Chapter 1378 — The Passage Opens

Wu Chengtian had lately taken over Ergoudan's post, sitting every day at the villa's main hall entrance, eating and sleeping right there — another door god in the making. Ergoudan, watching it all, allowed himself a sigh of relief. He was a man who kept his own accounts, and he counted this a test of Wu Chengtian: if the boy truly proved conscientious and dutiful, he would not mind waiting for Wei Zhao's return and putting in a good word for him.

When Wu Gonggao and Wu Jiaoqi phoned to ask after him, Wu Chengtian did not let slip a single word about Ergoudan's injuries. He might not be much of a schemer, but he knew this much: whatever the leader had told him to keep quiet was bound to be a matter of the very first importance, and not something he could go shooting his mouth off about.

At the Gu villa, little had changed beyond one thing — the close guards who escorted Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu on their daily rounds had given way to Wu Chengtian.

An Jianwen, for his part, had likewise learned that Ergoudan had beaten Jin Wudi to death. But he felt no fear of it. He had always kept to the shadows, so he did not fancy Ergoudan would come calling at his door. It was Ergoudan's identity that galled him all the more.

"Damn it — this Ergoudan is actually Wei Zhao's man!" The report on Ergoudan had left An Jianwen's face dark as a thunderhead, and he cursed through his teeth: "Wei Zhao and that woman Qiu Lingshan are thick as thieves; nine times in ten it was that bastard Wei Zhao who tipped someone off, and the news came through that Ergoudan!"

"Calm yourself, Young Master Wen. Killing Jin Wudi is really nothing at all," Dr. Yin said evenly. "My biochemical work has already entered its final stage; given time, I will have the Strength Pill perfected — one dose, and an ordinary man could punch clean through an armored car and kick a UFO into scrap. Besides, isn't the whole point of our plan, apart from raking in the cash, to bring Wei Zhao down? Even if he and Qiu Lingshan are on intimate terms, once the evidence is on the table she cannot possibly shield him. And if she cares to play rough then, very well — we will ruin her name right along with his. With Qiu Lingshan out of the picture, it becomes that much easier to make our fortune in Songshan City!"

"Mm, there's sense in that. Has the test subject been delivered?" An Jianwen nodded and asked.

"He is here already. I am running the final activation on him now, and the Fire Wolf Gang's finest plastic surgeon and hypnotist are hard at work beside me — we will guarantee not a single slip when the moment comes," Dr. Yin said. In former days his standing had been equal to An Jianwen's; you could even say he had originally come here on nothing but the Fire Wolf Gang's orders, to run biochemical experiments, with aiding An Jianwen a secondary consideration at most.

But now, as the black money An Jianwen hauled in for the Fire Wolf Gang grew ever greater, his status had risen with the tide — and every scheme of his belonged to those no-capital, sky-high-profit rackets, which had won him the particular favor of even the branch helmsman of the Fire Wolf Gang. And so Dr. Yin had become An Jianwen's vassal, bound to cooperate with him in full and take his orders.

"Excellent!" An Jianwen nodded. "We shall see how much swagger Wei Zhao has left then!"

Wei Zhao, who was sitting in the palace chamber at the mouth of the underground vault, could not help but sneeze. This was already the second day, and Yu Xiaoke and Old Black had still found no secret in the stone pillars.

After a meticulous sweep by several of them, it could be confirmed that no mechanism or button of any kind existed on the pillars — that is to say, every pillar was alike, indistinguishable from the next in outward appearance.

"This is maddening!" Yu Xiaoke brought her palm down hard on a pillar. It was the several-hundredth time she had examined one, and she had still come up utterly empty; the frustration was getting under her skin.

"Tock —" Yet under Yu Xiaoke's blow the pillar let out a crisp, ringing note.

"Hollow?" Yu Xiaoke started.

Old Black, Qiu Lingshan and Chen Yutian whipped their heads around toward her at once. Then, one after another, they imitated her and reached out to rap the pillars before them — and every pillar gave back a crisp note, though each sounded slightly different from the last...

"Hollow, sure enough. Could there be something hidden inside? Shall we break one open and see?" Old Black suggested.

"No!" Yu Xiaoke frowned and pointed to the crown of the pillar. "This whole hall is held up by these columns. Shatter one, and there is no telling whether the place stays standing!"

"And what, then, does Heroine Yan propose?" Old Black asked.

"Give me a moment to think it over..." Yu Xiaoke rapped the pillar before her again, then another not far off to one side. All at once a flicker of delight crossed her face, as if she had found a thread to follow. "Everyone, step back — clear the pillars!"

Old Black, Qiu Lingshan and Chen Yutian did as they were told and moved away from the pillars before them.

Yu Xiaoke tapped each and every pillar in the hall in turn, listened to the sounds, stood for a while musing in the center of the chamber — and then began striking one pillar after another in what looked like no order at all, leaving Old Black, Qiu Lingshan, Chen Yutian and even Elder Yu thoroughly lost in the fog.

"What are you doing?" Elder Yu could finally contain himself no longer. In his eyes, Yu Xiaoke was simply dashing about to no purpose.

"Do not disturb her!" Wei Zhao cut him off. "If I am not mistaken, this hall holds seven pillars in all, and each pillar stands for a single note of the scale. Heroine Yan seems to have found the relationship between those notes... It may well be the elegy on the stone wall, for all we know..."

"That is it! The notes Yu... that Heroine Yan has been striking — though the timing is a shade off — match the melody of the elegy on that painted wall exactly!" Qiu Lingshan knew a little of music, and with Wei Zhao's prompting she could see the connection without difficulty.

Elder Yu nodded, while a flicker of shock passed through Old Black's eyes. This tomb was no simple affair, it seemed — and Heroine Yan had not been hired for nothing.

The pillars stood far apart, and so, light as Yu Xiaoke's qinggong was, it still took her the better part of half an hour to play the whole elegy through.

"Phew —" Having struck the final note, Yu Xiaoke let out a long breath. Whoever had designed this place was a cruel piece of work — switch in a tomb robber without a sound constitution and he would expire on the spot from sheer exhaustion... Then again, a tomb robber with no stamina was no use either!

"Watch out!" Wei Zhao bellowed without warning — and with that cry the entire floor of the hall began to shudder.

Wei Zhao had cried out because the jade pendant had suddenly issued a warning of its own; the words themselves were blurted from him on pure instinct.

But the warning did no good, of course. From the first shudder of the floor to the instant it split apart, barely seconds elapsed, and no one had time to react. The floor of the hall, taking the very center of the chamber as its dividing line, broke into two halves, one on either side, and went plunging away at speed, tilting off toward the edges.

A merged chapter is coming — stay tuned.

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