Chapter 11: Sudden Turn of Events

"Where is the gate?" the Fatty scoffed. "Why can't I see it?"

"That just means you aren't destined for this Heavenly Palace," Wu Xie teased.

The Fatty waved his hand dismissively. "It doesn't matter if I'm destined for the Heavenly Palace or not, as long as I'm destined for the artifacts here."

He bent down to rummage through the water and actually managed to fish out a crushed oxygen tank with a broken nozzle, followed by a ruined diving mask in his other hand. After poking around for a long time, he found nothing but miscellaneous junk—not even a hair of a treasure.

The Fatty spat. "What a waste of my time."

Zhang Wuxun nudged him with his elbow and pointed at the silent figure standing before the stone tablet, motionless as a statue. "Look, the Young Master seems off."

The three of them gathered around, and upon closer inspection, their hearts skipped a beat. The Young Master’s eyes were desolate and dead, filled with an extreme, suffocating despair, as if he had just lived through some profound catastrophe.

"Young Master?" Zhang Wuxun asked cautiously, waving his hand slowly in front of him. "Are you alright?"

The Young Master slowly raised his eyelids and swept his gaze over the three of them, as if verifying something. He spoke in a voice so low it was almost inaudible: "I remember what happened twenty years ago."

His expression was so deathly and gray that it was stifling; he looked as if he had ceased to breathe, as if he had become a corpse.

Watching him, Zhang Wuxun felt a pang in his heart and asked softly, "Can you tell us about it?"

The Young Master nodded. In a tone that was incredibly slow and detached, as if he were merely an observer, he recounted a massive mystery buried for twenty years. The three of them listened with rapt attention, feeling as though they were living through the events themselves.

It turned out that the drawings on the double-eared porcelain vase—the ones that had so captivated Wu Xie earlier that he almost got scratched by a sea monkey—depicted the very Heavenly Palace in the Clouds, designed and built by the legendary master craftsman Wang Zanghai!

But when the Young Master recounted, with that same flat tone, how that narcissistic woman Huo Ling had taken credit for discovering the crucial clue and then, as if it were a reward, kissed him on the cheek...

Zhang Wuxun’s pupils dilated, his fingers twitched, and only one thought filled his mind: he needed to use the alcohol swabs from his pack to sanitize the Young Master’s cheek immediately!

*Damn it, that woman dared to take advantage of the Young Master!!*

He felt as though his pure, cold, divine clansman had been defiled! He wanted to kill Huo Ling!

***

Perhaps because the murderous aura radiating from Zhang Wuxun was too intense, the Young Master stopped his story and looked at him in confusion.

Zhang Wuxun curled his lip. "Continue."

The Young Master went on. He explained how Uncle San had discovered the mechanism while twisting his body to comb his hair in front of the stone tablet, realizing it was based on the "Qi Men Dun Jia" (Mystical Gates and Hidden Stems).

The Young Master stared at the tablet. "Back then, my knowledge of the traps and mechanisms in our country's ancient tombs surpassed anyone else's in the world. Yet, I could find no trace of any mechanism on this tablet."

Zhang Wuxun was well-versed in Qi Men Dun Jia. It was a system that applied military strategy and numerology, also known as the Eight Formations, divided into eight gates: Open, Rest, Life, Death, Fear, Injury, Ambush, and Scenery. "Life" meant survival, "Death" meant demise, and entering other gates would reveal another set of eight, cycling endlessly. This was the profound mystery of the system.

Zhang Wuxun had always enjoyed studying how to crack such mechanisms and even improving them to be more intricate and ingenious. His expertise in the field was easily a match for the Young Master's.

Hearing that Uncle San had found the mechanism by pretending to be a woman combing her hair, Zhang Wuxun thought about trying it himself for two seconds, but the Fatty beat him to it.

"Little Yu, move aside for Her Majesty. Her Majesty needs to comb her hair, damn it!"

The Fatty pinched his voice, held his right hand in an affected, flowery gesture, and waved it about as if shooing flies. With a swing of his wide hips, he shoved Zhang Wuxun to the side.

Zhang Wuxun stumbled and regained his footing, rubbing the goosebumps on his arms with a look of disgust. "Ew, you fat freak, did you take the wrong medicine?"

Wu Xie grinned silently. "The Young Master just said there’s a fifty-star map made of night-luminescent pearls inside the Heavenly Gate."

Zhang Wuxun rolled his eyes. That explained why the Fatty was so eager; he was eyeing the pearls in the palace.

"Hmph, Little Xie, don't think Her Majesty doesn't know you’re badmouthing me," the Fatty said, smoothing his hair in a high-pitched voice. "That dead woman, Concubine Ning, ran off, so the commission she promised me is likely down the drain. I haven't come back empty-handed in all my years of tomb raiding. I cannot let this grudge go!"

Zhang Wuxun helplessly interrupted him. "Fatty, get to the point."

"As the Young Master said, the walkway into the Heavenly Gate is an incline, and the great hall containing the model of the Heavenly Palace is very high—the highest point of the whole tomb, perhaps. When the time comes..." The Fatty’s tone suddenly shifted. "Oh! Her Majesty—bah, I mean, I see those three fish!"

Wu Xie rushed over. "Where? Where?"

The Fatty turned and pointed to a door. "Right here!"

***

[Host, let me borrow your body.]

[What?]

Zhang Wuxun was startled. Before he could react, he felt a wave of dizziness and lost consciousness the next second.

The Fatty was still discussing with Wu Xie whether they could use the gilded copper mirror legs in the great hall as hammers when a gust of wind whistled past his ears. A figure darted toward the hidden door with incredible speed, intending to slip inside.

The Young Master reacted instantly, lunging forward to grab "Zhang Wuxun's" arm.

"Zhang Wuxun" turned and shot the Young Master a strange smile, threw him off with a powerful shove, and immediately followed up with a vicious leg sweep. It was fast and brutal; had it landed, it would have broken at least three ribs. The Young Master retreated, leapt, pushed off the wall, and flipped in mid-air to evade it, preparing to grab the person again as he landed.

But in that split-second, "Zhang Wuxun" had already slipped into the hidden door.

Wu Xie and the Fatty were left standing there, stunned by the sudden turn of events.

"This... Muyu, he..." Wu Xie stuttered, unable to form a coherent sentence.

"It wasn't him." The Young Master’s expression was grave, his brows furrowed. "Zhang... Muyu doesn't have a red mole between his eyebrows."

The Fatty, having rushed over, screeched to a halt. "What? Don't tell me Muyu got possessed by some unknown female ghost just like Uncle San back in the day?"

The Young Master shook his head. "I'm not sure."

Wu Xie caught the key point. "Young Master, you mentioned a red mole—what red mole?"

The Young Master replied, "The 'Muyu' who fought me had a red mole between his eyebrows, about three millimeters in diameter."

"Exactly!" The Fatty slapped his palm. "The real Muyu cares so much about the Young Master, he would never attack him! He must be possessed by some ghost. Should we follow him and see?"

Wu Xie walked back to where Zhang Wuxun had been standing, picked up the backpack left behind, and said firmly, "Of course we have to go. Muyu didn't even take any food with him before he left. What if he starves to death?"