The Demon King is back, leading adorable kids on an adventure around the world!

Niannian walked in along the side passage.

The passage was narrower than before, and the rock walls on both sides were rough and showed no signs of having been repaired.

It appears to be naturally formed, but the edges of the rocks at the corners show obvious wear, as if it has been used frequently.

After walking about several dozen steps, the passage began to widen, and light shone from the end of the passage. It wasn't blue, but a warmer color.

At the end of the passageway was a small hall, much smaller than the main hall, but with a neat layout.

The ground was flat, and several glowing minerals were embedded in the surrounding stone walls, casting a soft light.

A person stood in the center of the small hall, with his back to the entrance, looking down at a scroll in his hand.

The man turned around at the sound of footsteps. He was a young man dressed in a dark blue robe with a short knife hanging at his waist.

He held a yellowed animal hide in his hand, the edges rolled up, revealing lines drawn on it, like a map.

Niannian paused at the entrance of the passage, and Xiaoxiao stopped behind her as well.

The young man glanced at Niannian, then his gaze swept over Xiaojin, Luo Nannan, and Qiqi Qianqian who appeared behind her one after another. As if confirming that there weren't many people, he remained silent.

"Is this what you got?" Niannian stood at the entrance of the passage and gestured with her chin toward the animal hide in his hand.

The young man looked at the animal hide in his hand, then at Niannian, and did not answer.

He rolled up the animal hide and tucked it into his robes, his hand already resting on the hilt of the short sword at his waist when he pulled it out.

"I've taken these things first. You can find the rest yourselves, okay?"

"No objection," Niannian said. "I was just asking."

She neither moved forward nor backward, but stood at the entrance of the passage.

The young man looked at her, then released the hilt of his knife after a few breaths, turned and took a few steps toward the exit on the other side of the small hall.

Niannian spoke again from behind him:

"Is this a map of this secret realm?"

The young man stopped and turned his head:

How did you know it was a map?

Niannian said, "I saw it when you rolled it up just now. There were winding lines on it, and the style is a bit like the murals on the wall of the entrance hall."

The young man was silent for a moment, as if pondering how a child could possess such observational skills:

"It's a map, but only half of it. The other half should be somewhere else."

He finished speaking and left, exiting through the passage opposite. His footsteps bounced a few times on the rock wall before disappearing.

Niannian didn't chase after him. She stood there, not immediately looking away, but instead looked along the passage opposite the person for a while, as if confirming the location.

Xiao Jin walked up to her and asked, "How do you know he wasn't taking something else?"

Niannian said, "There was ash on the back of his hand, and the ash on the edge of the stone platform was the same color." Xiao Jin didn't ask any further questions.

Apart from the stone table and the glowing minerals embedded in the wall, there was nothing else in the small hall.

After walking around for a short while, she stopped and squatted down in the corner of the wall, brushing away a thin layer of dust on the ground to reveal a small area with carved marks underneath.

The engraving is shallow and has been mostly worn away, but you can still make out that it is an arc and a few blurry symbols.

Niannian also squatted down to look, then looked up at several corners on the other side of the small hall, walked over and brushed away some accumulated dust, and found similar marks on the other corner.

"It should be some kind of mark," Xiao Xiao said. "It could be left by someone who went in before, or it could be a trace of the secret realm itself."

Niannian stood up and clapped her hands: "Let's remember the location first, and we'll talk about it when we leave."

She walked to the entrance of the passageway opposite the small hall, turned sideways and glanced inside. There was no light in the depths of the passageway, and she couldn't see the end.

She didn't go in; she came back.

"The person who took the map should be heading in the right direction. Since he's been here before, he should know the way."

Xiao Xiao didn't argue, and said to Niannian, "Let's go back first, familiarize ourselves with the route outside, and then decide on the next step."

Without hesitation, she turned around and walked back the way she came.

Everyone else followed her out of the passage and back into the rotunda. In the main hall, the people were either standing or squatting by the entrance to the cave. Some were looking at the murals in the corner, while others were talking in hushed tones.

Niannian quickly crossed the hall and squeezed out through the crack in the entrance.

Back on the ground, the clouds in the sky were thinner than when we arrived.

She stood at the edge of the valley and glanced back at the crack. The blue light emanating from the crack was a little dimmer than when she went in, as if the light source below was slowly fading.

She glanced into the distance again; the young man with the map should already be out of sight.

She found a flat rock to sit on, cleared away the pebbles around her feet, and Xiaoxiao sat down as well.

Niannian sat for a while, then lowered her head and began to draw arcs on the ground, as if she wanted to rewrite the two arcs she had just seen in her mind to see if there were any details that had been missed.

In the distance, a dark shadow slowly moved across the horizon at the edge of twilight.

It was like a barely noticeable crack repeatedly opening and closing at the bottom of the clouds, moving slowly.

She stopped and looked for a while, and then the shadow disappeared again.

Niannian watched for a while, her gaze lingering for a moment on the dark shadow that had already disappeared on the horizon.

After waiting for a while and not seeing it reappear, I lowered my head and drew another arc on the ground. The moment the arc landed, it stopped at a position slightly to the left.

She stared at the end of the line for a while, then wiped it away with her finger.

The wind blew, covering the marks on the ground with a thin layer of fine sand.

It's as if that arc is being filled back in by the sand, disappearing little by little.

She looked down, then stood up and dusted off her hands:

"Let's go back first."

She glanced in the direction of the line: "Let's stop here for today, and see how things go tomorrow."

She turned and walked back the way she came, her pace quickening slightly as if she were rushing to catch something.

The others followed her, the light at the edge of the valley was fading, and the people who had gathered around the crevice were gradually dispersing.

Like mudflats left behind when the tide recedes, their outlines gradually becoming blurred as night falls.