Mu Dai kept her head down without speaking, noticeably slowing her pace of organizing things. After a long while, she finally said, “Oh.”

“Why would you rather talk to Dr. He but not to me?”

Mu Dai didn’t want to discuss this, but Luo Ren’s tone made her feel that today, there was no way she could brush this off.

She steeled herself: “Because I don’t want to use my spear to attack my shield.”

She had told Luo Ren herself: What’s the best time for two people to be together? When you like me and I like you.

By extension: If you’re not sure about these feelings, then it’s better to separate temporarily, or simply not be together.

She instinctively disliked and felt irritated by this turn of events.

Even bringing it up now still irritated her: “Why should I talk about something I’m not even sure about myself? If I could adjust and move past it, wouldn’t it be over? If I couldn’t adjust, I could talk about it later, it wouldn’t be too late. Why talk about it? Why talk about it?”

Luo Ren couldn’t help but smile.

It was his first time seeing Mu Dai lose her temper, with furrowed brows and widened eyes, looking agitated with no outlet for her emotions.

He laughed heartily and pulled her into his embrace, but this time she was unwilling, constantly struggling.

Luo Ren leaned close to her ear and asked, “Last night, when I did that, were you angry?”

Mu Dai’s cheeks flushed slightly, biting her lip without responding.

“You probably weren’t angry, otherwise you would have slapped me or cut me with your knife already.”

He paused briefly: “What if the person last night had been Yi Wansan or Cao Yanhua instead?”

Mu Dai reacted strongly: “What nonsense are you talking about!”

Luo Ren smiled, lowering his head to kiss her lips. She was too annoyed to care and tried to turn away, but Luo Ren wrapped one arm around her waist and held the back of her head with his other hand, preventing her from moving.

Yet he didn’t kiss her; he just bit her lip slightly, applying enough force for her to remember.

He said: “When you’re walking down a road and see beautiful flowers blooming beside you, you bend down to smell them; when a fly comes, you reach out to swat it away.”

“Liking or disliking is an instinctive reaction. This kind of instinct doesn’t require thinking with your brain.”

Mu Dai remained silent and stopped struggling. Luo Ren knew she was listening. When she was willing to listen to what he said, she would be this docile.

She was a clever girl who could understand things once explained.

“Liking only varies in degree; even a tiny bit of liking is still liking. No one is half liking and half disliking something. If you have this kind of thinking, it shows your primary personality hasn’t integrated. You’re still subconsciously treating yourself as two people, still a simple one plus one.”

Mu Dai was uncomfortable with his words. She looked up, somewhat aggrieved but stubborn: “I am just one person.”

Luo Ren embraced her, burying her head against his chest, saying softly: “Yes, you are one person.”

His gaze fell on the strap that had been burning; the flame had slowly extinguished. Based on experience, it should be safe to enter now.

He said, “In the future, you can talk to me about anything. Mu Dai, besides being your boyfriend, I’m also your friend. Even if we couldn’t be together, I could still give you advice as a friend. In my heart, I always want what’s best for you.”

Mu Dai suddenly said softly, “Luo Ren, you like to tell me a lot of principles.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.” She thought for a moment. “It’s like you’re trying to teach me how to do things.”

Luo Ren smiled, not knowing why, but even he felt his smile carried a sense of emotion and melancholy.

He released Mu Dai and stepped back a pace or two to look at her.

The flashlight lay to one side, its light scattered. Most of her was hidden in the weak darkness, but her eyes still held a clear light.

She was his girl, who had trudged through darkness for a long time to find him, running anxiously through forests and swamps, stopping when close, standing there, looking at him hopefully.

He said, “Mu Dai, I’ve experienced more things than you. Some experiences, I dare not say are correct, but I find them practical and want to teach them to you. Not just experiences, but things I know—from survival skills and defensive combat to small tricks and shortcuts—I want to give them all to you at once.”

“Because if someday, due to an accident or force majeure, I have to leave you, thinking that you can use methods learned from me to solve problems and overcome difficulties makes me feel like I’m still taking care of you.”

If one passes through another’s life but truly cannot stay together, he hoped what he left behind would be good and useful. He hoped that because of his presence, she would become better and stronger. When he was there, he could help her hold an umbrella; if he wasn’t, she could laugh off a bit of wind and rain rather than panic and choke with sobs because the umbrella was taken away.

Mu Dai looked at him quietly: “Luo Little Knife, has something happened?”

Luo Ren smiled slightly without speaking, suddenly feeling that he would miss her terribly.

If he died on this trip back to the Philippines with Qingmu, at the moment he closed his eyes, he would be thinking of her.

Mu Dai said, “If something’s wrong, you must tell me. I can protect you, too.”

Luo Ren didn’t know why, but he suddenly laughed.

Mu Dai sighed: “You don’t believe me. Luo Little Knife, why don’t you believe that I can become formidable?”

Luo Ren nodded: “Yes, you’re formidable.”

He pulled her close, gently caressing her cheek, then sliding down to her neck. His fingers touched a fine, cool chain. He picked up the chain, bringing out the pearl-adorned whistle hanging from it.

He said, “Let me play you something beautiful.”

He put the whistle in his mouth and blew.

Mu Dai was extremely surprised. It was just ordinary blowing, but when most people blow a whistle, it produces a straight, flat tone like a line drawn out. But Luo Ren’s single note had three inflections, creating a wavelike sound.

She took it back and tried, but couldn’t do it. She could only produce a “whoosh” sound, like a Young Pioneer team’s whistle blow.

How did he do it? Was it the way he controlled his breath in his mouth, or did his tongue make some small movements?

Luo Ren wouldn’t tell: “It’s a family secret. Even Qingmu and Yuris tried to learn it, often meeting privately to figure it out, but they never could.”

Mu Dai pleaded: “You won’t even tell me?”

Luo Ren pinched her chin and said: “I’ve already made up my mind—pass to sons, not daughters; pass to children, not daughters-in-law. If you want to know, ask your son in the future.”

Mu Dai laughed out loud, and Luo Ren laughed too. After a while, he said: “It should be about time. Let’s go check the opening.”

The opening was neither round nor square. Judging by its size, it could only accommodate one person crawling in and out. Shining the flashlight inside revealed only darkness, with nothing visible.

Luo Ren tested the tunnel wall with his hand, and his brows immediately furrowed.

Mu Dai asked: “What’s wrong?”

Luo Ren said, “It’s not an earth tunnel; it’s stone.”

He had initially thought they had broken through the stone and found soil, which would be easier to dig. Now it seemed he was completely wrong.

He pointed to the stones they had removed: “This cave and this tunnel are both made of stone. The soil sealing the entrance might have been brought from outside later—there’s no connection to the soil here.”

As he spoke, he raised the flashlight for a closer look at the tunnel wall.

Mu Dai thought for a moment: “Does this cave naturally come with this stone passage? Is it a naturally formed underground cave?”

She had occasionally watched adventure films and knew about cave exploration—underground caves extending in all directions, like veins and arteries extending from the Earth’s limbs.

Luo Ren smiled bitterly: “No, it was carved out.”

The tunnel walls bore marks from chisels, hammers, and axes, not naturally formed.

Moreover, judging by the soil and two layers of stones sealing the entrance, it didn’t look like someone was tunneling out of this cave to escape, but rather like someone from another location had tunneled into this cave.

The other location wasn’t an exit but rather a situation even worse than their current predicament.

Mu Dai had also realized this point and looked up at Luo Ren.

Luo Ren looked back at her.

As they stared at each other, they suddenly couldn’t maintain composure and both burst into laughter.

After their laughter subsided, Mu Dai sighed: “Just our luck.”

Not only were they unlucky, but whoever had been trapped here before was also unlucky.

Suddenly feeling drained, she sat down on the ground, leaned against Luo Ren, buried her head, and felt too lazy to move.

Luo Ren gently stroked the top of her head.

After a while, the beeping alarm sounded. Mu Dai was too lazy to wonder why the alarm was ringing—then she heard the rustling of packaging paper being folded. Luo Ren brushed aside her hair and brought a piece of chocolate to her lips, saying, “Dinner time, come get your meal.”

Mu Dai had no appetite and didn’t want to eat.

Luo Ren said, “If the two of us were starving from the same starting point, you would starve to death before me, especially since you’ve been hungry for several more days than I have. You need to hang on to keep me company; it’s your mission.”

Mu Dai smiled, opening her mouth to bite the chocolate as she sat up, asking him: “Don’t you ever get disappointed?”

Luo Ren said, “Well, we’re already in this situation. Let’s go in and take a look.”

He stood up, leaving the flashlight with Mu Dai. He bent a light stick in his hand, with his other hand gripping the dagger, instructing her: “Wait here. Only come in when you see me waving the light stick from the other end.”

Mu Dai said, “Be careful.”

Luo Ren smiled: “Do you even need to say that?”

He exhaled, lowered his body, and crawled into the tunnel.

The tunnel was cramped and oppressive. His chest felt compressed, making it difficult to breathe, but fortunately, it wasn’t very long.

Mu Dai saw the faint light of the light stick waving from side to side deep in the tunnel.

She immediately entered, crawling even faster. When she reached the end, Luo Ren grabbed her arm, pulled her up, and said: “There are dead bodies. Prepare yourself mentally.”

Despite Luo Ren’s warning, when the flashlight beam first illuminated the pile of skeletons, Mu Dai still shuddered with a chill.

She hurriedly moved the flashlight away. Stone walls surrounded them. It appeared to be a stone pit, with one side seemingly carved by knives and axes, covered in densely packed ancient characters. Looking up, she saw a bronze-colored ceiling, like a dome.

Suddenly, she stepped on something. Mu Dai picked it up—a flat, triangular arrowhead. Luo Ren took it, pondered for a moment, then suddenly threw it forcefully toward the ceiling.

With a metallic clang, Luo Ren said: “It’s bronze.”

He crouched down, tapping the light stick around the area, then picked up something else. Standing up, he opened his palm to reveal a round coin with a square hole in the center, in the style of ancient currency. The other was narrow and long with a ring at the end, resembling a knife.

Mu Dai blurted out: “Qi state knife money.”

Luo Ren was surprised: “How do you know?”

Mu Dai was also surprised: “When I was in school, our class performed a play about Qu Yuan for a school performance. There was a scene where a treacherous official accused him before the King of Chu of accepting bribes from the State of Qi. The line was, ‘Grand Master of the Three Palaces, you’ve taken Qi state knife money, so you speak for the Qi people?’ It left a deep impression on me, and I looked up what it looked like.”

She had searched not just for Qi state currency but also for that of other Warring States.

She took the other coin from Luo Ren’s hand, weighed it in her palm, and noticed raised characters on both sides of the square hole: “This is a half-liang coin from the Qin state. After Emperor Qin unified the currency system, this should have been the nationally standardized legal tender.”

She looked toward the pile of skeletons, unconsciously moving closer to Luo Ren: “Luo Ren, is this a tomb? Are these people from the Qin Dynasty?”

With knife money still in use and the half-liang coin already appearing, a rough estimate of the period would surely place it in the early Qin.

Luo Ren said, “The dynasty is about right, but this doesn’t look like a tomb. This is not how people would be buried.”

He looked up at the higher part. Below was a stone pit, but above was a bronze dome ceiling. The bronze and stone were welded together, likely sealed with molten iron or bronze when it was made.

Luo Ren walked to the pile of bodies, examining them closely despite his disgust. The clothes were indeed of ancient design, rotted beyond recognition. Some bodies were just white bones, while others were like mummified remains with skin clinging to bone. Yet, body by body, they were stacked very neatly. Beside them was a pile of bronze knives and swords, along with axes and halberds, without exception, all with their sharp edges dulled.

Recalling the stone tunnel they had just passed through, Luo Ren had a thought. It would indeed require many tools and manpower; it couldn’t be completed with just a knife or sword.

And judging from the sealing soil blocks and stones, someone had indeed tunneled out and then neatly arranged these people’s remains.

Who were these people?

Luo Ren pushed the topmost body, initially hoping to find some characteristic features on the clothing. Unexpectedly, with a clang, a badge fell from the body.

It was rectangular, seemingly made of bronze, like an ancient waist token. One side was plain and smooth; turning it over…

Luo Ren was startled, his heart beginning to beat violently.

It was the oracle bone script character for “knife.”

Suddenly, his mind connected certain possible links. Wasting no time, Luo Ren quickly examined the next body. Similarly, there was a bronze waist token, but this time with a different character—the oracle bone script for “water.”

Just at that moment, Mu Dai suddenly said from behind: “Luo Ren, I recognize some of these characters.”

Luo Ren turned around to see Mu Dai crouching with the flashlight in front of the wall covered in ancient characters.

She turned back, saying, “Last time, Shen Gun sent photos of the bamboo slips from Yin Erma’s place. They were all in seal script, and I’ve seen many of them.”

She had seen many, and some seal script characters, close to traditional format, weren’t difficult to recognize.

A few were particularly obvious.

—Ju Zi commands, kill.