*Clack.* With his first step onto the ground, the sole of his boot struck a stone. The noise felt stark and lonesome as it rippled through the air.
Han Qingyu swept his flashlight around vigilantly at once. Fortunately, there was no movement anywhere in the surroundings.
*Looks like there probably aren't any more monstrous pythons here,* Han Qingyu thought. If there were, once they sensed his arrival, they should have pounced immediately, just like the one before that had traveled all this way.
These things' craving for life source energy bodies probably didn't differentiate between male and female, did it? The one earlier... well, that one had been scrambled beyond recognition by Plague Chicken.
While his thoughts wandered aimlessly, Rusty Sister had already touched down as well, her boots stepping lightly onto the firm earth without making a sound.
"I gouged a few small footholds into the wall. If we have to run later, we can kick right back up," she said. "When you think it's time to run, don't hesitate."
"Isn't that obvious?" Han Qingyu replied without looking back.
Shen Yixiu: "Oh."
Perhaps the eerie surroundings naturally turned thoughts toward the worst-case scenario; Han Qingyu continued as he scanned the area, "Just like in the canyon in Nepal, remember: at all times, do what I say."
His tone was flat yet brooked no argument, and he had already proven that in moments of crisis, he was unfailingly calm and correct.
During their debrief after their experience in the Nepal trial grounds, two decisions had received the greatest praise and affirmation from Han Qingyu:
The first was that after he swapped places in the canyon to let Shen Yixiu and the other two out, they hadn't hesitated needlessly or engaged in nauseating weeping; they had simply charged straight out of the trial grounds to seek reinforcements without looking back.
Only Shen Yixiu—because during the swap she had acted on her own, trying to shove Han Qingyu out while staying behind to hold the line—had received several harsh rebukes. Han Qingyu had been fiercely stern, telling her that she had nearly gotten everyone killed.
Twice Shen Yixiu had been scolded to tears and stormed off on the spot, but deep down, she had truly accepted it.
The second was Wen Jifei's decisive choice that day to break away from the battlefield right at the start.
Han Qingyu had called it the calmest, most advantageous judgment, saying that one could only imagine how disastrous things would have become if Wen Jifei had been present for the rest of the battle.
Wen Jifei wasn't like Shen Yixiu, though. Even when praised, he still bickered with Han Qingyu, claiming that if he hadn't left, he might have shot to fame in that single battle.
Remembering this, Shen Yixiu nodded, obeying with a touch of petulance. "Yeah, I got it, okay?"
Petulance and the like were naturally ignored. Han Qingyu said nothing more, the beam of his flashlight sweeping out along the floor from beneath their feet.
The visible ground, aside from the tracks left by the monstrous python's slithering, was generally level and firm. Although inevitably a bit rough, there were clear traces of human work. It had to be connected to Ne.
"That experiment was probably one thing on the surface and something else entirely in reality."
As he spoke, Han Qingyu sheathed the sword in his left hand onto his back. With the flashlight in one hand and his dead iron straight sword in the other, he maintained an angled back-to-back two-person formation with Shen Yixiu as they cautiously pushed forward.
The place was surprisingly large. After walking for a while without encountering any danger or finding anything, Shen Yixiu couldn't resist whispering, "How come there doesn't seem to be anything here?"
"There is," Han Qingyu replied in a whisper, yet his voice carried an irrepressible excitement.
He could already sense it—the presence of source energy.
"Stay alert. Follow me." Han Qingyu led Shen Yixiu to the side. Rounding a winding, crooked corner, the view before them shifted. A faint blue glow flickered within the pitch darkness.
"Is this..."
"We might be about to strike it rich."
With that, Han Qingyu took the lead and advanced a short distance farther.
The blue light grew stronger, gradually rendering the flashlight redundant.
Finally, he stopped at a certain spot, turned sideways, and froze in place, silent.
"What do you see?" Shen Yixiu stepped up beside him, halted, and froze as well.
Before them lay an open space roughly the size of an ordinary farmhouse courtyard, where the blue radiance burned brightest.
A peculiar, simply structured dead iron framework connected the ceiling to the floor. Four miniature versions of the devices seen outside earlier—the "rice cookers" and "heavy hammers"—were positioned in the four corners of the chamber.
And in the middle of the room, taking up the vast majority of the space, were at least seventy or eighty... iron-armored human figures.
Through the transparent sections of the iron armor, one could see that nearly every single one of them was just like the figure the monstrous python had regurgitated earlier—bearing the pallor of death and lividity. The extent varied; some were in far worse condition, while others showed only mild signs.
This likely had to do with the intervals at which they were swallowed by the monstrous python, but without exception, all of them were living dead.
"They..." Shen Yixiu struggled to suppress her fear and unease, but her voice still trembled.
"A biological chain of life source energy."
Han Qingyu spoke with a dazed cadence, because in his mind, the train of thought that had broken off earlier was now piecing itself together.
"The monstrous python sustains its life and grows by swallowing and regurgitating these armored bodies, absorbing vitalized source energy... The source of the iron armor is probably the life-extension pod project Qiaoqiao mentioned earlier. Mortally wounded soldiers were sent to take part in the experiment, gambling on one last chance at salvation. Then the biological chain was established. Ne staged the laboratory accident so this place would be sealed off, leaving the biological chain to run on its own," he continued.
"Then was the monstrous python raised to fight the Great Spikes? Was it a trump card Ne prepared in secret for Azure's resistance when his ideas couldn't possibly be accepted?"
Shen Yixiu instinctively shied away from thoughts that frightened her, asking what was actually the least relevant question.
"That possibility can't be ruled out, I suppose... but I'd guess not," Han Qingyu paused before continuing. "From what I see now, the monstrous python was probably just one step in the conversion of life source energy. Higher up the food chain, something else is waiting to harvest it when the time comes."
"Ne?"
"Probably," Han Qingyu said. "Too bad we slaughtered it first."
Their conversation halted there. There were too many other questions: why Huaxia? Were there others elsewhere? Did Ne do this in connection with his defection? What was his true goal? None of it could be deduced for now.
In the silence, Shen Yixiu stared blankly at the iron suits, at those people. True, they might have died anyway, but to end up like this, existing as the living dead, reduced to a link in a food chain...
That inescapable sorrow battered Shen Yixiu's nerves. *If humans truly have souls, then perhaps their agony is even greater than mine...*
"Do you know what this is in front of us?" Han Qingyu asked suddenly, interrupting her reverie.
Shen Yixiu snapped back to reality. She knew this was a place that supplied source energy to the iron armors; the reason they didn't need source energy blocks was because they were placed here, absorbing sustenance like vegetables drawing nutrients from soil. But as to what it specifically was, Shen Yixiu shook her head. "I don't know."
"Have you never been to a source energy field? Right, you haven't," Han Qingyu murmured, turning back. "This is a miniature source energy field."
Just like back when his source energy degree of fusion was being tested at Institute 1 and he walked toward the source energy field, Han Qingyu had sensed that "hostile, crashing threat" long before drawing close.
Yet this source energy field was comparatively far too small.
So compared to the heavy truck he had faced at Institute 1's source energy field, Han Qingyu felt as if he were facing a toy stroller now. Not a shred of panic.
Not only was he not panicking, he was actually somewhat excited.
Like a scoundrel laying eyes on a stark-naked beauty who had practically no power to resist. The only difference was that Han Qingyu only played the scoundrel with source energy.
Shen Yixiu nodded. "So... should we head back and report this now?"
"Huh?" Han Qingyu let out a startled, flabbergasted sound, freezing for a second before turning to Rusty Sister. "Azure doesn't need this bit of source energy! Besides, *we* found this. And *we* are in desperate need of it."
Shen Yixiu stifled a giggle beneath her armor and pressed on, "We still have to report it, you know. Not to mention, the things found here could all be very important."
"Of course we'll leave those things for them to study. But the source energy..." Han Qingyu thought for a moment. "Do you know why the monstrous python never left its cave for decades, yet suddenly slithered out today and snatched you away?"
Shen Yixiu turned her head. "Didn't you make that up?"
"Made it up, my foot," Han Qingyu grumbled. "That *is* the actual situation. Remember: that's the truth."
"Oh." Shen Yixiu nodded and played along. "Then why did the monstrous python suddenly come out and snatch me away?"
"Because this miniature source energy field just happened to be completely drained recently." The corner of Han Qingyu's mouth curved upward. "Losing its source energy supply, it had no choice but to head out and forage."
"Mhm." Shen Yixiu finally couldn't hold it back anymore. A hint of laughter leaked into her voice as she nodded. "Right, that's exactly how it happened."
Chapter 171