Mu Dai hesitated, feeling it wasn’t right to let him sleep on the damp ground, but awkwardly, she didn’t want to invite him back up either. When she turned to look, he had placed his tactical bag beneath him, sitting cross-legged with his back slightly against the rock wall. Soon, there was no further movement.

Surprisingly, he could sleep sitting up. Mu Dai watched him for a while, suddenly feeling melancholic. She curled up, sleeping alone on the rope bed that couldn’t fully stretch out, feeling like a small animal caught in a net.

She dozed off and slept until daybreak.

Of course, this “daybreak” was just her perception—day and night weren’t clearly distinguished in the cave, and the light intensity didn’t reveal much.

Opening her eyes, she saw Luo Ren half-crouching with bent knees in front of the rope bed, thoughtfully watching her.

Mu Dai startled, swaying as she sat up: “What are you doing?”

Luo Ren frowned: “Mu Dai, did you know you snore and drool in your sleep?”

What?

All the blood in Mu Dai’s body rushed to her face. This humiliation was even more embarrassing than her stomach growling from hunger.

She absolutely couldn’t admit it, not even if it killed her.

Furiously, she shouted: “Nonsense!”

Luo Ren smiled, casually pinching her chin: “Yes, just nonsense.”

He stood up, crossing his arms and stretching upward: “Get up, move around a bit, then come get breakfast.”

Mu Dai got down grumpily, halfheartedly stretching her neck and shoulders before going to Luo Ren for another small square of chocolate.

The taste wasn’t particularly good, but at that moment, it was the only delicacy in this vast cave.

She put it in her mouth, reluctant to bite it, just letting it slowly melt.

Luo Ren wrapped the remaining chocolate and returned it to his pocket. Mu Dai asked him: “Did you eat some?”

“Yes.”

Luo Ren looked at the time on his phone: eight in the morning.

They couldn’t just spend the entire day idly wallowing in their predicament.

He asked Mu Dai, “Have you thought about how to get out?”

Mu Dai looked up at the cave ceiling: “I could try climbing again.”

Climb again? He remembered that when he fell yesterday, she had been positioned higher up.

“Setting aside the fact that it’s not convenient for you to climb now, what happens after you climb up? That trapdoor has a mechanism; you can’t just push it open.”

Mu Dai stubbornly replied: “I’ll figure it out after climbing up. Neither of us has examined the trapdoor closely—maybe if we get close enough, we’ll find a way to open it.”

Luo Ren said, “Placing hope on ‘maybe,’ and if you can’t find a way to open the trapdoor, you’d have to climb back down with all that effort? Is climbing so fun? It’s just wasting energy.”

He surveyed the cave, his gaze stopping at the lowest point along the edge.

“That night when the rain was heaviest, did the cave fill with water?”

Mu Dai nodded, pointing to the high spot where she had slept: “The place I slept was already the highest, and water still reached beneath me.”

Luo Ren pondered: “But it receded quickly?”

It seemed so. At any rate, it didn’t take particularly long. Before climbing, when she wanted another drink of water, all the water had already seeped away.

Luo Ren picked up the machete Mu Dai had tossed aside, gripped the handle, and tapped the ground with the blade. There was a clang, the sound of metal hitting stone.

He walked around the cave, testing various spots, and finally crouched at the lowest area, beckoning Mu Dai to come over.

First, he pointed to one part of the cave: “Over there, it’s almost a solid stone slab, essentially a stone foundation. Water couldn’t seep through.”

Then, turning his hand, he struck the blade at the low spot, producing another metallic sound.

Mu Dai looked at him: “This is stone too.”

Luo Ren turned on his flashlight, shining it as close as possible, then brushed his hand over the ground a few times: “The stones here aren’t a single piece. There are seams between them, and underneath must be soil; otherwise, the water couldn’t have seeped away.”

Mu Dai asked: “So?”

Luo Ren sat back, twirling the flashlight between his fingers, making the light circle dance across the cave wall.

“This cave is quite expansive in depth. Given the mountain’s height, we’re already close to ground level. If there’s soil underneath, that means there’s a path.”

“What kind of path?”

“A dug-out path.”

Mu Dai laughed dramatically: “A tunnel?”

Her laughter faded as she noted Luo Ren’s expression. Could he be serious?

“We’re going to dig?”

“How old are you? Am I just playing games with you?”

Luo Ren hung the tactical bag on a protrusion of the rock wall, opening the flashlight and securing it to the handle for illumination. He tried the machete a couple of times, finding it unwieldy, and set it aside. He drew his dagger instead and began scraping between the fine cracks of two adjacent stones, clearing away the compact soil and quickly exposing a thin fissure.

Mu Dai still found it implausible: “We’re digging? This could take years…”

She was about to say more discouraging words when she caught Luo Ren glaring at her, so she reluctantly fell silent.

Scrape, scrape.

The stones were tightly fitted together. Removing the first one was the most difficult and critical. Luo Ren’s dagger had already traced several circles around the stone’s perimeter, creating gaps on all four sides. When he reached in to test it, there was slight movement.

Mu Dai sat to the side, watching with her chin propped in her hand, and suddenly commented: “It’s like a tooth growing from the ground—no matter how you pull, you can’t extract it.”

Sweat had formed on Luo Ren’s forehead, and her comment amused yet irritated him: “While I’ve been working hard here, you’ve composed a piece of modern poetry? Come here!”

The stone was a bit narrow, and his hand couldn’t fit. Mu Dai was much more slender. Following his instructions, she reached along the crevice, and when she withdrew her hand, it was covered with wet mud.

It seemed they hadn’t reached the bottom yet. The dagger was no longer long enough, so the machete came back into play. He thrust it forcefully down along the crevice, and again there was the sound of metal striking stone.

Did this mean there was still stone below? But that didn’t make sense—if it was all solid stone, how did the water seep through?

After some thought, he continued using the machete to probe and scrape the bottom on all four sides. When he finally withdrew it, he casually rocked the stone, hearing a dull metallic response as the stone shifted slightly, closing one of the thin gaps.

Luo Ren felt a surge of excitement—this meant the stone’s base had loosened.

He smiled at Mu Dai: “Let me show you how to pull out this ‘ground tooth.'”

He selected two stones in line with this one and repeated the process, scraping away the seam mud. After loosening the bases of all three, he braced his heel against one of the crevices and pushed hard.

With a thud, the three stones were forced together, leaving a gap wide enough for an entire hand to explore.

Then, holding the dagger flat against his palm, he held his breath, inserted his hand vertically, and when he reached the bottom, turned the blade horizontally to pry, leveraging upward while pushing the stone aside with his palm.

The irregularly shaped stone rolled away. Luo Ren removed the flashlight to examine it closely. Below this layer was another layer of stones, but they were cleverly arranged with the seams offset from the upper layer. The seams of the upper layer pressed directly onto the faces of the lower layer stones, so when the machete was thrust down through a gap, it would always hit solid stone.

Mu Dai’s heart pounded. This couldn’t be naturally formed—someone had deliberately arranged these offset layers.

Who knew what was sealed below? A tunnel? Or perhaps a treasure like those often found in legendary stories?

Mu Dai looked at Luo Ren.

His eyes showed an amused satisfaction. He raised his chin, gesturing toward the cave ceiling: “So, still want to climb?”

Mu Dai shook her head: “Not anymore.”

“Still think it’s implausible?”

She replied sincerely: “Not at all.”

“Good,” Luo Ren said, handing her the dagger. “You remove the remaining stones.”

Mu Dai took the dagger without a word and crouched down. With only one stone removed from the first layer, the workload remained enormous. She sighed, saying, “Luo Ren, if I keep doing this, my finger will fall off.”

That’s right—he’d forgotten about her injured hand.

Luo Ren didn’t speak. Mu Dai sighed again, bending down to move the stones. Just as her hand touched one, he grabbed her by the collar.

Turning to look, she saw Luo Ren’s expression, both helpless and disapproving: “Move aside, move aside.”

Mu Dai laughed heartily, reaching out to embrace his waist: “Luo Little Knife, I do like you.”

Luo Ren was taken aback, feeling an indescribable warmth spread through him. After a moment, he said: “Stay nearby, ready to help when needed.”

With only one stone removed from the first layer, the task remained immense. Luo Ren went stone by stone—inserting, grinding, prying, moving. By coincidence, just as he had cleared the entire first layer, his phone alarm sounded.

He had set specific times to keep track of morning, noon, and evening in the darkness, ensuring their routine wouldn’t become chaotic.

This was a reminder that it was lunchtime.

Luo Ren turned away, taking the chocolate from his inner pocket. Perhaps due to being close to his body heat, it had softened somewhat. He opened the wrapper, broke off a piece, then rewrapped and returned the rest.

Then he called to Mu Dai: “Come get your meal.”

Mu Dai hurried over.

He asked her: “Sitting idle all morning, avoiding labor—is that right?”

Mu Dai shook her head: “Absolutely not.”

And so she received her meal.

In the afternoon, they continued the monotonous task of removing stones, but fortunately, beneath the second layer was indeed soil.

Strangely, if it were just ordinary soil, why bother placing two layers of stone above it? And they must have been laid long ago, almost blending with the surroundings. If not for the rain and water seepage, it would have been difficult to notice anything unusual about that low spot.

Mu Dai gripped the machete, poking and digging at the area Luo Ren had cleared. With two people and suitable tools at hand, even if the tunnel wasn’t hundreds or thousands of meters long, digging an exit no longer seemed far-fetched.

With this thought, her mood brightened considerably, and she swung the machete with renewed vigor, digging and chopping enthusiastically.

Luo Ren, fearing she might hurt her hand, cautioned: “Be careful.”

Mu Dai dug with the blade: “How could digging the ground cause any trouble…”

Before she finished speaking, the soil beneath her feet suddenly collapsed. One foot abruptly lost support, and Mu Dai let out a sharp cry. Luo Ren rushed forward, quickly grabbing her waist and rolling away with her. As he rose, he pulled her behind him and swiftly held his dagger in front of them.

There was no movement, no imagined ghost suddenly darting out—where Mu Dai had just been digging, a bowl-sized opening had appeared, extending to where her foot had been. Her leg had suddenly plunged into the crevice.

Luo Ren instructed Mu Dai in a low voice: “Bring the bag and flashlight.”

Still shaken, Mu Dai practically flew to the rock wall to retrieve the bag and flashlight.

Luo Ren took the flashlight and shined it toward that spot.

Indeed, an opening had appeared, shaped like a crescent moon or a giant open eye.

Luo Ren gestured for Mu Dai to illuminate the area for him. Bracing himself on the ground, he slowly edged closer, keeping his body as far away as possible while extending his leg to forcefully kick at the soil.

With a rustling sound and a dull thud, large chunks of soil collapsed, revealing a hole about half a person’s height.

A musty odor of age-old decay wafted out.

Luo Ren opened the bag, quickly retrieved a box of matches, cut off a piece of the bag strap, wiped off the wax coating from the match head, struck it to light the strap, and tossed it into the opening.

The flame flickered a few times before quickly extinguishing.

Luo Ren pulled Mu Dai back to a somewhat distant spot, saying, “The inside probably hasn’t had fresh air for a long time. We need to wait a while.”

Curiously, Mu Dai took the matches to examine. In this era, boxed matches were already quite rare.

“Why not use a lighter?”

“In a tactical bag, for fire-starting, there are usually matches and fire stones. Lighters are convenient, but in extreme temperatures and climates, they’re useless.”

He also taught her: “Match heads are wax-coated because, from long-term friction in the box, there’s a risk of spontaneous ignition. Plus, the wax coating is waterproof.”

Mu Dai found this novel and intriguing: “What else is in there? Teach me.”

Luo Ren had her sit down and pointed out each item. The tactical bag embodied the principle of “small but complete”—not many items, neither large in quantity nor volume, but essentially encompassing all small survival tools for harsh environments: a flexible needle for sewing or bending into a fishhook; a medicine pouch; burning sticks for underwater illumination; and salt blocks.

Mu Dai had never seen these things and found each one fascinating. Luo Ren lit another piece of the bag strap and tossed it over. This time, it didn’t extinguish as quickly. The flame wasn’t bright, but it persistently flickered.

It seemed they still needed to wait a while.

Looking down at Mu Dai, he saw her organizing the bag, methodically arranging each item back in order, returning items to the survival box or appropriate pouches.

Luo Ren watched her for quite some time before suddenly saying, “Mu Dai, I watched that video.”

Mu Dai didn’t look up: “What video?”

“The night we left Nantian, your conversation with Dr. He was on video.”