Jiang Fan looked up in confusion. What was going on?
As far as he understood, if he made the wrong move, a mechanism should have activated, and if he made the right move, a new passage should have appeared.
Neither had happened. What was going on?
The viewers in the live stream were even more frustrated.
Earlier, they had seen Jiang Fan hesitating and had wanted to rush through the screen to press his hand onto the Heavenly Origin point.
In their understanding, placing a piece on the Heavenly Origin was a sure way to win.
But what was this situation?
"Could AlphaGo have misread it? A dog is still a dog!"
"He made the wrong move. A mechanism should have activated. If no mechanism activated, it means he made the right move."
"But no new passage appeared either."
"Is this game designed by someone with a perverse sense of humor to mess with people?"
This was the first time the viewers had encountered such a situation, and they started to complain.
Jiang Fan glanced at the chessboard again. The board remained still, and the piece didn't bounce back into the box.
With a sigh, Jiang Fan stepped away from the chessboard and walked towards Zhou Niannian and Dai Xiaomei.
Zhou Niannian and Dai Xiaomei were sitting on the ground, too scared to look at the chessboard just now.
Seeing Jiang Fan approach, they quickly asked.
"What happened?"
"Why was there no movement at all?"
Jiang Fan shrugged and gave a wry smile. He had never encountered this before and didn't know what to say.
Before Jiang Fan could speak, the ground suddenly trembled.
Zhou Niannian and Dai Xiaomei both felt a particularly strong vibration beneath them.
"An earthquake?" Jiang Fan murmured.
Before they could react, the ground beneath their feet began to descend rapidly.
"Ahhhhhh!"
In an instant, Zhou Niannian and Dai Xiaomei disappeared from the ground, their screams echoing in the air.
Zhou Niannian was plunged into darkness, feeling the stone beneath her feet descend at lightning speed. The intense feeling of weightlessness made it difficult for her to breathe.
Zhou Niannian was not a timid girl; drop towers and pendulum rides were commonplace for her.
She had even endured the roller coasters in the wilderness.
But the speed at which the stone was falling was at least dozens of times faster than a drop tower. Zhou Niannian's heart was in her throat.
There was nothing around her but thick stone walls. Zhou Niannian felt like she couldn't breathe.
It wasn't just Zhou Niannian. Dai Xiaomei, Jiang Fan, and Yao were all experiencing the same situation, falling into the depths of the earth.
Even the table with the chessboard slowly sank into the ground.
Only a bewildered panda remained on the surface.
What was going on? Where had everyone gone?
Whether it was because it was too heavy and the mechanism disdained it, or the mechanism intentionally didn't take it, all four of them had fallen, leaving only it behind.
The half-eaten bamboo shoot dropped to the ground with a snap.
"Aow!"
The panda looked anxiously at the four deep holes in the ground and even stretched its paws inside, trying to see if it could pull Jiang Fan and the others out.
After a lot of useless effort, the panda shed lonely tears.
"Aow, aow!"
After crying for a long time, the panda realized that crying was useless and picked up the bamboo shoot from the ground.
"Aow, crunch!"
The panda began to eat the bamboo shoot at triple speed, tears streaming down its face as it ate.
Soon, the bamboo shoot was gone. It took another one from its backpack and started eating again.
The viewers in the live stream also offered sympathetic glances.
"Alas, my Gungun is loyal and righteous, still thinking about rescuing people."
"There's no other way. Turn grief into appetite."
"When I'm sad, I eat like this too. I gained thirty jin in a month."
"Poor panda, a solo trip, a solo journey."
"Loneliness makes Gungun so beautiful."
Meanwhile, Jiang Fan and the others were still falling.
Jiang Fan experimentally threw a pebble, but it bounced back.
The heavy echo confirmed that there was nothing but thick stone walls on all sides.
He could hear nothing but the sound of large gears spinning wildly, and he didn't know how Zhou Niannian and Dai Xiaomei were doing next door.
Had they fallen together, or had they stayed on the ground?
Worst of all, the platform beneath their feet began to spin erratically.
In a state of intense weightlessness, Jiang Fan couldn't control his body and involuntarily began to spin.
After a few minutes, Jiang Fan felt intensely dizzy.
Fortunately, he was experienced and hadn't eaten much, otherwise, he would have already thrown up everything he had eaten.
"Who designed this deceitful mechanism?"
Jiang Fan couldn't help but curse in his heart. Rapid descent was one thing; it might be a necessary passage to somewhere. But was this deceitful spinning necessary?
Was it intended to make them all dizzy and transport them to some terrifying place?
Thinking of this, Jiang Fan's heart tightened, and he became alert.
He took out the berries given to him by the hedgehogs from his backpack and took a big bite.
The berries were indeed extremely sour. Jiang Fan felt like his teeth were about to fall out.
But this sour sensation kept Jiang Fan's mind clear.
The stone beneath his feet was still falling. According to Jiang Fan's calculation, they had already descended for nearly half a minute.
Half a minute was enough time for an elevator to descend from the fifteenth floor to the first.
The speed at which the stone was falling was much faster than an elevator.
According to Jiang Fan's calculations, in just half a minute, they had descended at least a hundred meters, and this path seemed to have no end.
Another half minute passed, and the stone beneath their feet continued to fall madly.
Jiang Fan felt a wave of nausea and quickly closed his eyes, trying not to think and just endure this period.
In another descent passage, Yao felt even worse than Jiang Fan.
Jiang Fan and the others had experience with pendulum rides and drop towers, but Yao had only been back in human society for half a year and had never ridden such things.
The feeling of rapid descent made Yao curl into a ball, covering his head and squatting on the ground.
Once, he and the wolf pack were chased by a cheetah and forced to jump into a pool at the bottom of a cliff.
The terrifying sensation of freefall from a height was something Yao would never forget.
He didn't expect to experience it again, and the sensation of weightless descent was even more unbearable than the last time.
Zhou Niannian had already vomited a mess, wishing she were dead.
She had screamed for a long time, but no one came to save her. There wasn't even a ghost in sight. Zhou Niannian's throat was hoarse.
"Wuwuwu!"
Zhou Niannian finally couldn't control her emotions and started to cry.
Dai Xiaomei was the most composed, because she had already fainted.
Fainting solved all her worries. Dai Xiaomei was truly relieved.
Jiang Fan looked up at the sky. The opening above was getting smaller and smaller, almost turning into a tiny point of light that was barely visible.
According to Jiang Fan's estimation, he had already fallen several hundred meters underground.
After an unknown period of falling, there was a sudden "creak" sound, and the speed of the stone's descent greatly slowed down!
Jiang Fan reacted the fastest. He jumped up with a jolt and saw a sliver of light finally appear in the dark space beneath his feet!