"Don't, don't, don't be too harsh, take it easy, don't... He just woke up with great difficulty, if you hit him a couple of times and he becomes unresponsive again, that would be terrible. Theoretically, he's still in a dangerous period," Professor Linton said after hearing their conversation.

Shen Lan used the stone wall to propel himself forward, carrying the three people and shooting a long distance ahead, narrowly escaping a strike.

Amidst the water splashing everywhere from the tentacle's strike, he roared, "You call this waking up? If I don't strike back, the ones going through a dangerous period will be us. If you keep stopping me, I'm going to throw away the communicator!"

Fortunately, Xia Chuan was a formidable character among ordinary people. During the swim, as long as he borrowed some strength, he could keep up closely with Shen Lan. Shen Lan only really needed to drag Anyao and Gardner.

Otherwise, if he truly had to drag three people, he would probably need to become like Xia Liang to have enough hands.

As soon as the roar faded, the narrow and cold river channel suddenly became wide open, with a width more than double the previous section. In the midst of hurrying, Xia Chuan felt his eyes suddenly brighten up.

Shen Lan shouted, "Finally not cramped anymore!" Then he instantly dove to the bottom of the river, turning into the form of a Mosasaurus amidst the churning water.

That tail, which made up half the length of his body, carried the force of a thousand pounds as it fiercely swung towards Xia Liang, cleverly avoiding his head, face, shoulders and back that were still in human form. Then, accompanied by a thunderous boom, it struck the stone wall on one side.

If Xia Liang had a slight advantage in numbers and agility, then in terms of strength, he was far from a match for Shen Lan.

This fierce strike from the Mosasaurus' tail directly caused half of that stone wall to collapse, falling off in whole chunks. The rocks rumbled as they fell into the river.

A huge intact rock was smashed at an angle. During its fall, it hit the stone wall on the other side with one end, crossing the river channel. Along with a bunch of other falling giant rocks, it happened to separate Shen Lan and the others from Xia Liang who was in hot pursuit behind.

"It's blocked!" Xia Chuan, who was pushed onto Shen Lan's back, looked back and shouted, "Hurry!"

Shen Lan said nothing more and swung his tail, intending to advance at full speed.

"..." However, after two seconds, Xia Chuan was speechless.

Shen Lan's huge body was slowly sinking as it swam forward. Previously, Xia Chuan's entire body was above the water surface. Now, his arms and kneeling legs were half submerged in water.

He felt the emptiness beneath him as the Mosasaurus' huge body instantly disappeared, replaced by Shen Lan's human form again.

As he surfaced, he grabbed Gardner and Anyao, who had slid off his back into the water, with one hand each. Then he jerked his head towards Xia Chuan and complained angrily, "This river is too shallow, it can't support me at all."

Fortunately, in the two seconds before the Mosasaurus sank to the bottom, its speed burst to the extreme, pulling Xia Chuan and the others a great distance away from Xia Liang behind. Otherwise, they would have been slapped bloody by a bunch of thick black tentacles.

Xia Chuan put a hand on Shen Lan's waist and swam forward desperately with him. However, he still couldn't help looking back during the process. As a result, he saw the tips of Xia Liang's tentacles probing out from the gaps between the giant rocks blocking the river channel.

After a few attempts, Xia Liang realized he was completely blocked, and his frustration probably reached a new height.

Then came a series of crashing sounds as the giant rocks wedged in the river channel were shattered and scattered by Xia Liang's brute force.

"Shit!" Shen Lan knew from the sound that the pursuit was about to catch up again. He swam forward like crazy, constantly using the stone walls on both sides for leverage. In between breaths, he muttered, "What was your dad thinking, choosing such an unseemly sea beast transformation? Couldn't he have picked something better looking with fewer hands?"

Professor Linton was anxiously hopping from foot to foot for them, but he didn't expect this overlord to have the leisure to complain. He couldn't help but reply, "You think this is grocery shopping where you can pick and choose?"

Xia Chuan was even more straightforward, "You're not much better looking than him. Can you focus on escaping?"

After saying that, he closed his mouth and frowned, not speaking again. Because they were swimming too urgently, the splashing water was too great. Every time he opened his mouth, there was a chance of water choking into his windpipe. If their speed slowed down due to this issue while escaping and they were slapped into meat paste by Xia Liang, that would be utterly stupid.

Fortunately, Professor Linton gave them hope, "Hurry, hurry, hurry! This underground river leads directly to the inland sea. You won't be able to sink there. I was just about to..."

Before he could finish, Shen Lan suddenly remembered a question. He couldn't help but stick his head out of the water and shout, "Wait, didn't you say that your every word and action is under surveillance like that German guy, and you only have five minutes of leeway each day? So are you under surveillance right now?"

Xia Chuan was startled and almost lost his rhythm. He quickly slapped the water a couple of times to catch up with Shen Lan's frequency again.

Then they heard a commotion on Professor Linton's end. He seemed to be rummaging through boxes and cabinets for something. Amidst the colliding sounds and hurried footsteps, he shouted, "Yes, that's right, that's what I was going to say. I am under surveillance, but since it's come to this point, who the hell cares anymore?"

In fact, at this time, Professor Linton was holed up in a small apartment. This apartment was just downstairs from the one he usually lived in. Inside, it was a mess, with no daily necessities at all, just various instruments connected by spider web-like wires, purpose unknown steel cabinets of all sizes, and even a huge glass tank that had been empty for who knows how long. The only places in this apartment that resembled a normal home were the balcony and the window sills.

Clothes hung on the balcony, of course, who knows for how long. Various potted plants were placed on the window sills, of course, the kind with extremely strong vitality that required almost no care.

The curtains of this room were always half-drawn, so that from the outside, one could only see a few clusters of leaves from the potted plants and the swaying shadows of the hanging clothes.

For so many years, he had been using this place to remotely watch over and manage Xia Liang and the others, utilizing every bit of unmonitored time he could.

However, it was clear that the mission of this room was coming to an end. He hurriedly took out a palm-sized flat box from a steel cabinet.

As soon as he grasped it in his hand, he heard the sound of brakes outside the window, followed by someone honking the horn, startling the professor and making his whole body tremble. He hurriedly ran to the balcony and peeked through the curtain gap. To his surprise, a matte black convertible was parked right outside the window, nearly crashing into his wall. In the car sat none other than Gerald and Dennis.

Professor Linton wasted no time and yanked open the curtains.

Dennis stood up from his seat, leaning forward and knocking on the window glass in front of the professor.

Professor Linton opened the window, and Dennis clapped his hands outside, then spread them out anxiously, saying concisely, "Professor, quickly climb out, I'll catch you!"

Professor Linton: "..."

Poor Professor Linton had never done such an undignified thing in his life. He tucked the flat box he was holding into his shirt pocket, then tossed two small black objects to Dennis, saying as he struggled to climb onto the windowsill, "Put the communicators on your ears."

Dennis tossed one to Gerald and put on the other himself. He then forcibly dragged the quail-like professor out of the window and into the car.

The professor felt that before his bottom even touched the back seat, Gerald, in the driver's seat, had already stomped on the accelerator. The convertible reversed at a flying speed, then sharply turned the steering wheel. The car made a flamboyant curve and sped off.

"My God!" The professor clutched the flat box at his chest, feeling like he would be thrown out of the car at any moment by Gerald's driving. He frantically patted Dennis' shoulder in the roaring wind, shouting, "Aren't you supposed to remember nothing? Why did you come and join the excitement? Don't you know you might die?"

"I flipped through the diary from beginning to end and forced Gerald to bring me here. I always felt I would regret it for life if I didn't come," Dennis shouted back at the professor's ear. "Besides, if something happens to you all, won't I have to take care of a bunch of vegetative people? No way!"

"Speaking of which, how did you get that damn diary back? Who fished it out for you?" The professor roared in the wind.

Dennis shouted even louder, "Who knows, heaven destined for me to come along!"

Gerald sat calmly and seriously in the driver's seat, driving the convertible like a plane. He said flatly, "I got it back. I also felt he would regret losing that notebook."

Dennis shouted even more fiercely, "Fuck, did you read my diary?"

Gerald: "..."

Shen Lan, on the other end of the communicator, emerged from the water again. His roaring voice was even louder than theirs: "Can you keep it down? My hearing can be amplified 38 times. You're practically throwing grenades in my ears!"

Xia Chuan: "Shut up and hurry up and tell us which way to go."

Professor Linton immediately said, "Oh right, I just said the river leads directly to the inland sea. After you come out, go straight east for one kilometer. We're heading towards Bridge Z."

Before he finished speaking, a series of huge impact sounds and rock blasting sounds rang out one after another from Shen Lan's side. It sounded terrifying, like explosion after explosion. It made him and Dennis wince involuntarily just from hearing it.

"Are you alright?" Dennis shouted.

"Won't die," Xia Chuan replied coldly. "Just that my neck might be strangled at any time."

As he said this, Xia Liang had caught up again from behind. Four or five black tentacles slapped over together. As he and Shen Lan dodged, the tentacle tips curled up. One wrapped around Shen Lan's arm, and another wrapped around Xia Chuan's shoulder, then tightened fiercely, locking them up tightly.

The tentacles only needed to come up another ten centimeters to lock around Xia Chuan's neck.