23: A silent tomb

"Are we there?" Ma Liu's voice trembled in the deathly silent cockpit, like a candle flickering in the wind. "But... but the robot has stopped!"

"I know." Chen Feng pushed open the jammed hatch and jumped down.

A bone-chilling, icy wind rushed in, carrying Soul Echoes so dense they felt almost physical. They were like countless greasy hands caressing his skin and crawling into his nose and mouth.

Ma Liu crawled out after him, his legs going weak, nearly collapsing to his knees.

"It... it feels so bad..." His face turned deathly pale instantly, and his teeth chattered uncontrollably. "Brother Chen... I... I think I see my grandmother; she's waving at me..."

"You're seeing things; that's your great-grandmother." Chen Feng glanced at him coldly, without a shred of sympathy.

He turned around and nimbly climbed onto the now-scrap metal pioneer-3 modified, beginning to dismantle it without hesitation.

"Wh... what are you doing?" Ma Liu asked in terror. "Aren't we going to fix it?"

"Fix it with your tears?" Without looking back, Chen Feng used a multi-purpose wrench to violently remove the searchlight from the robot's head.

With a "click," he pried open a cover plate and pulled out a small backup battery roughly the size of a suitcase.

"This machine's mission is complete." Chen Feng crudely connected the battery and searchlight wires. A beam of light, not particularly bright but enough to pierce the darkness, shot out. "Its only value now is to serve as a temporary beacon for us."

Having finished this, he rummaged through the cockpit's maintenance box, finding two unused red flare sticks and some portable tools, which he stuffed into his pockets.

"Let's go." Chen Feng picked up the makeshift searchlight, its beam shining into the bottomless darkness.

"To... to where?" Ma Liu's voice carried a hint of sobbing.

"To find a tomb where you can survive." Chen Feng's voice remained devoid of emotion.

Watching Chen Feng's resolute back, Ma Liu looked at the cold steel tomb behind them and scrambled to follow, not daring to say another word.

"Brother Chen... l-look!" Ma Liu's scream suddenly shattered the silence.

Chen Feng whipped his head around, aiming the searchlight's beam at him.

"Which ancestor did you see this time?"

"N-no!" Ma Liu pointed at a fissure in the rock wall, his voice trembling. "Th-there seems to be something... flowing out!"

Chen Feng narrowed his eyes and moved the light beam over.

Within that narrow rock fissure, streams of visible, even denser grey mist were silently "surging" out. Those were exactly the Soul Echoes that made them feel extremely uncomfortable.

"They... they're like water..." Ma Liu murmured.

"Correct." For the first time, a cold arc curled at the corner of Chen Feng's mouth. "Since it's water, it must have a source."

"A source?"

"Any flow has a difference in elevation. We just need to walk against these 'currents' and find the place with the highest concentration..."

"Wouldn't that mean dying faster?!" Ma Liu nearly jumped.

"Fool." Chen Feng's voice was filled with undisguised contempt. "Is there wind in the eye of a typhoon?"

Ma Liu was stunned.

"The most dangerous place often implies the existence of a 'core' that isolates everything. The area around that core will actually be the safest place in the entire Sector B." Chen Feng spoke with the terrifying calmness of a professor explaining an axiom in class. "Now, you lead the way. Tell me where the 'current' is strongest."

"M-me?"

"Or would you prefer I leave you here to feed that 'water' yourself?"

Ma Liu shuddered all over, not daring to waste any more words. He shakily reached out and pointed in a direction. "Th-that way... I feel it's coldest and most miserable over there..."

"Very well, lead the way."

One after the other, they explored the massive cave on foot. The searchlight beam wavered in the darkness, as if it could be swallowed at any moment.

"Ah!"

Ma Liu screamed again, jumping up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

"What now?" Chen Feng asked impatiently.

"S-something hit my foot!"

Chen Feng shone the light downward, only to see a pebble the size of a fingernail lying quietly by Ma Liu's foot.

"..."

Chen Feng fell silent. He pulled a roll of grey industrial duct tape from his pocket.

"Come here."

"Brother Chen, I was wrong, I..."

"I said, come here."

A few minutes later, with a large "X" taped over his mouth, Ma Liu walked ahead whimpering. The world was finally quiet.

They walked for nearly an hour against the "current" of Soul Echoes. The scenery ahead began to change.

A small exploration camp, abandoned for who knows how many years, appeared within the searchlight's circle of light.

Decayed tent frames lay on the ground, crumbled to dust. Several rusted tools were scattered about, next to a few skeletons of miners long since turned to bone. In the final moments of their lives, they seemed to have been digging for something in vain.

"Mmm-mmm..." Ma Liu pointed at the skeletons, tears flowing from fright.

Chen Feng, however, walked straight over and crouched beside a curled-up skeleton.

"Don't look," he said to Ma Liu without turning back. "Compared to them, at least you can still make a sound."

His gaze was drawn to a metal box pressed beneath the skeleton. The box was made of some special alloy that still maintained its original metallic luster despite the erosion of time. It wasn't locked, but the gaps of the box were sealed tight by a solidified, amber-like translucent resin.

"Mmm-mmm?" Ma Liu looked at him in confusion.

"Be quiet."

Chen Feng took out the portable tools he'd dismantled from the robot and aimed a small crowbar at the weakest part of the resin seal.

"Snap!"

With a crisp sound, the solidified resin cracked open.

Without the slightest hesitation, Chen Feng pried open the lid with his hands.

Inside were no gold or silver treasures, only an incredibly old geological structure scanner perfectly preserved in a sealed bag, along with several handwritten journals wrapped in oilcloth.

Chen Feng tore open the oilcloth and flipped open the first journal.

The handwriting was frantic and terrified.

"...Day twelve, the 'Howl' has come! It's more violent than any recorded! God, that sound is ringing directly in our heads; we're going mad..."

"...Pete smashed his own head against the rock wall; he said he saw hell..."

"...We must hide in that place! The only hope! We've drawn a map at the end of the journal. If anyone sees this, remember, you must find that 'Tomb'! It's the only way out!"

Chen Feng quickly flipped to the last page. A very simple map drawn with red dye appeared before his eyes. The map's destination was a location marked with a skull, next to which was a line written in blood:

"Absolute Isolation Emergency Shelter."

Chen Feng's gaze slowly shifted from the journal to a rock wall deep within the camp, concealed by rubble and camouflage netting.

He stood up and ripped the tape off the still-shaking Ma Liu's mouth.

"Do you want to live?"

"Yes! Yes!" Ma Liu nodded like a chick pecking grain.

"Then go," Chen Feng pointed at the rock wall, "and move those stones for me."

Half an hour later, when the last camouflage rock was moved, a metal door made of heavy lead plates and covered in complex locking mechanisms appeared before them.

The door was unlocked.

Chen Feng pushed it open with force, and a wave of dry, pure air hit their faces.

Inside was a cramped secret room of less than five square meters. The four walls were made of thick lead plates and sound-absorbing material, resembling a bank vault.

The moment Chen Feng closed the door from the inside, the maddening Soul Echoes from the outside were completely cut off. The world became quieter than ever before.

Absolute safety.

Chen Feng leaned against the cold lead door and let out a long breath.

From his bosom, he slowly took out the tranquility grass that he had snatched a second before the cave-in, which was emitting a faint blue light.

"Brother Chen... are we... are we safe?" Ma Liu's voice carried the wild joy of a survivor.

"You are safe," Chen Feng said softly, looking at the herb in his hand.

"What do you mean?"

"It means that from now on, no matter what you hear—even if you hear me being torn to pieces inside—you must not open this door." Chen Feng's voice was calm, yet carried an unquestionable command.

He looked into Ma Liu's eyes, which were wide with fear, and said word by word:

"Because my most painful trial is only just beginning."