I will be stronger after the remake

The Vermilion Bird spread its wings and soared into the sky, letting out a clear cry as it charged towards Qin Shi Huang. Qin Shi Huang did not retreat at all, but laughed heartily and merged with the Azure Dragon behind him to confront it head-on.

In the moment of extreme conflict, an unprecedented impact erupted, and the already crumbling underground palace could no longer hold on and collapsed completely.

Chapter 128 A Glimmer of Hope

Tang Ping and Yuan Ji ran through the tunnel that Yu Shujiang had drilled.

Yuan Ji couldn't help but ask, "What exactly happened? Did Gu Linglong lie to us?"

“She didn’t lie. She said from the beginning that people in the pre-Qin period believed that the Vermilion Bird was a divine bird that guided souls to the path of ascension to heaven. So she wanted to purify the souls of the Qin people to manifest spiritual power. However, we subconsciously thought that her target was the group of Qin soldiers and generals in front of her. In fact, her real target was Qin Shi Huang. She came for Qin Shi Huang.”

While dodging the falling rubble, Tang Ping quickly thought and analyzed, "If I'm not mistaken, for Qin Shi Huang to appear, certain conditions need to be met, such as showcasing a spectacular battle or staging a duel between mythological figures, similar to a sacrificial dance. Otherwise, even if the mausoleum is demolished, he won't appear."

"Those three New Territories Alliance experts were the actors that Gu Linglong arranged to act with her. I just don't understand how she managed to do that. The guy we captured said that his group believed the divination of the Grand Priest and came to the mausoleum to find Xu Fu's elixir. He certainly wasn't lying, but at the time we didn't ask clearly whether they heard it from the priest himself or from someone else's message."

"If it's the former, there's a high probability that Gu Linglong and the New World Alliance have made a deal; if it's the latter, then the three of them have simply been deceived."

Yuan Ji questioned, "The man who summoned Xiang Liu is among the top-tier experts even at the third level of power. He's a top-tier powerhouse in the world. Is the New Territories Alliance willing to sacrifice him in a deal?"

Tang Ping recalled the three people's introductions and said, "If they are cadres who are loyal to the organization, they will not be willing to pay any price. But if they are traitors, as long as the price is reasonable, there is nothing that cannot be negotiated."

Yuan Ji did not question the hypothesis of a traitor, knowing that Tang Ping must have discovered relevant clues to say such a thing, so he couldn't help but worry and said: "So, it is really possible that Gu Linglong is making a deal with a cult organization?"

"Don't worry, her plan has most likely been approved by the organization. Otherwise, why would the organization entrust the entire ruins to her for full management?"

Tang Ping paused for a moment, then said uncertainly, "With such a big bet, Gu Linglong might be trying to advance to the fifth level."

"Is it really possible for someone to advance to the fifth rank?"

"Definitely! The reason why there are no fifth-level spiritual energy users yet is simply because humans have only had spiritual energy for a short time, only about twenty years. In a cultivation novel, the protagonist can go into seclusion and that would be over in a short time, not even enough to establish a foundation."

"But you seemed to have doubts about that just now."

"Hmm, Gu Linglong is already this strong at only the fourth level, easily killing top third-level experts. I can't imagine how powerful she will become when she advances to the fifth level. Will the restriction of not being able to use spiritual energy in the present world still work on her? On the contrary, she is young and her personality is not well-regarded in the circle. Is the organization really comfortable letting her advance to the fifth level?"

"This is no longer a matter of whether high-level leaders are magnanimous or not; it concerns the safety of people's lives in the country and even the world. The emergence of a strongman with absolute power is tantamount to putting the safety of all mankind on the whim of one person and hoping that he will be kind and restrained. To be honest, even if I were in charge of the decision, I would subconsciously want to take a step back. This is no longer a matter of trust."

Yuan Ji frowned and said, "I can't follow your train of thought, so let's get straight to the conclusion."

Tang Ping said, "Either the organization is confident in restricting Gu Linglong's advancement to the fifth level, or the organization has discovered some kind of huge crisis, a crisis so great that they are willing to take the risk of a fifth-level psionicist running amok."

"...I hope it's the former."

Tang Ping also hoped it was the former. If it was the latter, with his strength, he would probably be no different from an ordinary person in the face of a crisis so terrifying that even the organization had to compromise.

At this moment, a loud roar suddenly came from behind. The intense spiritual energy fluctuations caused Tang Ping and Yuan Ji to lose control of their spiritual energy. Immediately, the earth trembled violently, and dense cracks appeared on the cave wall above. Large amounts of sand and soil fell down, as if the cave was about to collapse.

The two instinctively quickened their pace, but then they heard a loud "boom" as the road ahead collapsed, completely blocking their way and spreading towards them.

Tang Ping hurriedly used her spiritual magic, using her abundant spiritual energy to summon sturdy tree branches and vines that intertwined around the two of them to form a circular protective shield, supporting the collapsing soil above.

However, gaps still exist between the branches, making it impossible to completely seal them off, and sand and gravel continue to fall through these gaps.

Seeing this, Yuan Ji smiled wryly and said, "Now we're destined to be a pair of lovebirds."

Tang Ping's penchant for finding joy in hardship resurfaced: "To die together, that sounds rather romantic."

"I don't mind, but you... no, you have to take a chance, you can't just sit here and wait to die!"

In a moment of quick thinking, Yuan Ji gripped the Azure Dragon Halberd tightly and said with a determined look, "We've already run such a long way, so we can't be too far from the exit. And the fact that the road we see has collapsed doesn't mean that all the roads have collapsed. Maybe only a section of the road has collapsed. As long as we can clear the way, we'll be fine. Next, I will gather all my spiritual power and use a full-force attack to open up a passage. You prepare your escape technique and take the opportunity to escape."

Tang Ping retorted, "Leaving you behind to escape alone, do you think I'm that kind of person?"

Yuan Ji bit his lip and advised, "You've always been rational, you should know that this is the best way right now. Saving one person is better than both of them dying here."

"You may have misunderstood me. I am not the kind of absolutely rational wise man. I also act on emotion many times."

Yuan Ji said with a hint of pleading, "Can't you be rational for once?"

"Now is the time when we should be least rational."

Tang Ping hugged the other person tightly and whispered in their ear, "Carrying your sacrifice to escape is a heavy moral punishment for me. For the rest of my life, I will probably be tormented by the conflicting feelings of 'why didn't I die with you back then' and 'I can't betray your feelings.' Such a life is too terrible. Through rational thinking, I have come to the conclusion that I must act on my emotions."

"...You always manage to convince me."

Perhaps because he gave up trying to persuade her, Yuan Ji's body also relaxed.

The two embraced, listening to the faint rumbling coming from the ground in the distance, and the sound of sand and stones falling, and felt a strange sense of romance.

After a while, Yuan Ji moved slightly, as if he had made some kind of decision, and said with some difficulty, "Um... how about we do it?"

"Huh? What are you doing?"

Tang Ping did not give up and was still thinking of ways to escape.

"It's...it's that one."

"What does 'that' refer to?"

Yuan Ji blushed with embarrassment and wanted to back down, but seeing his current situation, he decided to just go for it and said, "It's just that kind of thing between men and women!"

"Huh? Oh, um..."

Tang Ping finally realized what the other person was talking about, but the two topics were too far apart, and she still got a little stuck.

"What's with your reaction?!"

Yuan Ji was somewhat embarrassed and angry.

"Instead of asking, how did you suddenly come up with this idea?" Tang Ping blinked. "There seems to be a theory that when humans face the threat of death, they may be triggered by the most primal desires for survival and reproduction, and urgently want to pass on their genes, but this theory has no scientific basis."

“It’s not that complicated,” Yuan Ji said somewhat awkwardly. “I just think, wouldn’t it be a pity to die without ever having experienced it? Maybe I’ll even feel regretful about it after becoming a ghost. If I didn’t have a lover, that would be fine, but to die with a lover and still be a virgin is like saving up millions but not spending them.”

Tang Ping was both amused and exasperated: "Is this a proper analogy? Besides, it doesn't seem appropriate for the current situation at all."

"Girls also have fantasies about this. 'To die together' does sound very romantic. Others definitely haven't had this experience, and there's no one else here anyway..."

The more he explained, the more embarrassed he became. Yuan Ji, in a fit of martial arts temper, simply stopped explaining and went straight for the bully: "Do you agree or not? If you don't agree, then I'll do it."

After saying that, he reached out and touched it.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Tang Ping hurriedly called out, "Have you considered what would happen if someone came to rescue us halfway through?"

Yuan Ji made this decision with immense resolve, abandoning even his sense of shame. He wasn't about to stop, and said viciously, "Either kill him to silence him, or commit suicide on the spot!"

Tang Ping covered her face and said, "I don't want to die like this, it's too embarrassing. I'd rather they check my computer."

"You have to do it today whether you want to or not. In this situation, shouting yourself hoarse won't do any good!"

"I'd be happy to in a different setting, just don't spit it out—"

As the two twisted and turned, a red feather fell out of Tang Ping's pocket.

Tang Ping glanced at it, calmed down, and said, "Speaking of which, this feather is said to bring good luck, but can we call our current situation lucky?"

Yuan Ji casually remarked, "Good luck is a matter of probability; perhaps we didn't win the lottery."

"A blessing from a fourth-order psionicist shouldn't be this weak! Hey, stop! I can't think straight!"

"It's okay, I'll do my thing, you can do yours, we're not related."

"What kind of eroge setting is this? You might as well just pull out a hypnosis app and hypnotize me!"

Tang Ping quickly grabbed Yuan Ji's Green Dragon Halberd and blurted out in a panic, "If you try to shove this halberd into the ground and it doesn't go all the way through, I'll stick it in all the way with you."

Despite being blinded by lust, Yuan Ji's mind was unusually sharp. He understood instantly and asked, "You think the underground palace has two levels?"

Tang Ping said, "Under the premise of good luck, this is probably the only way out that you and I can actively seek. Let's give it a try. If we fail, I will accept my fate. Being a romantic ghost is not bad either."

Upon hearing this, Yuan Ji stopped what he was doing and withdrew his hands from under Tang Ping's clothes and inside his pants.

The safety shield created by the tree roots was very narrow, so the two of them retreated as far back as possible to make room for them to exert force.

Yuan Ji gripped the Azure Dragon Halberd with both hands, pointing it towards the ground, and said with a complicated expression, "Now I don't know whether I should pray that it will pierce through, or pray that it won't."

"Looking at it from another perspective, both outcomes are good and acceptable."

"really."

Yuan Ji's arm muscles bulged, and he suddenly thrust his arm into the ground.

The deeper this forceful insertion goes, the greater the resistance becomes. For an average person, inserting it about 30 centimeters is the limit, but Yuan Ji's strength is astonishing. He inserted it 1.5 meters in one go, and his hands touched the ground.

The Azure Dragon Halberd was nearly two meters long. Yuan Ji then gripped the end, pulled the halberd out a short distance, and then thrust it back in.

"Boom!"

A slight sound came from underground. Yuan Ji's upper body swayed, and he almost fell to the ground, but he couldn't stop the force of his thrust.

The two exchanged a glance, their faces lighting up with joy, and immediately began digging.

As for using spiritual magic to dig, such magic might exist, but Tang Ping, who is only proficient in the water and wood elements, wouldn't know it. At most, he could summon tree roots to loosen the soil and make it easier to dig.

Fortunately, Yuan Ji used spiritual resonance to transform his hands into tiger claws, as hard as steel, allowing him to dig incredibly fast.

About fifteen minutes later, the soil below suddenly shook and then collapsed with a crash. Tang Ping and Yuan Ji also slid down, but fortunately, they were prepared and landed on all fours like cats, so they were not injured.

"There really is a second layer."

Yuan Ji said with mixed feelings.

"Similar to the first floor, it also has unscientific luminous pearls providing light, but there is a strange smell in the air."

Tang Ping sniffed hard, but couldn't describe what the smell was; she had never smelled it before.

Yuan Ji also sniffed, and said in confusion, "It might be the scent of medicine. When I was learning martial arts, I inevitably fell and got injured. The ointment my coach applied to me smelled about the same, except that the scent here is fresher. I feel like my mind is clearer after smelling it."

Following the scent, the two walked for a while and came to a heavy stone door three meters high. The door was covered with strange symbols and characters and emitted a mysterious light.

Yuan Ji stepped forward and pushed it, but found that he couldn't move it with ordinary force. He turned his head and asked, "Should we force it?"

"I'm afraid it might have a self-destruct mechanism. Let me try to unlock it first. If I'm not mistaken, the treasure vault is inside."

Tang Ping leaned closer to the stone gate and examined it carefully, saying, "I don't recognize the symbols. The characters should be a variant of Qin Dynasty Small Seal script. I recognize a few characters, but the others are more difficult to recognize. We must find the pattern first."

He looked at them for a while and found that the symbols were not random, but arranged in a certain order, just like the orderly formation of the Qin Dynasty army. Moreover, there were some tiny grooves around the symbols, only one of which had been embedded with a stone symbol.

Then, looking around, they found some stone symbols of various shapes, which looked like characters related to the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.

Yuan Ji stood obediently by the side as a guard, without making a sound to disturb them; this was a tacit understanding that the two had already reached.

Tang Ping frowned, quickly searching his mind for knowledge about the Qin Dynasty. Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and he said excitedly, "I understand! These symbols correspond to the combination of the Five Elements theory and the Heavenly Stems. The Qin Dynasty revered the virtue of water, which is located in the north of the Five Elements and corresponds to the character '癸' in the Heavenly Stems."

As he spoke, he pointed to the set of symbols embedded in the stone gate: "Look, this is 'Gui', and next to it is a symbolic pattern of the Water Virtue. The Qin Dynasty adopted the theory of the Five Virtues' cyclical succession proposed by Zou Yan, a Yin-Yang scholar during the Warring States period, as the theoretical basis for the legitimacy of its regime. It believed that this was a transfer of the Mandate of Heaven. For example, the Zhou Dynasty belonged to the Fire Virtue, and the Qin Dynasty replaced the Zhou Dynasty. This was a deduction of 'Water overcomes Fire.' The Heavenly Stems corresponding to Fire are Bing and Ding. So, next, we need to find the symbols related to Bing and Ding to activate the corresponding mechanisms."

Upon hearing this, Yuan Ji immediately buried himself in the search and soon found two stone symbols on the right side of the stone gate, shaped like "丙" and "丁" respectively.

Tang Ping took the stone talisman, inserted it into the groove, and first rotated the protrusion engraved with the character "丙". With a "creak", the stone door vibrated slightly.

Then, he turned the protrusion corresponding to the "丁" symbol, and at this moment, a series of gear turning sounds came from inside the stone door.

"Then there is 'fire overcomes metal.' The Shang Dynasty belonged to the metal element, and the heavenly stems corresponding to metal are Geng and Xin."

Next, Tang Ping and Yuan Ji filled in the stone talismans one by one according to the order of the five elements' mutual restraint. The last one they filled in was the character "Ren" which corresponds to the water element, completing exactly one cycle.

The moment everything was filled in, the sound of a mechanism operating at high speed came from inside. The stone door slowly opened, and a strong light surged out from inside, blinding the two of them.

As the light dimmed, the two entered the room, which was filled with all sorts of rare treasures. Gold and silver artifacts shimmered with dazzling light, and precious jade objects were warm and lustrous. In the very center of the room, there was an exquisite jade box, which emitted a soft light, as if beckoning them.

Chapter 129 A Simple Riddle

"What's in this?"

Despite being drawn in by something almost instinctively, Yuan Ji remained vigilant and did not rush forward to take it.

Tang Ping, needless to say, had just experienced a similar test.

"If I'm not mistaken, it should be the 'Xu Fu's Elixir' that the captured guy mentioned before. To lure people into the trap, we have to offer something real. Otherwise, if we use false information and the other side sees through it, wouldn't we be shooting ourselves in the foot?"

As Tang Ping spoke, she carefully observed her surroundings. She did not sense any living beings or unusual spiritual energy fluctuations, but she did not let her guard down because she had just seen the traps set up here, even though the puzzles were quite simple.

However, after searching around, they still found nothing.

"It seems there's no danger."

Tang Ping hesitated. If she still had the Water Spirit Pearl, she could control it to generate an arm to take the jade box away.

Yuan Ji suggested, "I can insert the halberd into the bottom of the box. As long as I control the force well, I can move it over without damaging the outer shell."

"No, if the trigger condition for the restriction is that whoever touches it will be trapped, even if you let go in time, losing your weapon will be a huge loss."

After a moment's thought, Tang Ping decided to use a wood-based spiritual technique to summon vines to take the jade box away.

However, just as he activated his spiritual power and before he could fully unleash his spiritual technique, a low, mechanical roar came from all around the room, as if an ancient beast was awakening from its slumber, causing his expression to change.