Li Musheng's eyes shifted as he glanced at the palace-dressed woman, allowing Li Yuanling to pull him aboard the wooden boat.
It had to be said, the scene of these underground iron-chain wooden boats before him did indeed look quite thrilling.
Although he knew this kind of thrilling was probably vastly different from the kind of thrilling he had imagined.
At this time, after everyone on the platform had boarded the wooden boats, the palace-dressed woman who had remained motionless at the platform's edge turned her head and called out toward the cliff below in the darkness, "Set sail!"
The voice echoed endlessly in the darkness, and those iron chains once again began to move rapidly, pulling the five wooden boats slowly toward the depths of the earth cliff in the darkness.
The wooden boats were equipped with soft stools wrapped in cotton fur. There were four such stools, indicating that each wooden boat should carry at most four people.
Li Yuanling sat on one of the soft stools. Before the boat departed, she picked up the fire starter on the table before her and lit a candle placed on top.
Li Musheng sat across from her, glancing toward the surrounding darkness.
The other four wooden boats nearby had also lit their candles, like dots of fireflies emitting dim yellow light in the pitch-black underground space.
At this moment, Li Yuanling's gaze fell on the table before her. Seeing a line of clear writing carved on it, she parted her red lips and slowly read the content aloud, "First challenge: After entering the rotating wheel, maintain the candle on the boat unextinguished."
"If the candle remains lit for ten breaths, one mark is recorded. For twenty breaths, two marks. For half an incense stick's time, five marks. For one incense stick's time, ten marks."
"If the candle remains unextinguished after one incense stick's time, one mark is added for each additional breath. After thirty breaths, the wooden boat will briefly stop before entering the second challenge."
...
After reading all the content carved on the table, Li Yuanling's eyes rolled. Then wisps of true qi emerged from her palm to protect the candle on the table.
At the same time, she raised her eyes to look at Li Musheng sitting across from her, blinking as she said, "I heard that in this underground 'Floating Boat City,' the person who accumulates the highest number of marks can obtain mysterious items. If you can break the record, you can even get unimaginably good things."
Hearing this, Li Musheng glanced at her and crossed his arms, saying, "As a Great Li princess, are you really lacking any good things?"
Li Yuanling tilted her head, studied Li Musheng for a while, a meaningful look flashing in her eyes as she pursed her lips and said, "Lacking, I'm not lacking. But who would complain about having too many good things?"
Li Musheng raised his eyebrows slightly, surveyed the surroundings, and shook his head, "The place you found does indeed have some unique aspects, but overall, it's just so-so."
Speaking thus, he stroked his chin and said, "However, since we're already here and have nothing else to do anyway, I don't mind playing along with you. Otherwise, you'll go around saying your sworn brother doesn't act like a human."
Hearing this, Li Yuanling blinked her eyes, her lips mumbling a few words, though who knew what she was saying.
Just at this moment, the wooden boat sliding through the darkness had already arrived before a massive horizontal iron-frame wheel.
Li Yuanling looked up. Wooden boats with lit candles came from all directions in the darkness.
The iron chains connected to the boats slid into the grooves of the iron-frame wheel. With the sound of mechanical movements, they were all fixed in place.
She swept her gaze and counted. Including their wooden boat, the iron-frame wheel had fixed a total of thirty wooden boats in place.
Soon, as the sound of melodious bells rang out, the iron-frame wheel suddenly began to rotate rapidly, and the speed grew faster and faster. Within several breaths, only afterimages remained.
At first, Li Yuanling was worried that Li Musheng would be flung out, but when she discovered he was sitting calmly across from her with an expressionless face, she let out a soft exclamation of surprise.
She seemed not to have expected that although he appeared to have no true qi at all, he possessed such abilities and was even calmer than her.
"Stop looking. Take care of yourself first."
Li Musheng glanced at her. The wheel's speed grew faster and faster. Cries of alarm were already coming from the surrounding wooden boats.
However, Li Yuanling's martial cultivation was quite good. This difficulty still couldn't trouble her. She protected the candle while remaining seated steadily.
She even had the leisure to cast a proud look at Li Musheng, as if saying this was nothing.
Soon, ten breaths passed, twenty breaths passed... time was about to reach one incense stick.
From time to time, candles on surrounding wooden boats were extinguished. In the end, on the entire iron-frame wheel, only seven boats still had lit candles.
Among them, not far from the wooden boat where Li Musheng and the other were located, there was a nearby boat whose candle also remained unextinguished.
Two people sat on this boat. Besides the martial world man who had called out earlier, there was also a thin, middle-aged man.
The middle-aged man wore a long sword at his waist. He glanced at the wooden boat where Li Musheng and the other sat and narrowed his eyes slightly.
He seemed somewhat surprised that this young man and woman could withstand one incense stick's time on the rotating wheel.
Soon, one incense stick's time passed, and the iron-frame wheel continued rotating.
Immediately after, palm winds suddenly arose from above the wheel, falling precisely toward the seven boats with lit candles.
Li Musheng raised his head to glance at the center of the wheel. Seated there was an old man in black clothing whose entire body surged with martial true qi. Each palm he struck sent forth a palm wind, and as time passed, the force of the palm winds gradually intensified.
At first, when those palm winds blew toward the candle protected by Li Yuanling's hand, she could still protect it with her own martial true qi. But after twenty breaths, she was clearly struggling.
When the time reached twenty-five breaths, the palm winds wielded by the old man had become extremely fierce.
Li Yuanling saw the true qi protecting the candle being completely scattered. The burning flame began to sway violently, almost extinguishing into a mass of crimson embers.
She couldn't help but cry out anxiously, thinking all was lost and this was already the limit she could sustain.
Just at this moment, the candle that was about to be extinguished suddenly restored its previous flame in an instant. Even as the remaining palm wind continued to blow, the candle didn't budge and burned as usual.
The black-clothed old man seated there looked toward the wooden boat where Li Musheng and the other sat, frowning slightly. The candle that should have been definitively extinguished had actually persisted, which surprised him somewhat.
However, he didn't think much of it. Immediately in the next instant, he struck out several more palms.
At this time, on the entire wheel, only three boats still had burning candles, including the boat where the sword-wearing middle-aged man sat.
"They probably won't survive the next round."
The task of maintaining the candle was being done by the martial world man across from him, so the sword-wearing middle-aged man had the leisure to observe the other two boats' situations.
He had seen everything when Li Yuanling's candle nearly went out earlier. Therefore, he was almost certain she absolutely couldn't withstand the next, even stronger palm wind.