Right now, everyone looked at Xi Yu with earnest eyes and asked from the heart, "And then?"
But there was no "then."
Xi Yu said, "That's it. Nothing else."
Which "left" was this left supposed to be? Whose left? From which position? There was no follow-up at all, no way to make any judgment.
Even so, Xi Yu firmly believed Professor Pei had his reasons. Xi Yu said, "If Professor Pei said it, he must have foreseen we might get trapped here. Since we have a direction, left, we should search toward the left. We'll probably find something."
There was no proof, no basis. But they had no clues. Even if they disliked it, they still had to try.
However—
"Left, left."
Which left was it? If people stood opposite one another, or on four different sides, every "left" pointed somewhere else. For the moment, no one could decide.
In the end, everyone got dizzy with overthinking. After a round of debate that produced no result, they only managed to agitate the swarm of bugs outside the ice-sealed door.
Seeing the ice gate crack under repeated impacts, Ling Jiang rushed forward to reinforce it.
Once Ling Jiang reinforced the ice, the door became even more tightly sealed. Walking out through it was nearly impossible.
…
They argued in place a while longer. Captain Zhang finally said, "We were drawn straight to that big door on basement level five and ignored the rest. There's more down there we didn't take. Let's go back and try it. Maybe there's another exit below."
Zhou Zhi echoed, "If there isn't, we can come back. Anything's better than standing here."
Without much hesitation, the group turned and headed downstairs.
Because Professor Pei's "left" kept echoing in their minds, everyone, upon reaching the lower level, instinctively moved left.
This corridor wasn't straight like the ones above. It wound and twisted, turning corners and shifting up and down between short flights, though none of it was hard to walk. It was a single path all the way through.
Lan Jin felt they had walked forever. Just when Lan Jin's head was about to spin, the group spotted, at a distance, an elevator with power, standing right ahead.
The display at the top showed "4F." Before entering that room earlier, this elevator would have led to the fourth floor. But after what had just happened, they all felt it might be another trap.
They stared at the motionless elevator and felt a chill.
Whether the elevator opened or not, the path forward had ended here.
They faced two choices. One, open the elevator and deal with whatever came. Two, turn back and try the right-hand side to see if another passage existed.
Leaving after coming all this way felt wrong to everyone, even aside from how difficult the return would be.
After a short hesitation, Shen Zhiyu said, "I think we can open it. This looks like the elevator we unlocked on the fourth floor."
Shen Zhiyan asked curiously, "Brother, how do you know?"
Shen Zhiyu said, "We've walked enough to get a feel for this villa's footprint above and below. I did the math. Unless I'm off, this elevator connects to the one we saw on the fourth floor."
Lao Gao said, "Whatever it is, we'll know if we open it. We can't just leave without checking. If the right side's a dead end, we'll have to circle back anyway."
After speaking, Lao Gao said to Ling Jiang, "Sister Ling, be ready. If something nasty comes out, block it. Block it with everything you've got."
Ling Jiang muttered, "What are we doing, opening a blind box?" Ling Jiang grumbled, but she still moved to the very front of the group.
Even then, Ling Jiang didn't stand directly in front of the doors. After that last scene, they were still shaken. If something jumped out, there wouldn't be time to run. Besides, they weren't without ability users.
Just as Huang Jinghe was about to step up and press the button with a water jet, the team's plant-ability user suddenly said, "I can do it. My ability's back."
The words landed like a bomb, startling everyone.
Lao Gao stared wide-eyed and said, "Your ability is back? How?"
Captain Zhang added, "Zhang Ye, don't talk nonsense. Once an ability disappears, how can it suddenly return?"
He tested his own spiritual power afterward and felt nothing. He said, "Mine didn't come back. I can't sense anything around us."
Zhang Ye raised a hand and showed the ability. Plant vines uncurled from Zhang Ye's palm. Zhang Ye's power really had returned.
But why only one person?
Lan Jin said, "There must be a reason. Is something in this forest suppressing your abilities?"
From what their eyes had noticed, the things in that room were now "gone." Could those things have suppressed ability users and kept them from using their powers?
It did not seem likely.
For now, the list of strange events had one more item.
…
Captain Zhang said, "Let's stop puzzling over it and get out of here. This place is too eerie. And be extra careful when we go out. If that green light sweeps us, what do we do?"
Mentioning the green light scattered their focus in a new direction.
With Zhang Ye's plant ability restored, they could stand even farther back from the elevator. They retreated and retreated, far enough to take a bend, then let Zhang Ye act.
With a ding, the elevator stopped at the fourth floor. After the door chime, the doors slid open. The expected mutant horde was not inside. As they approached, they saw that this was indeed the same elevator from the fourth floor.
The corpse of the mutant giraffe still lay inside, its neck still twisted into that eerie, unnatural angle they remembered.
Lan Jin glanced once and looked away. Lan Jin said, "Drag it out. Ling Jiang, freeze it to the floor. I'm afraid it'll jump up and try to eat us."
Ling Jiang said dryly, "You've watched too many horror movies."