“Ques Yu, why are you here? Did they catch you also because you got that iron token? Or do you already know this competition from the beginning?” Bird Three asked.

    “Clever! I thought that you were only good at martial arts.” Ques was surprised by his quick mind.

    She looked around and pointed at some people. “People in this room are not all nobodies. You, the son of the legal wife of Jinyuan Kingdom’s general. And you, the eighth son of our Qiongyue Kingdom. As for me, I am the best predictor of the Qiongyue Kingdom. I don’t believe that none of us knew about this competition and are here for casual reasons. ”

    The people she mentioned were the well-known big names in the land of Canghun. They did not think that their identity would be made public by this little girl.

    “Since you know so many things, why not explain it to all of us?” Bird Three insisted.

    “According to my knowledge, this secret escape competition started in the splendor era of Earth. After that, due to the misuse of high tech by human beings, the ecosystem was destroyed. People of that age became extinct by the extreme weather, including endless earthquakes and tidal waves. Then we welcomed a long period of time on the planet without creatures. ”

    “Now the Monsters become more and more stronger, and we humans can’t defeat them, so the four hidden families of Canghun made a secret covenant about renewing the competition for select capable talents to battle the monsters for us, mankind.”

    During her speech, Tiger Lin turned to Dragon Zhen and said, “You have sought hegemony in our village for so many years. I never believed you could be fooled by such a little girl.”

    Dragon said, “No doubt your wife did the same thing to you every day. You are no better than me.”

    After joking with each other, they both became disappointed by the situation of being locked here.

    “How can I believe you? Do you have anything to prove your identity?” Bird Three asked the girl as he hinted to his followers to keep quiet.

    “I am the legal heir of the Que Family, one of the four hidden families on this land. My face is the proof.”

    “We never get out of this small village, so we don’t know you.”

    “I forgot to bring my certificate due to rushing out. But that’s not my problem if you don’t recognize my beautiful appearance overwhelming the whole land of Canghun.”

    “Overwhelming the whole of Canghun?” Taking a look at her freckles, Bird Three laughed. “I can say you are a cute girl, but that is far from proving your identity.”

    “You foolish, wild kid! Why tangle on this stupid issue?” Ques Yu got angry from his comments on her looks. She forged a red spiritual fire on her right hand fingers, aiming toward him. “Do you think I dare not kill you?”

    “The spiritual fire? She is really the decedent of the Que Family!” someone in the audience yelled. People grew uneasy.

    Ques Yu smiled with pride and satisfaction. “Now you know who am I.”

    “Since you are the one you claimed, may I have one more question?” Bird Three continued.

    “Say it.”

    “Do you know the rules of this competition?”

    “For sure there are regulations for competing, but our manager, Cass, never follows it, so it isn't important.”

    Now the eighth son of the Qiongyue Kingdom came near, and he was a good-looking young man. “Maybe this competition has no rules.”

    All the famous guys previously pointed out by Ques joined them.

    “Second brother, you disobey the orders by our master and get to know some material artist without his permission; aren’t you afraid of his punishment?”

    “You are also interested in the guy called Bird Three. Is he someone special?” The eighth son was curious.

    “Look, what’s this?” Someone called them in another corner of the room.

    The person found a white cotton and hemp cloth on the cashier. On this cloth, there was an eighty-one-grid square drawn, with nine lines and nine columns. It was a partially completed grid, with some numbers in certain grids, and the rest empty.

    “Nine-nine grid? Dragon, come here to show them how we wild kids play this.” Tiger threw the cloth to Dragon, and said, “Be careful, don’t lose our faces.”

    Dragon took a Chinese brush and wrote some numbers on it.

    The system confirmed that the answers were all correct.

    On the other side, Bird Three negotiated with Ques Yu. “The price of the chicken butts was too high. Three orders cost me one gold coin, and this is even after a discount. In my village, I only need to pay ten silver coins.”

    “This Taohua Village was remote. We should buy everything from outside. So the dishes are expensive. Hey, look at this. Here is a pit on the ground. ”

    Bird Three swept off the dust on the ground to check the pit, and said, “Here is a phrase: ‘The spiritual fire.’ What does it mean?”

    “It means the power of spiritual fire. Only the person with the smartest brain can use this kind of power. It is the most powerful strength we can use to fight the monsters.”

    “Then what’s this special power?”

    “It was something left by the people from the splendor era. They once owned the smartest brains, and they created many things that benefitted the whole world.” Ques Yu continued, “But their intelligence also destroyed the earth. Now we at least won’t use that great power to destroy things, but instead we use it to forge the spiritual fires.”

    After the explanation, she pointed her finger to the fire symbol between her eyebrows, and then her fingers forged a fire to lighten the ground. Those words dissolved in the light and some of the grids appeared. She filled in the grids with the correct numbers with her spiritual fire.

    When she finished the last number, all of the people in the room felt the ground under their feet begin to shake, and a crack formed and became wider and wider. Then a secret door opened before their eyes, with an abyss so deep that nobody knew how deep it really was.

    “The secret door is open. What do you want to do next?” Ques Yu asked Bird Three.

    “I feel this is wrong, but I just don’t know why,” Bird Three answered her with doubts.

    Tiger and Dragon both asked, “What’s the mistake?”

    “Why don’t you go find the answer yourself?” The eighth prince suddenly pushed him into the door.

    Ques Yu cried with surprise, “Bird Three!” And she looked back at him and questioned, “Second brother, why did you push him down?”

    “Do you have mercy on him, little sister?” Jiang Ju, the prince, checked the door when speaking to her. “Don’t worry, he won’t die.”

    After a moment, Bird Three climbed back up from the depths and told them, “There is a secret tunnel underneath.”

    “Wild child, you’d better lead the way for us!” Jing Ming, the son of Jinyuan Kingdom’s general, kicked him into the dark again, then entered the hole himself. Jiang Ju and others followed them, too. Though Dragon and Tiger were irritated by the rich guys because they used their friend as a test for the unseen danger, they did not have time to protest. Still harboring grievance, they and the rest—about ten people in total—also went into the dark depths one by one.

    As Bird Three described, there truly was a secret path. The mud of the ground was wet and soft, so the tunnel must not have been attended to by anyone for a long time.

    Compared with others’ dismay, Jiang Ju was rather relaxed. He talked to his attendant, Chen Ce, as if they were strolling in a lake park.

    “In the Land of Canghun, people who have spiritual fire are few, and those who can train their fire and upgrade it are nowhere to be found. I remember the most powerful one was Quehun, the legal heir of Que Family, who disappeared eight years ago, during the war between the beasts and us,” Jiang Ju explained.

    “Ah, you are talking about the war between the snake demons and human beings eight years ago. . . What an awful battle! If Quehun hadn’t called forth all his energy to destroy the king of the snake tribe, we wouldn’t have had peaceful lives in the years since then,” Chen Ce replied.

    Jing Ming was an impetuous person, so he asked, “Why bother searching for a way out when we can just chat about the meaningless past instead?”

    “Right! Right! I don’t trust the inn, though they are the entrusted by the four families. We’d better speed up!” Chen Ce agreed with a smile.

    In the other section, Tiger Lin was complaining about the darkness. “Bird, why don’t we light a fire to show the way? It is hard to walk.”

    “We can’t have fire!”

    “Why?” Hearing the warning from Bird, Tiger sniffed the air and found a weird odor. “The air here is not right! It’s really suffocating!”

    “This is bad. . . My belly’s really aching! I may have the runs.” Dragon came closer and took off his pants to relieve his bowels. All those from the noble families could not bear his uncivilized behavior and walked on ahead. At first, Jing Ming still wanted to force Bird Three to go first and leave his friend Dragon. However, nobody cared about this issue and he had to follow them.

    “Be quick! I will leave behind marks for you to follow,” Ques Yu said to Bird Three.

    Dragon quickly finished his bowel movement and stood up as Tiger and Bird were murmuring something.  

    Bird Three patted him on the shoulder. “Dragon, your belly did a good job!”

    “So smelly!” Tiger complained.

    “Come on, Tiger, let’s go home!” Dragon said and pulled him to walk ahead.

    The two walked several steps, and found that Bird did not catch up with them.

    “Bird, what’s wrong with you?”

    “Did you hear the sound coming from behind?” Bird asked.

    “What sound?”the two replied at the same time.

    “You didn’t hear it?” Bird Three laid down on the ground, pressing his ear against the earth to listen. He felt the ground trembling slightly.

    “What a bad smell, like a shit!” It was Jing Ming complaining. And then he stepped on the pile Dragon had just relieved himself of.

    “You? Why are you here? We thought that all of you were already out,” Bird said.

    Then Jiang Ju came and asked them, “How are you three ahead of us?”

    “We did not move,” Bird said.

    “You did not move?”

    “This is where you left us.”

    Jiang Ju walked around and checked the marks they left and realized that what Bird said was the truth.

    Everyone felt anxious. “The way back was blocked up. If we don’t find a way out, will we all die here?”

    “Second Brother, I think that Bird Three may have a method to lead us out. If he really accomplishes this task, what shall you award him?”

    “Are you falling in love with this wild kid?”

    “Is that difficult for you?”

    “If he can lead us out, I can give him some rewards. I promise.”

    Bird Three was walking from one wall toward the opposite, and counting his steps as he did. And then walking back. After about ten rounds, he stopped and said, “Tiger, light the fire.”

    “Wait! The air is full of petroleum here.”

    “I know, just light the fire!”

    “You sure?” Tiger took out a flint stone and stroke, saying to himself with fear, “Dad, don’t cry if you find pieces of my body here.”

    Soon, the tunnel was lit up. And in a minute, the whole tunnel started to burn.

    “What did you do, wild kids?” Jing Ming saw this and grabbed Bird by the neck with rage.

    Bird was almost choking; Tiger and Dragon came up to help and hit Jing Ming in his belly and legs. Bird also used his hand to push Jing Ming’s face.

    “General Jing, put him down,” Jiang Ju ordered him in a stern voice.

    “My royal one, don’t you see the great trouble the kid brought us?” He yelled, “We don’t even dare to use spiritual fire, and he lit a true fire!” Jing Ming used more strength to try killing Bird. “He dies, or we all die.”

    “I said put him down,” Jiang Ju insisted, and he looked at Bird with an expression of incredible confusion.

    Chen Ce also found the phenomenon surprising. “Look down. The fire can’t burn when it comes to our feet.”

    Jing Ming took a look around and forced Bird with even more power. “Tell me, what’s the reason? You already knew this beforehand?”

    The fire continued to burn the other places and all the walls fell down like dominoes. After a while, all the walls crumbled and the place became empty.

    “This secret tunnel is simply a deceptive trick,” Bird said when he got some air to breathe.

    “Someone used the spiritual fire to take away more than half of the oxygen in this tunnel, and spread the rock oils on the walls so that even if there is a fire, such little oxygen could not support the fire for long. So nobody would die, only get injured at the most,” Jiang Ju supplemented.

    “Bird Three, you are great!” Ques Yu praised honestly. “Maybe one day you will become some great person like my youngest uncle.”

    “Who is your youngest uncle?”

    “Quehun, the previous saint of the Que family, the number one meditator over the Land of Canghun.”

    “Quehun? The meditator who went missing during our war with the snake demons? How dare to compare our Bird to that missing one?” Tiger asked.

    The girl was irritated by his words, and threw some spiritual fire toward him. “You’re seeking your own death.”

    “Wow. . . You used the spiritual fire to bully me, someone without it! Unfair! Totally unfair!” Tiger yelled as he was chased by the fire, jumping around to avoid them here and there.

    Jing Ming finally put Bird Three down. He sat on the ground and breathed heavily.

    All of a sudden, a light shone into the dark place, and someone asked, “Who are you to break into the place of dragon ridge?”