Magic Space: Struggling to Survive in the Apocalypse-Chapter 87: One Person’s Hard Survival 11

Evelyn noticed the protruding stone ledges nearby were covered in black bat guano, like mouse droppings.

Bat guano is also known as Nightlight Sand, a type of traditional Chinese medicine.

But Evelyn had no interest in collecting it. She had to keep moving forward.

Some of the caves were so narrow the kayak could barely squeeze through.

"Ah..." Every time Evelyn reached a new cave, she would shout into the entrance to estimate its size.

Spotting another stone ledge, Evelyn quickly paddled over. It was small, only about three or four square meters. She carefully inspected the stone wall, even wiping it with an alcohol-soaked cloth, but found nothing.

’Has my good luck run out?’

Evelyn took off her mask for a breath of air. The stalactites and stone pillars here were different from the ones outside. They were especially small, like coral, and breathtakingly beautiful.

’I’ll rest for a bit. I refuse to believe I’m going home empty-handed today.’

Evelyn took a chair out of her storage space, planning to rest on the ledge for a bit. But she hadn’t used the bathroom since the morning, and she was really starting to feel it.

Evelyn looked left and right, then decided to hold it a while longer.

Just then, she suddenly noticed two seams in the rock face. Evelyn leaped up from her chair, grabbed her flashlight, and scrambled over to the wall, her eyes wide as she began to inspect it.

’This has to be a stone door! Holy crap... I searched high and low for this, and it turns out to be right here. Talk about finding something when you least expect it. Now, how do I open it?’

Evelyn gave it a hard push. Useless. It wouldn’t budge.

’Oh well,’ she thought. ’It’s not like I’m some peerless martial arts master with Inner Strength from a TV drama. Guess I’ll have to find the mechanism.’

Evelyn got down on the ground and started searching for the door’s mechanism. Half an hour passed with no results. She began to wonder if she was just being paranoid. ’What if they’re just two ordinary cracks?’

’Looks like instead of having the luck of the gods, I’ve been possessed by a Jinx.’

CREAK... The stone door suddenly began to slide open. Evelyn stared down at her feet in disbelief. Only then did she notice an Eight Diagrams symbol on the floor beneath her, and her feet were planted perfectly on opposite sides of it.

Evelyn tapped her head. ’Am I the legendary chosen one?’

The stone door opened completely. Evelyn shone her flashlight inside, revealing a very long flight of stairs leading down.

Evelyn put the kayak into her storage space, then, holding her flashlight and a trekking pole, she slowly stepped through the stone doorway.

The moment she was inside, the stone door creaked shut behind her.

Evelyn shone her flashlight on the floor and, just as she expected, found another Eight Diagrams symbol.

’So that’s how it works. As long as I place my feet perfectly on it, the door will open. There must be a trigger under the diagram. Symmetrical weight applied simultaneously activates the mechanism and moves the door.’

Evelyn started down the stairs. They were carved from the natural bedrock, blending seamlessly into the walls. It felt more like a secret chamber. She hesitated. ’Should I really keep going?’

’What if I run into even more dangerous traps?’

But the thought of turning back now... she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Evelyn swapped her flashlight for one with more battery life and continued downward. After about ten minutes, she came to another stone door.

Evelyn stood on the Eight Diagrams symbol to open the door again. Stepping inside, she felt as if she had entered an underground tomb. A row of stone coffins, bound neatly with iron chains, hung suspended in midair. Behind them stood a massive stone stele covered in a wild, cursive script that Evelyn couldn’t decipher at all.

Evelyn crouched down, moving cautiously along the wall. She worried that some hidden weapon might suddenly fire and riddle her with holes. But after she made her way around the coffins without seeing any traps, she grew bolder. She slowly stood up, though she still hugged the wall as she moved.

The walls in here were carved with exquisite murals. Strangely, however, all the people depicted in them were naked, and their poses were rather obscene.

It slowly dawned on Evelyn. ’These aren’t just murals. They must be ancient Fireproof Maps!’

Evelyn did a full turn and realized the walls of the entire tomb passage were covered in Fireproof Maps. ’My god,’ she thought, ’what kind of person is buried in here?’

On the other hand, she hadn’t seen a single piece of valuable gold or jewelry.

Evelyn began searching for another exit. She found a stone door on the back of the stele. After opening it and stepping through, she saw three more stone coffins suspended in midair. And just like before, there was another stele behind them. The characters on this one were carved in a more standard script, and Evelyn could read them clearly.

"This..."

After reading the inscription on the stele, Evelyn was floored.

It said that a thousand years ago, a powerful City Lord had kept hundreds of concubines. He died young because his body was too weak, having been ruined by debauchery. Before his death, he had his men find this hidden paradise and place his coffin here to protect it from grave robbers. His hundreds of concubines were put to death to accompany him.

The coffins hanging in the outer chamber held the women who had borne him children. As for those who hadn’t, they weren’t mentioned. ’Probably just wrapped in straw mats and tossed into a mass grave,’ Evelyn thought grimly.

Evelyn...

’So was this City Lord just broke? He could afford to keep so many concubines but didn’t have a single funerary object?’

Evelyn walked a full circle around the City Lord’s stone coffin but found nothing. As for opening the sarcophagus itself, she had no interest.

Evelyn stared at the walls covered in Fireproof Maps, completely speechless. And to think she’d been examining them so seriously earlier, praising the murals for being so lifelike.

There was another stone door at the back. It felt like she was clearing levels in a game. Evelyn opened it and entered yet another tomb passage. Here, she finally saw several chests.

’Could it be the treasure I’ve been hoping for?’

Evelyn pulled on her gloves and prepared to open the chests. When she saw they weren’t even locked, she had a bad feeling. ’Did someone beat me to it?’

She opened one and found it filled to the brim with yellowed books. A flicker of excitement went through her as she picked one up and flipped it open.

’Holy crap, more Fireproof Maps?’

The art style was wild, the brushwork crude, the paper yellowed with age, but Evelyn could still see clearly that they were identical to the murals on the stone walls.

’This City Lord was a real piece of work,’ she mused. ’No wonder he died so young.’

Evelyn opened the other chests. All of them were filled with Fireproof Maps. She was in despair.

She felt like the heavens were playing a cruel joke on her. Why did other people find all kinds of amazing treasures, while she just found... this weird stuff?

She checked the time. It was already afternoon. ’Time to go home.’

Evelyn decided to head back the way she came, but when she stepped on the Eight Diagrams symbol, nothing happened. It was the only stone door in this part of the tomb, and now it wouldn’t open. ’Am I going to be trapped here until I die?’

’Did the tomb’s owner intend for this to be a one-way trip?’ Evelyn quickly forced herself to calm down. ’There’s always a way out. There has to be another exit, or some other trick to opening this door.’