Chapter 111: Baldy’s Frankness

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

The fourteen shrines on both sides were arranged so that the positions where the statues were placed corresponded exactly to the seven stars of the Big Dipper.

Based on my experience, before this stone wall descended, one of the seven star positions, which was the original placement of the statue, should not have been facing the stone path. Only then could a chain be embedded into the base of the statue to form a complete mechanical device.

This meant that as long as we moved a specific statue in one of the shrines, the stone wall would automatically move aside. However, because the statues’ designs were so unusual, I hadn’t been certain which one to move, which was why I had asked He Yu for help.

The Big Dipper itself carries the connotation of authority. The Book of Jin states that Tianshu represents Heaven, Tianxuan represents Earth, Tianji represents Man, Tianquan represents Time, and Yuheng represents Sound. Therefore, we guessed that holding the lotus toward the head must be related to Tianshu.

I acted immediately, steadying the statue representing the Tianshu position and tentatively shifting it. The base of the statue let out a creaking sound. Seeing it work, I quickly called He Yu over to help me move it.

Up close, the statue was large enough for me to wrap my arms around, and it was incredibly heavy. It took both of us gripping it tightly just to turn it half an inch. Seeing the others just standing there, I straightened up and cursed, “What the hell are you all staring at? Is getting out of here only my business? Get over here and help!”

Then I shouted to Qiao Sangui, “Third Master! Check the Big Dipper statues on the other side. Find the Tianshu position. It will be much more efficient if we move them together!”

Qiao Sangui was reasonable enough. As soon as I finished speaking, he led his men to the other wall to find the statue. For someone like him, finding Tianshu wasn’t difficult, so he and his crew moved their statue faster than we did.

As soon as Qiao Sangui’s side moved the statue, the sound of the iron chains pulling within the walls became deafening. At the same time, dust began falling incessantly from above, making the entire stone passage thick with debris.

Tian Xiaoqi and Baldy came to help us. With several people working together, it took two minutes to turn the statue. The stone wall suddenly let out a thunderous boom and began to slowly rise on its own.

“Whoa! The door actually opened!” Baldy was so excited he was almost moved to tears. He slapped me on the shoulder. “I didn’t see that coming. You’re not bad, kid!”

He Yu quickly pushed him away. “Get your paws off him. Don’t act all friendly now. Who was it that just pinned my brother against the wall? The bleeding hasn’t even stopped yet. Don’t play blind with me.”

Hearing He Yu say that, I realized I had been so focused on moving the wall that I hadn’t noticed my nosebleed hadn’t fully stopped. My neck was covered in blood, and the collar of my undershirt was soaked.

I quickly covered my nose and nudged He Yu. “Do you have any tissues?”

Baldy must have overheard. 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 handed 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 only care about treasure and ignore whether people live or die, he first looked at the path that had appeared, 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 Little 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 quite awkward. Qiao Sangui’s people were everywhere. Thinking carefully, we really had no right to speak right now. I only hoped that after I led the man 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.”

I’m terrifying? You’re the ones who are truly terrifying!

I was stunned by his words and couldn’t process them for a long time. He Yu and I clearly looked at each other in confusion at this sudden description. By the time I finished cleaning the blood off myself, Qiao Sangui had already started leading the team to explore the path ahead.

Baldy followed behind us, while Tian Xiaoqi walked beside Qiao Sangui. The group began to advance down the path behind the stone wall.

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

Since there were no flashlights in ancient times, this saltpeter might have been meant to deter tomb raiders.

With two clumps of paper stuffed up my nose, I grumbled to He Yu, “I wonder where Lu A’yao 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’s prepare for the worst. Getting hit with corpse poison in a place like this, a person is usually done for within half an hour. He was so close to you, why didn’t he take you down with him? If you hadn’t passed out 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. He probably 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.”

Baldy 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!”

Baldy’s words weren’t pleasant, but after spending time with him, I felt he was one of the more normal ones. Before, he thought I was just all talk. He believed that people without ability didn’t deserve to be in 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, Baldy’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 A’yao? Is there some ancestral grudge between them?”

“Ha,” Baldy 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; we’re actually quite soft-hearted inside. But that woman is truly ruthless! She really knows how to pull the trigger!”

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

Then Baldy 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 A’yao. 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 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.