Chapter 110: The Lotus Statue

The light of the fire starter flickered in the stone passage. I stood alone before the stone wall. I didn’t know the exact time, but it felt like a long time had passed. I had felt every inch of the gaps in the stone wall, and there was no doubt it was a single, solid piece. The surface was smooth, with no signs of mechanisms or grooves.

Baldy had found a stick from somewhere and was tapping it on the ground out of boredom. The contact between the stick and the floor created a rhythmic sound.

I could only hear my own heartbeat, yet the tapping of that stick felt like a death knell, reminding me that if I couldn’t solve this, we would be trapped forever in this sunless underground, or perhaps killed first by the old man behind me.

Baldy grew impatient and shouted, “Hey! Kid! Can you move this door or not? Stop wasting time! All the good treasures in the underground palace will be taken by others at this rate!”

He Yu rolled over and scrambled up from the ground beside me. He leaned in close to my shoulder and asked, “How is it? Any leads?”

I frowned, crouching down to feel the gaps in the stone wall again. I only managed to scrape off a layer of stone dust. I shook my hand. Given how perfectly the pieces fit together, I had no idea how this wall operated, let alone how to move it.

Thinking it over, I really had no leads, so I gave He Yu a small shake of my head.

Qiao Sangui was sitting on the ground behind me. He signaled for Baldy to help him up. Seeing him rise, I turned around and said, “I haven’t found the mechanism yet.”

Baldy tsked. “So you’ve been thinking here for half an hour and came up with nothing?! Third Master, I think this kid is intentionally stalling for time. He wants his relative to get into the underground palace first and reap all the rewards!”

Qiao Sangui didn’t signal for him to shut up this time. His stance was clear. He coughed a few times and suddenly grabbed my collar with one hand. He Yu tried to intervene but was immediately pinned down by Tian Xiaoqi.

Qiao Sangui pulled the Mauser C96 from his waist and aimed it at my head. “Gan Ji, I don’t need dead weight in my team. You should know that. If your only function is reading maps, you won’t last until the end.”

Baldy understood Qiao Sangui’s meaning instantly. He kicked me to the ground. I rolled once before being pinned firmly against the stone wall. My nose began to bleed from the impact, and at that moment, a peculiar scent mixed with the smell of rust drifted into my nostrils.

“Damn you, Qiao Sangui! Third Master Liu treated you well when he was alive! And here you are, trying to kill a child of the Five Masters! You’re a disgrace! An animal! If you dare kill him, I’ll fight you to the death!” He Yu shouted, somehow breaking free from Tian Xiaoqi’s grip. But as he tried to crawl over, several men rushed forward and pinned him to the ground.

Qiao Sangui tossed the gun to Baldy and said to me, “Don’t worry, I won’t take your friend’s life just yet. He’ll still be useful once we’re inside.”

“What do you say, Third Master? Why don’t we tie him to this wall? There aren’t many places to set the dynamite anyway. Why not let him serve one last purpose when we blow the wall?” Baldy chuckled.

They were going to blast the wall.

I carefully identified the scent, and a specific memory surged into my mind. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Blood was still streaming from my nose, flowing into my mouth, but I kept laughing.

Hearing my laughter, the chaotic noise around me fell silent.

Baldy pressed my head harder against the wall. “What are you laughing at? You’re about to die and you’re laughing that hard?”

My face was pressed against the stone wall. Baldy’s strength was immense. Even as the stone scraped my skin raw, I forced my head around to glare at Qiao Sangui. My expression must have been terrifyingly twisted, for even Qiao Sangui frowned at me.

“If you have the guts, go ahead and blast the wall,” I said. “Blast it, and you’ll never see the inside of this underground palace. None of us will leave this place alive.”

Baldy was incensed. “Is this kid crazy? Third Master, what kind of nonsense is he talking in broad daylight?”

Qiao Sangui reached out and yanked him back. The pressure on me vanished. My legs felt weak, and I nearly knelt before the stone wall, but I held myself up. I leaned against the wall and used my sleeve to wipe the blood from my nose.

“Why can’t we blast it? What did you see?” Qiao Sangui walked over and asked me sternly.

I stepped forward and grabbed him. Several of his men moved to intervene, but Qiao Sangui waved them off.

I smiled at Qiao Sangui and said, “It seems my value has increased a bit. I bet that if I die, none of the useless fools in your crew will be able to help you out of this maze. You should think carefully about whether you want to keep treating us like that.”

Qiao Sangui froze, as if my words had struck a chord. I noticed him glance at Baldy out of the corner of his eye. After a moment of thought, his expression softened. He looked up at me with eyes full of both cunning and a forced smile:

“To become a friend of Qiao Sangui, you must rely on your own skills. Now, tell me, what did you find just now?”

I ran my hand along a crack in the stone wall, and a layer of sand-like particles covered my palm. I leaned in to smell them closely, then touched a bit to my tongue. I spat it out after tasting the bitterness.

“Saltpeter,” I said, patting the dust from my hands. “The amount of saltpeter at the base of this wall is clearly much thicker than at the top. There is likely a path paved with saltpeter behind this wall. There might only be a thin layer on the wall itself, but if you use explosives, the sparks will hit the path behind it. The resulting fire would consume all the oxygen here in an instant.”

I looked back and smiled. “So, if you blast the wall, we can all suffocate together.”

Upon hearing this, Tian Xiaoqi immediately ordered the men to extinguish their fire starters and switch to the flashlights they carried. The stone passage flickered between light and shadow as I stepped aside for Qiao Sangui.

Qiao Sangui walked forward a few steps and wiped some of the particles off the wall. He didn’t seem to be able to identify it by smell, so he also licked it and spat it out. Once he was sure, he asked me in confusion, “How did you smell it?”

He Yu moved to my side, glaring at Qiao Sangui with bloodshot eyes, looking as if he might bite the old man at any moment. I held him back with one hand.

The old man had a lot of power right now. Not only were we outnumbered, but we also needed his men to help us find our way out of this maze. No matter what, we had to endure the humiliation for now and avoid a total fallout.

So I said, “The scent of normal earth is different from stone. Dry soil and wet soil give off different scents as well, let alone saltpeter, a raw material for gunpowder. If you spent enough time wandering through vegetable gardens, you would eventually be able to tell the difference between dirt and stone.”

Qiao Sangui remained silent, deep in thought.

I suddenly had an idea. I didn’t care to wait for his answer, so I pulled He Yu past the men and walked to the side. Tian Xiaoqi followed us, likely afraid we were plotting something, but I ignored her.

I counted seven shrines in my head, then pulled He Yu to a stop in front of the seventh one. There were surprisingly few shrines in this stone passage. I didn’t know if it was because the underground palace had been sealed in a hurry or for some other reason, but some of the shrines were empty. The work had been finished hastily, without even completing all the statues.

“What is it? Do you have an idea?” He Yu’s eyes suddenly lit up.

I nodded. “A bit of one, but there’s one last thing I don’t quite understand. I need your help.”

“What is it? Tell me!”

I pointed toward the identical headless statues inside the stone shrines. These were slightly different from the ones outside. While they also sat atop lotus flowers, their arms weren’t resting neatly on their laps. Instead, both hands were raised, supporting a lotus flower above their heads.

“Does this pose have any special symbolic meaning?” I asked him, mimicking the statue’s posture.

He Yu stepped forward, leaning over to examine them closely. “This style is certainly unusual. I can’t say for certain if there’s a specific symbolic meaning, but if we compare them to the previous statues…”

“I think,” He Yu paused, “with the lotus held about an inch above the head, the lotus might hold a higher status than the statue itself. So, you could say this statue isn’t emphasizing the headless body, but rather the lotus in its hands.”

I asked, “Did that lifting gesture have any specific meaning in the past?”

He Yu thought for a moment. “In my understanding, lifting something up usually signifies ‘presenting’ or ‘offering.’ Like a courtier presenting a treasure to an emperor, he would kneel on the ground and raise the item above his head. If we want to be more abstract, maybe it represents divine authority? Or patriarchy? Or something else…”

“Power?” I asked.

“You could say that.”

I looked at the shrines on the wall and pondered for a moment. Suddenly, the realization hit me, and I smiled.

“I think I know how to move this wall now.”