Chapter 111: Guangtou’s Frankness

On both sides closest to the stone wall, there were several rows of scattered shrines. I had noticed early on that while some of the shrines held statues, others were empty. My previous experience jumping across the stone pillars with Chen Canghai had made me instinctively connect this to the Big Dipper.

Across the fourteen shrines on both sides, the positions holding statues corresponded exactly to the seven stars of the Big Dipper.

Based on my experience, before the stone wall lowered, the original position of one of those seven statues must not have faced the passageway. Only then could an iron chain embedded in the statue’s base form a complete mechanical system.

This meant that moving the correct statue in one of the shrines would trigger the stone wall to open automatically. However, because the statues’ designs were so unusual, I hadn’t been certain which one to turn, which was why I had turned to He Yu for help.

The Big Dipper itself carries associations of power and authority. The Book of Jin^[1] states that Shu is Heaven, Xuan is Earth, Ji is Man, Quan is Time, and Heng is Sound. Thus, holding the lotus above the head had to be linked to Tianshu^[2].

I acted at once, grabbing the statue at the Tianshu star position and tentatively shifting it. The base let out a harsh creak. Seeing that it worked, I quickly called He Yu over to help me turn it.

Up close, the statue was thick enough that my arms could barely wrap around it, and it was ridiculously heavy. It took both of us pulling with all our might just to nudge it half an inch in one direction. Seeing everyone else standing there like statues themselves, I stood straight up and barked, “What the hell are you all standing around for? Is getting out of here just my problem? Get over here and help!”

Then I yelled to Qiao Sangui, “Third Master! Check the Big Dipper shrines on the other side and find the Tianshu star. Moving both sides at once will speed this up!”

Qiao Sangui was reasonable enough. The moment I spoke, he led his men to the opposite wall. Identifying the Tianshu star was easy work for him, so he and his men managed to turn their statue considerably faster than we did.

As soon as Qiao Sangui’s group shifted their statue, the grinding of iron chains within the wall grew deafening. At the same time, dust showered down from above, turning the entire passageway choking and dim.

Tian Xiaoqi and Guangtou rushed over to lend a hand. Together, it took us two minutes to fully rotate the statue. With a deafening boom, the stone wall began slowly rising on its own.

“Whoa! The door actually opened!” Guangtou was so excited he looked ready to weep for joy. He slapped a hand onto my shoulder. “Didn’t see that coming! Not bad, kid!”

He Yu quickly shoved him back. “Get your paws off him. What are you playing friendly for now? Who was it that just pinned my brother against the wall? He’s still bleeding, so don’t play blind with me.”

Hearing He Yu bring it up, I realized I had been so focused on opening the stone wall that I hadn’t noticed my nosebleed hadn’t fully stopped. Blood had dripped all down my neck, completely soaking the collar of my shirt underneath.

I quickly covered my nose and poked He Yu. “Got any tissues?”

Guangtou must have overheard from the side. He turned around, grabbed one of the men from the crowd, spun him around, and pulled a roll of gauze and a full water bottle out of the man’s backpack for me.

He Yu took them and passed them to me, huffing, “That’s more like it.”

Seeing the stone wall open, Qiao Sangui led his men over from the other side. Unlike those bosses who care only about treasure and ignore whether anyone lives or dies, he first looked at the newly revealed path, then saw me crouching on the ground pouring water to wash the blood off my face and neck, and walked over to me.

“Old man, the stone wall is open. You should be satisfied now. Why don’t you hurry up and take your people into the underground palace to grab the treasure? Are you trying to mess with our Xiao Yao again?” He Yu stood in front of me and scolded him.

I crouched behind him and quietly tugged on his sleeve, telling him not to get worked up.

Our current situation was pretty awkward. Qiao Sangui’s people were everywhere, and thinking about it, we really didn’t have much of a say here. My only hope was that once I led this guy named Qiao out, he wouldn’t be too petty and kill us in a fit of rage.

Qiao Sangui’s expression didn’t change much. He only frowned and said to me, “Good job. But you are an extremely terrifying person. Privately, I really want to leave you here in this underground palace.”

Me, terrifying? You’re the ones who are truly terrifying!

I was stunned by his words, unable to process them for a long time. He Yu and I clearly looked at each other in confusion over this sudden description. By the time I finished wiping the blood off myself, Qiao Sangui was already leading the team to explore the path ahead.

Guangtou followed behind us while Tian Xiaoqi walked beside Qiao Sangui, and the group began advancing down the path behind the stone wall.

This path felt different from the stone passage we had just walked through. The ground underfoot felt softer, which I guessed was due to thinner stone slabs being used. The reason it felt different was that beneath the slabs—where there should have been a solid floor carved out of the cave—an extra layer of fine saltpeter had been laid down.

Given that there were no flashlights in ancient times, this saltpeter was probably meant to deter tomb raiders.

With two wads of paper stuffed up my nose, I grumbled to He Yu, “I wonder where Lu Ayao fell. He doesn’t have any medicine on him. If it’s really like Tian Xiaoqi said and he was hit with corpse poison before falling into a place like that, he won’t be able to crawl out even if there is an exit.”

He Yu was thinking about the same thing. He said, “Anyway, it’s our turn to save him this time. Let me prepare for the worst. Getting hit with corpse poison in a place like this, a person won’t last half an hour. He was so close to you—why didn’t he drag you down with him? Since you weren’t unconscious back then, the two of you could have looked out for each other, right?”

“Maybe the niche was too small and the situation was too urgent, so he didn’t have the strength to pull me,” I reminded He Yu. “Keep a constant eye on the edges of these stone passages for me. Ancient craftsmen would carve out entire escape routes in the stone. If a niche mechanism appeared before, it stands to reason another might appear later.”

Guangtou leaned in. He had overheard half of what I said, but this time he didn’t seem intent on reporting us. He just chuckled and said, “One of you is bleeding out, one just woke up from a coma, and one is missing and poisoned. Is your bond really that strong? You can barely save yourselves, yet you’re still thinking about saving him? Your friendship is truly as solid as gold!”

Guangtou’s words weren’t pleasant, but after spending time around him, I felt he was relatively normal compared to the rest. Before, he thought I was all show and no substance. He believed that people without ability didn’t deserve to be on the team, which was why his attitude toward me had been so foul.

But after I moved the stone wall using the Big Dipper star chart, Guangtou’s opinion of me changed. He probably realized I actually had some skill, so he stopped making things difficult for me at every turn.

I quietly asked him, “Brother, do you know why Tian Xiaoqi wanted to kill Lu Ayao? Is there some ancestral grudge between them?”

“Ha,” Guangtou rubbed his shiny bald head and whispered, “That’s hard to say. That woman named Tian was recently brought into the fold by our Third Master. Don’t look at us big, rough guys and think we’re all heartless; deep down, we’re actually quite soft-hearted. But that woman is truly ruthless! She really doesn’t hesitate to go for the kill!”

Hearing this, I thought to myself, Soft-hearted, my ass! If you’re soft-hearted, I’ll eat that stone wall we just moved!

Then Guangtou continued:

“You wouldn’t know, but Seventh Miss has already secretly broken ties with the Tian Family. She only joined us because she was in an unfamiliar place with no one to turn to. There are too many secrets between Tian Yuqing and Lu Ayao. Seventh Miss sees Tian Yuqing as a monster, and that guy Lu is an ally of Tian Yuqing. People like Lu are all the same, stubborn as mules who won’t say a word no matter what. Since she couldn’t get anything out of him either way, she figured it was more direct to just get rid of him.”

The platform is currently holding a Qixi Festival^[3] event for bonus side stories. Since many of the characters have such great chemistry, I am planning to write some duo-focused side stories to share some of their untold history. I wanted to ask which pairing you would all like to see a side story for. I will ultimately write the one that gets the most replies. You can also leave your responses on Weibo.