Chapter 063: Methods to Dispel Misguidance

Fatty Bi stared at Li Tianque in astonishment and asked,
“A different method? What are you planning to do?”
Li Tianque shifted his gaze to the heating pipes beneath their feet and explained earnestly,
“I’ve run into the ghost wall twice today. The situations were a bit different, but they shared a similarity: both times, I was being chased.
While being pursued, we can’t pay attention to our surroundings, so we rely solely on obvious markers to judge our direction.
Right now, these heating pipes are what we’re using to navigate, so if we keep following them, we’ll end up like mice running endlessly in circles inside an oven.
I suspect these pipes were set up from the start to mislead us. To avoid being tricked again, we mustn’t follow them any longer.
I believe there’s another path here besides the direction the pipes extend!”
Fatty Bi grimaced as he forcibly tore a stone horseshoe crab off his leg, blood seeping from the cotton stuffing he pulled out. He grinned,
“But there’s nothing but fog here—we can’t see a thing. Even if we hit an intersection, we wouldn’t notice it!”
“No problem. I have a way, but I’m not sure you’d dare try it!” Li Tianque replied.
“Huh? What way?” Fatty Bi asked, puzzled.
Without another word, Li Tianque stripped off his thick jacket, baring his upper body.
Fatty Bi gawked at him, confused and wide-eyed.
“Are you crazy? What are you doing? Don’t you think those creatures haven’t bitten deep enough already?”
Li Tianque ignored him, saying,
“It’s fine. You don’t have to strip. Just me is enough. I’ll go first, you cover my back!”
“Huh?” Fatty Bi was stunned.
Li Tianque forced himself past his exhaustion and moved ahead.
Fatty Bi stared at him, baffled, but unable to think of a better idea, he could only follow.
Thus, the two resumed their desperate escape through the cave, Li Tianque leading the way, carefully managing the electric current in his hands. The intense expenditure left him barely able to sustain himself, forcing him to conserve and limit his power.
Fatty Bi followed cautiously behind, his pace growing slower and slower.

The two fought off the stone horseshoe crabs as they pressed forward with difficulty.
Suddenly, Li Tianque stopped and shouted to Fatty Bi,
“Quick, run to the right!”
Staggering, Li Tianque felt his way to the right wall, continuing to grope through the thick fog until he found a low stone platform. He hurriedly climbed onto it.
Fatty Bi followed him, and with Li Tianque’s help, also scrambled up.
Li Tianque kept searching and soon discovered a large hole above the platform. He quickly dove into it.
Fatty Bi followed, panting,
“My god, there’s another path here! How did you find it?”
“It was the wind. There was a distinct cold breeze coming from this direction,” Li Tianque explained.
Fatty Bi finally understood—no wonder Li Tianque had stripped off his shirt, it was so he could better sense the wind while running.
At this point, both Li Tianque and Fatty Bi had four or five stone horseshoe crabs clamped tightly onto their bodies.
Fortunately, they both wore protective masks. Several stone horseshoe crabs that lunged at their faces failed to lock onto them in that brief instant, otherwise neither would have survived this ordeal.
They entered a narrow, pitch-black tunnel. The relentless stone horseshoe crabs began crawling in after them. This tunnel was much narrower than the cave below, about a meter and a half in diameter, and extremely irregular.
Li Tianque and Fatty Bi crawled one after another, bent over, until they reached a relatively spacious area. Here, they switched positions.
Li Tianque said,
“You keep crawling ahead. I’ll block them!”
“Huh?” Fatty Bi hesitated, “Brother, that’s way too heroic—damn, you’re loyal… But I can’t just leave you behind. If we’re doomed anyway, I’ll stay with you!”
Li Tianque looked at Fatty Bi in the darkness, and in the dim red glow, he could vaguely see that although Fatty Bi claimed he’d stay, his body was clearly inching backward.
Li Tianque snorted but didn’t mind, continuing,
“Relax, I’m not that self-sacrificing. But these creatures just keep coming; it’s not sustainable. I have to finish them here!”
As he spoke, Li Tianque took out a piece of chewing gum and popped it into his mouth, chewing vigorously.
Fatty Bi swallowed hard and retreated, saying,
“Alright, brother, I’ll wait for you up ahead!”

Fatty Bi spoke as he awkwardly crawled forward.
Li Tianque didn’t answer, chewing the gum.
By now, the stone horseshoe crabs chasing them had gradually clambered onto the stone platform and were flooding into the narrow tunnel.
Li Tianque chewed the gum as Wu Miaoran had taught him.
He found this gum-bomb tasted awful—like chewing a candle—and after quite a while, it still hadn’t softened, remaining stubbornly hard.
Li Tianque began to regret not having practiced chewing gum earlier; who knew it was a skill of its own?
Just then, the stone horseshoe crabs appeared one after another in the crimson mist, their sticky, disgusting claws clacking on the ground as they crawled toward Li Tianque in the tunnel.
Li Tianque chewed with all his might, his jaw aching as if it might break. Finally, the gum began to soften.
It had been less than a minute, still shy of the two minutes Wu Miaoran recommended.
Li Tianque stretched his hands forward. As the first wave of stone horseshoe crabs charged, he unleashed a surge of electricity, repelling them.
After holding out for another thirty seconds, even more stone horseshoe crabs crowded in, forming two rows. Those knocked down earlier were kicked aside, all crazed and lunging at Li Tianque.
He could wait no longer. Opening his mouth, he blew a huge bubble.
The gum stuck to three of the nearest stone horseshoe crabs, gluing them securely, but more squeezed through the gaps, leaping at Li Tianque.
He spun and ran, letting two of the faster crabs bite his backside.
After running about ten meters, Li Tianque snapped his fingers, triggering the explosion.
A thunderous blast erupted behind him, and he felt as if the air had shoved him violently, sending him flying. A hot wave enveloped him, and he fell, crawling to the ground.
The massive explosion collapsed the tunnel entrance, crushing the stone horseshoe crabs beneath falling rocks and sealing it off completely.
Li Tianque, however, was left dazed and shaken, his ears deafened, his head buzzing, the world spinning.
Wu Miaoran had warned him that triggering the gum-bomb with a snap would make it more powerful, but he had underestimated what “more powerful” actually meant.