The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 182: Entrance

Of course, the whole mountain wasn't fake, but part of it must have been built on stilts.

The ground collapsing here proved that the entire depression had been raised, and then covered with soil and weeds. I didn't know what the structure under the mountain was like because of the collapse, but I believed it was a bracket and fixed plate, which was common in architecture.

As a result, the soil layer wasn't thick enough, and big trees couldn't grow here. The heightened ground was probably more like a shell.

This kind of project could be completed in one day if there was an engineering unit, but I thought it was unlikely because too many people would make the objective more obvious. I believed the project was built bit by bit under very covert conditions. This kind of concealment was generally related to the military.

This kind of project wasn't only covert, but required a lot of force. I figured the only way to make holes in the mountain like this was to use explosives. There was no other trick to excavating up here, because they would encounter nothing but rocks, even after only digging a little bit.

And I knew where the entrance was. It was most likely right there at the large tree, and that tree was a sign. Since it had grown so high, its root system must have been directly buried.

The place where I had lit the fire must be near the entrance, and the whole area underneath should be hollow.

Of course, I couldn't go back there in the dark now, and I didn't know if there would be any problems since I had pushed the smoke under the rocks and lit another big fire. I didn't even know if the collapse here had been caused by the fire on the hillside.

I carefully ran through the grass, and reached the edge of the collapsed basin where the fractured earth was.

I could see a camouflage layer about as thick as my arm, along with a bottom layer of cement-reinforced steel, and a middle layer of huge rock, which had been covered in cement. It looked no different from the mountain rock, because it had been covered with natural rocks, mud, gravel, and weeds.

If someone tried to dig here and reached the rock strata, they wouldn't be able to dig down any further. All they would find was an obstacle.

Since the strata on both sides had been dislocated, the fault line was actually on the side. I noticed that the collapse had caused countless holes to appear, and the fault line was full of grass roots. When I looked down, all I could see was empty space.

I had thought the area inside would be very cramped, since it was only half a man's height from the bottom of the real mountain depression. But when I went to climb down, I found that I couldn't touch the bottom. I lit some hay and threw it down, but found that the burning hay fell like a meteor.

The area below was astonishingly deep. I felt around for a moment, and discovered that not only was the temperature freezing, but there was also a strange air flow.

When I gave a shout, the echo sounded very hollow.

I broke out in a cold sweat as I realized that there was a huge space beneath my feet. I felt around the edge where I was situated, and even down along the side, feeling a rough concrete wall.

I was at the top of a tall concrete building that had been constructed in an abyss. I didn't actually know whether it was a building, or a huge concrete tower.

How deep was the depression? I took a deep breath and stood up. Since my bachelor's degree in architecture had saved my life several times, I reviewed all the college courses in my spare time. Now I felt like I wouldn't have any big problem retaking the postgraduate exam. When I looked at the mountain depression from an architectural viewpoint this time, and recalled the road conditions on the way up here, I realized what had happened.

The "ground" here hadn't been built half a man's height from the bottom of the mountain depression, but had actually been elevated mid-air across the depression. Based on what I could tell, this "ground" was at least a hundred meters above the real ground, and there was a huge hollow below.

Someone had built a high-rise concrete building in the depression, and then covered it with the "ground". The top of this concrete building was just under my feet, half a person's height from what I had thought was the ground. The water jars and stone plate were all on top of this concrete building.

This was a huge covert project. As far as I could remember, there was only one project that could be compared with this—a silo for intercontinental missiles. But based on my previous experience, I determined that such a thing was impossible.

I didn't dare enter, since I didn't have any lighting equipment. I could only wait until the morning when I could look at it under the sunlight. Such a building had to have an entrance at the top; otherwise, it wouldn't have been designed without the camouflage layer covering the top of it. (It was later confirmed that I was wrong.)

But I couldn't immediately calm the shock in my heart. If I had guessed right, then maybe this ground was still equipped with sliding rails, and the road that had disappeared was actually on the hillside below this ground. The whole "ground" was guided by sliding rails and would tilt downward, exposing the dirt road, and then covering it up again.

The depression wasn't wide, and the mechanical design wasn't as complicated as the ones at the top of basketball courts.

But what was this place? Coal mines, liberation trucks, humanoid monsters... I had many ideas as to whether the mine had been dug up for their project and didn't really produce coal, which was why Lin Qizhong couldn't find any traces of it. But I would have to go in tomorrow to get a look at the traces before I could understand.

I basically didn't sleep that night. On the one hand, I was afraid of the things I had met before; on the other hand, I was thinking about the mystery below. But I still forced myself to rest. It wasn't safe to sleep here, and if I fell into a deep sleep, I might end up snoring. I simply stayed awake and waited for morning to come, making torches out of the hay and branches to kill some time.

When dawn was breaking, the scenery around me became brighter and brighter. I found a flat place to make a bed, made several traps around me that were linked to my fingers, and then sat there squinting for a while.

I was really tired, but to be honest, my body was much better than before, especially since I came to Yinchuan. I had slept very well every day during my stay here. After I hunkered down and took a short nap, my spirit was mostly recovered.

Nothing came to harm me, so did that mean I managed to kill it? I wondered as I approached the fault line again and looked down.

In the daylight, I was able to confirm my theory. I couldn't see the bottom at all, and after walking around the fault, I couldn't find any outer stairs leading downwards.

It looked like the entrance was probably on the roof.

Ok.

I focused my gaze on the bug plate and the water jars.

These things had appeared so abruptly here, but if they had appeared in the wilderness, most people would merely think it was a strange stone and some old water jars.

Was there a hidden entrance among these things?