The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

He Lin frowned. She stared at the area where the air was distorted, her senses operating at full power. She could feel some kind of spatial fluctuation there, as if something had sliced ​​a small piece of space out of this world and folded it into some unknown dimension.

She had seen rumors about the secret realm in the public chat; some people had gone in and came out with significant improvements in level, equipment, and skills. But their descriptions were all vague; no one had given a detailed account of what it was like inside.

"Could it be that person from before?" He Lin asked, her voice soft but loud enough for Zhang Peng to hear. "If that person is also nearby and has entered this secret realm... if we rush in, what if we encounter them inside..."

"What we encountered might not even be human," Zhao Qiang interrupted her, his tone much faster than usual. "Those wounds we saw earlier could have been left by some kind of animal with sharp weapons. Besides, this secret realm is right here. We've come this far; are we just going to give up?"

He Lin glanced at him but didn't reply. She looked at her teammates, then at Zhao Gang and Zhao Qiang's team, and finally at Zhang Peng.

Zhang Peng didn't speak. He walked to the area where the air was distorted, reached out, and touched the silvery-white ripples.

A system notification popped up. He didn't say what the notification said, but his expression gave the answer... His eyes lit up for a moment, then quickly returned to their usual calm and unfathomable state.

"Vote," Zhang Peng said. "The minority must submit to the majority."

He Lin voted against it. The three people behind her also voted against it. A Qing hesitated for a moment, then also voted against it.

Five votes.

Zhao Qiang was the first to vote in favor. Zhao Gang was silent for a moment, glanced at his younger brother, and then also voted in favor. The remaining two members of their team followed suit. Four votes.

Zhang Peng himself voted in favor. The remaining twelve people in his team all voted in favor.

The number of votes in favor exceeded the number of votes against.

He Lin didn't say anything more.

She put her backpack back on, drew her weapon from her waist, held it in her hand, and was the first to step into the area where the air was distorted.

The others followed behind, one after another, and were swallowed up by the silvery-white light.

The artificial hills have returned to quiet.

The ripples in the air were still there, but the silvery light was slowly fading, as if something was shutting down.

......

The moment the light completely disappeared, Su Mu felt as if he had fallen into a deep well.

There was solid ground beneath my feet, but my field of vision was pitch black. It wasn't the kind of black that has moonlight or starlight at night, but a pure, thick darkness, as if it had been materialized by something.

It was pitch black; you couldn't even see your own hand in front of your face. There was no wind, no smell, no sound; it was as quiet as being buried in a tomb.

"Su Mu?" Lin Yuwei's voice came from less than two meters to her right, low and tinged with instinctive wariness. "Did you call me here because this secret realm needs me for something? Like... my stealth ability?"

Su Mu rolled his eyes in the darkness.

When will this woman let her guard down? He wanted to explain... that there needed to be at least two people inside, and that he called you in because you were nearby, nothing more.

But he swallowed the words back. Why say all this? Letting her know he couldn't get in alone and that's why he called her—wasn't that just giving her leverage? Knowing her personality, she could bring this up and use it repeatedly whenever there was a need to negotiate.

"Speak less. Be careful," Su Mu said.

Lin Yuwei didn't press further. Light footsteps echoed in the darkness, likely as she checked her surroundings. After a few seconds of silence, she spoke again, this time phrasing her question: "This secret realm... what exactly is going on? Did you know anything about it before?"

Su Mu was speechless.

How could he know? The daily intelligence only told him that there was a secret realm here, but not what it looked like inside. He only pieced together what the secret realm was for from snippets of information on the public channel... Some people said it was like a dungeon, some said there were monsters, some said there was treasure, all sorts of things, but none of them were reliable first-hand information.

"Speak less. Be careful." Su Mu repeated.

Lin Yuwei didn't ask any more questions.

But Su Mu heard her sigh softly in the darkness, her tone carrying something indescribable... like regret, or perhaps self-mockery.

She wondered how she ended up here.

She knew nothing about what the secret realm was, what was inside, or how dangerous it was. When Su Mu asked, "Want to go into the secret realm?", she returned without even hesitating.

When did I start trusting him so much?

Su Mu didn't have mind-reading abilities, so he didn't know what Lin Yuwei was thinking.

He was surveying his surroundings, trying to glean some useful information from the thick darkness. Calling it a secret realm didn't quite ring a bell; his first impression was more like an enlarged basketball court... The space wasn't large, and the ground beneath his feet was flat, like stone slabs, making no echo when he stepped on it. In the very center, he could vaguely make out a square outline, like a table. Other than that, there was nothing.

There were no monsters, no traps, nothing that he had imagined a "secret realm should have."

Just as he was wondering, the darkness suddenly split open.

A lamp lit up. Not from overhead, not from the surroundings, but seemingly appearing out of nothingness, suspended in mid-air, emitting a soft, warm yellow glow. Then came a second, a third, a fourth… one after another, lighting up along the edge of the space, like someone lighting a string of lanterns with invisible strings in the darkness. The light dispelled the thick darkness, illuminating the entire space.

Su Mu finally saw the place clearly.

Just as he had expected, the space was small, about thirty or forty meters long and wide, and less than ten meters high. The four walls were smooth, grayish-white stone walls, without doors or windows, and without any decoration. The floor was paved with neat stone slabs, the gaps between the slabs so narrow that even a knife blade could not be inserted.

There was indeed a stone table in the very center, square and smooth as a mirror, with something on it covered by a black velvet cloth.

Behind the table, someone had appeared at some point.