Chapter 1394 — Hope of Escape
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
By the time he finished reading, two days had slipped hurried by. On Yu Xiaoke and Lao Hei's side there had likewise been real progress: between them the two had restored the pair of paintings to their former shapes, so that the puzzle could count as solved.
"Done — mission accomplished!" Yu Xiaoke set the final scrap of paper into place and at last let out a long breath.
Elder Yu, too, opened his eyes, rose to his feet and walked over; and Wei Zhao put away the medical notes in his hand and went to join them.
Wei Zhao had by then read nearly everything he meant to read. Apart from the material on the Nine Needles of Fuxi, which he had not come across, everything he had wished to know was now known.
"Have you determined which door is the life gate and which one the death gate?" Elder Yu asked urgently. He had been out too long. Though he had never shown himself in the mortal world while staying within the ancient tomb, he feared that someone sharp-eyed might take notice — the Aristocratic Families Arbitration Association was no trifling matter, and he stood in considerable awe of it. He wanted out quickly, so that he could return to the hidden Yu family.
"I've made a rough judgment," Yu Xiaoke nodded. "One of the paintings stands for Guiding the Soul to Rebirth; the other stands for Escape to Heaven."
"What's that supposed to mean?" How was Elder Yu to follow such technical language?
"It's simple enough," Yu Xiaoke explained. "Guiding the Soul to Rebirth concerns the dead — it lets the soul of the departed pass顺利 into rebirth, and paintings much like it turn up in many tombs. As for Escape to Heaven, that should be the life gate: it means that having come here, we can still get out."
"I see. So Escape to Heaven is the life gate? Which one is it, and how does it open?" Elder Yu nodded.
"The one on the left. In theory, so long as the pattern on the door is assembled to match this Escape to Heaven picture on the floor, the mechanism will open and we'll walk out unhindered," Yu Xiaoke said. "But I don't know whether there's some particular order to the assembly."
"I think the life gate has no order to it — but the death gate does." At this, Lao Hei put forward his own view.
"Oh? Why do you say that?" Elder Yu asked quickly.
"Look," Lao Hei said, pointing at the assembled picture on the floor. "On the death gate, in this Guiding the Soul to Rebirth painting, every one of the figures is going about his task in perfect order, step by step, all of it most disciplined. But the other painting, Escape to Heaven, shows a whole crowd running pell-mell — a scrambling horde with no order to it whatsoever."
"That's it! In other words, the painting on the death gate has already hinted that the stone door will open only if one follows the rules and the steps — but the life gate is different: if the pattern matches, it opens!" Yu Xiaoke saw it in a flash, and gave Lao Hei an approving look. The fellow wasn't entirely useless after all; at the crucial moment, he had his uses.
True, with a little more study Yu Xiaoke could have analyzed her way to the same conclusion — but having Lao Hei voice it quickly had saved a good deal of time.