I am a full-level celestial master, you let me enter the strange talk of rules?

Some mottled marks began to appear on the rock face.

Those were bloodstains, dried for hundreds of years, now turned a dark brown.

Then came the skeletons.

One, two, ten, or even more.

There are human skeletons, and there are also bizarre skeletons.

Some were entangled together, maintaining the posture of their last moments before death.

Humans used their bodies to block the monster's claws, while the monster used its fangs to bite through the human's throat.

Some were scattered all over the ground, making it impossible to tell which were which.

The further you go, the more skeletons you find.

The old miners and the other miners watched in silence.

This was left behind by our ancestors. It was left behind by the strong warriors who stayed behind to cover the retreat of humanity. They used their lives to block the strange pursuers and buy time for their people to retreat.

"So that's how hard our ancestors worked," a young miner murmured.

The old miner didn't say anything, but simply bowed deeply to the skeletons.

Others followed suit, and then continued on their way.

They walked for an unknown amount of time, perhaps several hours or even a whole day. In this dark and gloomy place, time had no meaning. Finally, they arrived at a huge cave.

The cave system is interconnected, with dozens of passages extending in all directions, each looking much the same.

The beam of the miner's lamp shone in, only to be immediately swallowed by darkness, with no end in sight.

"Is this a ghost wall?" a miner whispered.

The old miner said in a deep voice, "It should be some kind of restriction, set up by powerful humans to confuse the strange and prevent them from finding the real exit."

Zhang Yangqing nodded, because the old miner's analysis was correct.

But the question is how to get out?

They clearly lacked the intelligence, and everyone looked at Zhang Yangqing.

Zhang Yangqing did not rush to leave, but stood in the center of the cave, quietly observing.

As the passage went upwards, the more I walked, the more uneasy I felt. It wasn't that it was dangerous, but rather that "wrong" feeling, as if I were heading in the wrong direction.

The passage leads downwards, or rather, it's the path back underground.

That means there must be some special passage that we haven't found!
After all, the chosen ones are miners, so they must be useful in certain areas.

Thinking of this, Zhang Yangqing reached out and began to feel around on the surrounding rock walls.

His professional instincts as a miner told him that some rocks, which looked no different from the ones around them, had the wrong texture.

He stopped as his finger traced a section of the rock face.

The rocks here feel slightly different to the touch.

It is not a naturally formed rock layer, but rather artificially filled in.

The person who filled it was very skilled; they even disguised it to make the color and texture exactly the same as the surrounding area.

But this time, the chosen ones are miners, so they must have the special abilities of wealthy miners in the supernatural world.

For example, a miner's hands can detect subtle differences; the density of the ore in that area is different from that of the actual rock face.

“Dig it up here,” Zhang Yangqing said, pointing to the rock face.

Without saying a word, the old miner led his men forward and started digging with pickaxes.

One pickaxe, two pickaxes, three pickaxes.
After digging more than ten meters deep, suddenly

A loud, hollow echo resounded.

Everyone stopped.

The old miner carefully chipped away the last few pieces of rock with his pickaxe, and then a cold, decaying wind, unlike anything he had ever experienced before, rushed in from the crack.

That's the wind from the ground.

found it!
The old miner, his hands trembling, widened the opening. When it was wide enough for one person to pass through, Zhang Yangqing was the first to crawl out.

Behind him, the crowd filed out.

This is the ground, a barren mountain.

The sky was a somber gray-black, devoid of sun and moon, only layers upon layers of dark clouds that seemed to never dissipate.

The air was filled with an indescribable smell of decay, a mixture of rust, mold, and the odor of something alive, breathing.

Everything around me felt eerie.

The distant mountains, their outlines distorted, seemed to be slowly writhing. The withered trees nearby had branches like twisted fingers, pointing in some unknown direction.

The ground was littered with the skeletons of unknown creatures, as well as some indescribable, decaying remains.

Quiet.

It's too quiet.

There was no wind, no insect chirping, no sound that any living creature should make.

Only deathly silence.

And an omnipresent, suffocating atmosphere of unease.

The old miner stood at the entrance of the mine, staring blankly at everything.

His voice trembled slightly as he said, "Having lived most of my life, this is the first time I've seen the ground, but it's different from what I imagined."

This is the land that our ancestors passed down from generation to generation, the former home of humankind.

It no longer belongs to them.

Zhang Yangqing glanced at it and said to the old miners, "This place is not safe to stay. Go back and fill in that hole. Don't wait for me."

The old miner looked at him, seemingly wanting to say something but then stopping himself.

In the end, he simply bowed deeply and said, "Take care, boss."

The other miners also bowed in greeting.

They didn't ask Zhang Yangqing what he was going to do or what he was going to face.

All they knew was that what their boss was about to do was something earth-shattering.

All they need to do is guard the house and wait for the eldest son to return.

The opening slowly closed behind them, and the last ray of light was swallowed by darkness.

The old miner led his men to re-fill the entrance with gravel and mud, and then disguised it.

Then, with complex feelings mixed with worry and anticipation, he turned and returned to the underground.

They didn't know how long this separation would last.

All they knew was that they were staying here, waiting for their boss to return.

At this moment, only Zhang Yangqing remained on the ground.

No, to be precise, it was Zhang Yangqing and the eerie consciousness.

"Come out," he said softly in his mind.

The next moment, half of his face began to change.

His left pupil turned blood red, and faint, eerie patterns appeared on his skin.

That's because a strange consciousness has taken control of the body.

The eerie consciousness took a deep breath, not breathing, but greedily inhaling the eerie aura around it.

Its voice carried an indescribable complex emotion: "Master, this place is simply heaven."

Zhang Yangqing jokingly asked, "Is it that uncomfortable?"

Seeing this, many people outside the Dragon Kingdom's big screen had questions. Didn't the strange consciousness say that this was heaven? Why did Zhang Tianshi feel uncomfortable?

Soon, the eerie consciousness provided its own explanation.

It paused, a hint of disgust in its voice: "There are too many eerie auras, so many that they make me feel nauseous."

Because in the eyes of the eerie creature, these surrounding scents are smells that have been 'marked' by other large eerie creatures.

To give an analogy, it's like a canine entering an area where there's the smell of urine from other canines.

If the eerie consciousness liked this aura, it would surely say that this place was simply hell.

He called it heaven, which proves he didn't really like it.

Zhang Yangqing said calmly, "Alright, I've told you the rules. Play by yourself for a while."

He transmitted all sixteen rules, especially those concerning the ground and the eerie city, to the eerie consciousness.

"I'll rest for a while once I find that city."

After saying that, Zhang Yangqing's consciousness sank into the depths and entered a "hang-up" state.

The audience outside the big screen: "."

Zhang Tianshi is far too adept at being a hands-off manager!

But the eerie consciousness thought differently; its time to shine had come! (End of Chapter)