Chapter 57: Blasting Through the Frozen Soil

The Northeast wilderness in winter is truly bitterly cold; otherwise, why would Cheng Xiangru feel his body so stiff, as if the blood flowing within him had already frozen into ice and frost?

With a stiff neck, he slowly turned his head to look at where the others stood in the distance. He wanted to catch a glimpse of Leng Ying, but he could not see her clearly at all, discerning only the churning balls of white mist amidst the flashlight beams.

The words Boss Zhou had just spoken were a devastating blow to him.

In Cheng Xiangru's heart, Leng Ying and he had shared life-and-death experiences, and they had grown somewhat dependent on each other.

He had even felt that in this vast and chaotic world of all living beings, finding someone of his own kind was the greatest stroke of fortune within his unfortunate life.

Yet Boss Zhou's words shattered all his illusions, making his heart spasm and breathing difficult.

"Let's go back. Don't keep everyone waiting too long," Boss Zhou said, turning back to walk toward the group.

Cheng Xiangru slowly took a step, feeling as though his legs were filled with lead, weighing thousands of pounds.

Zyulov and Lin Xiaqi were squatting not far away, working together to drive iron rods into the ground, presumably probing for something.

Chen Shangke, still looking slightly bruised and battered, walked up to Cheng Xiangru and chuckled, giving him a light punch on the chest. "You kid are something else! Quietly following all the way out here, and even bringing a girl along. Impressive!"

Cheng Xiangru smiled wearily, having no desire to explain or speak.

Leng Ying hurried over, pulled Cheng Xiangru aside, and asked in a low voice, "What did the Goateed old man say to you?"

Cheng Xiangru almost habitually blurted out the truth, but swallowed the words back at the tip of his tongue. "N... nothing much."

Highly sensitive, Leng Ying immediately noticed the change in Cheng Xiangru's attitude. Her delicate brows furrowed tightly. "What's wrong with you?"

"N... nothing's wrong!" Cheng Xiangru tried to feign nonchalance, but both his expression and tone were extremely stiff. The smile hanging on his face looked as though it had been painted on with a brush and could be wiped away with a single stroke.

Leng Ying stared into Cheng Xiangru's eyes. Unable to meet her gaze, Cheng Xiangru lowered his head and looked at the toes of his shoes.

"I get it." Leng Ying shook her head and smiled. "No matter what he said, and no matter how you feel, I won't blame you. The future is long; let's wait and see. Still, like I said before: what's real can't be fake, and what's fake can't be real."

As she spoke, Leng Ying slowly turned her head to look at Boss Zhou in the center of the crowd, her gaze meeting his.

Boss Zhou smiled and nodded in acknowledgment with a friendly attitude, but in Leng Ying's eyes at that moment, it looked intensely provocative.

Leng Ying also raised the corners of her lips, forcing a smile while gritting her teeth and muttering softly, "Damn that goatee! Sooner or later, I'm going to pluck every last hair from that beard of yours!"

Cheng Xiangru didn't dare to look at Leng Ying now, nor did he want to look at Boss Zhou, so he could only turn his head to look at Chen Shangke and the others.

Chen Shangke was squatting beside Zyulov, staring at an iron rod in the ground, chatting about something and occasionally laughing heartily as he patted Zyulov on the shoulder.

Lin Xiaqi was rummaging through a travel bag, searching for something.

When it came to scouting the location for digging the Luoyang shovel hole, among the people present, only Zyulov and Lin Xiaqi possessed the most extensive experience. The others could not intervene and could only stand by and watch.

Before long, Lin Xiaqi pulled out bundles of items and began methodically laying them out inside a freshly dug earthen pit.

The onlookers around them began to retreat, and even Chen Shangke and Zyulov were no exception.

Leng Ying gave Cheng Xiangru a gentle nudge, reminding him, "Stop spacing out. No matter what the goatee said, there's no need for you to be so absent-minded. Hurry up and back away; watch out for mud flying all over your face later."

"What do you mean?" Cheng Xiangru asked, startled.

Leng Ying forcefully dragged Cheng Xiangru further back. "What do you think I mean? They're planting explosives! Remember to cover your ears later, or your head will be ringing."

Cheng Xiangru suddenly understood, realizing that the bundles Lin Xiaqi had pulled out must have been explosives.

After retreating to a safe distance, Cheng Xiangru voiced a confusion of his own: "Do grave robbers always use explosives to dig thief holes? With a commotion that loud, aren't they afraid of exposing themselves?"

Leng Ying glanced at Cheng Xiangru, her eyes crinkled with a smile. "How could that be? Under normal circumstances, who would want to use explosives? If the amount is too small, it won't blast through; if it's too much, it's easy to collapse the tomb. If it weren't for the permafrost being so hard in the Northeast during this season, I doubt they'd use explosives... Enough talking, cover your ears quickly and watch the fireworks!"

Cheng Xiangru hurriedly raised both hands to cover his ears and turned to look toward Lin Xiaqi's direction.

Lin Xiaqi had already laid out the explosives and was walking backward while bent over, trailing a fuse along the ground as she retreated. She didn't stop until she had backed away more than ten meters.

Zyulov then walked over to replace Lin Xiaqi. Pulling out a windproof lighter, he squatted down and flicked it to produce a flame, carefully bringing the fire close to the fuse.

Moments later, a bright spark ignited on the ground, slowly racing toward the pit where the explosives were buried.

The crowd retreated even further away, almost everyone maintaining the same ear-covering posture, with some even hiding behind tree trunks.

Amidst a sizzling sound, the brilliant, colorful light darted into the pit.

At that moment, the entire world seemed to fall silent, and the air appeared to freeze.

After waiting for several seconds without any explosion, Cheng Xiangru assumed Lin Xiaqi had failed. Lowering his hands, he asked, "Did it go out? Why hasn't it blown yet..."

Leng Ying was quick-witted. Swiftly thrusting out both hands, she stepped forward in the blink of an eye and clamped her palms over Cheng Xiangru's ears.

Almost simultaneously, with a deafening roar, a blinding flash of light exploded from the pit. Mud and snow scattered in all directions, and hard blocks of frozen earth and gravel surged outward like a rising tide, pelting densely against Cheng Xiangru's legs and shoes.

Although Leng Xiangru's ears were covered by Leng Ying, the blast still left his head spinning and his ears ringing slightly.

"Are you okay?" Cheng Xiangru pulled Leng Ying's hands away and asked with anxious concern.

Leng Ying shouted back, "What did you say?"

Hearing the explosion still echoing among the mountains, and seeing the snow chunks tumbling from the surrounding pines with snow dust flying everywhere, Cheng Xiangru felt deeply unsettled, worrying even more that Leng Ying's hearing might have been damaged. He raised a finger to point at Leng Ying's ears and shouted, "Can't you hear?"

Leng Ying nodded. "Yeah, my head is ringing."

Cheng Xiangru was stunned. "You can hear?"

"Huh? What did you say?" Leng Ying lifted her hands to pull two balls of cotton from her ears. "What did you just say?"

Seeing that Leng Ying had an extra layer of protection, Cheng Xiangru secretly breathed a sigh of relief and waved a hand. "Nothing. As long as you're okay."

"Who says I'm okay? What good are these two cotton balls?" Leng Ying muttered, slightly displeased. "My head is still buzzing."

"Hey? What are they doing?" Cheng Xiangru saw that under Zyulov's leadership, several people carrying mattocks and folding shovels had gathered around the freshly blasted pit, lowering their heads to dig.

Leng Ying said, "That just shattered the permafrost layer, it hasn't blown all the way through yet. They still need to dig the thief hole."

Zyulov and the others dug for a very long time—probably over an hour—before someone suddenly shouted, "It's through!"

Delighted, Cheng Xiangru was about to walk over when Leng Ying grabbed him. "Why are you in such a rush? Even if it's dug through, no one can go in yet. Normally, it needs to air out for at least a day. Whoever goes down right now will suffocate."

"We have to wait that long? So we're just going to wait out here the whole time?" Cheng Xiangru felt a chill at the thought.

Waiting in the remote wilderness for a whole day—wouldn't they freeze into ice sculptures?

"Not necessarily. Come on, let's go see what the goatee has to say."

With that, the two returned to the group. At that moment, Boss Zhou was directing his men to set up a rope ladder and lower it into the thief hole.