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Chapter 637 Authentic
Zhu Yu tiptoed to the back of the stairs. The space there was relatively low, and even she, the shortest of the four, had to crouch down.

She carefully stepped on the ground there, and there was no obvious difference in the feel of it under her feet.

It seems this is just a place where the other party hides and eats, not a proper entrance or exit.

Zhu Yu asked Fu Lu for the tinderbox he was carrying, then crouched down and used the tinderbox's dim light to illuminate the dusty ground.

Because not many people walk on this ground, and no one cleans it, a thick layer of soil has accumulated over the years. When you shine a flame on it, you can see some footprints and drag marks, which look like they were left recently.

Upon closer inspection, there were some less clear footprints, as if they had been left intermittently over the years and had been covered up by dust again. Therefore, they were not as obvious as the traces they had left when they came in the previous two days, but they could still be seen if you looked carefully.

Zhu Yu followed the inconspicuous footprints, groping his way along the direction the toes pointed, until he slowly arrived at a corner of the wall.

The footprints disappeared here, all the way to the corner of the wall.

Zhu Yu frowned as he looked at the footprints that had reached the corner of the wall.

Clearly, there are still footprints here, so the entrance to the tunnel must not be here.

But if not here, where else could it be? Perhaps on the wall?!
As soon as the thought popped into her head, she couldn't help but look at the wooden wall in front of her. She reached out and carefully pushed it. The wooden board wobbled slightly, but she couldn't push it away.

Zhu Yu reached out and pushed the wall on the other side, but that wall didn't feel the same.

The folding fan "wall" in front of them was clearly a hidden door, but it was blocked from the inside by something, so it could be opened from the inside but not from the outside.

The gap that could be opened was so small that not even a finger could fit through, let alone a hand.

Zhu Yu took out his tool bag from his pocket and pulled out the longest knife. The thin blade was just the right size to slip through the crack in the door.

She cautiously probed with the blade, and sure enough, she encountered an obstacle in one place, which seemed to be a wooden strip. She tried to pry it a few times with the knife, and the wooden strip inside loosened slightly.

So she carefully repeated the action again and again, and little by little she finally managed to pry open the wooden strip that was stuck in the door. The wooden door, which was only slightly loose, was now easily opened with a gap of about half a foot.

It was pitch black behind the wooden door; you couldn't see anything at a glance.

The door could open wide enough for Fuwen and Zhuyu to pass through smoothly, but Lu Qing would have to squeeze through by shrinking down a bit. As for Fulu, there was no way he could get through at all.

Seeing this, Lu Qing signaled to Fu Lu not to risk damaging the door, but to stay at the doorway unless absolutely necessary.

Although Fu Lu was somewhat annoyed, leaving someone to guard outside was indeed a prudent arrangement. He had no objection to it, so he nodded firmly and silently patted his chest.

Fu Wen, holding a tinderbox to light the way, was the first to squeeze through the crack in the door. Zhu Yu followed closely behind, with Lu Qing bringing up the rear. They had initially thought the narrow wooden door would be the most difficult part, but to their surprise, the space inside was also extremely cramped. A huge boulder was right next to them, and after the three of them squeezed in, they could only slowly move downhill, hunched over, along a narrow passage.

Zhu Yu walked along, trying to confirm their location.

The small wooden building was built against a steep hillside, surrounded by stone walls. The door that they had just passed through, disguised as a wall, must have been next to this stone wall.

So where does this downward journey lead now?
Filled with doubt, Zhu Yu followed closely behind the rune. A faint firelight flickered in front of them, and Lu Qing followed closely behind. Zhu Yu wasn't too afraid, but he couldn't help but think that in such a narrow passage, if the other party suddenly appeared in front of them and they met in a "narrow encounter," it would be difficult to escape or catch up.

As she walked along, the scene she had imagined did not happen. The passageway ahead gradually widened and became higher. Lu Qing still needed to bend over, but Zhu Yu only needed to hunch her neck to stand up straight.

Finally, after groping my way for who knows how long, the view ahead suddenly opened up.

Rune stopped warily, squinting as he carefully surveyed his surroundings. He quickly spotted a thin wire, identical to the one outside the door, not far ahead at his feet.

He turned and gestured to Zhu Yu and Lu Qing. The three of them stepped over the hidden barbed wire without touching it, and then entered a relatively open space.

Zhu Yu stopped and looked back at the thin wire on the ground. He carefully searched the side along the wire and found a copper bell hanging in a crack in the stone wall not far away. The copper bell was connected to the thin wire. If someone accidentally tripped on it, the copper bell would probably ring immediately.

She continued searching along the wall and found another identical copper bell not far away, except that the thin wire on that bell was pointing upwards.

I guess it's the one outside the door.

With this discovery, Zhu Yu continued searching along the stone wall. After circling around for a while, he finally found a thick bamboo tube stuffed with rags on the stone wall.

All her doubts were instantly resolved.

As she analyzed earlier, the smoke rises.

The person was indeed hiding down there. Using the "alarm bell" made of thin wire and copper bell at the door, they received the news the moment someone broke in. Then, they used the bamboo tube to spread the sleeping incense from underground to the surface, filling the small wooden building and knocking out the intruder.

After everything is settled, the person can climb up from below and drag the person who has been bewitched out and dump them in the wild.

Now everything makes sense.

So the only question that could still pique her curiosity was—where was this person hiding?

The open space looked square, like a house built underground, but apart from the four walls, there was nothing there, and no trace of anyone living there.

In the very center, there stood a massive rectangular stone, several sizes larger than the talisman, placed there abruptly.