Chapter 28: The Pitch-Black Stone Box

“So, you’re telling me that you’ve all been in this pitch-dark stone box since just now?” The speaker was the Little Lord Supreme.

After parting ways with Blossoming Flower, the Little Lord Supreme had escaped the Divine Heart Calculation Bureau with the help of a blue light. Unexpectedly, darkness fell before his eyes, and he found himself inside what could only be described as a “prison cell.”

Calling it a prison cell was almost too generous. Even the word dungeon was insufficient to capture the strangeness of this place. It was a rectangular “room” with neither doors nor windows, roughly three meters wide, and about six meters in both length and height. If not for the newcomer who had conjured a fire in the center using a flame technique, the place would have been so dark that you couldn’t see your own hand before your face.

The temperature inside was bone-chilling.

By the faint light of the fire, the Little Lord Supreme saw that the room was surrounded by rock, the walls neatly cut as though hewn by a master’s hand. The only furnishings were a desk and an iron bed. If the rocky wall beside the bed could be called a “wall,” then the bed rested against it, while the desk stood near the bed against another wall. What struck the Little Lord Supreme as odd was that the design of the bed and desk was nothing like what one would find in Sacred Peace. He knew a thing or two about the mortal world, and these pieces looked like cheap, common furniture found among mortals.

He saw Xuanwen seated at the bedside, while Celestial Pole rested against the opposite wall. Then there were the two mortal disciples, one fat, one thin; their uneasy and terrified expressions contrasted sharply with the composure of Xuanwen and Celestial Pole.

“When I first got here, I thought it was just too dark outside. I ended up running straight into this rock wall,” said Xuanwen. In the Divine Heart Calculation Bureau, he had pieced together Celestial Pole’s torn answer and was the first to arrive here.

“If we were transported here by an array, then could this be the trial ground for the third round?” Little Lord Supreme asked.

Xuanwen replied, “With this little space? What kind of trial? A game of Go?”

“I can’t take it. I can’t stand being locked up in a place like this!” the fat disciple shouted.

“Rongping, calm down,” the thin disciple said—so the fat one’s name was Rongping.

“No! Qiguang, you know I can’t stand closed spaces!” Rongping gasped for breath, sweat pouring from his brow.

Qiguang, the thin disciple, tried to reassure him, “Let’s wait a bit. Maybe this is just a resting place for trial participants. There’s even a bed, look.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! How could a resting place have no window, not even a door? How do we get out? We’re trapped!” Rongping cried.

Qiguang patted his back, clearly wanting to offer comfort but at a loss for words.

Suddenly, Rongping jumped up. “No! I can’t be locked in here!” With that, he recited an incantation and struck the stone wall with his palm. “By order of the law! Stone-breaking technique!”

With a tremor, Rongping was rebounded from the wall, crashing into the opposite side with a dull thud, blood instantly trickling down his forehead—apparently, the force had made him hit his head.

Xuanwen, sitting at the bedside, looked up. “Useless fatty, don’t waste your energy. I’ve tried—these walls are harder than ordinary stone, unbreakable.”

Rongping crouched down and began to sob. “I should never have come to this Eye-opening Trial!”

“Useless fatty,” Xuanwen cursed.

“Can’t you watch your tongue for once?” Qiguang retorted.

Xuanwen was relentless. “You mortal disciples are all useless. How did you even make it to the third round? What’s wrong with this year’s Eye-opening Trial?”

“What, you look down on mortals?” Qiguang, unable to bear it, rolled up his sleeves as if to confront him, but Xuanwen sent him flying with a single palm, slamming him into the hard wall.

“With mortals like you, you think you can compete with us spirit cultivators?”

Qiguang lay on the ground, the blow clearly not light; for a while, he couldn’t get up.

“That’s enough. Do not harm your fellow disciples,” Celestial Pole interjected.

“Easy for you to say. You, the registrar of the Disciples’ Association, look down on mortal disciples just as much,” Xuanwen shot back, surprisingly.

“Silence.” With a wave of Celestial Pole’s hand, Xuanwen’s mouth was sealed shut. He clawed frantically at his lips, trying to use a spell to unlock them, but after several attempts, he could only make muffled sounds.

The Little Lord Supreme observed, “I thought you only bullied mortal disciples, but it seems you spare no one. Such recklessness is oddly impressive.”

Xuanwen, unable to speak, gave up in frustration.

Silence fell over the room.

The Little Lord Supreme pressed his ear to the stone wall, feeling chills creep into his face, but he heard nothing.

“In the Divine Heart Calculation Bureau, before Blossoming Flower and I arrived, were you waiting in that cavern as well?”

“We were sent to that cavern too. But like the Battle of the Candlefire, there were clear rules—once all the trial participants arrived, the game began,” replied Rongping, who had just wiped the blood from his forehead.

The Little Lord Supreme touched the stone wall. “Let’s wait then. Shadowbane and Blossoming Flower should arrive soon.”

Celestial Pole perked up. “That ant actually made it through the Divine Heart Calculation Bureau?”

“Not only will Blossoming Flower come, she’ll win over you as well.”

Celestial Pole sneered, saying no more.

In just a moment, a blue light flashed in the center of the room, illuminating everything. Two figures appeared within: Blossoming Flower, and the tall, slender Third Sister Shadowbane, her dark red hair tied in a ponytail down her back. As before, the lotus-like fragrance she carried quickly filled the room.

The Little Lord Supreme, seeing Shadowbane’s red hair, exclaimed, “Where’s your younger sister? Miss Fragrance, you’re here again, just to see me?”

“You scoundrel, I’ll burn you to ashes!” Shadowbane raised her hand, ready to strike, but Blossoming Flower quickly stepped between them. “Third Sister, we agreed. Don’t forget the task at hand!”

Shadowbane bit her lip, still seething.

“Use your flaming wheels and burn me, then! The room’s so small, you’ll burn Celestial Pole too—two birds with one stone.”

“Little Lord Supreme, she’s a proper lady. Don’t provoke her.” Blossoming Flower quickly intervened, then took stock of their surroundings. “Why is it so dark in here?”

The Little Lord Supreme briefly explained their current predicament.

“So, we’ve all arrived here from the Divine Heart Calculation Bureau,” Blossoming Flower said.

“Exactly.”

“I was the last trial participant in the previous round, along with Shadowbane. The Divine Heart Calculation Bureau should be over.”

“So, there are only two possibilities. One, we’re in the gap before the third round begins. Or two, the third round has already started—after all, consecutive rounds are not uncommon.”

Shadowbane interjected, “But if the third round had begun, there should be clear rules, no matter where we are. Celestial Pole, you’ve taken the Eye-opening Trial for ten years—have you ever seen this?”

Celestial Pole glanced around at everyone. “As things stand, we’re trapped here, unable to advance or retreat.”

“So even an old hand like you hasn’t seen this?” Little Lord Supreme asked.

Celestial Pole shot him a look.

While the others discussed, Blossoming Flower carefully surveyed the room, an inexplicable sense of unease rising in his heart.

“This place feels like a hospital ward…”

“Oh? You recognize this place?” Little Lord Supreme asked eagerly.

“Not exactly. It just feels eerily familiar.”

“Is it like the ward you stayed in when you first arrived at Sacred Peace?”

“No, not quite. The size is similar, but the layout and style are different. Plus, there are no doors or windows here.”

“Then why does it feel like a ward and not a bedroom?”

“That’s a good point. I’m not sure. It just gives me the sense of a hospital ward. Like I’ve seen it somewhere before…”

“Aren’t all wards pretty much the same?”

“Maybe.” Blossoming Flower began to feel along the stone wall, muttering to himself, “The bed’s over here, and there’s a desk by the head. The desk should be near the window. If that’s the case…”

He walked over to the wall opposite the desk, where Qiguang was resting after having been knocked down by Xuanwen.

“Excuse me. Could you move over a bit?”

“His name is Qiguang,” Little Lord Supreme said.

“All right, Senior Qiguang. Here, let me help you.”

Blossoming Flower helped Qiguang to another spot, then ran his hands up and down the wall, murmuring, “If the window is here, then opposite should be a door…”

He turned to face the opposite wall, gesturing at different heights.

“The window ledge should be about here, and opposite, just over there, a bit to the right and lower down, should be… the door handle?”

Suddenly, as his hand brushed the flat stone wall, a bright red line appeared where he touched. The line stretched out from his fingertip, extending to both sides, forming a rectangular outline—a doorframe.