The ancient return was exposed by his sister's live stream.

Ying Wenjie's pupils contracted sharply, and he instinctively hid in the crowd. He had practiced a little Taekwondo, but had never seen anything like this before.

Holy crap!

"Whoosh—" A crisp, clean sound pierced the air as a silver light flashed past from the side. The sword light was sharp, and the mosquito's body was severed in mid-air, falling onto fallen leaves, its dark green fluid splattering all over the ground.

The wings were still flapping, emitting a few last buzzes, when Qin Xiaoyu sheathed her sword with a swift and decisive movement.

With a calm expression on her refined face, Qin Xiaoyu turned to look at Ying Wenjie, who was hiding behind her, and teased with a smile, "Young Master Ying, it's just a mosquito. You dodged it faster than my mouse saw a cat."

Ying Wenjie gave an awkward laugh. "I don't want to get pricked."

Wu Qingya squatted down and poked at the dead mosquito with a stick. Its mouthparts were three inches long and as hard as iron, and the patterns on its wings were several times coarser than those of an ordinary mosquito, resembling a complex map.

"Keep going." He stood up.

Along the way, we encountered several more mutated insects... a beetle the size of a fist, a spider the size of a washbasin, and a centipede the length of an arm.

They are all dozens or even hundreds of times larger than normal size.

Wu Qingya and his team dealt with several of them using melee weapons, while Qin Xiaoyu, Ye Chendong, and Wu Tian also participated in the fight. Ying Wenjie couldn't help and could only stand behind, holding up the detection device as a human support.

The most dangerous creature was a giant python. It was thicker than an adult's waist, covered in dark green scales, coiled in the middle of the road, its triangular head raised, its black tongue flicking out.

The short sword pierced the python's scales, but only left a shallow white mark, without even breaking through the skin!

Wu Qingya made a decisive decision without hesitation, ordering his team behind him: "Armor-piercing rounds! Aim for its eyes! Finish it quickly!"

"Bang! Bang!"

Two deafening gunshots echoed through the mountains and forests.

The specially designed armor-piercing bullets have extremely high penetrating power and accurately hit the giant python's eyes!

"hiss--!!!"

The giant python let out a deafening roar, its massive body thrashing and twisting wildly, smashing through swathes of ancient trees, sending mud and leaves flying everywhere, before finally coming to a complete stop after a long while.

Ying Wenjie squatted down, poked the giant python's corpse with a twig, and swallowed hard: "It's about the same size as the pythons underground in Suzhou."

Wu Qingya said in a deep voice, "Even on the outskirts, there are such powerful beasts. The further we go into the core, the greater the danger will be. Don't let your guard down, and pay attention to your surroundings."

The forest grew denser. The deeper we went, the more orderly the growth of the ancient trees became.

No longer the chaotic, unruly growth of wild forests, but rather symmetrical and neatly arranged, with each tree perfectly spaced, thick, and facing the same direction, as if carefully planned and planted by hand.

Sunlight filters through layers of leaves, casting dappled shadows. On the decaying leaves on the ground, the ancient stone patterns, covered by time and soil, are faintly visible.

"Stop!" Qin Xiaoyu suddenly shouted. Everyone stopped at the same time. Wu Qingya turned around to look at her, and the other team members also turned around.

Qin Xiaoyu didn't look at them. She looked around, her brows furrowed slightly, then turned and walked to a tree, squatting down.

"We've been here before," she said with certainty.

He reached out and touched the marks on the tree trunk. "Look, these are the marks I made with my sword. There are also footprints below, those are ours too."

When everyone looked down, they saw that the fallen leaves on the ground did indeed show signs of being trampled, and the patterns on the soles of the shoes matched those on their boots.

Wu Tian squatted down to check, then stood up and said, "Sister Qin, could we have taken the wrong path? The mountain paths are all pretty much the same..."

Qin Xiaoyu shook her head, walked to another tree, and pointed to the trunk: "This is the second mark I made. I also remember this tree."

Wu Qingya took out a roll of red warning tape from his tactical backpack and tied it to a tree branch: "Keep moving forward and mark the way as you go."

They walked for a long time, passing several oddly shaped pine trees and crossing a dry stream.

Another tree appeared ahead, its branches tied with red warning tape... the very same tree Wu Qingya had just tied. Everyone fell silent for a few seconds.

Wu Qingya turned to Qin Xiaoyu: "Can you tell what it is?"

Qin Xiaoyu walked to the front of the line and took out a bronze compass from her bag. The compass needle was trembling slightly. She looked down at it, then looked up at the surrounding trees and light.

Qin Xiaoyu slowly looked around and said, "It's a type of Bagua formation. This forest didn't grow naturally; it was planted by humans according to the art of Qimen Dunjia, forming a trap, a branch of the Bagua maze."

Her voice was soft as she pondered, "Using the arrangement of trees and the direction of the mountain, people are led astray without realizing it. What appears to be a straight line is actually a continuous loop."

She adjusted the compass, walked a few steps southeast, stopped, adjusted it again, and walked a few more steps. After repeating this several times, she finally found a spot where the compass needle stabilized.

"Follow me, Qian, Kun, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Li, Gen, Dui, the eight gates are misaligned, the key to the formation is the East Gate of Life..." she whispered the incantation.

This time, no two warning tapes were the same. The forest began to thin out, and the tree species were subtly changing. From a tangled mix of shrubs and pines, it had become neat rows of ginkgo and cypress trees.

The trees are spaced almost evenly, as if they had been measured. Some trees are noticeably thicker and older than the ones around them, with symbols carved on their trunks, but not modern graffiti; rather, they are ancient, intricate patterns.

Wu Qingya reached out and touched the symbols on the tree trunk. Thousands of years of wind and frost had blurred them, but traces of human carving were still visible.

He glanced back at the path he had come from, where the tangled pine trees and shrubs contrasted sharply with the ancient trees before him.

Passing through the ginkgo forest, a stone gate appeared before us. Behind the stone gate was a group of buildings half-buried in the mountain. The walls were made of grayish-blue boulders, with thick vines growing from the cracks between the stones, and most of the roof had collapsed.

At the edge of the dense forest lies an ancient site buried deep within the mountains, sealed away for countless years.

"Ancient ruins." Wu Tian's sharp eyes swept over the area around the ruins, confirming that there were no lurking beasts. He said in a low voice, "Such a massive ancient ruin, the authorities have explored it so many times, yet they haven't discovered this place."

Wu Qingya ordered his team: "Be on guard! Spread out and explore carefully. Do not touch any stone carvings or statues to avoid triggering traps!"

The intelligence officers quickly dispersed, advancing in a fan shape. Qin Xiaoyu, Ye Chendong, Wu Tian, ​​and Ying Wenjie followed behind. The ground was littered with rubble and broken pottery, and covered mostly with moss.

The further they went in, the more shocked they became.