Zhu Yu felt her heart pounding violently in her chest, the lingering fear making goosebumps rise layer by layer, refusing to dissipate.
She crouched carefully, daring not to move an extra step, wanting to pull her pant leg free from the iron needle.
She tugged, but the iron needle didn’t budge, and the force with which it was embedded in the wall startled Zhu Yu.
After so cautious effort, she finally pulled the trapped pant leg free, but Zhu Yu changed her mind — she wanted the iron needle.
Who knew what kind of dangers lay ahead? The design of this tunnel clearly left one with no choice but to keep moving forward.
She couldn’t proceed empty-handed.
Compared to the quicksand behind, the iron needle might actually be useful.
This tunnel couldn’t have been used for the first ti; otherwise, the faint sll of blood wouldn’t linger inside.
But not a single iron needle was visible on the wall, naturally, soone removed them when they entered later to handle the situation.
If others could pull them out, why couldn’t she try!
In the face of survival instincts, humans often beco extraordinarily strong.
Zhu Yu crouched there, clawing and pulling, dripping with sweat, and finally managed to extract the iron needle.
She realized, with it in hand, that she had underestimated its length; once entirely dislodged, it was slightly longer than her palm.
Although the thought of possibly being pierced by it was terrifying, holding it brought considerable reassurance.
Zhu Yu took a small breath, looking back at the stone brick she had stepped on earlier, finding it seemingly indistinguishable from the surroundings. However, the spot where the iron needle penetrated, slightly behind her, had earth a shade darker than its surroundings.
It should be the blood of previously injured people seeping into the soil.
With this in mind, Zhu Yu cautiously moved forward, inch by inch.
She carefully avoided every stone brick around darker gray soil, inching forward.
Each step forward caused her heart to leap into her throat; with each safe step, she would breathe a sigh of relief.
In this endless cycle, she traversed an agonizingly long passage that felt like half a lifeti. By the ti she finally saw the tunnel’s other end, her clothes were nearly soaked with the cold sweat of tension.
She was now just two wide strides from a relatively open area ahead, where the ground showed no visible variations in shading. This left her at a loss on how to judge whether it was truly safe ahead — free of traps or rely unscathed by iron needles.
While she hesitated, she suddenly heard faint noises coming from behind what seed to be a solid earthen wall.
Zhu Yu instinctively sensed sothing wrong, like a chanism behind the wall starting to operate.
When she had accidentally triggered a trap earlier, there had been no such evident noise.
Since all the chanisms in this tunnel forced one to either move forward or die, the sudden clarity of this chanical sound was probably not good!
Zhu Yu dared not hesitate any longer, sprinting forward. As she dashed out, iron needles rained like a shower from one side of the earthen wall, densely embedding in the opposite wall with loud thuds.
With no ti to think, she exerted all her strength to rush forward, and just as one foot reached the tunnel’s end, a sudden sharp pain shot through her other leg, causing her to lose balance and fall to the ground.
The sudden pain caught her breath in her throat, nearly choking her. But she dared not pause and quickly scrambled up, struggling on a few more steps to completely escape the narrow tunnel, collapsing to the ground anew.
Her body involuntarily tilted backwards, and sothing dug into her back, forcing her to prop herself up and look behind.
Behind her lay a corpse of a woman in a long dress; from her murky eyes and veined shoulders and arms, it was clear she had died long ago.
On her waist and abdon, a large dark red stain marked the dress, clearly congealed blood. Closer inspection revealed a small iron needle protruding from the fabric.
It seed this girl was terribly unlucky, getting struck fatally despite escaping to this end, unable to survive.
To others, this sight would be terrifying, but for Zhu Yu, it felt like a relief.
Fortunately, despite being damp compared to outside, the tunnel was cool, enough that the corpse was only in the initial stages of decay, looking grueso but not exceedingly foul-slling.
Zhu Yu looked down at the iron needle in her calf, unable to concern herself further, grabbing the corpse’s outer dress.
Luckily, since the wound was on the upper body, the dress bore no bloodstains on its lower part.
The searing pain from the iron needle piercing her calf made Zhu Yu shiver uncontrollably, yet her hands moved without pause, quickly extracting the needle from the wound.
Blood rapidly oozed from the wound, staining her leg’s fabric red.
Zhu Yu swiftly wrapped the wound with the dress she had taken, binding it tighter than usual.
The dress’s wide skirt allowed her to wrap it securely around her leg, tying it firmly.
After observation, the wound seed to stop bleeding, suggesting the tight bandage had successfully stemd the flow.
Zhu Yu exhaled slightly, after the harrowing ordeal, the tightly bound wound dulled the pain.
Exhausted, she collapsed onto the floor, intending to rest and regain strength. But as soon as her eyes shut, she seed enshrouded in a haze, quickly engulfed by deep darkness and unconsciousness.
She fainted.
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