They felt nothing special walking in the stone forest. They might even enjoy the sight as it was not bad. Among these strange-shaped rocks of all kinds, some were ferocious; some were vicissitudes; some were cute; and some were funny.

The group walked forward together without encountering any danger along the way. There was nothing strange on this road except it was too long.

Time had passed without knowing how much and they couldn’t see its end.

Li Mu frowned and asked, “Do you feel strange? We can’t walk to the end of this road. And I doubt if it extends like infinity.”

“No, it’s not!” Mrs. Hong said firmly. “I’ve observed the rocks especially and they are of all shapes but almost never the same. We are indeed moving forward instead of marching on the spot.”

“Well, this road is too long then. How come the Shen Family be so wealthy to fix up a mechanic system as big as this?”

“This should be an underground karst cave. There are those natural rocks that the Shen Family takes advantage of and sets up the mechanic system accordingly. It doesn’t cost them too much labor or material.”

Lin Wan comforted him at the side, “Honey, please be patient. Assume we will find the end soon!”

Li Mu didn’t complain. Instead, he endured and kept walking forward.

Shen Zixing and Shen Ming’er kept looking around. Different from the others, they had lived in the mountains since childhood. They had never left their clan land and almost knew nothing about the outside world. Therefore, everything was fresh to them.

To Li Mu and the others, although these were pleasurable rocks, they had seen too many like these and didn’t care about these boring views too much.

While in the sisters’ eyes, the giant rocks in thousands of shapes and forms were like artworks. There were boulders in the mountains where they practiced, but never this strange or on this scale. Now they were immersed in this sea of rocks. They felt their eyes were not sufficient enough to enjoy the amazement.

They walked for a while until Shen Zixing stood still suddenly and waved to the group. Everyone stopped walking. “What is it?” Li Mu asked nervously.

Shen Zixing listened carefully. After a while, she pointed to the front and whispered, “Brother Mu, it seems that someone is calling us in the front. Did you hear it?”

Li Mu looked vacant. He shook his head and then looked at Shen Ming’er.

Ming’er nodded and confirmed, “Brother Mu, my sister is right. Someone is summoning us. The voice is weak. But I heard it clearly”

Li Mu then looked over the others who shook their heads meaning they didn’t hear anything.

“What did the voice say?” Li Mu asked.

“He said ‘come’!” Shen Zixing answered.

“Anything else?”

“No. He said nothing except repeating this word.”

“Funny. Why can’t we hear it?” Li Mu was puzzled and asked.

Mrs. Hong suggested, “Li Mu, this must have something to do with their identity. Only the Shen Family can hear that voice. Now there is nothing to hesitate about. Dead or alive, we have to break this challenge. Let’s go and have a look!”

“Fine. Everyone be careful and keep yourself to the team. Let’s go and see it together!”

The group walked forward. They turned and suddenly Lin Kun cried, “A knapsack! On the ground!”

Needless to say, the others also saw the knapsack. A military green bag lying by the side of the road, stuffed full but couldn’t be seen what was inside.

Mrs. Hong told Lin Kun, “Go and check it, Kun!”

After a short answer, Lin Kun took the shovel from Shen Zixing and walked over cautiously.

Near the knapsack, he didn’t hurry to turn it over. Instead, he circled around it twice and confirmed no mechanic system around before he squatted down to check it.

He lifted the knapsack with the shovel to make sure there was no mechanic system below. And then he sprinkled a white powder over and around the knapsack.

Lin Kun waited for 5 minutes after all these. Seeing nothing happened to the powder, he started to open the knapsack and took all the things out of it one by one.

A map, a rechargeable searchlight, two bundles of explosives, a lighter, and a few clothes. There was nothing more than these.

Lin Kun waved to the others meaning there was nothing dangerous. The group walked over to see the knapsack but no one could say why it appeared here.

Mrs. Hong sneered, “It seems someone got ahead of us. And something bad might have happened to them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t leave their equipment behind.”

He Xiaoyu asked, “Mrs. Hong, is it the cultivator?”

“Definitely not. Only the common explorers crack the mechanic system with explosives. The cultivators never do it because it is too shameful!”

Lin Wan added, “Losing face is just one part of it. The key is that it has got really poor effect and is highly likely to trigger the protection mechanism thus causing a more dangerous disaster. When the gain doesn’t justify the cost, of course the cultivator won’t do it.”

Li Mu laughed, “I am not the cultivator nor do I care about the face. Lin Kun, check everything to make sure we are bringing all we need. Also, don’t forget the two bundles of explosives.”

The group gathered to check the map and realized that it was a treasure hunt map with the location of the gold mine entrance marked. Of course, the so-called gold mine entrance was actually the entrance to the defense formation. What awaited after entry was not sudden fortune, but a faint possibility of survival against death.

Li Mu stared at the map in silence and frowned.

Lin Wan noticed that and asked, “Honey, what is it? Is there anything wrong with the map?”

Li Mu pointed to the entrance mark and answered, “The map doesn’t have any problem. Maybe the people have some?”

People looked at him, confused.

Li Mu explained, “This entrance should be the entrance to the formation. If the explorer here wasn’t a cultivator, then how did he solve the mechanics before. That’s a natural moat for ordinary people and impossible to cross safely.”

Lin Wan and the rest nodded slowly, agreeing to the point.

Mrs. Hong asked, “Li Mu, tell us your analysis?”

Li Mu laughed, “There’s no limit to the wisdom of the working people. Countless explorers never came back. And even a silly one can sense the danger here. Tell me, do you think they can find a separate path or not?”

“You mean they dug a tunnel around the designed path of the dream?”

“Yes, here is my guess. They dug a tunnel to bypass the first challenge and straight into the Dream Valley, but all died in the Rock Forest. I think this may be the reason that the knapsack appeared here.”

Lin Wan’s eyes sparkled with excitement, “If we find the tunnel, does it mean we could escape through it?”

“Yes, we should be able to escape through that.”

He Xiaoyu asked, “Brother, if there’s a tunnel to escape, why didn’t they do it?”

“That’s simple. Man dies in pursuit of wealth and birds die for food. Since they went through all the hassle to come in, how could they not look for the gold mine? Then when the results came, it was already too late to escape.”

The rest agreed with what he said. The formation of the Shen Family was not a game. It might be easy to come inside but difficult to get out. Perhaps the gold chasers already missed the best chance to escape when they finally realized it and all became corpse puppets of the Shen Family.

One thing they were all sure about now was that the majority of the corpse puppets here were from gold chasers. Only one question remained unclear to them. “Making so many corpse puppets requires much time and effort while the Shen Family doesn’t leave any clan to guard the site. How could they manage it?”

However, the group didn’t care for this secret too much. All families had their unique secret skills and the Lin Family too had their way of making bulk corpse puppets. Therefore, the three members of the Lin Family didn’t show much interest in this question.

Li Mu and He Xiaoyu cared even less. How the Shen Family produced corpse puppets had nothing to do with them and they preferred to save their brain for this question.

The crowd refocused on the map again and finally found some clues after a few rounds of careful investigation.

On the map, there was a blurry broken line with one end pointing to a house and the other to a square.

They contemplated over both places and finally understood that the house was the rock chamber in the village and the square should be somewhere deep in the rock forest.

Li Mu got excited, “Let’s go! We can find the square marked on the map and leave here through the tunnel.”

“Brother Mu, you said the corpse puppets were guarding inside the rock chamber. Are they guarding the tunnel to stop people from finding it?” asked Shen Zixing.

“Of course not. Why would they guard it? Wouldn’t it be easier just to destroy it? There must be another reason why the corpse puppets are gathered there and it should have nothing to do with stealing gold.”

“What can possibly be the reason?” Shen Zixing pondered it with a frown.

“Don’t think too much. Maybe we could find the answer once we are back at the rock chamber. By the way, is that voice still summoning you?” asked Li Mu.

Shen Zixing shook her head and answered, “Not now. It was on and off from time to time and quite irregular. Brother Mu, let’s keep moving forward. Maybe after a while, it will summon me again.”

Li Mu nodded and told the rest to start. They followed the path to move forward.

Without going too far, the two sisters almost simultaneously pointed to a giant rock in fear and shock, “It’s there!” They said.

Li Mu gave Lin Kun a nod and they both approached the giant rock slowly from different sides, each holding a shovel.

At a closer distance, it felt just like an ordinary giant rock with no difference compared to others. There wasn’t any trace of human activity around either.

They circled around the rock a few times. Lin Kun shrugged his shoulders and said to Li Mu, “Brother, aren’t they too nervous? There’s nothing here. Where’s the voice?”

Li Mu waved towards the two sisters and the rest five people all came over.

“What’s going on? Any findings?” Lin Wan asked.

“Nothing at all. Everything seems fine.” answered Li Mu.

He then questioned Shen Zixing, “Zixing, is there any chance that you two heard it wrong?”