"This is weird," the three of them felt something was amiss, but none spoke further; instead, they hurried to attend to their wounds.
Once they had dealt with their injuries and rested a while to regain their strength, they all walked over to the edge of the vast pit.
Jin Ziyuan glanced down into its depths, a pitch-black abyss seemingly without end.
"I’ll go down and take a look. Wait here for me," he said.
Gu Youyou shook her head, "We won’t know until we see for ourselves, I must go." Then, turning to Searcy, she added, "Maybe you should stay up here with the luggage, and we’ll go down."
However, Searcy protested, "How can that be? It was so hard to climb up here; would it not be a waste if I didn’t go down to have a look?"
The back-and-forth went on until none of them was willing to stay up top, ultimately deciding to descend together.
Gu Youyou had prepared a full set of climbing equipment in advance; she took everything out of her backpack, which mostly contained ropes, while Jin Ziyuan’s pack was entirely filled with ropes.
"We need to prepare first; the rocks in this cave might not be stable, and it may not be easy to descend," she said.
After tying knots in the ropes, she remarked, "Let’s get some sturdy branches, about as thick as a forearm and this long."
Busy at work, the three of them cut down branches, which Gu Youyou then tied to the ropes, creating an extended ladder leading downward.
Jin Ziyuan smiled, "This ladder should work fine for you, but be careful; this pit is bottomless, and it could be dangerous."
"Don’t worry, we’ll tie ourselves to ropes."
Seeing that they had secured safety ropes around their waists, Jin Ziyuan nodded and said no more.
He didn’t need Gu Youyou’s ropes and simply leaped down along the cliff face.
Gu Youyou and Searcy couldn’t help but admire him; it was a pity that such agility was not something they could envy into acquisition.
"If I had known I would be cast out by the Lu family and become a wanderer, I should have gone to the military camp for training when I was younger," Searcy lamented.
"Hey, come down quickly; there are many special plants here!"
Below, within view, Jin Ziyuan was already calling out to them.
Gu Youyou descended the ladder first, followed closely by Searcy.
Reaching the level Jin Ziyuan was on, Gu Youyou exclaimed in surprise.
These beautiful plants were strikingly similar to the Youying Grass.
Only they were not as blue or as purely intense.
"What is this grass?"
Full of curiosity, Searcy plucked one and sniffed it close to his nose.
At that moment, Gu Youyou’s emotions were complex.
She had a feeling that the secret they had long pondered over might unravel here.
"Let’s just put them in the backpack for now; we can research them slowly once we get back," she suggested.
The grasses in the stone crevices were not only those that resembled Youying Grass but other varieties as well. Some, even common grasses that grow in deep rock fissures, yet they differed from those on the outside, their leaves less green and more blue. The deeper they ventured, the more intense the blue became.
Later on, they were even bluer than the Youying Grass.
Each of them sensed the extraordinary nature of this place, and their expressions turned solemn.
Jin Ziyuan took the lead in scouting ahead, with Gu Youyou and Searcy following behind, occasionally picking some unique flora and stowing them in their backpacks.
The cave began to narrow like an inverted funnel, and their prepared ladder had reached its end, so they had no choice but to untie the ropes around them and lower another rope to continue their descent.