Chapter 1755: The Maiden in the Amber
The craft of artificially making amber is not difficult, and the residents of Ember City excel in this regard. A small, inexpensive machine can complete the entire process, producing any shape desired, and can even include a wrapped item. As long as it’s not too large, a street stall can handle it.
Once the fully automatic machine is activated, the nozzle pours a portion of resin into the container. A nearby robotic arm then places the wrapped item inside, followed by another pour of resin. The machine vibrates to remove small bubbles, and in no time, a piece is ready.
“I want to make this!” A chubby child pinched a freshly caught beetle and brought it over.
“This is a living bug,” the shop owner said with a smile. “Good kids shouldn’t be so cruel. How about I make you a flower one instead?”
“Can’t I make a bug?” The child dragged out his words in disappointment.
“You can, but it’s better if the bug is dead. See, the bug in your hand is still moving, right? If it moves, it will leave many scratches in the resin, making the amber look ugly. Besides, it’s not dead yet. If you pour resin over it, wouldn’t that be pitiful...”
Xu Huo didn’t listen any further. He turned and walked out of the mining area, returning to the city center. Near Amber Square, he rented a backstreet shop at a high price to settle down.
Time quickly reached midnight. Xu Huo used a silencing item and first released the mechanical pangolin he had picked up from the curly-haired woman.
He was only guessing that the “Ember Maiden” was beneath Ember’s residence. As for how deep it was, or whether it had expanded in other directions after reaching sufficient depth, he couldn’t be sure. So, the entire area covered by the square needed to be searched. The pangolin’s signal couldn’t penetrate too deeply, so its main role was to loosen the underground soil, allowing 114 to enter.
At least a certain distance from the surface had to be maintained to avoid attracting the attention of nearby players. However, Xu Huo’s mental power could only penetrate a very limited depth of ground. So, he opened a hole about ten meters below the surface to let 114 in.
114 was responsible for digging, while Xu Huo used metal plates to secure the tunnel’s ceiling and then removed the dirt and rocks from the tunnel.
Digging vertically was certainly inconvenient, but to avoid unnecessary trouble, Xu Huo insisted that 114 dig to a depth of fifty meters before changing direction and digging diagonally downward.
Handling large amounts of dirt was not easy, so at intervals, he left some soil inside the tunnel and used container items to carry the rest outside.
As the underground passage gradually deepened and approached Ember’s residence, Xu Huo had the domestic robot remotely control the pangolin to search for possible underground chambers, while he himself returned to the surface.
He came up at just the right time, bumping into two players who had already broken in. They saw the dug-up floor and the dirt nearby.
The two sides locked eyes. Xu Huo raised a finger to his lips, signaling for silence. The Space Ray Blade that followed pierced through both their defense items and their necks.
The two bodies fell to the ground, bleeding profusely, the smell unpleasant.
“He’s dead!” A player hiding not far away whispered into a message collection terminal. But before his companion could reply, Xu Huo appeared behind him, casually removed his watch, and said with a slight smile, “You weren’t waiting near the observation tower. Why are you following me?”
This was one of the female player’s companions, who had been tailing Xu Huo ever since he returned to the city.
The man immediately understood the situation and quickly said, “I came to tell you that there are many people at the observation tower at night too. If things get out of hand, it might attract government players and robots...”
“It’s not like I’m asking you to kill anyone. Can’t you handle even this?” The short-haired woman and the bald man weren’t nearby, so Xu Huo had them as a backup plan, in case the Ember government had placed other sensing items and devices near Amber Square.
“It’s about time.” Xu Huo spoke directly into the terminal. “You can start now.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end before a woman’s voice replied, “I hope you keep your word!”
A few seconds later, screams suddenly erupted from the other side. “The top of the observation tower is falling off!”
Xu Huo hung up the communication with satisfaction and returned the item to the man in front of him. “You go help too. Try not to hurt anyone. If you cooperate well, you might even get a bravery award.”
The man didn’t dare linger and left without looking back.
Mutual surveillance among clearance players was normal. Xu Huo had killed two who stuck their necks out, and the players watching nearby didn’t dare approach. Soon after, noise came from the observation tower. Seizing the opportunity, he threw a few people into the scene. From then on, he didn’t need to do anything. Players who collided with rescue robots would be taken back for investigation. If they didn’t want to be held up, they had to escape quickly.
Listening to the commotion at the observation tower growing louder, Xu Huo re-entered the underground.
The robots were fast, and the pangolin and domestic robot worked well together. But even so, it took considerable time to reach a depth of one hundred and fifty meters. At this point, the surroundings were almost entirely rock.
Although no underground chamber was found, the pangolin discovered that some rocks in certain areas had clearly been broken and then piled back up. From where they started to the one-hundred-fifty-meter mark, this pattern continued. The trajectory was straight down, with a width and length of less than two meters.
Having reached one hundred and fifty meters, the location shouldn’t be wrong.
Xu Huo moved more dirt out, occasionally checking the situation above ground. It wasn’t until five in the morning that 114 finally hit a metal box.
It might have originally been an underground chamber, but it was now filled with rubble. Wedged in the middle was a large white metal box, about half a meter thick, two meters long and two meters wide.
After opening a cavity beside it, Xu Huo pulled the box out and placed it on the ground. Then he flipped open the outer latches.
Inside was a giant piece of amber made from a human.
A young woman, seemingly under twenty, lay with her eyes tightly shut, her face twisted in pain, sealed within the transparent resin. Her arms and legs were spread out, with black steel needles driven into her hands and feet. The blood from the wounds remained the same flowing direction as the resin, still bright red.
The light from the illumination item was strong, clearly revealing wavy traces around the girl, as if the resin had been stirred before it solidified, slowly and firmly preserving this deathly agony forever.
In the lower right corner of the amber slab, a stone tablet was embedded, engraved with a sentence in the script of Zone 019:
“The sins of the government and the mining group in burying miners alive will be passed down through generations. The souls of the dead, thirsting for revenge, will haunt them for eternity. Zone 019, built with blood and corpses, will likewise perish in blood and corpses.”