeting long-lost relatives.

She cautiously looked outside.

Two figures were suspended above the seemingly bottomless pit.

The author has something to say:

Unexpected, right? Our male leads is currently fighting for the treasure, while the female lead has already obtained it _(:з」∠

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