179: Let's get out of here quickly, this place is eerie!

The next second.

Everyone was stunned.

Li Ke sat down hard in the mud, almost throwing the urn away.

Inside the coffin.

No one.

No corpse.

Not even ashes.

Only a neatly folded suit, a pair of polished leather shoes, and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.

An empty grave?

"Something's wrong."

Old Ghost jumped into the coffin, his nimble hands groping over the suit, then he suddenly lifted the clothes.

Under the suit, there was a thick layer of white powder.

"Lime?" Ninth Master frowned.

"It's bone ash."

Old Ghost grabbed a handful of powder, rubbed it between his fingertips, his face instantly turning livid. "Human bone ash, mixed with preservatives and desiccants."

"Did he grind himself into powder?" Li Ke poked his head out tremulously.

"Bullshit!"

Old Ghost shook off the powder and clapped his hands. "The total amount of this bone ash, at most, is five jin. An adult male's skeletal weight is at least 15% to 20% of his body weight. Wang Daoming is 1.8 meters tall; his bones, when burned to ash, should be seven or eight jin."

"And..."

Old Ghost pointed to some tiny particles mixed in the powder. "See these black spots? These are the remnants of dental fillings after being carbonized at high temperatures."

He took a portable magnifying glass from his pocket and stared at the particles for a long time.

"No titanium alloy."

Old Ghost looked up, his eyes gloomy. "That Swiss-made titanium alloy nail is not inside."

"In other words..." Chen Mo's voice sounded particularly cold and hard in the night. "Whoever is buried in here, it's definitely not Wang Daoming."

"Or it is."

Chen Mo squatted down and picked up the gold-rimmed glasses.

"This is a souvenir he left specifically to mock us."

Just then.

The Golden Retriever, which had been very excited, suddenly stopped barking.

It lay on the edge of the pit, growling at the empty coffin, the fur on its neck standing on end.

"Dogs can see things people can't." Li Ke shouted with a crying tone. "Brother Mo, let's get out of here, this place is weird!"

Chen Mo ignored him.

He slowly lay down on the bottom of the coffin and pressed his ear against the thick layer of bone ash.

Closed his eyes.

The world faded in his senses, and all the noise was filtered out.

The sound of the wind disappeared.

The chirping of insects disappeared.

The sound of Li Ke's teeth chattering also disappeared.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Heartbeat.

But it wasn't coming from inside the coffin.

Nor was it from the living people around.

This sound... came from beneath the coffin floor.

Very deep, very muffled.

It was Li Ke being separated by several meters of thick concrete walls, or Li Ke war drums from the depths of hell.

But this heartbeat frequency...

Chen Mo opened his eyes abruptly, his pupils contracting violently.

Forty beats per minute.

Extremely regular.

Absolutely no emotional fluctuations.

That was the heartbeat frequency of that "Wang Daoming" he saw on the screen!

"Pry open this wooden board." Chen Mo pointed to the coffin floor, his voice not loud, but filled with an unquestionable chill.

"What?" Ninth Master was stunned. "There's something under here?"

"Hurry!"

Chen Mo grabbed a crowbar and smashed it hard onto the coffin floor.

The seemingly incredibly hard golden Phoebe wood actually emitted a hollow echo.

It's empty!

The coffin has a hidden compartment!

Old Ghost and Ninth Master looked at each other and immediately understood.

Three crowbars were inserted into the gaps of the floor at the same time.

"Open it up for me!"

Crack!

With a crisp sound, that thick wooden board was forcefully lifted up.

No soil.

No bones.

Revealed was a cold, circular manhole cover with a metallic sheen.

It was stamped with the entwined twin snake logo of Prometheus.

There was also a red indicator light, flashing in the darkness.

"Fuck..." Li Ke lay on the edge of the pit, his eyes almost popping out. "Did this bastard build his grave as an entrance to an air-raid shelter?!"

"This is the true ship of theseus."

Chen Mo stared at the metal manhole cover, a crazy curve forming at the corner of his mouth.

"The so-called body double, the so-called faked death, the so-called bone ash..."

"Were all just smoke and mirrors to deceive people."

"The real secret has always been hidden in the pile of dead people that everyone avoids and would never dream of disturbing."

Beep.

Chen Mo's finger pressed onto the electronic lock of the manhole cover.

"Password." Ninth Master frowned. "Is this a biological fingerprint lock, or iris?"

"Neither."

Chen Mo pointed to the input keyboard. "It's voiceprint."

"Voiceprint?" Old Ghost was dumbfounded. "Then where do we find Wang Daoming's voiceprint? We should have recorded it at the clinic earlier!"

"No need to look for it."

Chen Mo cleared his throat.

He closed his eyes, recalling the voice he had just heard in the video.

That voice without any emotional fluctuation, sounding Li Ke an electronic synthesis but still carrying a human touch.

That unique vocal cord vibration frequency.

That aloof and arrogant tone.

Three seconds later.

Chen Mo opened his mouth.

"Prometheus, eternal life."

As soon as the voice came out, everyone got goosebumps.

Too similar.

No, it was exactly the same!

This was the other side of Chen Mo's extraordinary hearing—absolute pitch mimicry.

Zzz—

The green light lit up.

The metal manhole cover emitted a hydraulic exhaust sound and slowly slid open to the sides.

A blast of cold air, carrying the smell of ozone, surged up.

Below was a bottomless vertical ladder, and one could vaguely see pale lights.

"Are we going down?" Ninth Master gripped the knife in his hand.

"We're already here."

Chen Mo tucked the crowbar behind his waist and was the first to step onto the ladder.

"Li Ke, watch the dog."

"Huh? Me, staying up here?" Li Ke hugged the urn, looked at the pitch-black tombstones around, then looked at the bottomless hole.

"I want to go down! I want to go down too!"

The fat man scrambled into the pit, clutching Ninth Master's belt tightly. "Up here is way scarier than down there! Down there, at least there are living people!"

"Bring the dog."

Chen Mo didn't look back, his figure quickly disappearing into the darkness of the hole.

"Remember."

"No matter what you see, don't scream."

"If the thing inside really is Wang Daoming..."

Chen Mo's voice came from the deep well, echoing, sounding exceptionally ethereal.

"Then tonight, we might have to kill him again."

The ladder was very long.

Every five meters, a pale sensor light would turn on, illuminating the rusty metal well walls.

The smell in the air, a mixture of ozone and preservatives, grew stronger, making one's throat tighten.

"How much longer do we have to go down?"

Li Ke's voice, with a tremor, echoed back and forth in the narrow shaft. "Are we almost down to the eighteenth level of hell?"

He held the ladder with one hand, while the other had to protect the urn.

The Golden Retriever was packed in a net bag hanging on Ninth Master's back, currently sticking its wet, large tongue out, trying to lick the back of Ninth Master's neck.

"Stop talking nonsense, watch your step."

Chen Mo was in the lead, moving as nimbly as a gecko.

His ears kept moving. The further down they went, the less chaotic noise there was.

Replacing it was an extremely low, extremely stable electric current sound.

Zzz... Zzz...

That was the cooling sound of high-power servers running, and the sound of liquid flowing in pipes.