Book 1: Chapter 180


    Bai Haotian and I tidied up the cramped underground space a little bit. When it came to mud, the most important thing was to dry the ground. Drying was equal to twice thefort, after all. Once that was done, I crouched by the bonfire with ck sses and looked over my wounds very carefully. I also told him about the previous events and introduced him to Bai Haotian and Liu Sang.


    Liu Sang seemed to know a lot about ck sses. I overheard him say that ck sses and Poker-Face had been working together for a while before I ever met Poker-Face. It seemed that they were both working under Chen Pi Ah Si at the time, and since one was blind and one was mute, there were many stories.


    Sometimes when I saw ck sses and Poker-Face together, I felt kind of envious and couldnt help thinking that they were the same type of people. I figured ck sses definitely knew how to get along with Poker-Face better than I did.


    ck sses quietly listened as I told him everything that had happened. When I was done, he remained silent and Poker-Face opened his eyes. None of us took the lead in discussing this matter, so ck sses turned the discussion to Thunder City instead.


    "In this environment, have you ever gone out to see it?" Liu Sang suddenly asked.


    ck sses ignored him and kind of half-smiled. He had just told me that Id have to see it with my own eyes.


    I didn''t know what to say, and Liu Sang didn''t speak either. After watching the bonfire for a few minutes, I finally worked up the courage to break the stalemate and asked, "Do you think theres a problem? Like with the whole thing?"


    "Of course theres a problem." ck sses looked at me with that faint smile on his face. "At present, this whole thing seems to be designed to kill us all." He put a stone on the ground. "In fact, if you didnt know the situation in this valley and tried to parachute down, climb down, ore in through the calling spring, youd definitely die. No one can endure for more than fifteen minutes, and the two paths leading here are dead ends. In other words, from the very beginning, the people who left these two paths wanted those who came in to die."


    He wrote an exnation under the stone, "Xie Yuhua didn''t stay outside, but hid in the so-called Jiao family''s team, which shows that he realized the great danger. His brain is clearly better than ours. He would rather hide in Jiao''s team than stay in his own team, which indicates that the dangeres from outside of Jiaos team."


    I touched my chin. I had never thought about this possibility.


    He put down three more stones and wrote the words "Xie, ck, and Zhang" below before saying, "Were basically dead. The only chance we can get out of here is when it rains, because the rain causes the poisonous fog to disperse. We can move then, but after the rain stops, the poisonous gas willpletely diffuse and permeate the whole valley. Unless we can fly, well have no time to escape. We need to focus on saving ourselves now. After that, we can make use of our only advantagetimeand see if we can minimize the loss."


    He ced another stone down and wrote the word Wang. "Fatty is our key now. Hes the only free agent, but his life and death are uncertain right now. Based on the whole situation, the core members of the strongest generation of the Mystic Nines system are all here. There are four people whose life and death are uncertain, and one of them is the smartest and also very passive. Tell me, when we were having the most difficult time back then, did we ever get pressured like this?"


    "Theres definitely a master pulling the strings from behind the scenes." ck sses continued to look at me, "But were in luck. Mr. Zhang here knows how to deal with this poisonous gas. Otherwise, everyone in this room wouldve been dead long ago."


    I took a deep breath and thought, <em>if what ck sses said is true, then why didn''t any of us prodigies notice a w? Even if I didn''t find it, Xiao Hua shouldve been able to.</em>


    During the whole process, what kept us from thinking in that direction?


    Uncle Two.


    ck sses flipped the burned logs in the bonfire, making the light reflected in his sunsses flicker. I shook my head. "You doubt my Uncle Two, but whats his motive?"


    "He tried desperately to stop you froming, but I dont think he took extreme measures."


    The mes burned up a piece of wood and it snapped with a shower of sparks. "Someones watching him do this, ck sses said. Your Uncle Two may have been coerced into ying this game."