"Sister Luo Ling, what do you think of this trial?" Zhou He asked.
"I think those tin cans outside may not be part of the trial. Maybe they are just the guards of this underground palace. This passage seems to say that the starting point of the trial... is here." Luo Ling held her chin and looked up at the statue. This hall gave her a feeling that there seemed to be a kind of power contained in it, like an undiscovered treasure. Luo Ling didn't know where this feeling came from. Maybe it was just intuition. Hey, people like to associate women with intuition. Maybe they just can't stand women showing off their logic, she thought.
"Are you saying there's danger here too?" She looked around, fearing that some monster might suddenly jump out.
"A trial doesn't necessarily involve fighting and killing. Have you heard of the ultimate trial?" Xiao Chen interrupted. He watched Zhou He's jumpiness with interest. That kind of timidity mixed with innocence can really arouse a man's protective instinct.
"What is that? It sounds scary." Zhou He looked at Xiao Chen with a stern expression and took a step back in panic.
Xiao Chen nodded heavily, "It's really scary. After more than ten years of hard training, it's just for a three-day test. Only a few people can step on others to gain true victory. The losers will regret it for most of their lives. It has an even more terrifying name..."
"Huh?!" Zhou He covered his mouth.
“College Entrance Examination!”
"Xiao Chen!" Zhou He said angrily, "Can you be more serious?"
"Okay, okay, I was just kidding..." Xiao Chen made a gesture of surrender with both hands, "I'm just giving you an example to give you some confidence. We've made it through something as difficult as the college entrance examination, so there's no way we can't handle any trial."
Zhou He suddenly looked a little depressed. He fiddled with the corner of his clothes and said with his head down, "I don't have such a blessing. I started working right after graduating from junior high school. I never took the college entrance examination. I worked in the school printing shop for a year and never dared to enter a classroom."
"You..." Xiao Chen choked, "Don't be so sensitive, you know I don't mean that."
"I know you are all capable. You come up with all the ideas and make all the decisions. You can bandage wounds and speak Spanish. But I am just a timid girl who knows very little. Compared to you, I am nothing and useless. I know you look down on me. If I were still in the printing shop, you wouldn't even look at me except for 'print this' and 'copy that'. But, but I am really trying to find a way out now. You... you can't joke like this!"
As Zhou He was talking, tears began to flow. She lowered her head and tried to wipe them with her sleeves, but she couldn't stop the tears there. In the end, her nose started to run and she simply burst into tears.
Luo Ling knew that this was a way for Zhou He to vent her fear and tension after a long period of time, so she said nothing, but just hugged her and gently stroked her back.
Zhou He cried for a while, sobbing and muttering about going home.
Xiao Chen touched his nose awkwardly, moved closer to Zhou He's eyes, and whispered, "Xiao Zhou He, I'll tell you a secret. No boys really look at you straight in the eye."
"You..." Zhou He looked at Xiao Chen with her big red eyes in shock when she heard this. She didn't seem to understand why Xiao Chen was 'bullying' her like this. After a long pause, she pursed her lips, took a deep breath, and seemed to be about to turn on the faucet again.
"That's because they are all shy in front of you who are pure and lovely. Those cowards have secretly looked at you hundreds of times and still call you 'Wenyin Xishi'."
"You, you are making fun of me again, you bad guy!" Zhou He couldn't help laughing so hard that his nose was covered with snot bubbles, and he slapped Xiao Chen on the shoulder angrily.
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The three of them sat on the ground and ate something to replenish their energy. Xiao Chen didn't want to upset Zhou He anymore, so he analyzed the situation carefully. "We carefully checked the entire hall and didn't find any secret doors or mechanisms. This might just be a place like an ancestral hall, where ancient people worshipped their ancestors and then went out for some kind of trial. If that's the case, then there's only one way out for us." Xiao Chen pointed to the crack at the entrance.
"What should we do? We can't win the fight! Can we just wait for someone to rescue us?" Zhou He's eyes were swollen. She asked while rubbing her eye sockets with her hands.
"We don't even know where we are, let's not talk about rescue yet." Luo Ling leaned next to Zhou He, "I saw that the armored warrior was stuck there hitting the wall for half an hour, and no other companions came to help it. This at least shows that these tin cans are not very smart. Maybe we can use this crack to defeat them one by one."
"You mean, kill one by one when you stop them?" Xiao Chen recalled the fight with the armored warrior just now and felt a little hesitant. He was not a combat expert or a master of fighting. He had escaped from those armored warriors twice by chance, and luck played a big role in his survival. He was still a little scared to take the initiative to fight these guys.
Luo Ling saw his stiff expression and said with a smile: "Are you stupid? I'm not asking you to risk your life. They are all stuck and won't move. Can't we think of a way?"
Yes, Xiao Chen slapped his head and thought, as long as the weapons are longer, he can just deal with them slowly.
"So, the first thing to do is to get that." Luo Ling pointed, and Zhou He looked in the direction of her hand. It was the axe in the hand of the warrior statue. "With it, it will be much easier to deal with the tin can."
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"Break its arms and lift your feet a little higher. Yes, step on its thighs." Zhou He had a childish temper and soon regained his energy. He directed Xiao Chen to climb up the statue. In addition, the base of the statue was three meters high and it was not easy to climb. Xiao Chen took a lot of effort to reach the axe.
He touched the axe handle and found that the material of the axe was not like steel, but felt very warm. He pulled the axe out of the stone statue's hand and felt that the axe was heavier than the iron axe. Holding it in his hand made him feel very powerful.
"Be careful, it's quite heavy." Xiao Chen carefully handed the axe to Luo Ling who was waiting below. Unexpectedly, Zhou Hexing ran over and took the axe. "It's nothing special, just a little heavier than the axe I used to chop wood in my hometown."
"You are very strong. You can lift this axe." Xiao Chen climbed down from the statue in two or three steps.
"Please! I'm doing farm work in my hometown. I'm not like you city girls who are so delicate and out of breath after walking a few steps." Zhou He saw Luo Ling laughing and said embarrassedly, "Sister Luo Ling, I'm not talking about you. You are so calm, so smart, and not afraid of anything. In my eyes, you are much better than many men."
Xiao Chen saw that Luo Ling's mouth twitched noticeably and couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Zhou He realized that he had said the wrong thing again. He awkwardly shook the axe in his hand, walked to the open space in front of the statue, and made a motion of chopping wood. "But this axe feels really good to use. It's a good axe."
Some people say that labor is beautiful, and Xiao Chen now agrees with this statement. The axe drew an arc, and in the hands of the petite but well-proportioned Zhou He, there was a strange sense of harmony. This feeling even made him feel that although the body size was not proportional, this axe belonged to Zhou He.
After driving this strange thought out of his mind, Xiao Chen stretched out his hand and said, "Okay, let's find a stick and tie it to the handle. It will become a halberd and we can deal with those tin cans."
But Zhou He did not respond. Instead, he stared at the stone statue behind him with wide eyes, as if he had seen a ghost. Xiao Chen quickly turned around and looked...
He saw white light in the eyes of the stone statue. The white light seemed to flow in the eye sockets, as if the stone statue was scanning the people in front of it.
"There is danger, everyone hide quickly." Xiao Chen shouted.
But as soon as he finished speaking, the white light turned into a burst of light. The light beam did not shine on Xiao and Luo who were standing at the foot of the statue, but hit Zhou He who was holding the axe.
"Ah~" Zhou He screamed in panic, and the axe fell to the ground. She ran like crazy, trying to avoid the light, but the light was like a real chain, twisting and tightly wrapped around her. Zhou He didn't run a few steps before she was pulled back by the white light and gradually floated into the air.
The white light on Zhou He became stronger and stronger, and finally turned into a light cocoon. On the ground below the light cocoon, white runes slowly emerged. Hundreds of densely packed runes, intermittently and cross-linked, formed a circular array full of patterns.
Suddenly, a violent airflow burst out from the light cocoon, stirring up a violent wind in the room, and for a moment, sand and rocks flew everywhere. Xiao Chen suddenly came to his senses and reached out to save Zhou He, but was blown away by the wind and could not get close at all. Zhou He seemed to be in great pain, struggling and screaming miserably.
Xiao Chen had never encountered such a wind in his life, and he was almost crushed to the ground by the strong wind. Luo Ling pulled him to the side and hid behind a pillar.
The two men squatted on the ground and saw the fear and horror in each other's eyes.
Xiao Chen stuck his head out against the wind and saw the white light flickering like a flame, while Zhou He was shouting at the top of his lungs, as if he was being burned at the stake.
"We have to save her!" Xiao Chen leaned over to Luo Ling's ear and shouted amid the howling wind. Luo Ling shook her head, not knowing whether she couldn't hear him or didn't agree with him. "We have to! Save! Her!" Xiao Chen repeated at the top of his voice, then rushed out with gritted teeth.
The strong wind beat him. He first walked, then squatted, and finally could only crawl from the ground to Zhou He. Luo Ling also rushed out, grabbed his feet, and said something anxiously and loudly. But Xiao Chen couldn't hear it. He broke away from Luo Ling's hand and continued to move forward. Every time he moved forward, he felt that the strong wind became stronger; every time he got closer, he felt that the white light was burning hotter. He felt like he was going into a white wall of fire.
But even if he was burned, what would it matter? Zhou He must be in a hundred times more pain than him in the center of the white light. Xiao Chen didn't know why he suddenly had the urge to move forward bravely. He must move forward and never retreat.
Finally, when he was about to run out of strength and was about to be blown away by the air wave, he grabbed Zhou He's ankle.