“Tock, tock…”

Unable to figure it out, Fang Qiu took out his mobile phone to call Li Ji again.

“Hello?”

Li Ji answered the phone.

“Where am I now?” Fang Qiu asked directly.

“On a Snow-mountain sect.”

Li Ji said.

“A Snow- mountain sect?”

Hearing that, Fang Qiu immediately cried out in surprise.

This was what he had imagined, but he didn’t expect it to be at a Snow-mountain sect.

“Absolutely!”

“It’s about two kilometers away from your first fixed position. It’s in the southwest!”

Li Ji explained in detail.

“The southwest… Then I’m inside the Snow-mountain sect that is not far from where we got off the coach?”

While Fang Qiu thought over the matter, the routes he had taken immediately came to his mind. According to what Li Ji said, he should be under the place where he had passed before.

He should be in an ice-capped mountain not far from the ox-horn snow mountain.

“Okay, I see.”

After Fang Qiu confirmed his position, his eyes brightened, and he finally breathed a soft sigh of relief in his heart.

According to the position, the place where he stood really existed in real life.

At least, his position had moved and could be seen on the map. It was unlike before — his position remained unchanged even after he moved quite a distance away.

“Remember the few anchor points. Also, don’t forget the route I’ve asked you to take down.”

Fang Qiu reminded him again.

“Don’t worry.”

Li Ji replied, “I’ve recorded all these things. There won’t be any mistakes.”

Fang Qiu’s tone sounded severe, but Li Ji didn’t ask why he had to do this. The higher-ups had decided to let him handle the matter with regard to the ancient ruin. After all, no one could be more qualified than him to do this task.

Fang Qiu contributed to the country all the time. In turn, the state would grant him some rights he deserved to have, one of which was the right to privacy.

“Okay, I gotta go.”

Fang Qiu answered and hung up the phone.

Originally, he wanted to follow the current to see where the exit was.

However, something emergent came to his mind.

Those old guys must have discovered by now that he had disappeared and might catch up with him if he didn’t return in time. This place would become dangerously unstable once this underground river was exposed. If he wanted to revisit this place, the others would surely place him under surveillance.

Therefore, Fang Qiu could only turn back quickly.

Anyway, with Li Ji’s record of the accurate location, he would no longer have to worry about how he would find the jade mine after the ruin disappeared!

He went back through the way he came and floated down the stream.

Fang Qiu moved very fast.

When he got close to the intersection, he slowed down, bringing his strength down to the ninth-class with two opened meridians, and swam out of the cave smoothly.

Right after he swam out, he saw a large group of people gathered at the mouth of the cave sealed by the formation. All of them were concentrating on unraveling the formation seal!

Because everyone was focusing on cracking the puzzle, they didn’t notice Fang Qiu’s appearance.

Fang Qiu didn’t stand at the ceremony.

He immediately swam up quietly and with a curious look on his face, made his way to the entrance sealed by the formation.

He rushed over all of a sudden.

His sudden appearance startled everyone who was trying to solve the riddle.

“Kid, where did you go?”

“Sure enough, you’re in the water!”

“Damn it! I was nearly scared to death. I thought you were a ghost in the water which ran out randomly.”

Although they couldn’t say anything, they stared at Fang Qiu, with disgruntled looks. Obviously, all of them were discontented by his sudden disappearance and appearance.

“Where did you go?”

Master Numinous also turned around and asked, using his eyes.

“Brat, where did you go exactly?”

Diwu Mingchuan and the others also had doubtful looks in their eyes.

With a shrug, Fang Qiu, facing so many people’s suspicious looks, pointed to the lower half of his body and had an anxious look on his face as he said, “I was in a hurry to pee. I just needed to find a place to take a wee.”

Everyone was speechless.

“Where have you been? Have you been underwater all the time?”

Everyone asked again.

Fang Qiu nodded and again indicated the lower half of his body. Then he turned his head and pointed at the body of water where he had just come out from, to show that he had gone upstream to do a wee.

Everyone was rendered speechless.

“What the hell! What’s wrong with him?

“How could anyone run upstream to pee?

“After he passed water, wouldn’t the current bring his urine to us?”

Thinking of this, everyone instantly felt extremely disgusted.

Fang Qiu, on the other hand, burst out laughing.

All the others squinted at him, their mouths twitching with displeasure.

Patriarch Qian swam over and waved to Fang Qiu, pointing to the formation that blocked the entrance. Apparently, he was asking Fang Qiu if he had seen the sealing formation when he came down.

“I saw it.”

Fang Qiu nodded and communicated with him through his eyes, “When I came down, I stayed here for quite a while to try and solve the mystery, but I could do nothing about it. Then I had to leave to pee.”

This explanation sounded reasonable enough.

Everyone nodded.

“Try again to see if you can crack this formation.”

Xi Fengling urged.

“Okay.”

Fang Qiu nodded and walked up, attempting to unlock the formation.

The others were once again engrossed in trying to break open the seal.

Just like that, the crowd continued to gather before the sealing formation. Some of them thought they had a chance to break it. Some considered that this mission was far beyond their capabilities, so they turned their attention to Fang Qiu, waiting for him to decode it.

More than ten minutes passed quickly.

Fang Qiu fixed his eyes on the formation for more than ten minutes.

Then he could no longer stand it and gave up his pretence of trying to crack the formation. Thus, he directly turned around and shook his head with a wave of his hand, then pointing upward, he swam to the lake’s surface.

Everyone watched him as he did this series of actions.

They understood what John Doe meant: he wanted to go up and get some fresh air.

No one thought much about it.

They went on trying to resolve this complex problem.

Fang Qiu quickly went straight to the surface of the lake, breaking out of the water.

“Whew…”

Inhaling deeply, Fang Qiu looked around and noticed that all the wooden puppets had been taken away. He didn’t think much of that and went on walking toward the pavilion.

“Now, I’ve searched everywhere but still found nothing. The only thing left should be the painting with the big character ‘Mo’ in the hall!”

With this in mind, Fang Qiu walked into the hall and looked up at the painting.

A lot of people must have observed this painting, and many of them wanted to take it. After all, it was the only object in the entire relic.

However, on closer inspection, they discovered it was very ordinary. There was nothing special about it.

In addition, there were too many people.

As soon as anyone made a move to grab this painting, others would also make a mad rush for it.

To maintain the peace, everyone chose to let the painting hang here.

But…

Now, Fang Qiu was the only one in the hall!

…

Everyone was waiting for John Doe’s return beneath the lake.

They had thought John Doe would be back soon to crack the formation, but after waiting for a long time, there was no sign of him. Moreover, it gradually dawned upon them that John Doe might never return.

For a moment, everyone frowned.

What did this mean?

Normally, John Doe would not have abandoned such a mysterious place that might likely have treasures hidden in it. How could he leave like this?

Could it be that he had discovered more valuable treasures outside of the water?

This thought struck everyone.

They exchanged glances, feeling that something was wrong there. One after another, they swam ashore.

They emerged from the water.

“Boom!”

There suddenly came a deafening sound of an explosion.

Abruptly, the entire space in the ruin began to shake.

Fang Qiu was still in the hall of the pavilion.

In his hand was the painting with the character “Mo” that he had taken off the wall!

After taking the painting from the wall, Fang Qiu wanted to study it carefully before putting it away. But before he could take a closer look, it spontaneously combusted.

It burst into flames and soon, the ashes whirled all over in the sky.

The painting began to burn.

The entire relic also started to shake violently.

Everyone trembled; it felt as if they were in an earthquake.

Then, everyone looked up.

A huge crack could be seen in the sky. Usually, a violent earthquake would cause large gaps to appear on the ground. This time, the impact of the enormous shock even split the sky!

This scene frightened everyone.

Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!

When everyone was at a loss about what to do next, the crack in the sky exploded abruptly.

Everything turned black.

The world suddenly lit up.

The lake was gone, and so was the fog surrounding the ruin. It was not only the pavilion in the relic that disappeared, but the ripped sky caused by the vibration vanished at the same time.

Instead, a group of rugged snow mountains appeared.

As far as their eyes could see, they were in a world of ice like the South Pole. They could see parts of the frozen mountain inside the ice.

“Are we back?”

“We’re out?”

“The relic?”

“Where is the ancient ruin?”

“What the fuck! We’ve just found the seal under the water. How could it all be gone?”

Seeing the utterly different scene around them, everyone immediately thought that the secret place had disappeared!

The ruin was also gone.

Looking around in puzzlement, their eyes finally landed on Fang Qiu, who was not far away.

“What did you do?”

Diwu Mingchuan asked, bristling with fury.

“What did you touch?”

Master Numinous also asked hurriedly.

“I, but I didn’t do anything?”

Fang Qiu shrugged, acting innocent.

His reply confused everyone even more.

“He did nothing, but how could this relic suddenly disappear?”

They looked at each other and suddenly a thought seemed to occur to all of them simultaneously. Immediately, these masters turned around in a great hurry, crazily searching everywhere.

They found nothing.

All the puppets that they had hidden were gone.

The relic was nowhere to be found. Everything had disappeared without a trace!

Their efforts in the relic were in vain!

Their expressions turned ugly.

They all glared at Fang Qiu.

The others were together earlier, so they were above suspicion. The only person who could have done something was John Doe!

Otherwise, why would he make his way out of the lake so early?

“It must be you. You made the relic disappear. There is nothing in there, but we managed to get a few puppets. Now because of you, both the ruin and our wooden warriors are gone forever. You have to pay for the damage!”

Someone shouted out loud.

Everyone immediately backed him up.

Hearing that, Fang Qiu trembled and then quickly ran away from them.

“Don’t run.”

“Stop right there.”

“Why are you running away? What are you escaping from?”

As soon as everyone saw him fleeing, they chased after him.