I started on a rocking horse and relied on watching ads to dominate the highway survival charts.

The stone gate remained completely still.

Huo Yunzhi took a half step back, staring at the groove on the door, feeling as if she had seen it somewhere before.

After a while, Huo Yunzhi took out the life-bound scale that the merman had given her from the backpack compartment.

She placed the scales on the groove and compared them, finding that the size and shape of the scales matched the round hole at the end of the groove almost perfectly.

Adhering to the principle that since she was already here, it was always worth a try, Huo Yunzhi pressed the scales into the round hole.

As soon as the scales were embedded, a fine, crisp sound rang out. Inside the stone door, the "click-clack" of gears turning came from the inside. A crack appeared in the center, and then the entire door slowly slid inward.

A bluish-green light poured out from behind the door, making Huo Yunzhi almost unable to open her eyes.

Once the light faded, Huo Yunzhi had the red silk ribbons surrounding her, and then, holding the Red Lotus Fire Spear, cautiously entered the room.

The interior decoration resembles a small palace.

The Tide Sound Bead hangs in the very center, with golden threads flowing slowly inside the translucent, moon-white sphere.

Perhaps sensing someone's presence, the Tide Sound Bead emitted extremely low-frequency vibrations, which traveled through the water and made Huo Yunzhi's chest feel numb.

She didn't dare to linger and quickly walked around the stone table at her feet.

Upon arriving at the side of the Tide Sound Pearl, Huo Yunzhi immediately spotted the large seashell on the ground.

Several of the thin fritillary bulb slices were already cracked and about to fall apart.

Huo Yunzhi carefully pried open the shell, and where the shell meat should have been, lay a key.

The key resembled an elongated fishbone, with its joints ground into serrated edges and a dark red string tied to the end.

She pulled out the key and clenched it in her palm, and the Tide Sound Bead suddenly emitted a "humming" sound.

The golden threads inside the bead began to spin wildly, and the moon-white color suddenly turned deep red.

A sharp screech erupted from the very center of the bead, sending Huo Yunzhi flying with a tangible shockwave. Her back slammed heavily against the stone wall before bouncing back to the ground.

She lay on the ground and coughed twice, a metallic taste rising in her mouth.

When she looked up, the entire old mine layer was shaking, and rocks above her head began to fall, with fist-sized boulders hitting the broken seashells around her and sparking.

The surface of the Tide Sound Bead is cracked with spiderweb-like patterns, and deep red light leaks out from the cracks. Every time a ray of light leaks out, the ground shakes violently.

The cracks in the stone wall spread outwards from where the Tide Sound Bead was, growing denser and denser like branches sprouting from a tree trunk.

Huo Yunzhi pushed herself up from the ground, her knees trembling with pain.

The key was still clutched in her hand, the dark red string digging into her fingers.

She looked up at the direction of the stone door, which was already half closed, the gap so narrow that it was difficult to squeeze through even sideways.

Just then, as if it had discovered that Huo Yunzhi was still alive, the Tide Sound Pearl made another sound.

This sound was even sharper than before, as if something hooked itself was drilling into Huo Yunzhi's ear canal, like something was pulling at the tendons in her brain.

A large crack appeared in the stone wall behind them, and rubble and shell fragments poured down from the dome.

Huo Yunzhi gritted her teeth and tried to rush out, but was blocked by falling debris.

Finally, just as a rock half the height of a person was about to smash down on Huo Yunzhi's head, the red ribbon suddenly swelled to tens of meters, tightly enveloping Huo Yunzhi from head to toe.

The golden ring that was originally draped over the red ribbon was instantly placed under Huo Yunzhi's feet, attempting to help her stop the falling pebbles and shells.

Huo Yunzhi huddled in the red silk cloth, drank the potion made by Xu Xiu, and pressed her knees against her chest, trying to calm her breathing and wait for her wounds to heal.

After waiting for about twenty minutes, the shaking outside gradually subsided.

The Crimson Lotus Fire Spear floated in mid-air and poked at the Red Silk.

The red ribbon remained unmoved.

Enraged, Red Lotus spit out a few mouthfuls of fire with its musket, then circled the red silk "bag" a few times before finally finding a scrap of cloth at one end of the silk.

With a forceful flick, the red ribbon was pulled so hard that it spun around on the spot.

The red ribbon began to unfold layer by layer from the top of Huo Yunzhi's head, as if a blanket had been pulled off.

Huo Yunzhi squinted and looked up. What she saw was a ground covered with rubble and broken shells. The original outline of the stone gate had completely collapsed, and rough stones had piled up into a small hill, blocking the way.

She pushed herself up and discovered that after the collapse ended, an even older layer of stone slabs was exposed beneath the ground.

The entire stone slab is bluish in color and has fine patterns carved on its surface.

Huo Yunzhi squatted down and touched the patterns. Unlike the merman script on the stone pillars and doors, these patterns were more like some kind of design, with concentric circles inside each other and a white dot the size of a grain of rice embedded in the center, like a mark used to mark directions on a nautical chart.

She followed the concentric circles and looked ahead. The patterns extended for about ten steps before disappearing, replaced by a narrow crack.

The fissure was about half a person's width, extending from the ground all the way to the dome, with smooth edges as if it had been cleaved open by something.

Huo Yunzhi picked up a fist-sized piece of gravel and threw it into the crack.

The sound of the stone hitting the ground quickly returned. Huo Yunzhi did a quick calculation and found that the crack was not deep, probably about twenty or thirty meters deep.

She probed further inside with her Qi Sea (a point on the back of the body).

In her field of vision, she saw a cavity behind the crack.

The cavity was small, about the size of a small room, and there were no living creatures or obvious mechanisms inside.

Looking at the sealed gate, Huo Yunzhi hesitated for a moment, but decided to go and take a look anyway.

She turned sideways and squeezed into the crevice. After walking for five or six minutes, the space suddenly became spacious, and she fell into a small, round stone chamber.

The stone chamber is about three meters in diameter, and its four walls are polished smooth without any carvings or patterns.

A bead the size of a quail egg was embedded in the very center of the dome, emitting a faint blue-green light that illuminated the entire stone chamber in every detail.

Huo Yunzhi looked up at the bead and froze.

Tide Sound Bead?

But the bead she saw outside was about the size of a fist, so why is this one so much smaller?

Huo Yunzhi took two steps forward cautiously to observe carefully.

The color of this Tide Sound Bead is exactly the same as the flowing golden threads inside, and even the water-like patterns.

Huo Yunzhi walked around the Tide Sound Bead twice more and finally discovered the differences between them.

In the very center of the Tide Sound Bead's suspended position, there is a circular stone slab embedded in the ground. There is a groove around the edge of the stone slab, and seven pearls are also embedded in the groove, which is something that the previous Tide Sound Bead did not have.

Huo Yunzhi walked around the stone slab again.

The pearl in the groove had a smooth and intact surface. She hesitated for a moment, then took out a small white pearl she had picked herself from her pocket and threw it on the stone slab.

The pearl rolled twice on the stone slab and came to rest in the very center.

Nothing happened.

She threw another one away.

Still no response.

Huo Yunzhi once wondered if she was being foolish.

But her intuition led her to throw out the third one.

Just as the third pearl rolled past without any change and Huo Yunzhi had given up, the light gray inlaid bead in the center of the stone slab emitted a very soft "ding".