Richest Rag-picker

Just as he was ready, Fang Chenyi hesitated. He reached down, picked up a fist-sized stone, and tossed it straight into the passage beyond the gate.

But after a series of sounds of the stone striking the rock walls, he didn’t hear it hit the bottom for a long, long time.

Eventually, the sound just vanished completely.

"Holy shit, it’s that deep?"

Swallowing hard, Fang Chenyi’s resolve began to waver.

But then he remembered the old saying: the greater the danger, the greater the reward. Besides, other than it being deep, he had waited for a while without hearing any other sounds, which meant there were no living creatures inside.

He looked down once more into the bottomless darkness, gritted his teeth, and switched on the headlamp attached to his tactical helmet. He then secured the M4 on his back and felt for the dagger strapped tightly to his leg, checking all his gear.

Finally, steeling himself, he turned and planted his feet on the slope.

Gripping the rope tightly with both hands, he kept his body leaning back and began to walk down into the passage, one step at a time.

CREAAAK~

However, just as Fang Chenyi had descended about ten meters into the passage, a sudden creaking sound echoed from above. He looked up to see the two wide-open stone doors beginning to close.

And they were closing incredibly fast. It was obvious he wouldn’t have enough time to climb back up.

CLANG!

With a thunderous crash, the two heavy stone doors slammed shut, and the light from outside vanished in an instant.

Fortunately, even though the doors had closed, the ropes—the one tied around him and the one in his hands—didn’t fall down with him.

He looked up, his powerful headlamp illuminating the scene, and saw that both ropes were now firmly wedged in the seam of the closed stone doors.

Fang Chenyi tugged on the ropes and found they were still very secure.

Fang Chenyi had a nature that refused to admit defeat. In a situation like this, he remained surprisingly calm. He considered climbing back up, but he knew he definitely wouldn’t be able to open those tightly shut stone doors.

After a moment’s hesitation, Fang Chenyi gritted his teeth and decided to continue downward.

’It’s pointless to waste effort at the door. I might as well go down and see what kind of treasure is at the bottom. Who knows, maybe if I find it, I’ll also find a way to open these doors.’

Since the rope tied to his waist was now wedged in the door, Fang Chenyi simply untied it, leaving only the rope in his hands.

After a moment of thought, he attached the safety harness from his waist to the remaining rope, tied a rappelling hitch, and kicked off the wall with his feet. Then, coordinating his hands to feed out the rope, he began a rapid descent.

Three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes. After rappelling for nearly ten minutes, Fang Chenyi still hadn’t reached the bottom of the passage.

By now, his arms and legs were aching with exhaustion.

He stopped his descent and tied a knot in the rope around himself to secure his position.

Of course, the rope he was using now wasn’t the original one. He’d swapped it for a new coil from his storage sack.

The first rope had run out of length long ago.

Thankfully, ever since that survival experience on the deserted island, he had kept his storage sack well-stocked.

The rope he was using now was military-grade paracord. Though it was only as thick as a chopstick, it could easily bear a weight of five or six hundred kilograms.

Because of its small volume, Fang Chenyi had prepared nearly a thousand meters of it.

And now, that rope was proving invaluable.

Leaning back against the tension of the rope, he sat on the inclined slope and scanned his surroundings with the beam of his headlamp.

Fang Chenyi discovered that the entire rock wall seemed to have been carved from a single, massive piece of stone, without a single seam or joint in sight.

But after descending for so long, Fang Chenyi was starting to feel a bit exasperated. He’d seen nothing but smooth rock walls the entire way down.

He shook his head, wondering just what this place was.

After resting for a while, his arms no longer felt so sore, so he got back up and continued his descent.

As he slid down rapidly, he would periodically glance into the gloomy depths below, trying to catch a glimpse of the world at the bottom.

But unfortunately, no matter how many times he looked, there was still only endless darkness below.

After another ten minutes, the rope in his hands was nearing its end. By his rough estimate, Fang Chenyi figured he had descended at least 1,300 meters.

What did that depth even mean? On flat ground, it wasn’t much—just under a mile—but underground, it was a completely different story.

Thirteen hundred meters. From what Fang Chenyi knew, the Earth’s crust was only about seventeen kilometers thick on average. And since this place was near the sea, the oceanic crust would be much thinner than elsewhere, maybe only six or seven kilometers at its thinnest point.

And yet, after descending nearly thirteen hundred meters, he still hadn’t reached the bottom.

Worst of all, Fang Chenyi had no idea how much farther he had to go.

He slid down another two hundred meters, and the rope finally ran out completely.

Staring at the still-bottomless abyss below his feet, Fang Chenyi gulped and forced out three words:

"I was reckless..."

Looking up at the equally black void above, Fang Chenyi was now well and truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. Descending fifteen hundred meters was one thing, but climbing back up was not going to be so easy.

Securing the rope to his waist again, Fang Chenyi took out his storage sack and began rummaging through it.

He needed to see if he had anything else he could use in this situation.

’Parachute, useless. Inflatable boat, also useless. What the fuck, why is there a vibrator in here?’

As he searched, Fang Chenyi found an object in a corner of his storage sack that was a common sight in adult films.

Fang Chenyi was left speechless for a moment, but then he remembered: this was something he’d received as a special reward.

He had originally planned to throw it away, but with one thing after another, he had completely forgotten about it. If he hadn’t stumbled upon it while searching for things today, there’s no telling how much longer it would have remained in his storage sack.

He looked at the object in his hand with a helpless, wry expression and shook his head. He was about to put it back into the storage sack, but then he paused.

At that same moment, a rather clever idea came to mind.