Chapter 364 Southern Mine

"What did you do in there?"

When Mira saw Chen Yu, he had already taken off his black trench coat and the haunted house mask.

He had returned to his normal black windbreaker attire.

He replied casually, "Just took care of a small matter. Let's continue looking for the Earth Rat."

Mira turned back curiously, but she didn't pry any further and just followed in his footsteps.

For her, this person Chen Yu had too many secrets.

The two continued to travel along the edge of the old city.

The afternoon light had already slanted from overhead to the west.

This area was completely outside the radiation range of the core zone; even the street lamp covers were broken.

"Can you actually find him or not?"

"I can, but I've already told you, it won't be that fast..."

"There's a warehouse ahead?"

"A warehouse? So what?"

"Warehouses are quite secluded. I'm planning to interrogate you again."

"You... are you kidding me!"

"I'm not kidding. Either you find him for me immediately, or you keep being interrogated."

"Let me go! Chen Yu! Let me go!"

This interrogation ended in Chen Yu's failure.

It seemed Mira really had no way to find the Earth Rat immediately.

Of course, he still trusted his own interrogation methods.

After this interrogation, Mira was even more unhappy with Chen Yu, and the way she looked at him was somewhat hostile.

This was also the reason why the red luan had never connected.

Hatred cannot produce a connection, but Chen Yu had never cared about that anyway.

"Wait!"

In the afternoon, Mira suddenly stopped at the entrance of a narrow alley.

The alley was very narrow, with towering walls on both sides. Mira crouched down, scraped the corner of the wall with her fingertip, brought the dust to her nose to smell it, and then stood up.

"Found it!"

"This is his trail!"

Chen Yu walked over and squatted down, his gaze falling on the layer of grayish-white dust on the ground...

If one didn't deliberately squat down to look closely, one wouldn't notice any difference between it and ordinary dust.

But after Chen Yu crouched down, relying on his super-high Perception, he did discover the difference.

These powders were very fine, but the particle sizes were unusually uniform; natural weathering wouldn't produce such consistent fineness.

Mira explained, "This is the residue of his Talent. He can crush all the rocks, concrete, bricks, and rammed earth layers he comes into contact with into fine powder, compress them, and then have them flow out of the ground."

"?"

Chen Yu was slightly taken aback; it was his first time hearing of such a Talent.

Since the apocalypse, the diversity of Talents had always been bizarre, but one this strange was rare.

Chen Yu narrowed his eyes, "So, no matter how deep he goes, as long as there are gaps in the soil, there will be residue on the ground."

"That's right."

Mira nodded, "If you didn't know the connection between this layer of powder and his Talent, you wouldn't look at it twice even if you passed by a hundred times."

Chen Yu nodded; this was true.

In this kind of abandoned urban area, it wasn't strange to find anything on the ground; dust, gravel, and bird droppings were all plentiful.

Chen Yu pulled a shovel out of his personal backpack and weighed it in his hand.

He first pried up the bricks and stones on the ground, flipped them away, and then thrust the shovel into the soil.

Mira took two steps back, crossed her arms over her chest, and prepared to watch Chen Yu work with a smile on her face.

But Chen Yu pointed at the shovel on the ground, "Then you start."

Mira's smile froze on her face.

"...Me?"

"Yes."

"...You want me to dig?"

"Yes."

Mira was stunned for two seconds, "I have very little strength, and my Talent isn't physical-type either. You're asking me to dig the ground with a shovel—you might as well let me dig with my fingernails!"

Chen Yu also crossed his arms over her chest, "If you can dig to the rat hole, I have no objections."

Mira: "..."

Mira took a deep breath, "I just... you did those things to me earlier, my legs are still weak, and my waist is sore, and you turn around and ask me to dig the ground with a shovel?"

"So what?"

"You—you are just pulling—"

"Shh."

Chen Yu made a gesture, "If you refuse, I can start the interrogation right here in the wild."

Mira withered immediately upon hearing this, not daring to say another word. She picked up the shovel and began to dig, one shovelful at a time.

'Brother Jiang...'

'Wait for me...'

'I'm almost there to save you...'

She compromised and endured, all for Jiang Boyuan; she would not allow her wedding to be just a dream.

Time passed minute by minute. Two hours later, Mira was exhausted and sat down on the ground with a thump.

"I can't do it anymore."

Her voice was hoarse, "I really can't go on..."

Chen Yu looked down; the pit she had dug extended about 1.2 meters from the surface and was about half a meter wide.

Mira caught her breath, "Everything I told you is true. You dig down, keep digging, you will definitely be able to dig to the rat hole. The Earth Rat went in this direction!"

Chen Yu nodded indifferently, "Then move to the side."

"Huh?"

"I said, move to the side."

"Oh, oh oh."

Mira didn't understand why, but she still moved to the base of the wall, her face covered in dust and sweat.

Chen Yu walked to the edge of the pit and stood still, then took a deep breath and stomped violently toward the ground—

"BOOM!!!!"

"BOOM!!!!"

"BOOM!!!!"

The earth shook, and the ground cracked from the stomping. Mira was stunned, her mouth wide open, "You... you..."

She had seen countless battles—some where a single blade killed, others where a fist blew off a head—but those were all within the realm of human capabilities.

This guy???

She quickly trotted over and looked at her pit; it had actually been shaken until it collapsed, revealing an underground tunnel.

"How is it possible... How is it possible..."

"Even an SSS-rank like Zhang Dahu couldn't do this. Is he even more powerful than an SSS-rank?"

Mira swallowed hard, unable to calm her emotions for a long time.

Chen Yu nodded with satisfaction.

The strata in this area had already been hollowed out by the Earth Rat's passage. Combined with Mira digging downwards, half of the top layer of cover had already been cleared.

That's right; having her dig the pit was never about expecting her to dig all the way to the bottom from the start.

The power brought by his ten-fold constitution, landing on a weak point that had already been half-dug through, naturally caused it to collapse easily.

"Let's go down."

Saying this, Chen Yu jumped in first, stepping onto the soil.

This tunnel was located about three meters underground, with a width of about two meters. The ground was packed hard, and the walls on both sides were smooth.

At a glance, one could tell it wasn't excavated by humans.

A beam of light leaked in diagonally from above, illuminating a small area.

The tunnel extended in both directions; the left side curved towards the depths, and the right side was the same.

Mira crouched at the edge and slowly climbed down. After landing, she looked left and right, "Uh..."

She spread her hands, her tone honest, "I can only find his trail. As for which direction... I really don't know."

Chen Yu crouched under the beam of light, his gaze falling on the ground in the distance.

Irregular indentations.

Not complete footprints.

Identifying them carefully, one could see they were heading to the left, which was the south.

"Still heading south?"

Mira frowned, "Could the Earth Rat be digging a tunnel to the Southern Mine?"