SES Chapter 205 Part 1

Chapter 205

—What if one day the Phoenix Luan Clasp is opened again?

—Don’t worry. In this world, no one can open the Phoenix Luan Clasp.

Now, looking at it, these rows upon rows of names, grouped five to a line, felt like an autumn reckoning for words once spoken with such certainty.

The mystic muttered, “Even a great sage can be wrong sometimes.”

Cao Yanhua couldn’t wrap his head around it. “Back then, since Laozi was able to seal the seven ominous slips, why didn’t he just destroy them outright? Leaving the roots intact like this—it’s been haunting generation after generation. It’s maddening.”

Luo Ren said, “If you can think of that, Laozi surely could too. Sealing them instead of destroying them can only mean one thing.”

Yan Hongsand turned to him. “Which is?”

It was Mu Dai who answered. She had been staring at the rows of names, her eyes reflecting a silvery, starlike light. “It probably couldn’t be destroyed.”

Silence fell.

Only Cao Jiefang was blissfully energetic, fluttering up and down with its little wings, pecking at the glowing characters in the mist. Each peck hit nothing—unaware that they were only projections with no substance—and its tiny eyes filled with baffled confusion.

The projected characters gradually faded, blurring as if about to melt into the fog. The starlight shining from the Four-Archway Viewing Platform slowly dimmed as well. Luo Ren was the first to snap out of it. “Let’s go take a look at the archway.”

As they walked over, they heard Cao Yanhua muttering behind them, “Little master, don’t you think these names are kind of… creepy?”

Yan Hongsand asked curiously, “Why?”

Luo Ren smiled faintly. Hongsand, as always, disliked thinking too hard. Whenever there was a discussion, she widened her eyes and her lines were usually, Why? or Hurry up, tell us! or Let me hear it!

Cao Yanhua muttered, “It feels like some kind of memorial for the dead. Tombstones list names like this, don’t they?”

Yan Hongsand spat back, “Aren’t they all dead anyway? The last time the ominous slips were subdued was during the Ming dynasty. If they were still alive now, that would be terrifying.”

Cao Yanhua refused to give in. “There are different kinds of death. Dying of old age is one thing, dying young is another… Hey, little master, did your grandmaster ever mention how the founding ancestor of your sect—Plum Blossom Zhao—died?”

There was no answer.

An odd silence settled in. Luo Ren stopped and turned to look at her.

Mu Dai frowned, clearly trying to recall something. After a pause, she spoke uncertainly.
“My master never said it outright, but I remember once during practice she sighed and said that many of our sect’s techniques were created by the founding ancestor himself, but he never had the chance to refine them to their peak. If he’d lived longer—even just to a normal lifespan—the power of those techniques might have been very different.”

Cao Yanhua thought to himself: So he died young. The grandmaster really knew how to put things delicately. Subduing the ominous slips—no matter how you looked at it—was a selfless act. How did a good person not get a good end?

But since it involved her sect, the words hovered on his tongue before he swallowed them back down.

Luo Ren felt his heart sink for no apparent reason.

—Archways first appeared during the Zhou dynasty, originally serving as monuments to commend virtue and filial piety. They were often found in gardens, temples, palaces, tombs, and along streets.

Commendation and tombs—neither were words that inspired a cheerful mood.

The starlight at the Four-Archway Viewing Platform vanished, and the projected characters disappeared completely. At some point, the wind had stopped as well. Thick fog spread once more, shrouding the valley.

The box had shifted from a tilted position to an upright one. Looking closely, it had originally been suspended at the center of the glass-like mass, but now it was pressed right up against the edge.

Yan Hongsand sucked in a sharp breath. “Do you think if we wait a little longer, the box will just pop and shoot out?”

Wan San instinctively objected. “That can’t be right. This thing’s solid.”

Truth be told, he still hadn’t given up the idea of chiseling off a piece of this “diamond” to take home—without considering that if it really were a diamond, its hardness would make it impossible to chisel anyway.

As if to prove his point, he reached out and tapped the glass surface. The moment his fingers touched it, his face changed.
“It’s soft!”

Not just soft—the sensation had changed from icy cold to faintly warm, as if it were slowly heating up.

Luo Ren crouched down and told everyone to look at the underside of the Four-Archway Viewing Platform.

The yin–yang twin-fish Taiji disk was filled with water on both sides. More than that, tiny bubbles were continuously rising from the bottom and bursting—the water was beginning to boil.

Even stranger, water should flow freely, without boundaries or seams. Yet inside this disk, a distinct S-shaped curve divided the water into two. The forces on either side seemed to be pushing against each other, and the twin fish, biting each other’s tails, slowly began to swim. Whirlpool-like eyes appeared on their heads.

The opposing forces grew more violent. Jagged, serrated edges formed along the S-shaped line, as if one side were rapidly biting into the other. It resembled an ancient battlefield—first rigid formations facing off, then vanguards clashing, and finally a full-scale charge.

No one was paying attention to the box anymore. Everyone held their breath, watching the shifting waters in the Taiji disk. If this continued, what would the outcome be?

Just as the water lost all boundaries and the entire disk boiled over, there was a sharp cracking sound, like shattering glass. It happened right in front of Mu Dai. Her reaction was lightning-fast—she threw herself flat to the ground.

The box really did shoot out of the glass-like mass, propelled with tremendous force. It skimmed past the top of her head and landed with a dull thud more than thirty feet behind her.

A flashlight beam swept over it. The box was dark, solid, silent, with no lock—yet it made everyone feel as though they couldn’t breathe.

The mystic’s gaze happened to shift back, and he cried out, “This—this—”

The glass-like mass had completely twisted and deformed. A channel jutted outward from its center, frozen in the exact shape of the moment the box had burst free. When tapped with a flashlight, it rang with a metallic clang and had returned to being icy-cold and hard.

Seven wooden components crafted by Lu Ban protruded halfway from the glass. When pushed, they still seemed movable.

The Four-Archway Viewing Platform had no visible lock at all—yet it was the most unfathomable structure in the world, perfectly aligned with the principles of a lock…

The seal-script character for “lock” (锁) has “metal” (釒) on the left, and on the right an upper “water” (氺) and a lower “shell” (貝): using metal and water to conceal something of value.

This Four-Archway Viewing Platform was built at the bottom of a river that ran dry at night but flowed by day. This glass-like substance was solid as metal when sealed, fluid as water when opened—a naturally formed, ideographic and pictographic “lock.”

A thin cord was tied at one end to a ground peg, and at the other to Cao Jiefang’s leg, giving it “limited freedom” outside.

Inside the tent, the partition was drawn. Flashlights were hung in the center and along the walls, lighting the interior as bright as day. Everyone sat in a wide circle. The zipper was pulled all the way closed—aside from the ventilation mesh, the inside was almost completely sealed off from the river, the fog, and the Four-Archway Viewing Platform.

At the center of the circle sat the dark box.

Cao Yanhua felt uneasy. A black box always reminded him of the one recovery teams searched for first after a plane crash. Too many signs tonight invited ominous thoughts of death.

The mystic rubbed his hands together and reached out to open the lid. Halfway through, he seemed to think of something and pulled his hand back.

“I’ll do it,” Mu Dai said.

Below Yunling Ridge, at the Four-Archway Viewing Platform, the wooden keys had been entrusted to her. The secret had been told to her by her master, Plum Blossom Ninth Lady. And the leader of the previous effort to subdue the ominous slips had been her sect’s founding ancestor.

It should be her.

She rolled both sleeves up to her elbows, took a long breath, and extended her hand. Her fingers paused beside the lid for a moment before she slowly lifted it.

Everyone except Luo Ren unconsciously leaned back a little. Who knew what might come out? Poisonous mist? Hidden weapons like a storm of pear-blossom needles? Or an outright explosion?

The tent was cramped—if any of those guesses were right, no one would escape.