My wife is the stand-in.

He exclaimed in surprise, "This superpower can be used like this?"

"I preprocessed my visual data so that you could see it; otherwise, you would only see some vague ideas."

"Icarus said calmly."

Amanosaki did not answer her question; his face was somewhat pale.

He swore he had never seen such a disgusting scene.

Below this shaft, there was originally a settling tank for the water after chemical filtration, which would then be used to discharge the purified water into the river along with other settling tanks.

But now the water in the entire shaft is a dark, blackish-red color.

Countless severed limbs of four-clawed fish floated in the water, interspersed with human clothing, which appeared to be uniforms worn by quality inspectors, repairmen, and security personnel in the Underworld. Amanosaki even spotted about ten sets of underworld messenger outfits from the Fengdu Swordsman.

The water temperature here is inexplicably high, and the corpses and blood soaking in it are decomposing at an extremely fast rate in the high temperature, emitting a strong stench.

But what's most unacceptable is that those four-clawed fish, in this filthy water, are obliviously entwined and mating, carrying out the most sacred task of gene transfer since the dawn of life. Amanosaki leads Icarus by the hand as they walk through the dreary sewers.

Each feather on Icarus's wings emitted a faint glow, which together formed a three-dimensional light source.

The sewers weren't hot; on the contrary, the temperature was quite low. Amanosaki and his group had been walking for a full two minutes and were already far away from the entrance they had blasted open.

He felt the stuffiness was because the sewer wasn't used during the off-season and was abandoned year-round. The dampness underground saturated the air, and combined with the usual strange smell of all sewers, breathing in it would indeed put a heavy burden on the lungs.

However, having already undergone a medicinal bath, he was no longer "human," so he could survive without a gas mask or respirator. He just had a bitter taste in his mouth and would occasionally gag.

"It will be done in a few more minutes."

Icarus spread his wings to light the way, and didn't forget to care for Amanosaki, "Normal people can't smell anything by now. You can still distinguish scents because your sense of smell is now comparable to that of a dog."

Are you saying I have a dog's nose, and then indirectly calling me a dog?

Amanosaki said sullenly, spitting out phlegm as he spoke. This phlegm is automatically secreted by the bronchi after being stimulated, thus isolating them from any irritating or toxic gases.

“You said it yourself.” Icarus brushed a strand of hair behind his ear and gave a triumphant smile.

The date with Amanosaki seemed to have unlocked her potential, fully reviving her "ideal type" consciousness, which overshadowed the naturally naive Icarus. Her speech and expressions became more varied, and she even started to act childish.

'But occasionally she still reverts to her old ways, turning into a silent goofball... uh, I mean, a beautiful girl.' Seeing Ikaros's dangerous look, Amanosaki quickly corrected the thought in his mind.

"Humph."

Icarus gave a coquettish laugh and continued to act as a third wheel.

The sewers fell silent for a moment, with only the occasional kicked-up piece of trash disturbing the rats that had made their home there, attracting a swarm of green eyes and squeaking sounds.

When Amanosaki walked past with his left hand holding the crystal, what remained on the ground were the neatly arranged corpses of his entire family.

"I can say that I have made an outstanding contribution to the eradication of the four pests in Fengdu City," Amanosaki said while building up his magic reserves for the upcoming battle.

After walking for about five more minutes, they finally reached the end. Amanosaki threw out a quartz crystal infused with magic. The quartz crystal glowed and fell, revealing its massive and complex structure to the two of them.

This is a vertical shaft about 80 meters deep and 50 meters in diameter. There are dozens of smaller channels, smaller than the concrete pipes where Amanosaki is located, leading to this place. Some are dry, while others are continuously gushing out sewage with countless bubbles.

The shaft contains countless encapsulated metal pipes coated with anti-corrosion paint, which extend outwards like a spider web.

Icarus glanced at it and spoke rapidly:

"These are all rainwater pipes. After initial settling, there should be a connection to other vertical shafts below. The current purpose here is for wastewater transfer."

"When heavy rains occur and Fengdu is affected by the flooding of the Yangtze River, these dried-up pipes will quickly be filled with the massive rainfall from the surface, and the rainwater will collect here and in other places. At that time, taking advantage of the properties of water, most of the rainwater will be transported through the pipes we are in to the deep storage wells to achieve the purpose of flood prevention."

Looking at the dimly lit shaft, listening to the sparse sounds of water and Icarus's explanation, Amanosaki couldn't help but imagine the magnificent scene of all the pipes roaring and gushing out, like a vast wave of water vapor imprisoning a giant dragon, and his heart was filled with excitement.

"This is the power of humankind."

Standing beside the pipes, Amanosaki exclaimed from the bottom of his heart, "Countless beings as insignificant as myself have been able to create such structures that change the terrain and local climate. Humanity is truly amazing."

"Pay attention."

Icarus casually shattered Amanosaki's sentimentality, "This world is not Earth; there is no people's view of history here. What prevails here is the view of history as a hero. The greatest contributor to this project is not the people, but the foundation laid by several branch-level heroes."

"How do you know that this engineering hero is the biggest contributor?" Amanosaki looked at Icarus in surprise.

Icarus shrugged, picked up Amanosaki, and flew into the shaft: "You saw this news before, you just forgot, but your subconscious remembers, so I remember."

"Have it?"

“Of course, I also know the name of this sewer project.” Icarus led Amanosaki down, opened an unlocked metal gate, and crawled into an unusually narrow passage that could only accommodate three people walking side by side.

This is the maintenance access area.

In the long, deep, damp, and slippery inspection tunnel, which resembled the intestines of some kind of creature, Icarus's voice was ethereal and melodious.

"It is called 'Wujiandi' (无间地), which is taken from the name of the Avici Hell."

Her voice echoed through the pattering water and the shaft, becoming eerie instead.

Amanosaki and Icarus continued their conversation, and after several rounds of questioning, Amanosaki realized that he was indeed less sensible than Icarus, and couldn't help but sigh at how old people really are.

While they were talking, they had already passed through three shafts and gone down one more floor.

Water flows downhill. In order to save electricity for the sewage system that purifies the wastewater of millions of people, the entire purification system of Wujiandi follows the mechanism that the later the process is, the deeper it is underground.

Therefore, based on Icarus's detection of the river's water conditions, she determined that the Queen Fish would be located near the lowest layer of the Abyss.

Along the way, the two brushed past the knights of Fengdu several times, but each time they avoided conflict by hiding in advance thanks to the omnipotent war angel's detection ability.

Their smooth journey down the sewers took a turn when they arrived at a deep well.

"vomit!"

Amanosaki's well-tested nose finally caught the smell again, causing him to vomit.

"What the hell is this smell?! Isn't it supposed to get cleaner the further down you go?" Amanosaki's face turned green.

Icarus seemed much more at ease amidst the stench, or perhaps she simply lacked a sense of taste in the human sense, so even the most disgusting things didn't affect her.

“It’s the smell of rotting corpses,” she said. “Right down in the shaft.”

Icarus peeked out for two seconds, then solemnly withdrew and closed his eyes.

Then, the image that Icarus had imagined also appeared in Amanosaki's mind.

He exclaimed in surprise, "This superpower can be used like this?"

"I preprocessed my visual data so that you could see it; otherwise, you would only see some vague ideas."

"Icarus said calmly."

Amanosaki did not answer her question; his face was somewhat pale.

He swore he had never seen such a disgusting scene.

Below this shaft, there was originally a settling tank for the water after chemical filtration, which would then be used to discharge the purified water into the river along with other settling tanks.

But now the water in the entire shaft is a dark, blackish-red color.

Countless severed limbs of four-clawed fish floated in the water, interspersed with human clothing, which appeared to be uniforms worn by quality inspectors, repairmen, and security personnel in the Underworld. Amanosaki even spotted about ten sets of underworld messenger outfits from the Fengdu Swordsman.

The water temperature here is inexplicably high, and the corpses and blood soaking in it are decomposing at an extremely fast rate in the high temperature, emitting a strong stench.

But what is most unacceptable is that those four-clawed fish, in such filthy water, are engrossed in entanglement and mating, carrying out the most sacred mission since the birth of life: the transmission of genes.

Chapter 90: Purgatory

The olfactory nerve and the trigeminal nerve intertwine to transmit information, and strong nerve impulses warn Amanosaki's brain:

"This place is full of E. coli and pathogens. If you want to live, hold your breath and get the hell out of here."

For this reason, Amanosaki had to create a crystal mask by tearing open a shirt and stuffing it in to make a simple filter mask.

Although he won't be killed by these things now, the biological instinct of nausea and discomfort will still affect his subsequent actions.

"What should we do now?"

Icarus continued to gather information about the surrounding area, her mind filled with thoughts of how she could occupy the high ground of the shaft and exert her absolute advantage as the 'Queen of the Sky' from above.

"This shaft is too narrow; it can't accommodate the naval guns and full-load loading." Icarus looked worried, her delicate eyebrows furrowed, her long, flowing hair cascading over her shoulders, like a beautiful woman clutching her heart, making one's heart ache.

But her words were nothing like those of a gentle, delicate woman like Xi Shi or Lin Daiyu. Instead, they exuded the aura of a shrew like Sun Erniang, full of murderous intent, as if she were about to turn the beasts below into mincemeat and make them into buns that very night.

Amanosaki had to hold Icarus's shoulder to soothe the Sky Queen's claustrophobia in the confined space... or rather, her fear of insufficient firepower.

Stroking the smooth, jade-like shoulders of a beautiful woman, Amanosaki said in a deep voice, "Don't rush, is the underwater scan finished?"

"Hmm, those are all those strange fish down there, all engaged in reproductive activities... Can you smell the scent of photinia flowers?"

Amanosaki was taken aback: "I can only smell the stench of decay... By the way, is your nose that sensitive? You can even distinguish this kind of smell?"

"The water is full of fish eggs and the smell of them breeding," Icarus complained, frowning. "It's like walking into a hundred acres of heather."

"Stop talking." Amanosaki covered his mouth, feeling nauseous again.

This time it was purely psychological.

He clutched his neck, taking a while to catch his breath: "Next time I absolutely have to bring a tactical pack. It contains stimulants and tranquilizers. I overestimated my mental resilience."

"Back to the main topic, have you found any trace of the Queen Fish?"

"No."

Icarus gripped the edge of the pipe with one hand, his fingers digging deep into the concrete. He peered up, half his head out. "There's absolutely no sign of any large-scale biological activity. The concrete structure above and below the shaft is very stable, with no visible scratches on the surface. There are no overwhelming pheromones in the air, only..."

She glanced at Amanosaki and shrugged: "There are only pheromones of estrus everywhere, from the water to the air, even their calls."

"What kind of moaning is that?" Amanosaki muttered under his breath, feeling dejected. "Let's go somewhere else. We came down here to kill the Queen Fish. Without the Queen Fish, these beasts are just beasts. We can just fill the water with chemicals and they'll all die."

Icarus nodded, folded her wings, and was the first to climb out of the narrow pipe. Amanosaki adjusted the crystal, shaping it into a hook and nailing it into the wall, closely following the beauty as she crawled into another sewage pipe.

Calling these huge circular channels "pipes" might not be appropriate; their formal name should be "tunnels," as Amanosaki learned from the labeling of the quality inspection pipes.

The shaft where they were currently located was in the middle and lower reaches of the entire Wujian underground water system. The treated wastewater was randomly reused here, with most of it being discharged into the Yangtze River and a small portion entering the city's tap water system, becoming "reclaimed water" for irrigating greenery and washing streets in the city.

That is to say, there are one or two more floors below.

Amanosaki concluded that the Queen Fish should be there.

The two walked along the narrow passages on both sides of the tunnel, with the faint sound of water dripping from the dome and the rushing water under their feet. The further they went, the fainter the stench became.

The faint fragrance began to rise in density in the air.

Amanosaki walked for a few more minutes before suddenly stopping.

'What?' Icarus asked himself.