Chapter 359

Brother Sikong looked up at the hidden door in the ceiling and hesitated: "Three. Yi, Jia, Yi."

"Wrong."

Zhang Fuluang was about to say "two," when suddenly he realized something.

Reference point!

If he himself was the constant, unchanging reference point, then when he rode the silk upward to the upper stone chamber, he saw Li Cheng and Brother Sikong enlarged fourteenfold.

At the same time, silk descended from the upper stone chamber—enlarged 196 times relative to Zhang Fuluang himself!

If Zhang Fuluang had not returned to the lower stone chamber but instead rode the 196-fold silk upward, he could reach the upper-upper stone chamber.

One level, two levels, three levels, endless.

"It's infinite."

Zhang Fuluang's eyes flashed with insight: "The stone box is half a meter per side; the hidden door on its top is no wider than a palm—too small to crawl through."

Therefore, the stone box is the Jia. We are in the Yi chamber; the upper chamber is Bing; the upper-upper chamber is Ding.

Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui—extending infinitely upward, each level scaled by fourteenfold.

"Huh?"

Brother Sikong paused, then understood.

Indeed, if a person is the reference point, one could climb endlessly upward along the silk, into ever-larger chambers.

"One level is fourteenfold, two levels is 196-fold, three levels would be 2,744-fold. In other words, by the fourth stone chamber, the ceiling height relative to us three would be over five thousand zhang—taller than the Five Sacred Mountains stacked together."

Brother Sikong hesitated: "If the stone chambers stretch infinitely upward, expanding without end, won't there ever be an exit?"

A fourteenfold multiplier is absurd—after a few layers, the chamber height would exceed the distance between Earth and the Moon.

Even if someone stayed in the lower chamber to use the silk as a conveyor belt, pulling the others upward, the insane G-forces generated would tear the human body apart.

"Yes and no."

Li Cheng grinned: "If you treat a person as the constant reference point, it's easy to imagine the stone chambers as an infinitely expanding structure."

"But what if you treat the stone box and the stone chamber as two mirrors?"

"Mirrors?" Brother Sikong blinked; Zhang Fuluang fell into thought.

"Two mirrors facing each other create infinite diminishing reflections—but the mirrors themselves remain unchanged."

Li Cheng said: "If, when Zhang Daochang reached the fourteenfold upper chamber, he hadn't returned but continued to the 196-fold chamber, to him it was the upper-upper level."

But to the stone box—or to us, who remain with the stone box—he never left; he merely passed through two hidden doors, shrinking by 196 times."

In other words, there are not three—or infinitely many—spaces."

From start to finish, there is only one or two. The hidden door on top of this chamber is identical to the hidden door on top of the stone box—merely a device for scaling up or down."

"One or two?"

Brother Sikong was thoroughly confused; Zhang Fuluang, trained in Zhengyi Sect Daoism, grasped it slightly faster, frowning in silence.

After a long while, he looked up and asked: "When the cloaked man ascended Longhu Mountain and sent a letter to the Celestial Master, he included a prophetic painting that foresaw this exact moment."

In other words, this realm, born from a divine molt, is not a hopeless dead end."

The Tu family must have used the divine molt to conceal some forbidden secret—there must be an exit."

If the stone box's hidden door is a scaling device, could we pass through several doors in succession, shrinking ourselves to the size of ants—or smaller?"

"And thus find the hidden exit?"

"Excellent idea—it turned my thinking around."

Li Cheng nodded sincerely in praise: "Indeed, this script world produces talent aplenty—they've already thought of a possible solution so quickly. You could try it, but don't expect much."

"Huh?" Brother Sikong was already preparing to crawl on the ground searching for a crack. "Why not?"

"Four reasons. First: the stone chamber equals the stone box. The stone box has no seams—meaning the stone chamber likely has no gap large enough for us to escape."

"Second: the stone box is about two fingers thick. Even if you shrink yourself small enough to crawl into the tiniest rock fissure, those two fingers remain an impassable abyss to a tiny being."

"Third: if this were true scaling, then when Zhang Daochang shrank fourteenfold, his muscle fibers would compress proportionally, and his strength should inflate 196-fold."

But there wasn't—in other words, the visual magnification and reduction were still just the realm's trick.

But it didn't happen. In other words, the visual enlargement and reduction are still just the realm's trickery."

No matter how miraculous the realm, could it compress the atoms composing a human body fourteenfold, 196-fold—then fifty-three thousandfold? Keep compressing and you'd reach the Schwarzschild radius—turning the human body into a micro black hole."

In this world, Great Ming culture was open and inclusive; elite figures like Brother Sikong and Zhang Fuluang understood enough English to grasp that "Ant-Man" meant "ant-person."

Brother Sikong asked: "What's the fourth reason?"

"The fourth: the size of the square hidden door on the ceiling of this chamber is precisely constrained to be slightly smaller than the stone box."

Li Cheng pointed upward: "Without this constraint, we could pass the stone box through the door and out—breaking the loop."

This structure proves the entire realm was deliberately designed—to trap outsiders who aren't of the Tu family."

!

He smiled lightly: "I've already made arrangements with my maid: if I don't return within a day, she'll storm the Heavenly Gates, shatter the Southern Heaven Gate, and cut through the Tu family with two fruit knives."

"For this day, do you want to eat swollen skin from your hands or feet? Or should I roll down some Leg-Extend-and-Eye-Pop Pills?"

Can't we eat something better?!

Brother Sikong and Zhang Fuluang's eyelids twitched violently as they rushed forward to stop Li Cheng from taking off his socks.

"Master Pi Fu, stop fooling around—"

Zhang Fuluang sighed: "Judging by your expression, you've already thought of a solution, haven't you?"

"A guess. I don't know if it'll work."

Li Cheng said: "If this stone chamber truly leads to the Tu family's hidden secret, then someone from the Tu family must have passed through here."

Also, there are no keyholes or mechanisms to open anywhere on the inside or outside of the chamber—meaning the way out must lie within the chamber itself."

And that method must be simple."

He strode toward the luminous night-glow pearl sitting in the corner of the room, hefted it, and hurled it with all his might at the hidden door in the ceiling of Shi Shi's chamber.

Whoosh!

The night-glow pearl shot through Shi Shi's hidden door and flew out from the top of the stone chest. Li Cheng snatched it midair.

The pearl's size hadn't shrunk?!

"You two, stand back."

Under the stunned gazes of the other two, Li Cheng pushed the stone chest to the very center of the room, gripped the night-glow pearl, and tossed it into the top of the stone chest.

Whoosh— whoosh— whoosh—

The night-glow pearl passed through the gap at the top of the stone chest, dropped from the ceiling of Shi Shi, plunged straight into the gap of the stone chest, then dropped again from the ceiling of Shi Shi.

Over and over, faster and faster, until it broke the sound barrier and produced a piercing sonic boom.

Now!

Li Cheng struck in an instant, seized the stone chest and flipped it violently; the night-glow pearl, accelerated to the extreme, slammed directly into the wall on the chest's side.

Boom!

From outside Shi Shi came a deafening crash; one stone wall, along with the chest's side panel, shattered and collapsed. The remaining three walls crumbled along with it.

Outside, the lamplight was bright. Li Cheng brushed the dust from his body and strode out of Shi Shi, suddenly finding himself in a cavern filled with countless night-glow pearls.

(End of chapter)