Chapter 465 - 215: Gate 3
Chapter 465: Chapter 215: Gate 3
"But it was just a casual move anyway. It’d be great if it succeeded, but it doesn’t matter if it fails."
"Maybe there will be another opportunity to cooperate."
Miao Feichan suddenly felt that aside from his Martial Arts, Fang Shuwen seemed quite formidable in other aspects as well.
If it were anyone else, pulling this off would be enough to wash their hands of the Jianghu and retire for good.
The money they’d make would be more than they could spend in several lifetimes.
Why continue to struggle and scrape by in the Jianghu?
As these jumbled thoughts ran through her mind, Fang Shuwen glanced over. He then used the same technique as the young woman from Divine Pill Valley to check the area and confirmed there were likely no problems inside the door before speaking.
"Let’s go. We’ll head in and see what mysteries lie within."
As he spoke, he didn’t forget to pull out the Seven Stars dagger.
Setting aside everything else, the dagger alone was worth a lot of money.
Of course, it was a legacy item of the Lingyun Sect. Fang Shuwen wasn’t depraved enough to sell it.
After returning the Seven Stars to Miao Feichan, the three of them entered the doorway.
To be safe, Fang Shuwen took out two more Antitoxic Pills and gave them to Yu Yaoguang and Miao Feichan, lest there be some danger he hadn’t detected.
As for Fang Dabao, there was no need...
The creature was too large, and since their destination was underground, he wasn’t willing to enter. Fang Shuwen had let him go find a place to run wild, so he hadn’t come in at all.
Beyond the door was a rather wide, open space.
They had expected to find the gold and treasures of the Lingyun Sect, but it turned out there was nothing there at all.
Continuing forward, there was another door. Fortunately, this one didn’t require the Seven Stars to open.
After passing through this door, they saw a floor paved with stone tiles in a vast, open area.
Fang Shuwen was about to step forward when he suddenly paused.
He noticed that something seemed off about the stones on the floor.
He broke off a piece of rock from the wall and casually tossed it onto one of the floor stones. The floor stone suddenly crumbled, sinking down and disappearing from sight.
Naturally, no one present suspected that it was because Fang Shuwen had thrown the rock too hard...
It was obvious that these stones were both a path and a trap.
Fang Shuwen thought for a moment, broke off another piece of rock, and was about to repeat the process when Yu Yaoguang called out to him.
"Wait, wait... Don’t throw it yet."
"This might be an Array."
"Oh?"
Fang Shuwen immediately looked toward Yu Yaoguang.
Yu Yaoguang, her arms crossed, paced back and forth, observing carefully.
When it came to things like Arrays, Fang Shuwen couldn’t be called a complete novice, but he only understood the barest surface level.
And that barest surface level was something he had learned from Yu Yaoguang.
He hadn’t had time to ask for her guidance since they met again. The two of them had been completely focused on their training, so how could they have had the time to study anything else?
Fang Shuwen, however, glanced at Miao Feichan.
"Since this is an Array trap set by the Lingyun Sect, don’t you know how to get past it?"
Miao Feichan replied helplessly,
"There are many gaps in the Sect’s legacy. When it comes to the way of Arrays, I am truly clueless."
’That’s understandable,’ Fang Shuwen thought.
The Lingyun Sect was wiped out so tragically back then that the remaining disciples had to go so far as to relocate to the Central Domain.
Under such circumstances, it would be illogical if their legacy hadn’t suffered some losses.
Just then, Yu Yaoguang suddenly spoke.
"Shuwen, help me get some more stones. I’m going to give it a try."
"Alright."
Fang Shuwen simply threw a punch. His control over his power was exquisite; the stones on the wall shattered but didn’t fly off, instead sliding down to form a pile of rubble on the floor.
Yu Yaoguang’s eyes lit up, and she couldn’t help but marvel at his skill.
She then picked up a few stones and began to throw them while muttering something. Fang Shuwen listened closely and heard Yu Yaoguang murmuring:
"The Eight Gates are positioned like unshakable mountains; the Six Lines change like flowing water."
"When hexagrams clash, the enemy is unpredictable; when they align, the position is secure."
"Life and death have no fixed gate, their fate heaven decides; illusion and reality are balanced, hiding the Five Elements within..."
She threw the stones as she spoke. Each time a stone landed without triggering a trap, she used it to mark a path, bit by bit.
But just as the path was about to reach the other side, Yu Yaoguang suddenly stopped.
’It doesn’t really matter at this point, though,’ Fang Shuwen thought.
He could easily jump the remaining distance.
He was just a little curious.
"Why did you stop?"
"There’s a problem."
Yu Yaoguang pondered for a moment longer, then suddenly clapped her hands.
"That’s it! The path of life is hidden within the path of death. A subtle shift, a hidden turn!"
As she finished speaking, she flicked her wrist, tossing a stone onto another slab.
The stone landed solidly. Only then did she throw the final one.
It too landed without issue.
If she had only thrown the last stone, the path would have smoothly reached the other side. But the one before it was an unexpected detour.
It was the kind of move where you could have gone straight ahead to get across, but instead, you had to take a sharp turn to the right.
Fang Shuwen didn’t quite understand the reasoning. After he asked, Yu Yaoguang explained:
"This Array is configured according to the positions of the sixty-four hexagrams, interwoven with the Five Elements."
"And its design is extremely ingenious... I know you were just thinking you could just jump over the last part."
"But if you did that, the entire path before you would likely have been destroyed."
"Because this Array is designed so that one move affects the entire system. That seemingly superfluous detour was actually the key."
"Without that move, the final path of life would have been inverted, turning into a path of death."
"The moment your final foot landed, or you jumped across, everything would have crumbled."
"But that one stone, the detour, allowed us to define life from death, to draw life out of what would have been a dead end..."