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Outside the window, the torrential rain poured down, and the raging thunder seemed to tear the dark night sky of Donghai City to shreds. Inside Su Wan's safe house, the air was oppressive and suffocating, with only the monotonous and rapid ticking of the digital clock on the wall.

Su Wan paced anxiously back and forth in the cramped living room, her hand gripping the walkie-talkie until it felt hot. Half an hour had passed since Li Haotian had single-handedly charged into the rainy night to draw away the relentless pursuers. Although she could hear gunshots and explosions in the distance every few minutes, proving he was still alive, Su Wan's unease grew wildly like weeds.

"Sister-in-law, don't go, I'm dizzy." Liu Hu leaned back on the sofa, a rough towel wrapped around his bleeding wound, but a nonchalant smile hung on his rough face. "The boss's life is as tough as a rock in a latrine, even the King of Hell wouldn't dare to take him, what are you worried about?"

Su Wan stopped in her tracks, about to retort, when Lin Mo, who had been as quiet as a statue in the corner, suddenly moved.

"Pen."

The voice was very soft, carrying an ethereal and indifferent quality as if it came from another world.

Su Wan and Liu Hu turned their heads at the same time, only to see Lin Mo slowly sit up straight from the shadows. His eyes, which had always shimmered with an eerie silver light, had regained some clarity, but deep within his pupils seemed to reflect some extremely complex geometric patterns, making it impossible for anyone to look directly at them.

"Give me a pen and some paper," Lin Mo repeated, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Su Wan paused for a moment, then quickly rummaged through the pile of clutter and pulled out a black pen and a few pages of discarded white paper, handing them over. Lin Mo took them with lightning speed; the moment his fingertips touched the paper, the pen began to dance wildly.

Her drawing was completely haphazard, as if she wasn't conceiving the idea with her brain, but rather being guided by some force to pour the images hidden in her mind directly onto the paper. The black lines spread like a spider web, intersecting, overlapping, and twisting, each stroke penetrating deep into the paper as if trying to tear the white paper apart.

"What kind of scribbling is this?" Liu Hu endured the pain and leaned closer, only to feel dizzy after just one glance.

Su Wan remained silent, her gaze fixed intently on Lin Mo's hands. As a former technician with Dragon Shield, she keenly observed that these seemingly chaotic lines actually possessed a high degree of mathematical regularity.

Ten minutes, just ten minutes.

Lin Mo abruptly stopped, the pen in her hand snapping against the table with a "crack." She gasped for breath, a fine layer of cold sweat beading on her forehead, as if painting had exhausted all her energy.

"The drawing... is finished." Lin Mo pushed the paper full of black lines in front of Su Wan, slumped back into the sofa, and closed his eyes.

Su Wan picked up the paper and laid it flat on the coffee table.

In the dim light, the two could see the entire picture. It wasn't an ordinary map; it was more like a three-dimensional anatomical diagram. Countless crisscrossing lines formed a huge funnel shape, and at the very bottom of the funnel, four ancient seal characters were clearly written—

[Entrance to the Imperial Mausoleum].

"An imperial tomb?" Liu Hu's eyes widened in disbelief. "There's an emperor buried beneath our Donghai City?"

Ignoring Liu Hu's exclamation, Su Wan quickly opened her portable computer and typed rapidly on the keyboard, bringing up satellite geological scans of Donghai City and its surrounding areas.

"This is more than just a map..." Su Wan murmured to herself, a hint of surprise and uncertainty flashing in her eyes. She digitized Lin Mo's hand-drawn map and then overlaid it on a satellite map.

The moment the two images overlapped, Su Wan's pupils contracted sharply.

On the screen, the complex lines drawn by Lin Mo perfectly matched the ancient water system, fault zone, and even an abandoned subway tunnel beneath Donghai City! The thick, dark lines, like a black dragon, meandered and coiled, ultimately pointing to the same place.

It is located 30 kilometers north of Donghai City.

There is a desolate mountain that the locals call "Ghost Cry Ridge". Legend has it that hundreds of years ago, it was an extremely luxurious royal garden, but it was destroyed by war and gradually fell into disrepair, becoming a mass grave.

"Sister Qin Yue, take a look at this!" Su Wan sent the composite image to Qin Yue, who was providing remote support, via walkie-talkie.

A few seconds later, Qin Yue gasped for breath over the communicator.

"Oh my god... Su Wan, look here." Qin Yue's voice trembled slightly as she zoomed in on the image, focusing on the underground structure of the desolate mountain.

On the satellite's heat map, a chilling secret was hidden beneath what appeared to be an ordinary, barren mountain.

The underground rock structure is not naturally formed, but rather exhibits an extremely regular and breathtaking geometric shape.

It was a perfect octagon.

"Qian, Kan, Gen, Zhen, Xun, Li, Kun, Dui..." Qin Yue's voice trembled with disbelief. "These are the eight trigrams! Moreover, it's not just an octagon; look at the distribution of these outer burial pits—it perfectly conforms to the regulations for an imperial mausoleum of the 'Supreme Ruler'!"

On the screen, the enormous octagon resembled an open giant eye, quietly lurking on the edge of the city, awaiting its awakening.

"What Lin Mo drew wasn't a roadmap." Su Wan felt a chill creep up her spine, her voice hoarse. "She depicted the world she saw in the mirror. In other words, the so-called 'god in the mirror' isn't actually in the underground drainage system, nor is it in that bronze mirror."

"It's waiting for us to open this door." Liu Hu stared at the red octagonal outline on the screen, his throat tightening. "We always thought we were fighting monsters, but it turns out we're being led by the nose to dig up a grave for the emperor... or whatever?"

Su Wan fell silent. She turned to look at Lin Mo on the sofa, whose eyes were still closed, but whose brows were tightly furrowed, as if he were fighting something terrifying in a nightmare.

The map's endpoint, marked "Entrance to the Imperial Tomb," is located at the entrance of a natural cave halfway up a desolate mountain. According to the route drawn by Lin Mo, that's the core node of the entire underground labyrinth, the central nervous system controlling the monsters in the mirror.

"If the satellite imagery is correct," Qin Yue's voice rang out again, tinged with urgency, "the 'air vent' of that octagonal underground palace is directly facing tonight's wind direction. Can't you hear it? The wind outside is actually blowing from that direction."

Su Wan was stunned. She listened intently. Amidst the roar of the torrential rain outside the window, there was indeed a faint sobbing sound, much like the weeping of countless wronged souls.

"I see..." Su Wan suddenly realized, her fingers gripping the corner of the table tightly. "No wonder all the previous clues pointed to the underground; those were just the outer defensive fortifications. The real 'eye' has always been hidden inside the imperial tomb."

Just then, a series of hurried and heavy footsteps suddenly came from the corridor outside the door.

Liu Hu tensed instantly, grabbed his pistol, and pointed it at the door. Su Wan also quickly drew the dagger from her waist.

The footsteps stopped at the door, and then a figure, soaking wet and covered in blood, burst through the door.

It's Li Haotian.

His tactical vest was torn, revealing several deep, bone-revealing scratches. Rainwater mixed with blood dripped from his hair onto the floor. But he still gripped the gun firmly in his hand, and a burning flame burned in his wolf-like eyes.

"Did you shake him off?" Su Wan quickly went to check on his injuries.

"I've shaken them off for now, but these bastards are more troublesome than I thought." Li Haotian panted heavily, casually tossing the empty magazine onto the table, but his gaze passed over Su Wan and landed on the map on the coffee table and the computer screen.

He stared at the perfect octagon for a full five seconds, then suddenly grinned, revealing his gleaming white teeth.

"I knew it..." Li Haotian wiped the rain off his face, his voice hoarse but tinged with ruthlessness, "I knew this wasn't going to be that simple. How many years has Donghai City been established? What's buried underground is probably much older than the city itself."

He pointed at the red dot on the screen, his eyes turning exceptionally fierce.

"Now that we've found the lair, let's stop talking nonsense." Li Haotian pulled a new magazine from his pocket, slammed it into the gun, making a crisp cocking sound. "Whether it's the tomb of an old emperor or the home of a demon in the mirror, tonight I'll turn it upside down."

Su Wan looked at Li Haotian's resolute back and then at the strange hand-drawn map, and her hesitation vanished instantly.

"Qin Yue, lock onto the coordinates," Su Wan said in a deep voice into the walkie-talkie.

"Coordinates confirmed. Target: Northern suburbs of Donghai City, the ruins of the Ghost Cry Ridge Royal Garden." Qin Yue responded quickly. "According to the geological scan, the magnetic field there is extremely unstable, and... I detected a large-scale energy fluctuation gathering, as if something is about to burst out of the ground."

"Looks like we've arrived just in time." Li Haotian grabbed the map from the table, stuffed it into his pocket, and turned to Lin Mo. "Wake up, lead the way."

Lin Mo slowly opened her eyes, her silver pupils gleaming eerily in the dim light. She stood up, said nothing, and walked straight to the door, as if the octagonal underground palace deep in the desolate mountains was emitting a summons that only she could hear.

Five people and a black cat once again rushed into the raging storm.

This time, they were no longer prey to be hunted, but rather launched a final assault on the underground imperial tomb that had slumbered for thousands of years, on the forbidden door that had been sealed away for centuries.

As night deepened, a twisted bolt of lightning struck down on the remote northern mountains, briefly illuminating the dark forest on the mountainside, as if a giant eye was slowly opening in the darkness.