Chapter 1648: Going In

Li Du had no other choice but to swear on Sophie and his child.

After hearing him swear, the Inuit nodded in satisfaction. He said, “Alright, now I’ll tell you what’s the most dangerous part of this expedition is: it’s the water pressure at a hundred meters. If you’re not good at diving — and I mean good — then you’ll have to be careful.”

Li Du understood him instantly. He asked, “We’re diving to the bottom of the lake then? To where the spiral rises from?”

The Inuit confirmed with a nod. “Yes, we are.”

Water pressure at a hundred meters deep was terrible, but solving this issue was easy for modern technology. They had a submarine at the camping ground which could enable people to dive down to thousands of meters deep — a hundred meters was nothing.

The Inuit told him, “You can’t rely solely on the submarine, because there are places that it can’t reach. You’ll have to rely on yourself. You can wear diving gear and bring an oxygen tank with you, but you’ll have to be able to deal with the water pressure on your own.”

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This was something that Li Du could not do. He had learned how to dive before. He had also learned to scuba dive; he did a really good job when he had been harvesting black gold abalone back in Australia.

Even then, however, he had not gone as deep as a hundred meters. Now he had to pull off the real deal.

Diving so deep required professional training. Inexperienced people could not handle the issue just by relying on equipment.

Luckily, Li Du was not a stranger to deep diving. After all, he had learned diving before. With the help of diving gear made especially for deep diving and some medicine, he could dive that far down for a brief period.

Li Du spent a whole day preparing for this. He assigned tasks for the people at the camp, then carried with him the heavy diving gear and other tools before following behind the Inuit, walking towards the wilderness.

Godzilla could not help but shout, “Boss, it’s too dangerous for you to go alone! Pick someone to help you!”

The Inuit shook his head insistently and Li Du waved his hand impatiently. “Wait for me to come back, brothers. I’ll go alone to find out what’s going on and then I’ll be back.”

Brother Wolf said with a heavy heart, “We’ll be waiting right here for you. If you’re not back, we won’t leave this place!”

His tone changed, becoming heavier. “We’ll start looking for you if you’re gone for too long, and we’ll find you even if we have to drain all the water from Lake Angikuni!”

Li Du nodded with a smile, then responded, “Alright, don’t worry.”

Brother Wolf and the rest of the men listened to him, but the little ones did not. They trailed behind him adamantly — even Ah Bai, with his broken leg, struggled to crawl up his arm, tugging at his sleeve and refusing to let go.

Li Du asked, “Can I bring these animals with me?”

It was a simple question but the Inuit jumped in shock. He was so shocked that he was almost flailing about and repeatedly insisted, “No, no, absolutely not! You can’t bring them along! Hurry and send them back!”

Li Du was puzzled at the man’s reaction, so he asked, “Why? Is one of your people allergic to animal fur?”

The Inuit blinked a few times, then said emphatically, “Yes, many of us are allergic to animal fur and we absolutely cannot come into contact with them!”

Li Du asked, “But you’re in contact with them now, right? Aren’t you fine?”

The Inuit said with his eyebrows furrowed, “It doesn’t matter what you say, you’re banned from bringing your pets along. Think about it — how can they survive the water pressure? The moment they dive in, the pressure will do them in!”

Li Du opened his mouth to respond but the Inuit was not having it. He pointed to the sun and said, “We’ve wasted enough time. I can’t say for sure how much longer Steve Tussenburg is going to wait for you.”

Li Du could not counter that.

He tried his best to send the little ones back. The bunch of them had rarely been apart from Li Du, and they sensed that something was wrong, so they insisted on following him.

Brother Wolf held on to Ah Ow, only to have her trip him. At this moment, the Mexican Wolf proved just how strong she was. There were a few people trying to stop her but to no avail.

Li Du had no choice but to lose his temper. After a bout of harsh scolding, the little ones finally cooled down.

He carried the heavy diving gear and trudged forward. When he turned back, he saw Ah Ow, Ah Meow, and Crispy Noodles sitting in a row. Ah Bai was squatting on Ah Ow’s back and Ah Meng stood straight, staring at him firmly. Up in the sky, Ah Fei was circling the area.

He walked out far enough that their silhouettes were no longer visible, but he knew that the bunch of them were still waiting in the same spot.

He also knew that they would be waiting for him forever!

They wandered about the wilderness of the lakeside for a while, and the Inuit brought him into a natural ravine after the area had been cleared of people.

The ravine was like a small canyon. It was open on all sides and branched out in different directions. The Inuit took him in and they wandered about for a while before finally going into a ditch. They walked along the ditch, at the end of which was a huge hole.

“Get into it. Take care not to injure yourself.” The Inuit jumped down first.

Li Du got in shortly after the man did. It was pitch-black in the hole. Just as he was about to turn on his light, the Inuit stopped him as if he knew what the former was planning to do. He said, “Don’t. Follow me.”

They walked into what seemed like an underpass— wet, dark, muddy.

The journey was taking its toll on Li Du but they did not walk far before the Inuit opened a door and pulled him in. Then, they were in a basement.

There was a dim light in the room. Li Du looked around, taking the room in; there were clothes hung on the walls and boxes places on the ground. The Inuit took off his clothes, grabbing what seemed like a diving suit from off the wall to change into.

He spoke as he changed into the outfit, “Hey, what are you doing just standing there? Hurry and change into your diving suit, we’re going underwater soon.”

The diving suit was not something one could change into by themselves. With the help of the Inuit, Li Du changed into his diving suit, then made his way into a tunnel behind the basement with much difficulty.

The undulating lake water appeared in front of them. The Inuit said, “Follow me. The waters are not like the land, so you’re going to have to follow closely behind me or you could end up losing your life if something goes wrong.”

After finishing his piece, he jumped into the water. Li Du jumped in after him.

Aside from the diving suit, Li Du had also brought along a booster, with the help of which he had better mobility underwater.

The thick material of the diving suit separated him from the temperature of the water and he could not feel the changes in temperature at all.

At this moment, he seemed to exist in two separate cages. One cage was the lake water, boundless and heavy as Mount Tai. The other cage was the diving suit that clung to him like a parasite, an entity he could not escape from.

Deep diving in foreign waters was tantamount to risking your life. Li Du felt his heart rate pick up, beating faster and faster. He was under a lot of pressure both physically and mentally.

They dove deeper and deeper down, and the one thing that filled his vision was still the muddy lake water. He barely even saw any sea animals; the only other moving, living creature in the space was the Inuit.

An Inuit who was unwilling to reveal his name, someone whose identity was unknown!

However, he was Li Du’s only pillar of support at this moment, so Li Du followed closely behind him.

They had no concept of time while they were deep diving. Each second in the water felt as long as a day on land but, looking back, it felt like not much time had passed. How curious…