Ze Tian Ji Chapter 191

Chapter 191 – The Box of Fate

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

The Night Pearl sat at Chen Changsheng’s feet, against the wall. Its light rose from below, causing the dagger inserted into the wall to cast an extremely long shadow that appeared like a black beam on the roof.

Inch by inch, the dagger was slowly stabbed into the wall, gradually being engulfed. Chen Changsheng tightly grasped the hilt, his eyes focused on the intersection of wall and dagger, his breath growing more hurried and his expression more tense.

His mind was focused on the dagger as if he was venturing forward on some dark path without a lantern and was unaware of what he might encounter. This sort of complete unawareness had a hint of expectation, but consisted mostly of unease.

Finally, the dagger sent back a clear feeling that its tip had struck something hard about half a foot into the wall. Chen Changsheng stared at the wall for a few moments, then pushed. Upon confirming that his dagger was finding it impossible to go any further, he felt quite astonished. Just what sort of material was this item made from that even his dagger could not pierce through it? At the same time, he confirmed that this was the item he had sought.

He released his left hand and raised the sleeve to wipe the sweat from his brow, then placed it back on the dagger. This time, he did not attempt to probe deeper, but to move the dagger about the wall. Relying purely on the feelings transmitted to his hands, he used the dagger to slowly cut the hard stone wall. Although tiny bits of stone flew into the air, no sound was produced.

The dagger silently cut, ceaselessly moving about the stone wall. Finally, it reached its starting position, having cut out a design on the wall. Chen Changsheng felt this design to be rather familiar, and then he recalled that it was exactly the same as the outer contours of the Dallying Forest.

He removed the dagger and approached the stone wall. He placed the dagger in one of the wider horizontal seams and began to carefully pull out the stone, constantly prying at it.

As he worked, a gray stone to the right of Wang Zhice’s portrait began to slowly move, bit by bit, until it appeared as a visible bump on the wall.

After some time, the gray stone was half a palm-width out of the stone wall. Chen Changsheng sheathed his dagger and used his hands to take the flat and even ends of the stone. He took in a deep breath, and true essence slowly flowed to various parts of his body and transferred strength into his arms.

There was an extremely soft grinding noise as, in the soft light of the Night Pearl, stone shards flew into the air. An irregularly shaped stone slowly came free from the wall.

A hole had been cut out of the wall, and he could faintly make out a box in its depths. This box was embedded in the wall and was clearly not easily extracted, but the box could still be opened.

Such a mechanism had actually been concealed in the walls of a place like the Lingyan Pavilion, and it even contained a mysterious box. Just who had done this when it was being built? Just who could have been capable of doing this?

If this sight were seen by anyone else, it would definitely cause the entire Zhou Dynasty to quake, perhaps resulting in an investigation that would stretch back centuries and a calamity for the descendants of a few prestigious clans.

Chen Changsheng did not know who had placed this box in the Lingyan Pavilion. When it had been under construction, countless craftsmen and officials were keeping watch day and night, so how had that person been able to hide from so many people and even from Emperor Taizong’s divine gaze? All he knew right now was that the wall of the Lingyan Pavilion contained a box that he needed.

The box buried in the wall was very darkly colored. Its outermost layer was easily removed, revealing the true box within. The lid of this box was covered in many copper strings, with several exquisite copper buttons scattered amongst them, all of it appearing extremely complex. At the very center was the switch to open the box.

If a child in the capital were to see these copper buttons and strings, they would be able to guess that this was the Nine Interconnected Rings Puzzle1 very popular in the Great Zhou Dynasty. However, this version was much more complicated, consisting of seventeen linked rings.

The Nine Interconnected Rings was the same as the Dallying Forest, a game made up by Wang Zhice to waste time and work his mind when he was not studying. Although it was just a game, it also was excellent for toughening one’s spiritual sense or increasing one’s calculation ability. Nine rings was common while seventeen was incredibly rare, the solution much more difficult.

Without any hesitation, Chen Changsheng stared at those extremely complex copper strings and began to calculate, his gaze occasionally drifting towards one of the copper buttons. He then began to move the strings, his fingers constantly plucking at them as if he was playing the zither, bringing the copper strings together with the buttons.

He spent a long time at this, and finally, upon seeing an empty space on the southwest corner of the box lid, took a deep breath and removed his left ring finger from the copper strings. With a click, the strings he had knit began to move on their own, incessantly tying and untying as they moved towards the center.

This was the process of untying the rings. It required a long time for one to find out if one was ultimately able to untie them or not, or if one had made a mistake. If that was the case, one could only begin anew.

There was nothing else to do besides wait. Chen Changsheng finally noticed that his forehead was covered in sweat. Just as he was prepared to raise his arm to wipe the sweat away, he saw the sweat on his sleeve from earlier and froze. With a bitter smile, he shook his head, took a handkerchief from his sleeve, and assiduously wiped the sweat off his face.

He watched silently as the design constantly morphed, as the copper strings and buttons incessantly moved.

He did not know who had made this mechanism, perhaps Wang Zhice or somebody else. Just like how he knew that there was a box in the wall, he only knew of the existence of these things, but not why they existed.

All these things had been told to him by Daoist Ji.

Before coming to the capital, Chen Changsheng had always believed that Daoist Ji was just an ordinary Daoist, at the most someone incredibly skilled in medicine. After experiencing so many things, he naturally knew that his master was no ordinary person. He even might have another identity.

The books and scrolls in Xining’s old temple were all ancient books from before the great recompiling. The abundance of these books was on par with the Li Palace, so how could a normal person accumulate so many Daoist scriptures?

He gripped the dagger and gazed at the portraits of the meritorious ministers on the wall, shaking his head. How could a normal person know that the Lingyan Pavilion contained so many secrets? Even his dagger was extraordinary.

It was also Daoist Ji that had said to him that if he wished to defy the heavens and change fate, he needed to enter the Lingyan Pavilion and discover the secrets within. Thus, his goal in coming to the capital had been precisely to enter the Lingyan Pavilion.

His fate was not good, and so if he wanted to live past the age of twenty, he had only two methods: cultivating to the Concealed Divinity Realm or defying the heavens and changing his fate. Both methods did not sound reasonable, as they were essentially impossible, but comparatively speaking, the latter was slightly more possible. This was because rumors of changing fate had always been circulating amongst the people.

How could one defy the heavens and change fate? First of all, one had to know what fate was. He gazed at the still-unraveling rings and silently thought,

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‘Nine Interconnected Rings’ refers to a puzzle game also known as ‘Baguenaudier’, ‘Chinese Rings’, or ‘Cardan’s Suspension’. It involves a set of rings that must be untangled from a horizontal loop of wire.