Tomb raiding live stream: Starting as the mute Zhang

The fog was as thick as milk that couldn't be dissolved.

Beyond five steps, humans and ghosts are indistinguishable. Beyond ten steps, all is chaos.

Zhang Qiling and "Zhang Qiling" disappeared into the mist, their outlines blurring almost instantly. The people behind them tensed up and immediately followed, afraid of getting separated if they were even a step too slow.

Old Qin hesitated for a moment at the edge of the fog, his expression changing, before finally gritting his teeth and following along, muttering something in his local dialect, sounding like a curse or a prayer.

Walking in the fog felt strange. The ground was soft, humus-like, making footsteps barely audible. Everything was a vast expanse of white, obscuring all directions, even the treetops overhead were invisible. Only a thick, viscous gray-white enveloped everything.

Zhang Qiling walked slowly, but his steps were steady. He didn't look at his feet or look around; he simply lowered his head slightly, his gaze fixed on the jade eye he held in his palm.

The jade eyes, shrouded in thick fog, emitted an extremely soft, lustrous sheen that seemed to penetrate the mist. In particular, the swirling symbol at the center seemed to come alive, slowly rotating clockwise, so slowly that it was almost imperceptible without close inspection.

Zhang Qiling walked half a step behind him, holding the black bone fragment in his hand. The fragment did not glow, but it was cold to the touch, and the edges of the door and the little figure symbols on it seemed to be clearer. He would occasionally look up, his gaze sweeping across the surrounding mist before returning to the jade eye in Zhang Qiling's hand.

There was no verbal communication between the two, but their pace, breathing, and even the timing of each pause were perfectly synchronized, as if they were one person.

The people behind followed closely, and Wu Xie almost had to reach out and grab the backpack strap of the fat man in front of him to feel safe. The fat man himself also walked cautiously, barely daring to breathe. Xie Yuchen, Huo Xiuxiu, Hei Xiazi, A Ning, and Jiang Xun Gu formed a small circle, protecting Lao Qin in the middle, vigilantly watching their surroundings.

The levitating live-streaming sphere struggled to navigate through the dense fog, emitting a slightly louder hum than usual as it worked to maintain its signal transmission. The camera only showed two blurry black figures in front of it, surrounded by an endless expanse of white. The chat was filled with anxious comments:

Prophet: I can't see anything at all!

To silence the so-called experts: There's definitely something wrong with this fog!

The male lead's fan club: Does our husband use his eyes to give directions? So handsome!

After walking for about ten minutes, the surrounding environment remained unchanged. It was still fog, still soft mud underfoot, still deathly still.

"Brother," Wu Xie couldn't help but whisper, his voice muffled in the fog, "We...we didn't go the wrong way, did we?"

Zhang Qiling didn't turn around, but simply raised his hand to signal for silence. He stopped in his tracks.

Everyone stopped and nervously looked around, but they could see nothing but fog.

Zhang Qiling closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the misty air. It was cool, damp, and carried the smell of earth and decaying plants, but beneath it, there seemed to be a very faint, almost imperceptible... metallic rust-like stench, and another, more subtle pulse, as if from the depths of the earth.

He reopened his eyes, no longer looking at the jade eyes, but at his feet, then slowly scanned the ground around him, and looked up into the depths of the mist, as if he were "looking" at something that ordinary people could not see.

"Earthly energy." Zhang Qiling suddenly whispered two words.

Zhang Qiling nodded. He raised his left hand, fingers spread, palm down, and slowly moved it about a foot above the ground. The movement was very slow, as if he were sensing some invisible flow.

The Zhang family's feng shui secrets involve observing mountains and their energy, and locating auspicious burial sites. This involves not only examining the terrain but also sensing the direction of the earth's veins, the balance of the earth's energy, and... the subtle distortions in the "field" caused by special arrangements or the presence of unusual objects.

This dense fog not only obscures vision but also disrupts normal magnetic fields and perception. However, for those who are truly proficient in this art and have special bloodlines, the fog itself becomes a kind of "developer"—making those normally hidden earth energy anomalies faintly discernible under the cover and backdrop of the fog.

In Zhang Qiling's perception, the surroundings were not a chaotic mess. He could "sense" several faint but stable "qi veins" flowing slowly deep within the earth beneath his feet. One of them extended from the direction they had come from, but not far ahead, it split into several branches of varying strength.

Another, more subtle and stagnant "qi" came from the left front. It was not a natural flow of earth qi, but rather a special "vortex" formed by the long-term suppression of earth qi by something huge, heavy, and with strong "foreign" attributes.

The source of that "vortex" emitted an extremely faint fluctuation that resonated with the vortex at the center of the jade eye and the symbols on the bone fragment.

That's it.

Zhang Qiling withdrew his hand and turned to his left, slightly forward. "This way."

Concise and to the point. No explanation, no reason.

But no one questioned it. The crowd immediately adjusted their direction and followed him as he took another step.

Old Qin's face turned even paler. He looked in the direction Zhang Qiling had turned, his lips trembled, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he just gripped his cane tightly and followed even closer.

We walked for about half an hour more. The fog seemed to have thinned a little, and we could barely make out the blurry shadows of the nearby tree trunks. The ground beneath our feet began to slope upwards.

The speed at which the vortex at the center of the jade eye was spinning seemed to have increased slightly.

The bone fragment in Zhang Qiling's hand was even colder, so cold it was a little prickly to the touch.

Suddenly, Zhang Qiling, who was walking at the front, stopped again. In front of him, the thick fog was blown away by the wind for a moment, revealing a huge, almost vertical rock wall.

The rock face was dark gray, covered with a thick layer of moss and vines, and looked damp. It was no different from other cliffs in the mountains.

But Zhang Qiling just stared at it quietly for a few seconds, then reached out and parted a particularly dense clump of old vines at the base of the rock wall, which almost reached the ground.

Behind the vines, on the rock face, there was an irregular depression, about half a person's height. Embedded in the depression was a relatively smooth black stone slab. On the stone slab was carved a pattern.

A huge, rugged, and archaic eye. The pupil is not a vortex, but a shallow, door-shaped groove that is concave downwards.

The moment he saw the pattern, Old Qin gasped, took two steps back, and his face drained of color. He stared in terror at the stone slab, then at Zhang Qiling and "Zhang Qiling," before finally looking at Xie Yuchen, his voice trembling: "It's...it's here! The entrance to the Tree Ancestor's territory! The mark my grandfather mentioned! We can't go in! If we go in, we'll never come out!"

He turned around abruptly, as if he wanted to run back, but seeing the still thick fog around him, he froze, his face full of struggle and fear.

Xie Yuchen looked at Zhang Qiling.

Zhang Qiling shifted his gaze from the stone slab pattern to Old Qin. "Go back."

"I..." Old Qin opened his mouth.

"Following the path we came from," Zhang Qiling added calmly, "we can get out before the fog clears."

"Pay up." Xie Yuchen took out another, thicker envelope and handed it to Lao Qin. "Thanks for leading the way. We'll walk the rest of the way ourselves."

Old Qin's hands trembled as he held the envelope. He stared at the eerie stone gate pattern, then at the group of seemingly calm (at least outwardly) young people, especially the two frighteningly silent youths in black. Ultimately, fear overwhelmed him. He gripped the envelope and his cane tightly, bowed haphazardly in the direction of the stone gate pattern, muttered a few words, then turned and, without looking back, stumbled almost into the mist he had come from, quickly disappearing from sight.

The levitating live-streaming camera captured Lao Qin's fleeing figure and the stone slab carved with an eye-shaped door pattern. The live stream chat exploded:

The prophet said: "The guide ran away in fright! It must be terrifying inside!"

This will silence any so-called experts: This pattern... is unlike anything I've seen before!

The male fan club: Are our husbands going in yet?!

"Now, how do we open it?" Black Bear walked to the stone slab and touched the door-shaped groove. "We need a key, right? The jade eye? Or a bone fragment?"

Zhang Qiling did not answer. He looked at "Zhang Qiling" again.

Zhang Qiling stepped forward and placed the black bone fragment in his hand below the eye of the stone gate pattern—there was a very light, palm-sized area there, slightly darker in color than the surrounding stone slabs, with an irregular shape, but it seemed... somewhat similar to the outline of the bone fragment.

The bone pieces were attached, fitting perfectly.

Immediately afterwards, Zhang Qiling gently pressed the jade eye he held into the door-shaped groove at the position of the pupil.

Size, a perfect match.

The moment the jade eye was embedded, the entire black stone slab, along with the rock wall behind it, trembled slightly. It wasn't a loud noise, but a low, muffled sound, as if it came from deep within the mountain.

The jade eye suddenly lit up, its light no longer a warm, lustrous white, but a deep, ghostly blue that seemed to absorb the surrounding mist. The light spread rapidly along the eye's engraving on the stone gate, illuminating the entire enormous eye pattern.

At the same time, faint dark gold patterns, the same as those on the symbols on the bone fragments, appeared in the area where the bone fragments were placed, extending upwards like blood vessels and connecting with the eye pattern.

"Gah—ga ga—"

A heavy sound, like the grinding of boulders, came from inside the rock wall. Under everyone's gaze, the black stone slab with the eye pattern, along with a rectangular rock wall about three meters high and two meters wide behind it, slowly sank inward and downward, shrinking into the mountain, revealing a dark, downward-sloping cave entrance.

A wind, much colder and drier than the outside air, carrying the scent of dust and the weight of time, surged out of the cave entrance, dispersing some of the mist near the entrance.

The door opened.

The cave was pitch black. The beam of a flashlight could only penetrate a short distance before being swallowed by the bottomless darkness. Only the rocks at the edge of the cave entrance reflected a cold, metallic, matte light in the flashlight beam.

Zhang Qiling withdrew the light from his jade eyes, which had returned to normal. "Zhang Qiling" also retrieved the bone fragments.

The two stood at the cave entrance, looking into the deep darkness inside, and then exchanged a glance.

"Let's go," Zhang Qiling said.

"Hmm." Zhang Qiling nodded.

Without hesitation, the two bent down and stepped into the cave.

The people behind looked at each other, took a deep breath, gripped their equipment and weapons tightly, and followed one after another inside.

As the last person's figure disappeared into the darkness, the suspended live-streaming sphere followed suit. Then, the sunken stone portal, emitting a low, grinding sound, slowly and seamlessly closed again.

Completely isolate all light, sound, and the atmosphere from the outside world.

Outside, the thick fog persisted.