Awakening the Phoenix Flow System after the breakup, I'm so happy!

The shriek brought all four of them to a complete halt.

Shen Man cocked her pistol and pointed it at the dark entrance.

Zhao Gang and Li Qiang also raised their guns and stood back to back in a tactical defensive stance.

I waited for a full minute.

Apart from the occasional dripping sound from below, that strange friction sound never reappeared.

Chen Yang patted the dust off his hands, breaking the oppressive silence.

"Alright, that thing has already climbed far away along the pipe. It just came over to say hello."

"The area below is much larger than what you drew on your blueprints."

"It's probably an underground river channel that was carved out by groundwater over the past few decades, and these Black Feather bastards just happened to use it as their lair."

Shen Man looked at him and asked in a low voice.

"Can you tell what that is? Is it the mutant dog you mentioned before?"

Chen Yang shook his head.

"Mutant dogs don't have claws that sharp. To make that kind of noise on a steel plate, it has to be at least as big as a cow."

"Let's go. Now that we've taken your money, we're going to wade through this mess to the end."

"However, I have to change the rules. You two step back, Commander Shen, follow me, and I'll go first."

This time, Zhao Gang didn't dare to argue and obediently retreated to the back.

Chen Yang climbed down the iron ladder directly.

This ladder is so old that every step on it produces a terrifying creaking sound.

After climbing down about ten meters, I finally stepped onto solid ground.

The passageway was pitch black; even a flashlight beam couldn't illuminate more than five meters away.

The air was very stuffy, and the walls were covered in wet droplets.

Shen Man followed Chen Yang downstairs.

She had just steadied herself when she stepped on something slippery, and her body swayed and she fell to the side.

Chen Yang reacted quickly, turning around and grabbing her slender, supple waist.

He caught her steadily in his arms.

"Commander Shen, this road is difficult to walk on. It's not a good habit for you to be in such a hurry to snuggle into my arms."

Shen Man pushed his hand away, her face burning in the darkness.

"Shut up, stop being a scoundrel, and watch where you're going."

The passageway here is unusually narrow.

It's only about a meter wide, and it's a bit difficult for two people to walk side by side.

Chen Yang walked in front, and Shen Man followed closely behind him.

This passage isn't even straight; it twists and turns.

If Chen Yang pauses even slightly, Shen Man's chest will directly collide with his back.

After being hit three or four times in a row.

Chen Yang simply slowed down.

"Commander Shen, if you're scared, just say so. You can pull me away by my clothes."

"You keep pressing your 'weapon' against my back, and I can't concentrate for long. What if there's a trap in front of me? I won't be able to react in time."

Enraged, Shen Man nudged him in the back with the butt of her gun.

"Is this the kind of low-class stuff you're thinking? Get out of here."

Zhao Gang and Li Qiang, who were following at the back, were both speechless.

These tough guys, who had risked their lives countless times, simply couldn't understand why the two people in front of them were still in the mood to flirt.

We walked forward for about fifty or sixty meters.

The passageway suddenly opened up into a spacious area.

A large underground hall, roughly the size of a basketball court, appeared.

The hall was surrounded by many huge boxes covered with green waterproof tarpaulins.

There were also many messy power lines hanging overhead, connecting to several small generators.

It appears that this place has been transformed into a temporary supply depot by the Black Feathers.

Li Qiang immediately ran over and lifted the waterproof tarpaulin on a box.

He used a crowbar to pry open the lid of the wooden crate and shone a flashlight inside.

"Sir, they are all high-precision centrifuges and biological culture tanks."

"These items are prohibited from being traded on the international black market. How did they manage to smuggle them into Jiangcheng?"

Shen Man walked to a table made of several wooden crates put together.

There were many drawings and documents scattered on the table.

She picked up one of the papers and examined it closely by the light.

Chen Yang leaned closer and put his head over her shoulder to look.

The drawings were full of strange symbols and topographic contour lines.

It's not a building plan for a biological laboratory at all.

Shen Man flipped through a few pages, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

"Something's not right. This doesn't look like blueprints for building a laboratory."

"These routes all point deeper underground; they're digging for something."

Chen Yang glanced at the logo in the corner of the drawing.

It was the black feather he had seen on the bronze goblet in the Qin family's old house.

However, below this logo, there is a miniature pattern resembling a Bagua (Eight Trigrams) formation.

He pointed to the Bagua diagram with his finger.

"Has your Special Investigations Bureau gotten this wrong?"

"These foreigners don't know anything about biological experiments. I think they're just looking for prime real estate locations."

"The picture clearly shows an inverted Yin-gathering formation. In ancient times, this kind of formation was used to raise corpses or suppress evil spirits."

Shen Man turned to look at him.

"You also know about feng shui."

Chen Yang shrugged.

"I know a little bit about it; my old profession is telling fortunes and feng shui at a street stall."

"According to this map, they intend to use the unique terrain here to draw all the yin energy of the entire Jiangcheng city into the depths of this underground place."

"This is a huge undertaking. If there was anything down there, it would probably have been fed by now."

Just as the two were studying the blueprints.

Zhao Gang, who was on guard duty on the perimeter, shouted.

"Watch out, there's a tripwire under your feet."

But it was too late.

When Li Qiang stepped back, his heel caught on a thin, transparent thread hidden in the dust on the ground.

Two crisp clicks of mechanisms echoed through the silent hall.

A huge iron cage that used to hang from the top of the hall has lost its traction.

With a whistling sound, it crashed straight down on the spot where Shen Man and Chen Yang were standing.

This cage is made entirely of rebar as thick as a thumb; if it were to hit you, you would be seriously injured, if not killed.

Shen Man had no time to dodge; she didn't even have time to look up.

Chen Yang didn't even look up.

He wrapped one arm around Shen Man's waist and took a strange step.

He was like a slippery eel.

He forcibly moved Shen Man more than three meters to the side.

A tremendous sound exploded in my ears.

The iron cage slammed down on the spot where they had just been standing, smashing the wooden crate that had been serving as a table to pieces.

The enormous impact kicked up clouds of dust.

Shen Man was held tightly in Chen Yang's arms and was not harmed at all.

She was about to push Chen Yang away and say thank you.

A heavy, piercing mechanical clanging sound came from the direction of the entrance we came from in the hall.

Li Qiang ran over and took a look; his face turned deathly pale.

"Sir, this is bad. Our retreat is blocked by a thick iron gate with lead cores that is at least half a meter thick."

"My communicator has also lost signal; we've completely lost contact with our superiors."

The lights in the entire underground hall flickered a few times.

Those backup generators shut down immediately.

The hall was plunged into complete darkness, where one could not see their own hand in front of their face.

Chen Yang pulled Shen Man behind him.

He could sense several chilling auras approaching from the darkness.

Moreover, it was accompanied by a heavy, eerie breathing sound, like a broken bellows.

Chen Yang patted Shen Man's hand that was wrapped around his waist.

"Is this air-raid shelter always this lively, Commander Shen?"

"This is really troublesome."