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After entering the palace, they came across another hall. As before there was a wall covered in cuts from swords hatchets. If the first palace wall was considered a place for people to vent their anger, then a second appeared all too deliberate.
And like before, Qi Lin committed everything perfectly to memory. He also attempted to search for some clues and patterns from these messy marks, but these lines were full of randomness such that nothing unusual could be found.
Finally, after passing through the ninth hall, they entered a long corridor. Interestingly, everyone paced back and forth outside the corridor without advancing. Gongyang Tu, Nüba, and Fenghou each appeared vexed and frustrated. Seeing Qi Lin appeared, a flicker of hope flashed through their eyes.
Qi Lin asked why they were so kindly waiting for him.
“You finally arrive. Did you find anything?” Gongyang Tu coldly asked.
Qi Lin inquired about the situation, and Nüba spoke forthrightly. Qi Lin had been mistaken; they were not waiting for him. Earlier, they entered the corridor, but for some reason, no matter how they walked, they would always return to this place.
These people were all experienced. They used Divine Intent, magic treasures, and every other sort of method, yet, in the end, they would stumble back to this starting point. This continued for an hour, during which they found no clues and wasted significant magical energy reserves. Left with no choice, everyone could only rest for the time being.
Upon hearing this, Qi Lin knew this should be a “bewitchment palace.” Bewitchment palaces were honestly a common sight in old tombs, building subterranean corridors in a very complicated layout such that the winding walkways would make an intruder completely lose their sense of direction, trapping them. Generally speaking, bewitchment palaces had two major traits. One was that they exploited the labyrinth’s characteristics to mislead and create illusions. The other was that the true exit was hidden very ingeniously. Underground palaces were merely the facades used to confuse people, so when the intruder followed the arranged underground walkways to find the exit, they naturally would be unable to determine their position.
But Qi Lin did not dare to make any random guesses about Emperor Yao’s bewitchment palace.
It would not do to stand outside like a bunch of fools. If Qi Lin’s calculations were correct, when Mount Tu’s moonlight faded, the void realm gate of Emperor Yao’s palace would disappear, too. By then, leaving would be a bit troublesome. Right now, there were still a few hours, and he was not willing to waste time.
“Generally, the exit of a bewitchment palace is very cleverly hidden. Since the entrance to Yao’s palace was hidden in a void realm, this labyrinth’s exit should be the same. If we can find it, everything will work out.” Qi Lin guessed.
Everyone felt what he said was very reasonable, but the problem was – they could not find it.
Nüba faintly grinned: “Then we can only trouble Young Lord Linlin.”1
Qi Lin walked straight into the corridor.
First of all, Qi Lin was not going in search of the exit specifically. Rather, he wanted to first naturally go through the corridor. The walkway was not too different from the corridors of an ordinary palace. This place’s walls did not have any graffiti and were intact, but the colors of the bricks alternated between dark and light.
The process was very smooth. He did not encounter any mechanisms, and neither did he sense anything out of place.
Very quickly, he spotted a bright exit.
“This simple? Are those people blind?” Nezha guffawed.
Qi Lin was not optimistic at all as the group left through the exit.
Greeting them were two groups of people. Nüba insincerely smiled as she sat in a chair while Gongyang Tu had a disdainful expression as if he already knew this would happen.
“Huh, what is this?” Nezha blinked, very confused. They clearly followed the corridor the entire time, but they surprisingly circled back.
“So that’s how it is.” Qi Lin more or less understood.
“If this is is a magic formation, we actually are unable to sense it.” Nüba said.
“Qi Qi, let’s go again.”
Qi Lin turned back and entered the corridor again.
This time, Qi Lin was not so easygoing. In his mind, he began to create a “mental palace,” memorizing the path he was taking, forming a map. He walked straight, turned, walked some more, and passed through a spiral staircase…
“Brother, why don’t we just smash the wall to bits.” Qi Qi brought out the Jingu Bang and tapped the wall. The girl had a very simple and very brute idea.
Nezha praised her: “Great.”
“If these walls could be breached, then Nüba and the others wouldn’t be so vexed.” Qi Lin did not recognize this as being viable.
Qi Qi was a bit skeptical. Circulating her Divine Energy, she smashed the golden cudgel into the wall.
A deafening boom echoed through the corridor, and Qi Lin wrinkled his brow.
As expected, the walls did not budge in the slightest; she did not even leave a mark. “Huh?” Qi Qi was very surprised. Her attack had strength sufficient to pulverize a hundred thousand ton rock into powder, but right now, she unexpectedly did not even leave a nick.
“It’s this hard?”
Nezha also punched the wall. Similarly, there was no damage.
Qi Qi refused to concede and continuously beat the wall to finally produce a small dent.
“Enough with the pointless attacks. If we could break through the wall, we would have already done so.”
Nüba’s voice entered the corridor. She and Gongyang Tu were unable to continue waiting outside and walked into the corridor, where they saw Qi Qi furiously hammering away at the wall.
“What kind of stone is this wall made of. I actually can’t break it apart. I’ll try using Chaos Rank Divine Energy.” Qi Qi was not dissuaded.
“Don’t.” Qi Lin stopped her. Since this walkway had the bewitchment labyrinth’s mechanism, Emperor Yao definitely considered someone would pound the wall with brute force. If the wall was actually broken, perhaps the entire palace would be destroyed. He had seen such self-destructive tombs during past archaeological digs.
“Could it be there actually is not path at all, that there is actually no secret?” Gongyang Tu was impatient: “Why not follow Great Sage Sun and dismantle this palace. Maybe if we dig down deep enough, we can even unearth Emperor Yao’s corpse.”
“Would you be quiet?” Nüba shushed him.
Gongyang Tu furrowed his brow.
Nüba smiled: “Do not interrupt Young Lord Linlin’s thoughts.”
They watched Qi Lin close his eyes and sit down cross-legged, entering a state of meditation.
Gongyang Tu snorted, “Search around for me and see whether or not you can find anything.” He ordered his subordinates from the Li Tribe to start a search.
Nüba also made the warriors and cultivators who followed her to scan the corridor again in search of any clues.
The girl gazed at Qi Lin with eyes full of interest: “Great Sage Equal Of Heaven, may This Palace be so bold as to ask you a question. Why did you sign an Invested Deity Contract with this man?”
Qi Qi shot her a look that asked how
“That this man is capable of geomancy arts means he may be related to the late Immemorial Royal Family. The Three Doctrines are currently hunting the Immemorial Royal Family, so staying at his side is not very safe.”
“Nonsense, This Great Deity has no interest in hunting you.” Nezha dissented.
No one wanted to say anything to this Great Deity Of Three Altars And Seas who was still a child at heart.
But Nüba truly was quite curious about Qi Lin’s background. Having trained in the tribes, she had heard of the most recent events in the Northern primordial.
Slaying the Fuzhu and the Divine King’s Blessing should not have been done for a God Transformation cultivator.
Seeing she could not glean anything about the siblings’ situation, Nüba shifted the topic to that peacock on Qi Lin’s shoulder. To be frank, she had taken note of this white peacock from the very beginning. Because some frivolous young masters and cultivators were fond of raising birds to flaunt their status. She originally thought Qi Lin was the same, but their recent contact allowed her to discover this man was not that conceited at all. Compared to Gongyang Tu, he appeared steady and experienced.
And she felt this peacock was also very strange. Whether it was the Sword-spine Dragon or entering the palace, this peacock was completely unlike the average pet Spirit Beast. All along, it was composed and aloof, showing no sign of fluster at all. If not for its occasional preening, Nüba would have thought it to be a statue.
Seeing them chat, Gongyang Tu twitched his mouth, uninterested in joining.
He coldly stared at Qi Lin.
If Qi Lin truly was unable to find the method to solve it, he was already prepared to bide his time for a chance to make his move.
…
Qi Lin walked through the mental palace.
It was only when he rendered this corridor in 3D within his mind that he found this corridor to be very strange.
And that was because he found this hallway to be a bit different from his “mental picture.” The first time he walked through, he had already made a rough calculation of the hall’s topography, but during his second walk, the topography of the corridor in the mental palace had become something else entirely. Several pivotal promenades had changed direction without warning.
Qi Lin wondered if he had misremembered, but his mental palace had never been wrong even after so many years. He continued to recall his memories from the several trips through the walkway, and the result was the same.
Once, twice, three times.
Each walk through would produce a change, but regardless of the change, the end result was that he returned to the start.
“Hm??”
Qi Lin opened his eyes, and a chill ran through his heart.
“Big Brother, did you find a clue?” Qi Qi asked eagerly.
“No, this corridor isn’t the same one we pass through before.” Qi Lin said.
“What is Your Distinguished Self saying? Have we not been trapped here all this time? Can it even change?” Fenghou pursed her lips.
“No, no, it seems this corridor is alive.” Qi Lin stroked his chin.
Alive?
Everyone thought they had misheard.
“We’re going again.”
Qi Lin glanced at the mark that Qi Qi had left on the wall. He rose and walked forward.
Everyone followed behind him. Gongyang Tu and Nüba were currently confused, completely unsure of what Qi Lin was saying.
After a while, everyone again returned to the starting point.
Qi Lin glanced at the wall and took a deep breath. “So that’s really how it is.”
“Lord Husband, just what is happening?” Changxi could not help but ask.
“Qi Lin, enough with the suspense, just what did you see.” Nezha was a bit annoyed. She loathed mysteries the most.
“The corridor we’re in right now isn’t the same as the corridor from before.” Qi Lin revealed his idea.
“Young Lord’s meaning is?” Nüba did not understand. Their exit clearly was their starting point.
And so, Qi Lin found that his mental palace did not match the corresponding map several times, and each time, there were always several key passages that showed changes. These walkways automatically swapped after a set amount of time, which was why the corridor’s topography did not match the one constructed in the mental palace.
In order to verify this theory, Qi Lin used the mark from Qi Qi’s Jingu Bang as a reference point. After another trip back to the start, that mark had indeed vanished completely.
In simple terms, this corridor space was like a moving Rubik’s cube. Each corridor was a block, and these blocks changed regularly. However, the final result of these changes was to return them to their original location.
“Could this be the ‘Heavenly Evolving Corridor’2 that Mother spoke of.”
Nüba was astonished.
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Huh. So this is like a magical version of that mobius corridor the Mo Clan created WAY back in 108 MoD. Cool.