"This... seems similar to the underground sewers of Maomu City?"
Qi Chen looked around with some surprise, just as Feng Yuan was about to agree, he suddenly realized something and looked at Qi Chen with astonishment,
"How do you know what Maomu City’s underground sewers look like?"
He didn’t invite Qi Chen to explore the sewers earlier, and that place is usually locked up tight. If it were Liao Yu saying this, he could understand, since the Special Duty Team occasionally has missions that require access there, but for Qi Chen, it was somewhat inappropriate.
"This... you know, as a kid, you tend to be curious..."
Scratching his head, Qi Chen was hesitant and unsure of how to explain. Liao Yu glanced at Qi Chen and didn’t say anything; as a child, he would run around everywhere, having been to the sewers countless times. If it weren’t for the children always running into sewers and almost getting into accidents, the doors to those sewers would not have locks on them. However, it was somewhat impressive that they could pick the sewer locks.
"Were they not locked before?"
Feng Yuan asked Liao Yu curiously, and before Liao Yu could respond, Qi Chen said with an embarrassed face,
"There were locks, but... they could be physically picked."
"So you guys used to just smash the locks open?"
With a mischievous smile, Feng Yuan said, and Agunas swished his tail,
"It sounds as though we didn’t use brute force to unlock it."
"You guys..."
With some resignation, Liao Yu looked at Feng Yuan and then at Qi Chen. As for mentioning Qi Chen’s childhood lock-picking antics? That wasn’t a big deal, as it was done when he was a child. Had they been caught at the time, they would probably have been scolded, but now there was no need.
"Speaking of which, what was the original purpose of building the underground sewers in Maomu?"
Qi Chen asked curiously as he looked at the rustic underground waterway, as the sewers built during the Dynasty Era should have functions beyond just waste disposal.
"Waste disposal and flood prevention, yes, but that’s just the superficial sewers; the ancient subterranean waterways deeper down are different."
Gently patting Xiao Ji’s back, Feng Yuan explained off the cuff. Even in a place like this, Xiao Ji was still not quite accustomed to it, the occasional drip from the ceiling made Xiao Ji worry whether it would fall on his back or head.
"Ancient subterranean waterway?"
Upon hearing Feng Yuan’s words, Qi Chen was somewhat surprised; it seems, according to Feng Yuan, that there was something strange existing even deeper down. Liao Yu glanced at Feng Yuan with an ’as expected’ expression,
"You do know about the ancient subterranean waterway, but it’s not surprising, considering how close you are with Lorraine Tower; it’s not odd for you to know about these things."
"What purpose do the ancient subterranean waterways serve?"
Qi Chen asked with some curiosity. Of course, he wouldn’t press the matter if Feng Yuan chose not to answer; after all, it wasn’t important, but an ancient subterranean waterway beneath the sewers of Maomu? This was the first time he had heard of it.
"As for the waterways, one function is to provide an emergency water source, and another is to connect to the underground rivers. In certain cases, they can be used for special material transport or as escape routes."
Having looked at the map, Feng Yuan said casually. After some research, Feng Yuan found, to his disappointment, that the Data Domain only contained information on the sewers, not the subterranean waterways.
Surprised as he observed Feng Yuan, Liao Yu hesitated for a moment before asking,
"Is there really an underground river in Maomu City?"
"Should be? I remember only the passage that connects to the underground river from the underground waterway collapsed."
As he spoke, Feng Yuan was also somewhat uncertain, turning to look at Agunas, Feng Yuan stared at it, flicked his tail, and Agunas said irritably,
"You haven’t figured this out?"
"I just thought it was interesting and took a glance. Who knew if there are problems with the underground river?"
Feng Yuan said unabashedly. He had only seen information about the underground river networks while researching the Dynasty Era, but those networks were basically abandoned by the end of the Dynasty Era anyway. After all, with the passage of time, those caves and passages would be bound to be destroyed by accidents of various kinds, and Feng Yuan guessed that there weren’t many access points to the underground river network left now.
Besides, what’s more inconvenient, a broken Space Gate or uncomfortable high-speed trains? Why insist on crawling underground through those subterranean airways? Anyway, Feng Yuan was not particularly interested in that region. At most, he was just aware that such a thing existed.
"The underground river in Maomu City still exists, it’s just that there are no passages leading to it anymore unless someone opens one."
After flipping through the book he had just taken out for a while, Agunas spoke. This news didn’t surprise Feng Yuan. After all, it was already impressive that the underground river had lasted without any significant changes to the present day, and he couldn’t expect it to remain operational and still be useful after years of neglect.
"Could you mark the location? I believe those archaeologists would thank you,"
Liao Yu said somewhat embarrassedly to Agunas, to be honest, he was not very interested in underground waterways and even hoped they didn’t exist, since the safer it is without these risky areas the better. Otherwise, they would have to figure out how to prevent the enemy from exploiting them.
Allowing them to escape also meant the enemy could use them for stealth attacks but, in the past as in modern times, there were corresponding defensive measures. Not to mention, because of the existence of the underground waterways, the City Defense System of Maomu City had a special design regarding threats from beneath the ground. And in ancient times, there were likely also such measures, otherwise it would have been quite embarrassing to plan to use the underground waterways to transport important materials or to escape, only to find the enemy already blocking the exit.
However, for the modern era, apart from adding trouble to setting up alerts, these ancient tunnels and waterways had lost their significance. If they needed to transport materials, wouldn’t Space Gates be more convenient? As for covert operations? They would also need to get past the Divine Beasts.
These things were probably appreciated only by scholars who studied ancient history. As for members of the Special Duty Team like Liao Yu, they would probably find them annoying because they were just added trouble.
"That’s no problem, but it seems like there are quite a few issues with those ancient waterways."
Agunas agreed without hesitation but frowned slightly and yawned, then Feng Yuan looked at Agunas and said,
"Could it be that the dark rivers have changed their course, causing strange dark rivers to connect to the ancient underground waterways? That’s not too surprising, it’s normal. But what will the waterway lead into if we follow it further?"
Feng Yuan looked through the map curiously. Big Cat had acquired a map that was like a simple navigation map from a game, not mentioning the environment, even the roads were a bit unclear. Like the underground waterway they were currently in, it was just a rectangular bar representing the waterway path, a slightly smaller blue bar representing the current within it. As for the lower layer maps, some were complex, some simple, and Feng Yuan even noticed that the route of the next area was insanely detailed.
The patterns of the roads completely filled the entire map, making Feng Yuan’s face change color. What in the world was happening in that area below that caused the roads to be so bizarre?
"A no gravity zone? This is really..."
Walking out from a small house, Feng Yuan looked around and spoke wordlessly. Now he understood why the roads on the map were so frantic—it was simply because the roads in this location were such. There were rows of dilapidated streets overhead, connecting buildings on different planes, while those buildings blocked the vertical planes. It could be said that there were streets upwards, downwards, left, and right. If it weren’t for the buildings obstructing the view, it might be quite oppressive just to look around.
"What kind of strange place is this..."
Qi Chen murmured in amazement. This area was so peculiar as if there were roads everywhere. This place probably met all the requirements for the maze that Feng Yuan was hoping for.
"A no gravity zone, or rather, the gravity in this area always points towards the ground beneath one’s feet. It’s hard to find your way in such an area..."
Looking around, Feng Yuan said helplessly. Having walked in a no gravity area for a while, one might not even be able to distinguish up, down, left, or right anymore. Even with a 3D map, it would not be easy to find a path to the next area, let alone now that Big Cat’s map was merely two-dimensional...
Seeing Feng Yuan look towards him, Big Cat meowed a few times and shook its head, indeed having trouble making sense of the chaotic map in such a short time.

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