The fish had only strengthened everyone’s ability to adapt to the underwater environment. It hadn’t turned them into gill-breathing fish people.

Fifteen minutes later, Shen Mo came up with Tan Xiao, five pearls in hand.

Tan Xiao had a few pearls as well.

“Where did these come from?” Teacher Cheng couldn’t help asking. “We searched the first floor several times — we never saw any pearls.”

Shen Mo said, “The ground floor is covered in pearls like these, but the water is too murky. Even with a flashlight, visibility is very poor and they’re difficult to find.”

After coming up, Tan Xiao kept rubbing his arms, unable to bear the cold. He thrust the pearls he’d found into Teacher Cheng’s hand and hurried to the bathroom for a hot shower.

Cheng Weicai found a glass flower vase from one of the rooms and put both sets of pearls inside. He said to Shen Mo, “Go take a hot shower too — you’ve been freezing in there this long. Don’t let it damage your health.”

Shen Mo shook his head, looking down at the water’s surface. “I’m fine. We’ll need to go back down shortly.”

Everyone understood what he meant.

The pearls that had suddenly appeared on the first floor were very likely the key to clearing the level. That meant they needed to go in repeatedly, diving over and over to gather more.

Ten minutes later, Su Man came up from the water. Her complexion was terrible — her skin had gone a bluish white from the cold.

She had found more pearls: nine.

Yan Qingwen was the last to come back up. Wanting to test the body’s maximum underwater endurance, he stayed submerged for a full thirty minutes.

“The fish meat reduces the body’s rate of oxygen consumption. Once you’re underwater, the metabolic rate drops automatically. After twenty minutes you begin to feel a sense of suffocation. Thirty minutes is the absolute limit — but if you’re making vigorous physical movements in the water, you must surface within twenty minutes.”

As Yan Qingwen spoke, he inhaled slowly and steadily, regulating his breathing.

“Oxygen deprivation can cause brain damage. Everyone take note of the time when you go back down.”

Everyone nodded.

Teacher Cheng said, “I’ll watch the time for you. If anyone exceeds twenty minutes, no matter how many pearls you’ve found, I’m pulling you up!”

Yan Qingwen trusted Teacher Cheng for things like this. He nodded and said, “Thank you for the trouble.”

From that point on, the team took turns diving.

Finding things in the water was enormously difficult — let alone things as small as pearls. With the water murky and visibility at under a meter even with flashlights, the challenge increased dramatically.

Some dives were lucky, bringing up six or seven at a time.

Others brought up only two or three.

When the pearl count reached thirty-two, the dives grew more and more frequently fruitless. It seemed nearly impossible to find even one more pearl.

And time had, without anyone quite noticing, passed eleven o’clock at night.

Which meant they had been trapped in summer for more than eight hours.

At the start they’d thought searching a house like this would take two hours at most — yet now, more than eight hours had passed and they were still trapped in summer.

“Are we sure the answer is the pearls?” Lu Ang asked.

“Nine chances in ten,” Li Li said with certainty. “The water monster’s home lies deep beneath the water, and its home contains shining treasures — the ‘shining treasures’ refer to the treasure. Now pearls have appeared on the first floor that weren’t there before — pearls become dazzlingly shiny when light hits them, which clearly fits. The only remaining question is whether we can’t be sure about the quantity. Is it enough to just hand over any pearls, or do we have to find every single one? And if it’s all of them — how many are there in total?”

Zhu Shu glanced at Li Li, then at Yan Qingwen, and ventured tentatively, “How about… I go look too? Maybe I’ll find something the rest of you haven’t?”

Yan Qingwen thought about it and nodded. “Everyone tends to have their own habitual search patterns. A fresh set of eyes might find something new.”

He looked at the others. “Everyone rest for a bit — let your body temperature recover. Once we’ve confirmed there are only this many pearls, we’ll make one more attempt.”