Near three in the morning, the sound of rushing water came from the distance ahead.
It seemed they were getting close. Everyone, to varying degrees, breathed a sigh of relief.
The entire journey had been made with almost zero visibility. They only knew they were walking with difficulty, and only Luo Ren had been paying attention to the terrain along the way.
Climbing up and down slopes was inevitable, but even the soil beneath their feet varied—hard earth, half-dried swamp, patches of grassland, woodland, fallen rock paths, slippery stone roads. They had turned more than sixty times, passed through two or three “One Line of Sky” passages between mountain walls where they could only move sideways, traversed a hidden cave path through the mountain’s interior for about fifteen minutes, and made at least five or six major, fundamental direction changes.
It was no less than a meticulously designed artificial maze that worked with the natural terrain, and the silver-eyed bat seemed like a programmed guide capable of recognizing complex routes.
It was like having a god’s-eye view—how massive must this project have been? Zheng Mingshan had mentioned that many electronic instruments malfunctioned once they entered the mountains, and existing surveying techniques hadn’t been able to map out the detailed features of this mountainous area.
He shared his doubts, and Shen Gun’s eyes rolled before he suddenly blurted out: “Brain teaser—how was this maze route surveyed back in the day?”
The sound of water grew louder, and swirling winds came increasingly closer, brushing against everyone’s faces. Because of the wind, the fog dissipated somewhat, slightly expanding their field of vision.
Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, Shen Gun revealed his answer: “Have you forgotten? The carpenter’s ancestor, Lu Ban, made a wooden kite that could fly in the sky for three days and three nights without landing. Maybe he surveyed while riding that wooden kite.”
The speaker meant nothing by it, but the listener took it to heart—Luo Ren’s mind suddenly stirred, thinking it might be possible.
The river channel grew wider, impossible to go around, so they had to wade through. The water became shallower as they walked, finally stopping at a stretch of disconnected tidal flats.
Wind sounds echoed all around, whistling past their ears, but strangely, it felt as if their bodies were untouched by it. Perplexed, Luo Ren turned on his powerful flashlight to illuminate the surroundings and exclaimed in surprise: “Look at this!”
No mountain rocks were visible around them, only milky white swirls of fog.
At this time, the fog should have been at its densest, but the wind here was strange, like a tornado, swirling the central area’s thick fog outward. The group stood in the eye of the wind, calm and clear of fog, while just over ten meters away in all directions was an enormous fog barrier. It was like a circular movie screen, so thick that visibility couldn’t penetrate it. Even when they directed their flashlights upward until the beams weakened, all they illuminated was more fog.
Logically, the situation should have felt eerie, but Cao Yanhua found it amusing: “Brother Luo, aren’t we like frogs looking at the sky from a well?”
Indeed, they were. The dense fog formed well walls, and looking up, wasn’t there just a bowl-sized opening of sky?
Mu Dai said, “The first time I came, there was indeed wind, but I was so nervous that I didn’t notice the fog was this thick around us.”
Just like last time, the silver-eyed bat flapped its wings and flew up, circled once in the air, then suddenly crashed down into a depression in the riverbed’s blue stone.
A faint tremor transmitted through the ground, and the riverbed split open on both sides, finally revealing what everyone had been longing for—the “Four Archways.”
Traditional four-archway structures had five pillars creating four facades, but this one was truly unheard of—it forcibly twisted the five pillars from a flat plane into a three-dimensional structure, transforming them into five pillars with five faces.
All flashlights focused on the Four Archways, making the area brilliantly illuminated. Even Cao Jiefang held his breath, watching without blinking.
Cao Yanhua was the first to notice something: “Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth—Little Master, there are seal script characters on the lintel of each archway.”
After speaking, he found it strange: “Shouldn’t it be oracle bone script?”
Having grown accustomed to the stroke patterns of oracle bone script on the malevolent bamboo slips, looking at seal script now felt oddly jarring.
Luo Ren said, “Originally, it was oracle bone script. During the Yin and Zhou dynasties, there was bronze script, also called bell and cauldron script. After Emperor Qin unified China, it was standardized as small seal script. Considering the era of Laozi, Lu Ban, Mozi, and others, using seal script for setting up this mechanism is reasonable.”
As he spoke, Yi Wansan had already circled the archways once, repeatedly tapping what looked like glass barriers: “What material is this? It looks like glass, but it’s not… could it be… diamond?”
A wave of wild excitement rushed through him. If it were a diamond, Mu Dai certainly wouldn’t agree to taking it all, but even chipping off one piece would be good enough to live without worrying about food and clothing for a lifetime.
Shen Gun had been pondering the seven small holes on the five faces. Mu Dai handed him one of the cylindrical wooden pieces discovered at Yin Erma’s place. Shen Gun inserted it to test—not too big, not too small, a perfect fit.
He was a bit nervous: “Who’s good at geometry among you?”
“I’m guessing that when these seven wooden pieces are inserted, they should form a three-dimensional Big Dipper constellation in the center of this ‘glass body.’ But each wooden piece has a wooden kite carved on it, and beside each wooden kite is a character, different characters.”
He aimed his flashlight at the one in his hand. Mu Dai saw clearly that it was the ancient form of the character “quan” (權, authority).
“Seven wooden pieces, seven characters: shu, xuan, ji, quan, heng, yang, guang. They correspond to the names of the seven stars in the Big Dipper. This means that although the wooden pieces look identical, they can’t be inserted randomly—they need to match the star chart. My geometry isn’t good, and I have poor spatial awareness. Who can do this?”
Just as he finished speaking, he inadvertently made eye contact with Yi Wansan, who might have thought he was being singled out. Yi Wansan nervously laughed: “Mr. Shen, don’t look at me. I never even went to school.”
Luo Ren said, “I’ll do it.”
He wasn’t in a hurry to insert them. Instead, he asked Mu Dai to help find seven thin wooden twigs. He carefully tested the depth of each hole with the twigs, cutting off the excess—seven twigs of varying lengths remained. After measuring and pondering for a long while, he finally inserted the wooden pieces one by one.
The effect was indescribably magical. The seven wooden pieces seemed to float into position, soon forming an inverted Big Dipper constellation.
Mu Dai felt somewhat fearful afterward: “The setup of this mechanism is extremely cautious, even being inverted. If we had inserted them incorrectly…”
Shen Gun suddenly tensed: “Look quickly!”
The Big Dipper constellation slowly began changing position, and as it changed, the tilted, floating box also began to move very gradually. The yin-yang Eight Trigrams double fish disk at the bottom gradually filled with water.
Luo Ren predicted that the Big Dipper should turn to its correct orientation—just like the “Dipper Handle Points South” they had drawn on the map—and based on the observed speed, it would take some time to reach this target.
He asked Yi Wansan and the others to help him set up a tent. They had brought a large tent with two compartments so that tired individuals could go in and rest—since they would be staying here for a day and night, it was good to have a place to rest.
Considering that the river would rise during the day, he walked toward the side with higher terrain, occasionally crouching to test the soil’s moisture. After selecting a location, they took out the tent components. Yi Wansan and Cao Yanhua assembled the support poles, Yan Hongshu laid out the ground sheet, and after a while, Mu Dai came over with Cao Jiefang following closely behind her. With Mu Dai gone, only Shen Gun remained at the Four Archways, and Cao Jiefang refused to stay alone with him.
Mu Dai helped Luo Ren hammer in the ground pegs, secure the corner ropes, and lay out the moisture-proof mats. After bustling about, the tent was set up properly.
Everyone went inside to rest, but when they called for Shen Gun, he refused to move an inch, busy measuring with his small tape measure, muttering that he needed to record data.
They let him be.
It was indeed cold in the middle of the night. Luo Ren took out blankets for everyone to share. Squeezed together, they watched Shen Gun busy at work in the distance. Someone yawned, and suddenly drowsiness spread among them.
In the quiet of the night, many emotions normally suppressed during the day tend to surface. Yan Hongshu murmured, “This is so nice right now. In the future, who knows where we’ll all be?”
Cao Yanhua was optimistic: “Where else? Lijiang, of course.”
Yan Hongshu gave him a look: “You think so? Yi Wansan is just working at the bar—he might stay for a year or two, but will he stay long-term? You’re the same; don’t forget you ran to Lijiang to lay low from Chongqing. As for me, my hometown is Kunming; Lijiang is just a place to stay… And Luo Ren, who knows where he’ll move after marrying Mu Dai…”
Suddenly, there was a profound sense of melancholy, a feeling that the name “Gather and Scatter by Fate” was quite sad: If fate brought us together, why must we part?
A wind blew in, making everyone chilly. Yan Hongshu reflexively zipped up the tent door.
In that small space with five people, it became unexpectedly warm, and this warmth made their drowsiness expand like fermenting dough.
Mu Dai was nestled in Luo Ren’s arms, half-asleep and dozing, when she suddenly heard Shen Gun shouting: “Come out quickly! Come out and look!”
He was just outside the tent, jumping around frantically. Mu Dai opened her eyes, instinctively startled—there was flowing light outside, like a projection.
She unzipped the tent and crawled out on all fours. At the sight before her, she gasped.
Everyone came out, and no one spoke, tilting their heads back, looking around somewhat helplessly.
The center of the Four Archways blazed with brilliant light—the Big Dipper constellation had finally reset with its handle “pointing south.” The strong light was so bright that people could barely keep their eyes open. For a moment, Mu Dai truly suspected that the starlight of the celestial Big Dipper had been borrowed by the mortal world.
The light penetrated something and projected row after row of characters onto the surrounding fog screens—enormous, solemn characters that trembled with the swirling mist, seeming alive, as if life itself was about to emerge from behind the words.
They were rows upon rows of names, grouped in fives—five names per group.
Arranged in sequence, they displayed the natural evolution of Chinese characters—seal script, clerical script, cursive script, regular script, and semi-cursive script. All were in ancient forms, from the early, crude and rigid styles to the later, flowing and rounded ones.
Mu Dai’s gaze fell on the first name in the last row.
Plum Blossom First Zhao.
“Master, why are you called Plum Blossom Ninth Lady? Are you the ninth child in your family?”
“No, it’s because, counting from the first generation of our lineage, I am the ninth generation. Each generation’s inheritor of the mantle automatically continues this numbering, adding their courtesy name, surname, or given name. Being even lazier, like me, they simply call themselves Plum Blossom Ninth Lady.”
“Who was the founding ancestor then?”
“She was called Plum Blossom First Zhao, dating back to the Ming Dynasty.”
It was said that the founder of the lineage, Plum Blossom First Zhao, despite possessing extraordinary skills, would push a cart during her leisure time, going from street to street selling flowers. Depending on the season, the flowers on her cart would change—water narcissus, camellia, and viburnum in spring; lilies, hibiscus, and gentian in summer; chrysanthemums, osmanthus, and marjoram in autumn; and in winter…
In winter, she sold only one type: plum blossoms, plum blossoms, plum blossoms.
She never called out to sell her flowers, and regardless of which season she was selling in, whenever customers asked for recommendations, she would always only recommend plum blossoms.
Imagine, under the blazing summer sun that threatened to melt people, she would fan herself while recommending: “Plum blossoms are wonderful. If you want to plant something, plant plum blossoms. When winter comes, I’ll bring you a few branches…”
Mu Dai murmured: “Cheetah.”
Luo Ren thought he had misheard: “What?”
“You told me before about how Cheetah’s ancestor was captured, and how he escaped from the ancestral hall and went to Southeast Asia.”
Indeed, Cheetah’s ancestor had lived in that small town with the stone bridge. One year, seven people drowned consecutively in the town’s pond. And then, suddenly one day, four or five outsiders came to town.
The information Wan Fenghuo had discovered indicated they “spoke with a northern accent, pretending to be flower vendors when they entered the town.”
Mu Dai pointed a trembling hand toward the countless names: “These are all the people who captured the malevolent bamboo slips throughout history. The last time, the leader was the first generation of my lineage, Plum Blossom First Zhao.”