Linglong nodded weakly, urging him to be careful. She was in a bad state now and didn't have the strength to go with Ning Beichen.
After Ning Beichen left, Linglong looked around at the darkness. Although she could see, her vision was blurry, making her a little scared.
Especially after remembering seeing the sand move, Linglong shivered and took out her small pistol.
With the weapon in hand, Linglong's heart felt a little more at ease.
Meanwhile, Ning Beichen had already moved about five hundred meters away from Linglong. He was observing the buildings. If it wasn't for the "ghost wall" (鬼打墙), Ning Beichen suspected there might be some kind of formation or something similar here.
So he planned to observe carefully to see if he could find any clues.
The place gave Ning Beichen a feeling that it looked normal but was actually strange everywhere. This strangeness was something even he, with his rich adventuring experience, couldn't discern.
Could it be a buried complex of abandoned buildings?
But he found no information about this place anywhere, as if it had just appeared out of nowhere.
However, these were not Ning Beichen's primary concerns. No matter how strange this place was, Ning Beichen was no longer interested. He just wanted to take Linglong away from here.
Because he had promised Linglong he wouldn't let anything happen to her, Ning Beichen didn't want to be a man of his word.
Just as Ning Beichen was searching for clues, he suddenly heard a few gunshots.
"Not good!"
Ning Beichen's face changed. It must have been Linglong who fired.
Because Ning Beichen was very familiar with Linglong's pistol, and there were only two of them here, there couldn't be anyone else.
But why did Linglong fire?
Was she in danger?
Or did she want to...
At this thought, Ning Beichen became extremely anxious and rushed towards Linglong's direction at the fastest speed possible. Whichever possibility it was, it was not what Ning Beichen wanted to see.
As for why Ning Beichen thought Linglong might commit suicide, it might not be due to her own volition but possibly some hallucination, as a person's will is at its weakest in despair.
Ning Beichen rushed back desperately, but he didn't see Linglong at her original location. He only saw a pool of red blood.
"Linglong!"
Ning Beichen shouted loudly and searched the surroundings for Linglong's trace.
However, Ning Beichen couldn't find any trace of Linglong in the vicinity. Apart from the pool of blood on the ground, Linglong was nowhere to be seen, nor was her body found.
"Come out!"
Ning Beichen roared, seemingly driven mad.
But the surroundings were silent, with no other sounds apart from his own shouts.
Ning Beichen squatted down in front of the pool of blood and touched it with his finger. The blood was still warm, meaning it hadn't been there for long.
First, Ning Beichen ruled out suicide, because if she had committed suicide, her body would be here, but there was no body.
Another point.
Although Linglong didn't have internal energy, she wasn't an ordinary woman. Her willpower might not be inferior to others. Even if she fell into a desperate situation, with Ning Beichen still around, she had no reason to commit suicide.
Secondly.
If Linglong committed suicide due to hallucinations, why wasn't her body on the ground?
Where did her body go?
This was the most perplexing thing for Ning Beichen at the moment.
Ning Beichen, gradually calming down, suddenly remembered that not long ago, Linglong had told him she saw the sand moving. At the time, Ning Beichen thought she was hallucinating and didn't pay much attention.
But analyzing the situation on the spot, Ning Beichen suddenly felt that what Linglong had said before might not have been a hallucination. Could it be true?
If Linglong wasn't hallucinating then, could the moving sand she saw indicate that there was something beneath the desert?
At this thought, Ning Beichen's gaze became sharp as he stared at the sand surface, not missing any subtle clues.
Soon, he saw some tracks and bloodstains on the sand. Ning Beichen followed the tracks for about three hundred meters, where the tracks and bloodstains disappeared. Here, only a corner of an ancient stone slab was exposed from the sand.
"If it's not on the ground, then it must be underground."
Ning Beichen's pupils contracted. Looking at the stone slab, he suddenly punched it.
With a loud boom.
The corner of the stone slab vibrated, and the sand on the ground made a rustling sound, starting to flow like ants. Ning Beichen immediately dodged to the side, staring intently at the flowing sand.
After a while, he saw the flowing sand gather together, and a vortex about two meters wide appeared on the ground. The sand continuously flowed into the vortex, as if it could never be filled.
Ning Beichen became more and more astonished.
The vortex resembled a Klein bottle that could never be filled with water, because a Klein bottle exists in four-dimensional space, not in reality.
"What should I do?"
Ning Beichen asked himself inwardly.
But he soon found his answer. If Linglong's disappearance was related to the sand vortex, then Ning Beichen couldn't abandon her no matter what.
With this thought, Ning Beichen gritted his teeth, unleashed his Grandmaster domain, held his sword, and walked towards the sand vortex. He was quickly swallowed by it.
It was pitch black all around, the sand was flowing, and Ning Beichen felt as if he were a sandwich, being squeezed by something from all sides, while his body continuously sank downwards.
After an unknown period, Ning Beichen's body suddenly felt loose, as if he had escaped from the sandwich state. Then, he felt a sense of weightlessness and began to fall.
With a bang.
Ning Beichen's feet touched the ground, and he slid down a slope for an unknown distance before hitting the ground again.
With a patter.
Ning Beichen took out his lighter and lit it, using the flame to look around.
He seemed to be standing in an ancient hall. The hall was almost intact and had a faint light, so Ning Beichen could see clearly even without the lighter.
"Could this be the complex of buildings buried beneath the desert?"
Ning Beichen put away his lighter and murmured to himself, feeling very curious about everything here.
However, Ning Beichen's priority now was to find Linglong's whereabouts. He didn't know if Linglong was here.
"Linglong, are you in here?"
Ning Beichen called out Linglong's name loudly, but there was no answer in the hall, only his own echo.