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Chapter 425 Mechanism
Zhu Yu was startled. He looked down at the ground and discovered that the ground here actually had a slope that was not easy to notice. It was lower towards the door and slightly higher towards the tunnel entrance.

She was standing by the door, almost at the lowest point, so the flowing sand quickly gathered at her feet, rising from her ankles to her calves in the blink of an eye.

If he doesn't move now and is buried higher and higher, Zhu Yu's legs will soon be completely trapped in the quicksand and he will be unable to move. He will be buried helplessly and eventually suffocate to death.

Zhu Yu dared not hesitate any longer and had no choice but to try his best to move towards the tunnel entrance.

The ground was covered in quicksand, making it difficult to walk without sinking deep into it. The sand flowing beneath her feet, along with the hem of her skirt being weighed down by the quicksand, added to the resistance she faced.

At that moment, Zhu Yu felt particularly annoyed that he had to dress as a woman to sneak into this small mountain building.

If it were like before, wearing a Taoist robe, or like in the capital, dressed as a Confucian scholar, it would be much more convenient now.

As she struggled to move to slightly higher ground, she was torn between whether or not to ruthlessly tear off the hem of her skirt.

But she quickly gave up on the idea.

With no idea what awaits them ahead, it would be unwise to rashly tear off their skirt, exposing their legs to nothing more than a thin layer of underwear.

Facing a tunnel that leads to an unknown destination, it offers neither warmth nor sturdiness.

After much effort, Zhu Yu finally reached the entrance of the tunnel. The quicksand around her slowed down, allowing her to catch her breath and lean against the entrance for a while.

She looked down at the skirt she was wearing, reached out and tugged at the hem. She found that although the skirt was tattered and old, the hem was quite wide. She immediately made up her mind, bent down and tore the front and back pieces of the skirt in half from the middle, tied them together piece by piece on the inside of her thighs, and forcibly turned a cloth skirt into a pair of trousers.

Looking back, the quicksand finally stopped pouring down from above, and behind her was a huge sand dune. The spot where she had stood was indeed piled up to be almost as tall as a person.

If Zhu Yu hadn't escaped in time, and had hesitated even a little longer, he would have been submerged by now.

Zhu Yu felt a little frightened. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down and consider her next move.

The damp, chilly air carried a faint, but distinct, smell of blood.

She sniffed carefully again and indeed there was a faint, almost imperceptible smell of blood, but apart from that, there was only a damp, mixed odor, without a trace of putridity.

There was a bloody smell, but no putrid smell... Zhu Yu felt inexplicably uneasy.

This is definitely a place where people have died, and judging from the attitude of Granny Shi and her two guards, they were unwilling to take another step inside. This means that there must be many dangerous traps or even ferocious beasts hidden in this tunnel that could take lives...

But why is there only a bloody smell and no rotting smell? Is it because it's so cold and damp inside that the corpses don't decompose, or is it that those who came in eventually became food or chew toys for some unknown creature...?

Zhu Yu shuddered.

When the two of them made the decision, she was more worried about Yan Daoxin who was staying behind, wondering if he could handle it.

But now... she had no time to consider those things. After all, whether what lay ahead was a path to life or a path to death was still unknown.

But her intuition told her that, judging from what had just happened, the tunnel's traps were extremely malicious and would not leave anyone the chance to hide at the entrance and stop there.

So at this moment, what she needs to consider most is what she should do when the next step is right in front of her.

There was also a dim light in the tunnel ahead, and it seemed that there was an ever-burning lamp on the wall at intervals.

However, the light there was even dimmer than the torches here, making it very difficult to see anything clearly ahead.

Zhu Yu looked around, and apart from the fine sand under her feet, there was nothing else around, not even a small stick.

She always felt that it was no easy task for the quicksand to force people in; the seemingly calm, narrow passage ahead might hold some hidden secrets.

Zhu Yu crouched down and carefully examined the road ahead in the dim light. Slowly, she actually managed to see a clue.

Looking closely at the earthen walls on both sides, the surface doesn't seem particularly smooth. If you squat down and look at the ground, it appears at first glance to be a rammed earth surface, but upon closer inspection, it's not hard to see that it's actually a layer of soil covering the stone-paved path.

Zhu Yu noticed that the soil on the stone-paved road was slightly darker in some places and slightly lighter in others, which made her want to take a closer look to see if there was anything special about it.

However, the light was so dim that it was difficult to see clearly.

Just as Zhu Yu was squinting and carefully staring at the road ahead, something suddenly touched her heel, startling her. She quickly turned her head to look behind her, only to find that the quicksand behind her had started falling again, and at an even faster speed than before.

Seeing the mountain of quicksand behind him beginning to collapse toward the tunnel entrance, Zhu Yu's heart tightened. With no other choice, he had to run forward, trying to avoid the surging "sand waves" behind him.

During the run, she suddenly felt a slightly soft spot under her feet, but because she was running so fast, she had already passed it by the time she realized it.

Just as she ran past, a force suddenly tugged at her trouser leg, causing her to stumble and fall to the ground.

Zhu Yu dared not delay and hurriedly turned around to check, only to see that the quicksand behind him seemed to have stopped flowing again.

What had just "tugged" at his trouser leg was nothing other than an iron needle that was about three inches long.

The iron needle seemed to have shot out from a small hole in the opposite wall, and now it was firmly embedded in the earthen wall next to Zhu Yu, also pinning down the trouser leg that Zhu Yu had just made from her skirt.

Seeing the trouser leg nailed shut, Zhu Yu felt a chill run down his spine.

If I hadn't lingered too long at the entrance, been startled by the second gust of quicksand, and run away at breakneck speed, if I had been walking slowly and unhurriedly...

If someone had just stepped on the trap, their calf might have been the one pierced by the arrow!