Wang Xuance stared blankly for a while, inexplicably reminded of the sight of tanks descending from the sky in Daming.
With the Duke around, if tanks could fall from the sky, what couldn't he do?
Thinking of this, he patted his chest and assured, "Duke, rest assured."
Li Da and Zhou Yanxi, bewildered, wanted to ask, but were glared into silence by him.
Some things were best kept to oneself, never spoken aloud.
Otherwise, they might be silenced.
The two could only suppress their doubts, retrieve the grenades, and prepare to pull the pins and throw them at a moment's notice.
Seeing they were ready, Fang Er placed a hand on the coffin lid.
The next moment, the massive golden coffin lid vanished into thin air.
Wang Xuance didn't question if he was seeing things; instead, he immediately tossed a grenade inside.
He also yelled to Li Da and Zhou Yanxi, "Throw grenades, quickly!"
Military orders were as binding as mountains, a conditioned reflex. Hearing those four words, they instinctively pulled the pins, threw the grenades, all in one seamless action.
Everything happened in the blink of an eye.
The giant scorpion in the coffin had been awakened when they blew open the upper ground. Sensing the obstacle above disappear, it instinctively tried to crawl out.
Seeing the scorpion's tail raised high, just as the three of them finished throwing the grenades, Fang Er quickly retrieved the coffin lid and restored it to its place.
"Bang!"
The sound of the coffin lid striking the coffin body jolted Li Da and Zhou Yanxi awake.
They looked at their empty hands, then at the coffin before them, exchanged glances, and exclaimed in unison.
"Holy shit! Was I seeing things?"
"Seeing things, your ass! Get back, quickly!"
Fang Er roared, and retreated several paces first. Wang Xuance and the other two also quickly retreated ten meters away.
The grenades had a three-second delay. Just as they stopped and stabilized themselves, they heard a "boom" from the coffin.
"Boom~"
"Hiss~~ Hiss~~ Chirp~"
After the explosion, the giant scorpion's screams echoed from within the coffin.
The three grenades detonated in the confined space, not even making the coffin lid budge.
"Damn, this coffin's quality is really good," Li Da exclaimed, mouth agape.
"Are you stupid? How heavy do you think such a massive pure gold coffin lid would be? Did you eat all the knowledge you learned in night school?" Wang Xuance glared at him fiercely.
Zhou Yanxi nodded in agreement, "Exactly! The density of gold is 19.32 grams per cubic centimeter, more than 19 times that of water."
"Such a large golden coffin lid must weigh at least several thousand catties. How could a mere three grenades damage it?"
After speaking, he grinned and sidled up to Fang Er, "Heh heh, Duke, I'm not wrong, am I?"
The Torch Special Forces, besides their daily training, had to spend an hour each day learning with the soldiers of the Skyfire Army. These things had all been taught in class.
Fang Er nodded slightly, then pointed at the coffin, "Let's blow it up again!"
After three consecutive explosions, until there was no sound from the coffin, he finally, with relief, removed the lid again.
By now, the inside of the coffin was a mess.
The giant scorpion was blown to pieces, its shell, limbs, and flesh splattered all over the inner walls of the coffin.
Besides that, a mummified corpse had suffered the same fate, reduced to an unrecognizable lump.
The only evidence that a mummy had been there was a shriveled human hand.
The accompanying burial items were also reduced to fragments, their original forms completely indistinguishable.
He asked Li Da and Zhou Yanxi to fetch some clean water to wash the coffin and to check on Ge Luoyang.
After they left, Fang Er finally had the chance to examine the surrounding walls.
Perhaps because the smaller scorpions had been led elsewhere earlier, there were no scorpions here.
The powerful flashlight beam illuminated the walls, revealing only bare stone slabs, with only pits caused by falling debris; there was nothing else to be seen.
"Duke, look at this!"
Just then, Wang Xuance's voice came from behind him.
Fang Er turned to see him holding a stone and offering it.
The stone was a piece of debris that had fallen from the ceiling, and it bore traces of artificial carving.
Fang Er quickly shone his flashlight on the ceiling. It was covered in dense lines, and at the intersection of these lines was the large hole that had been blown open.
What the fuck!
This secret chamber had no other exits and seemed sealed beneath a floor. But why carve these patterns on the ceiling instead of the surrounding walls? Who designed this idiotic thing?
"You idiot, can't you use your brain to think about how this thing was carved?"
The system sister's mocking voice echoed in his mind.
Fang Er awkwardly touched his nose, realizing he had indeed been a bit hasty.
The surroundings were sealed, and there were carvings on the ceiling. Who carved them?
It couldn't have been the one in the coffin who carved them, then crawled back inside, and conveniently closed the several-thousand-catty coffin lid.
That was clearly unrealistic!
This meant there must be another passage.
But what were those patterns carved on the ceiling?
These patterns were not like the murals on the upper level, where the story could be guessed at a glance.
The stone carvings were intricate and complex, and the center had a hole nearly a meter square blown out, making it impossible even for Fang Er to make a complete imprint to study later.
"Duke, the water is here!"
Zhou Yanxi's voice came from above. He and Li Da returned carrying a string of water flasks.
The mess inside the golden coffin was cleaned out, and the inner walls were rinsed clean with fresh water.
"How is Old Ge?"
Fang Er asked casually about Ge Luoyang's condition while standing aside.
"Reporting to Duke, he's still green. Seems even greener than before."
"But he said his head isn't as dizzy anymore, and the swelling on his face has reduced a bit."
Li Da replied while working.
"Wait a moment!"
Fang Er's peripheral vision caught sight of something he was about to discard, and he quickly walked over.
It was a segment of a scorpion's tail, still attached to its stinger.
The last segment of a scorpion's tail housed the venom sac, and this thing should be of great use.
He didn't know if it would help Ge Luoyang's condition, but he decided to keep it for now.
He took off his outer coat, folded it a few times, carefully wrapped the venom sac in it, and handed it back to Li Da.
"You and Yanxi take this thing out, carefully."
"Yes, Duke."
Li Da didn't understand why two people were needed to take something out, but he didn't dare to ask. He simply called Zhou Yanxi, and they both left the pyramid.
Afterward, until everything in the coffin was cleaned out, nothing else of note was discovered.
After a brief rinse with water, Fang Er put away the entire coffin in front of Wang Xuance.
"Ah~ Am I blind~~"
"Duke, quickly, help me see, why can't I see anything with my eyes?"
The moment the coffin disappeared, Wang Xuance quickly closed his eyes and shouted.
Fang Er smiled and cursed him speechlessly, "Alright, since I let you see it, I wasn't planning to hide it from you. But as for the specifics, don't ask. Even if you ask, I won't tell you."
"Now that this matter is settled, let's get out of here!"
Outside the pyramid, Ge Luoyang and the other soldiers were pointing and discussing the venom sac wrapped in the clothes. Seeing them emerge, they quickly stepped forward to greet them.
"Duke, what's this thing good for?"
"It's not good for much. I just wanted to try poking you with it to see if it would make you normal again," Fang Er replied casually.
Ge Luoyang's face turned green upon hearing this. Well, his face was already green.
"Duke, I heard from Zhou Yanxi that the scorpion was huge. Just the severed limbs weighed dozens of catties!"
"Such a large scorpion must be very poisonous. If I poked myself, would I die?"
Fang Er looked at him mockingly, "So, do you choose to stay green, or do you want to try poking yourself? Perhaps, after one poke, you'll stop being green?"
Ge Luoyang: ...
After a while, he mumbled, "Duke, I choose to stay green."
"Alright, love is a light, so green it makes you panic. I respect your choice." Fang Er spread his hands in agreement, as using the venom of this giant scorpion was indeed a bit risky.
It had been almost an hour since this guy started turning green.
Besides the previous swelling and dizziness, there were no other discomforts, not even nausea or vomiting.
From this perspective, there shouldn't be any severe consequences.
"Let's return to Song. If anything else happens, I'll have Zhao Guangyi send an imperial physician to examine you."
There was nothing else to do here, so Fang Er decided to withdraw.
On the way back, thinking about the other two parallel worlds, he initiated communication with the system.
"System Sister, where are the passages to ps3025 and ps3027?"
"In later generations, within Russia's Chelyabinsk Oblast, near the site of the meteorite fall in 2013."
Uh, this seems to be quite a leap!
Fang Er had also seen the news back then. Around 12:30 PM on February 15, 2013, a celestial body fall event occurred in Russia's Chelyabinsk Oblast.
That 7,000-ton meteorite was pierced through its tail by an unknown object, causing it to shatter into countless fragments.
However, even so, the impact areas of these fragments caused many building windows to break and injured over 1,200 people.
Before this news, he had barely heard of Chelyabinsk Oblast, let alone knew where it was.
"System: By the way, there's something I need to remind you of. Due to the instability of the world barriers in these three worlds, natural disasters may occur at any time. For example, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions!"
Fang Er asked doubtfully, "Aren't earthquakes and tsunamis very common on Earth? Why be so serious?"
"System: Earthquakes like the Tangshan earthquake, happening every other day, are they common?"
Holy crap, Fang Er was terrified!
Frequent earthquakes of magnitude eight or higher, was this heading towards annihilation?
If this news got out, who knew how much panic it would cause!
Thinking of the system's usual aloofness, he seemed to recall something and quickly asked.
"System Sister, you're reminding me so enthusiastically, you must have a solution, right?"
"System: Gold! Massive amounts of gold. As long as there is enough gold, I can support the passage to the world of Daming, and then you can have them all migrate there."
Fang Er was momentarily stunned by the system's words.
Damn it, he had originally only thought of taking a few people back, but now it had escalated to taking everyone back?
There wasn't even a hint of a plan for saving the main world, and now he had to start practicing with three parallel worlds?
With so many people, just moving them would take years. How much gold would that consume?
"System Sister, give me an accurate number, how much is needed!"
"System: One hundred million tons!"
Fang Er: !!!
Damn it, where would he get a hundred million tons of gold from!
Even if he scraped clean all the gold in Daming, he probably couldn't gather that much.
Later generations estimated that the total gold reserves on Earth were only around 4.8 billion tons.
Although he could collect gold from other worlds, he couldn't forget that the mining and refining techniques in ancient times were incredibly inefficient!
"System Sister, how much time do I have left?"
"System: Cannot be determined, but the sooner the better. Every day you delay, a large number of people will die from natural disasters!"
Damn it!
Is there anything more morally manipulative than this?