Global Collapse

Chapter 908 Old Lan's Adventures

They had no way of knowing what the other paper figures in the underground cave were thinking, nor could they investigate.

After all, the only "person involved" brought up by Gu Mian had already been dismembered, and his head had been thrown back into the pit.

The fortune teller felt that she could only find the answers to these questions by going to the Upside-Down City. Today was Friday, and there were still two days before the train on the Upside-Down City would depart.

The fat man also remembered the day the Upside-Down City train departed: "Doctor, are you planning to go to Upside-Down City this Sunday?"

His expression was worried, clearly indicating that he felt the Upside-Down City was not a good place and that there was a risk of never returning.

Gu Mian felt that the Upside-Down City was standing there peacefully upside down without bothering him. If he went up there for no reason, the Upside-Down City might collapse the moment he stepped on it. Considering the safety of the people in the Upside-Down City, he decided to observe from below first to see if anyone would come down this Sunday. If someone did come down, he would ask them about the situation up there.

"Lianhua City has practically become a ghost town. Although the area of ​​the Upside-Down City that went up this time is large, I don't think there will be many players who went up with it." The diviner analyzed seriously, while turning his head to look at the huge shadow to the south outside the window.

"Moreover, according to Guigu, there's a rule in the Upside-Down City near his friend's base that once you come back by car, you can't go back to the Upside-Down City. I guess our Upside-Down City might have the same rule. Once players know that going back to the ground is a one-way ticket, they definitely won't be in a hurry to leave. Instead, they'll want to experience it up there first. So, I'm afraid no players will come down from up there on this first Sunday."

The fortune teller's words make a lot of sense. The Upside-Down City was formed this Thursday, and it's only been three days since it was formed by Sunday morning. If any players have been there for three days, they might not have had enough of the experience yet.

Although Gu Mian also felt that she might not gain anything on the first Sunday, she still waited early at the station on the ground below the Upside-Down City.

The train that travels between the Upside-Down City and the ground departs from the Upside-Down City, and since it's not yet midnight, the station is completely empty.

The fat man and the fortune teller also came along. The fat man claimed that he was worried about Gu Mian coming here alone in the middle of the night, so he came along. But Gu Mian felt that he was afraid that she would get on the train to the Upside-Down City without saying a word.

The fortune teller was interested in the sinkhole beneath the Upside-Down City, but she herself was hesitant to come. Knowing that Gu Mian would be there today, she had arranged to meet him beforehand.

It wasn't even midnight yet, and the fortune teller was standing on the ground at the edge of the sinkhole, shining her flashlight downwards. She had borrowed the high-powered flashlight from Gu Mian, and now the sinkhole was as bright as day thanks to the fortune teller's illumination. If any paper figures were sleeping inside, they would definitely stick their heads out and scold her for being inconsiderate.

The fortune teller patrolled the edge of the pit with a flashlight for a long time but didn't see any paper figures peeking out to scold her. It seemed that there really were no paper figures down there.

Just as the fortune teller was making his rounds with his lantern, he heard the fat man behind him shout, "They're here!"

Hearing this, she looked up and saw a moving light appear in the center of the upside-down city above her—the headlights of a vehicle. Unlike the other blurry areas on the city, they could see the train very clearly.

It was entirely green, and very long, with about a dozen carriages. It started from the center of the Upside-Down City and traveled down to the ground along a non-existent track, its movement resembling a dragon flying in the sky.

Soon the long green train line got closer and closer to the ground, allowing people on the ground to observe its appearance more clearly. The windows on the train were very large, taking up almost half of the train's area. This large area of ​​transparency made it look somewhat dreamlike, like a sightseeing train from a sky kingdom.

At this point, the train was not far from the ground. In order to observe more closely, the fortune teller raised his high-powered flashlight and shone it on the train above his head.

Only when she looked into the light did she realize that there seemed to be a figure in the transparent glass window.

Someone actually came down?

The fortune teller swung his flashlight, but the figure that had been on the train vanished without a trace.

"Is this car haunted?" The fortune teller thought the Upside-Down City was too eerie. Haunted underground, and haunted car too. It didn't seem like the paradise for humans that was described in the event.

The fat man next to the station also saw the figure from earlier: "Doctor, did you see it? When the fortune teller looked up, I think I saw a figure in the train, but it disappeared in a flash."

Gu Mian saw it too, and he forced a smile: "Maybe the people in the car don't want us to see them."

But no matter how hard the people inside try to hide, they can't escape it. The Upside-Down City has a rule that once you come down, you can't go back up. When the train arrives at the station, the people inside must get off and then they will run into them next to the station.

The people hiding in the train seemed to have realized this as well, so they simply stopped hiding and showed themselves openly.

The fortune teller then saw the figure that had suddenly disappeared return. The beam of her flashlight shone through the car window and illuminated the person's face. After seeing the person's appearance clearly, the fortune teller began to marvel at the wonder of fate: "How come it's her again?"

An Zhitinglan never expected that she would run into Gu Mian again so soon after escaping from him just a few days ago. This time, Gu Mian herself was there too, and as she looked down from the train, her eyes met Gu Mian's, who was looking up from below.

Her body reacted faster than her brain; realizing the person below, An Zhitinglan quickly got up from her seat and squatted down. But her brain soon caught up, knowing that the person below had already seen her, and hiding was useless.

So she simply sat back down in her seat.

The train got closer and closer to the ground, and with a loud "bang," it landed.

The station on the ground has tracks. After the train lands, it still has forward inertia. The dozen or so long carriages moved forward along the tracks for more than half a minute before coming to a complete stop.

As luck would have it, when the car stopped, the window where An Zhitinglan was located was directly opposite the window where Gu Mian and her two companions were sitting next to the station. The four of them stared at each other through the glass window, exchanging friendly glances.

Around 1 a.m., Liu Ruyan discovered that Gu Mian and the other two had returned, and it seemed that they had brought back a fourth person.

She quickly realized that the fourth person looked very familiar. Wasn't he the three groups of chess players who had come out with them a few days ago? These three groups of chess players had used a special item called Mario to teleport away back then. Liu Ruyan thought that they would never meet again, but she didn't expect to see them again after only a few days.

"The chess player for Group Three, An Zhi Ting Lan." Liu Ruyan called out An Zhi Ting Lan's identity, stared at her suspiciously for a while, and then looked at Gu Mian and the other two beside her, "Weren't you guys going to study the Upside-Down City? How come you brought her back?"

An Zhitinglan clearly hadn't returned voluntarily; her face was full of resistance. The fat man explained to Liu Ruyan with exaggerated gestures, "She came down from the Upside-Down City by car."

Hearing this, Liu Ruyan understood somewhat. She realized that when An Zhitinglan was teleported, she landed in the south of Lianhua City, and coincidentally, the land there had been lifted into the sky, so An Zhitinglan was also taken up to the Upside-Down City. This person was really unlucky; when she got off the carriage in the Upside-Down City, she bumped into Gu Mian, who was waiting for her, and was brought back.

Liu Ruyan couldn't help but sigh that Anzhitinglan's Mario special item was useless, but in the end, she still reunited with everyone in this place.

No, that's not right. After using that special item, she had a wonderful three-day tour of the Upside-Down City. Thinking of this, Liu Ruyan put her hand on An Zhitinglan's shoulder and said softly, "After spending three days in the Upside-Down City, you should be very familiar with the situation up there. So tell us what it's like up there, dear Miss An Zhitinglan."

Anzhi Tinglan didn't like telling stories, but when you're under someone's roof, you have to bow your head. So she had to use her calm tone, which wasn't suitable for storytelling, to describe what had happened in the past two days.

After using [Schrödinger's Mario], the user will be teleported to a different location, but will also fall asleep at the same time. The duration of the sleep depends on the user's physical condition.

Anzhi Tinglan fell asleep very quickly, waking up in less than half an hour.

When she opened her eyes, she was surrounded by complete darkness, something An Zhitinglan had already prepared for. Schrödinger's Mario would teleport her to a nearby sewer, and what kind of lighting could be found in a sewer? It would definitely be pitch black.

Having anticipated this, Anzhi Tinglan immediately took out a flashlight from her inventory to illuminate her surroundings. She then discovered that the sewer pipe she was in had a large cross-sectional area, large enough for a person to stand and walk inside.

The curved walls were covered with thick concrete, and in some places, green moss grew.

The people in the city hardly produce any domestic wastewater, and the water plants have long since stopped operating and no longer produce industrial wastewater, so the water in the sewers is almost dry, making it very convenient to walk in them.

Anzhi Tinglan had no idea where she had been transported to in the sewers, nor did she know the layout of the sewers. She could only choose a direction and move forward along the pipes. As she moved forward, Anzhi Tinglan kept an eye on the top of her head. She knew that the sewers would connect to manholes, and when she encountered a manhole extending down from above, she could climb up to the surface.

But after walking for a long time, she did not encounter any manholes that she could climb up. Instead, she came across two seemingly unbelievable cave entrances.

Two openings, each about two meters high, are positioned on either side of the drainpipe in front, like a crossroads.

At first, she thought it was a branch of the sewer pipe, but when she got to the intersection, Anzhi Tinglan found that the two holes that suddenly appeared on the left and right were not dug in a regular way, and the walls inside were not covered with concrete like the sewer she was in.

She immediately realized that the two passages she saw were probably not branches of the sewers, but tunnels dug out by something.

Anzhi Tinglan didn't know whether the two large holes were dug by humans or other animals. It couldn't have been dug by ghosts, as there was no precedent for ghosts appearing in the real world except during large events.

She didn't want to explore either of the two tunnels, no matter who dug them. There was no need to do anything pointless. She could just follow the sewers and find the well, then climb up to the surface.

Anzhi Tinglan wisely passed by the two cave entrances and continued forward, but her pace quickened considerably.

The two large holes, dug by some unknown entity, were too mysterious. She couldn't be sure if the person or animal that dug them was still inside, or if they would come out and chase her. So she had no choice but to speed up and get away from those two rather dangerous caves as quickly as possible.

But soon Anzhi Tinglan stopped in her tracks. She saw the two holes reappear in front of her, forming another eerie crossroads on the left and right.

The sewer pipe was a perfectly straight line; Anzhitinglan was certain she hadn't turned or changed direction, yet the two openings reappeared eerily before her. If she were still in a dungeon, she'd suspect she'd been trapped in a maze, but surely Mario couldn't teleport her into the dungeon's sewers, could he?
But soon Anzhi Tinglan realized that this was not a ghost wall, because the two holes that appeared this time were smaller than before, and the two holes only reached the height of her head.

These are two holes that are different from the previous ones.

This discovery did not ease Anzhi Tinglan's mind; instead, it made her feel even heavier. One or two such caves would be manageable, but many would be terrifying.

You should know that when animals dig burrows, in order to save energy, they often dig a hole that is about the same size as themselves, just big enough for them to move around in.

If you apply this animal analogy to the burrows she encountered in the sewers, it's truly terrifying. The entrances to those burrows were almost the size of a person; it's hard to imagine the size of the animals that dug those tunnels. And if they were large, that's one thing, but if there were many of them…

Anzhi Tinglan suppressed her unease and continued walking forward. As she expected, she encountered various holes of different shapes along the way, and there seemed to be more and more of them. Eventually, she would encounter two opposite holes every few steps. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the sewer system resembled a honeycomb.

What's worse, she heard faint sounds coming from the densely packed holes, as if some living thing was moving towards her. It definitely didn't sound like a human.

Even a large number of rats can kill a person, let alone these enormous creatures that could dig such a large hole. Anzhi Tinglan thought that her flashlight beam might have attracted their attention, so she immediately turned off the flashlight and ran forward as fast as she could in the dark, wanting to get out of this area densely packed with burrows as soon as possible.

But she hadn't run far when her forehead slammed into something hard. Anzhitinglan reached out and touched it; it was a wall.

Knowing she had reached the end of the road, she immediately turned on her flashlight and shone it upwards to see if there was a manhole above her. Unfortunately, all she saw was a patch of gray concrete; there was no sign of her escape.

The sewer ended, and she couldn't run any further. But she could still hear faint noises coming from behind. Anzhi Tinglan glanced back with her flashlight and saw that nothing had crawled out of the cave yet, but judging from the sounds, they were already very close to the sewer. She was afraid that the first batch would crawl out in a few seconds.

In a moment of desperation, Anzhi Tinglan scrambled into the nearest cave. The choice between facing one creature and facing a group was relatively easy. Once inside, she shone her flashlight and quickly ran deeper into the cave to avoid being found by anything emerging from the other caves behind her.

Whether it was luck or not, there didn't seem to be anything strange in the cave. Anzhi Tinglan ran inside with a flashlight for a long time until all the sounds outside completely disappeared.

She didn't stop but continued walking forward. Unable to find a way out in the sewers outside, she hoped that perhaps these eerie caves held an exit to the outside world. But her hopes were quickly dashed. After walking for about ten minutes, Anzhi Tinglan saw the end of the cave—a wall.

Anzhi Tinglan frowned.

Just as she was frowning at the dead end of the road, she suddenly felt someone blowing on her neck from behind.

Just as everyone was enjoying themselves, they suddenly felt a gurgling sound blowing on the back of their necks.