Crossing the wilderness to survive, starting with a broken kitchen knife.

Zhang Shi thought about it and then told Zhao Feng about Wu Qing's situation. Zhao Feng's expression changed from surprise to confusion and finally to anger.

"Shi Tou, this is a matter of life and death. How could you two hide it from me?"

Zhang Shi knew that his handling of this matter was not thoughtful enough and touched his head in dissatisfaction. Zhao Feng sighed and then asked again.

"Make sure you see it clearly. Don't let it turn out to be an illusion or that there's something wrong with the mirror, and cause another misunderstanding."

Zhang Shi clenched his fists. He actually hoped that everything would be as Zhao Feng said.

Ge Dalong patted their shoulders.

"Don't think about that for now. The most important thing right now is to find the people and then find a way to get out. It's been several hours since we got into trouble, and everyone has been digging non-stop. If we keep working hard, I estimate we'll be back on the surface soon."

After that, the three of them began to work diligently as diggers. Although they knew that finding someone in this unknown underground place was more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack, they had to continue.

After an unknown amount of time, Zhao Feng accidentally knocked a hole through with his hoe. He looked inside and shouted excitedly, "Shi Shi, there's light! There's light! We're out!"

Zhang Shi and Ge Dalong, who were working hard in other directions, hurried over upon hearing the news.

Zhao Feng worked hard to enlarge the hole above his head. Sure enough, rays of light came in, and a cool breeze blew away the stuffiness in the cave.

"It's air, that's right, this is the ground!"

The three of them enlarged the cave entrance and then climbed out one by one.

As soon as they returned to the ground, before the three of them could even sigh, the scene before them made them stand there in a daze.

The familiar courtyard wall, the dilapidated dry well, the dark red wooden door and a pair of eerie wooden couplets next to it.

Zhang Shi swallowed, feeling both angry and a little panicked.

"This is really weird! Isn't this Huojia Village? How did they end up here for no apparent reason?"

Ge Dalong opened the system and tried to find a way to evacuate, but found that this time the system did not even have an evacuation option, and contact with the outside world was still blocked.

"This is troublesome. There is no way out this time. We have to be more careful."

Zhang Shi nodded, then took out the soul-releasing bell from his backpack.

"Lao Deng, come out and see, you're home."

Master An's golden figure flashed out from the bell. After seeing the scene in front of him, his originally cheerful expression froze for a moment. Then he touched his chin gloomily and said in a low voice.

"Young man, I'll stay in the bell honestly, it won't do you any harm, and I can even give you some pointers from time to time. There's no need to be so heartless."

Zhang Shi sneered, ignored his words, and then said without question.

"You're familiar with this place. Think about whether there's a portal or a space node somewhere."

Mr. An frowned, then realized that Zhang Shi was trapped and was not targeting him. He then relaxed and showed a harmless smile again.

"Haha, it turned out to be a misunderstanding. Why did Zhang Xiaoyou return to Huo Village when he was so interested?"

Zhao Feng got angry when he saw Mr. An's face and retorted viciously.

"Old Biden, don't get so complacent. If we get angry, we'll throw you back into that broken urn of yours and see if you're still happy."

Zhang Shi stopped Zhao Feng, but he was secretly calculating in his heart that if he wanted to evacuate safely, he had to find a chance to leave Master An behind and completely cut off this unstable factor.

Mr. An ignored Zhao Feng and answered Zhang Shi's question instead.

"Friend Zhang, you're really putting me in a difficult position. If our village really had a similar means of space teleportation, we would have found a way to leave long ago, and we wouldn't be in this situation now."

Zhang Shi also knew that it was unlikely that the village had similar means, but now they didn't even have any system prompts, and they had no goal at all, so they could only fly around like headless flies.

Zhang Shi looked at Ge Dalong and asked.

"Old Ge, what do you say? Do you want to go into the village again?"

Ge Dalong had actually weighed the pros and cons in his mind a long time ago and nodded decisively.

"We have no choice but to go into the village and look for clues. Besides, we are much stronger than the last time we came here. Even if we encounter Black Tiger and the Soul Spirit again, we are still capable of fighting. There is no need to be afraid of them."

Zhang Shi nodded and put the bell back into his backpack. Old Master An was proficient in illusions, and if he played tricks at a critical moment, it could put the three of them in danger. Zhang Shi felt safer putting him in the system backpack.

The three of them walked slowly towards the village, cautiously following the path and keeping a constant eye on their surroundings. This village was incredibly eerie, filled with spirits and zombies, and teeming with danger. Zhang Shi would rather spend some time there than encounter any more of these ghosts and spirits.

The village was still quiet and dilapidated. Zhang Shi headed towards the ancestral hall according to his memory. The reason was that the black tiger in the village was one of the few creatures that could communicate. Zhang Shi planned to try his luck with him. If the talks failed, he would just fight and then run away.

On the way, Zhao Feng whispered to Zhang Shi and Ge Dalong.

"I've always had a question. Have you noticed that the earth beasts and black-robed men in the City of Mist are somewhat similar to the Black Tiger? Especially their miraculous self-healing abilities, which are exactly the same. Do you think there's some connection between them?"

In fact, Zhang Shi had noticed it a long time ago, but he never had the chance to find out the truth. Now that he is back here again, he will investigate if he has the chance to see what the secret is between them.

As he approached the ancestral hall, Zhang Shi's nose shrank as he smelled a strong stench of decay, the source of which was the ancestral hall.

Zhang Shi's heart tightened and he quickly quickened his pace. Ge Dalong and Zhao Feng also realized that something was wrong and hurried to catch up.

Zhang Shi pushed open the tightly closed gate and looked into the courtyard.

It was afternoon, and although Huojia Village was shrouded in thick fog, it didn't obscure anyone's view. A thick wooden stake sat in the center of the courtyard, with the village's Black Tiger nailed to it in the shape of a "big" (大) character. Half of its inky black hide had been peeled off, the other half still attached to its flesh. Beneath it lay a pool of black liquid, now solidified into a tar-like state. The granulation tissue at its wound had been frozen, as if frozen, like a sculpture. A strong stench of corpse emanated from it, indicating that the Black Tiger had been dead for some time.

Zhang Shi used Dingzhen to identify the black tiger and confirmed that it was dead. He then went forward to observe carefully and found that all four legs of the black tiger were pierced by a kind of golden steel needle. No granulation tissue appeared at the site of the piercing of the steel needle to repair the wound. It seemed that there was some kind of restriction on its self-healing ability. This made him think of the holy silver crossbow that Wu Qing took out at the beginning. Thinking about it now, it was also full of doubts.