I’m Trapped in a Cube - Chapter 86

The red headscarf that had twisted an entire tribe’s identity just lay quietly inside the cube.

Mo Ling walked over and carefully picked it up.

The red headscarf really did emit some kind of attraction that made it hard to look away.

Spread out, it wasn’t large-just enough to fit an adult’s head.

Touching it, the material was fine silk, very pleasant to the touch.

The surface of the red headscarf was spotless, as if brand new, never dirty despite being passed around.

Mo Ling experimentally teleported in some sand and sprinkled it on the headscarf.

The sand slid off, and the headscarf remained perfectly clean.

Such a strange item.

“Is this really the thing that caused an entire tribe’s identity to become confused?”

Mo Ling held the red headscarf, still finding it absurd.

“So, the cost of this relic is identity confusion, and its ability is a one-time material transformation?”

After making a simple judgment, Mo Ling tossed the red headscarf to Li Luo.

Li Luo examined it, looking puzzled, then began searching for information.

Nothing.

There were many relics shaped like headscarves, but none matched, and searching for material transformation only brought up the Midas Touch.

No matter how she searched, Li Luo found nothing relevant, the relic’s information was completely blank.

She double-checked the red cloth’s origin and usage with the ghost, but his explanation matched what he’d said before.

“Why had it appeared out of nowhere among the executed Natural Gas Tribe?”

Mo Ling was confused.

Then he suddenly remembered the donkey ears.

“Donkey ears and a red headscarf?”

“Midas Touch?”

“Could it really be such a coincidence?

Mo Ling wanted to hint to Li Luo, but she was already searching on her tablet.

“King Phrygia.”

In Greek mythology, King Phrygia, obsessed with gold, prayed to Dionysus  and was granted the power to turn anything he touched into gold.

In the end, even his daughter turned to gold at his touch.

He regretted it and prayed to the gods to reverse it, and the gods restored everything, letting what he’d changed return to normal.

Later, King Phrygia judged a music contest between Apollo and Pan , and because he favored Pan, Apollo punished him-

-by giving him donkey ears.

He then used a red headscarf to hide the donkey ears and conceal himself.

The tablet displayed the detailed myth, and the more Mo Ling read, the stranger he felt. “How could there be such a coincidence?”

Two relics with nearly identical abilities, and a myth connecting them.

Mo Ling’s thoughts grew even more tangled.

“A relic appearing out of nowhere in the second layer of the Abyss, in the remote Needle Stone Forest, somehow linked to another relic from Earth?”

Mo Ling thought for a long time but couldn’t figure it out.

Li Luo searched through many records but found nothing more about the red headscarf, so she put it back on the cube for Mo Ling to store.

“Let’s deal with what’s in front of us first.”

Mo Ling tossed the red cloth in a corner, then looked at the trembling ghosts.

Now that he knew why they were mentally unstable, Mo Ling only felt pity for them.

Twisted self-identity, forced to constantly lie to prove their delusion-it was easy to imagine how much their lives had changed.

Sighing, Mo Ling gave up on wiping them out.

Without the red cloth, these ghosts couldn’t make more of  the Vein Mutation Disease.

Maybe, in time, the mineral tribes in the Needle Stone Forest would realize this.

The ghosts still looked at the cube, begging for mercy from time to time.

Mo Ling reminded Li Luo, then piloted the cube upward, slowly leaving and returning to the path forward.

……

As they continued, Shi Beng seemed to return to his cold persona, the ripples and trembling gone.

Mo Ling kept watching him; every time Shi Beng switched personalities, Mo Ling found it very interesting.

Shi Beng probably knew Vein Mutation Disease was truly over, so his fear faded too.

“After that hollow up ahead, we’ll be near the exit. You can just fly out from there,” Shi Beng said expressionlessly.

His tone was back to that flat, numb state.

Every time Mo Ling heard him talk like that, he felt like he was listening to a robot’s voice broadcast.

So boring.

Just as he was about to teleport some stones to scare Shi Beng, Mo Ling noticed Shi Beng’s face change again.

A timid, fearful look.

“What was it? Did he see something?”

Mo Ling hurried forward and found the hollow passage ahead was indeed different.

Here, the fluorite veins seemed to have been artificially carved, making the light more even.

Some dark corners had been cleared and fitted with reflective minerals to brighten the area.

It looked like a deliberately constructed lighting system.

The floor here also seemed specially polished; earlier passages had all kinds of rubble.

Because the Needle Stone Forest’s passages often collapse, most had many new branches, winding and full of excavation marks.

But this passage was perfectly straight; Mo Ling saw even the ceiling had column supports, apparently to prevent collapse.

The further they went, the stranger Shi Beng’s expression became, and Mo Ling noticed more and more signs of human work.

On both walls, every so often, there were colorful minerals, their glow blending with the fluorite veins to create a dazzling effect.

The ceiling not only had support pillars but also some childish carved patterns.

Most were various mineral vein shapes: tree-like, web-like, long strips, ant-nest style…

The carvings were crude, but Mo Ling could still recognize them.

There were also carvings of all kinds of mineral tribes; Mo Ling saw the common four-armed tribes and some bizarre ones.

The most striking was a huge carving, taking up a large section of the wall, showing a mighty mineral tribe with countless arms.

The craftsmanship here was much better; the mighty tribe was surrounded by all sorts of strange motifs, but they were too small for Mo Ling to make out.

The proportions were very odd.

“Who would do this?”

“If the earlier passage supports were to prevent collapse, what were these pointless decorations and carvings for?”

Mo Ling studied the beautiful carvings and decorations and couldn’t believe emotionless mineral tribes had made them.

At this point, Shi Beng seemed to realize something, and shouted in terror,

“I should have guessed! No wonder this place is sealed off! This is a Hollow Vein!”