Chapter 13 — Cave Encounter, Part Two
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
On the night of the full moon, the stone door opens of a sudden; only the fated may enter.
Before daybreak, remember to leave. Five years hence, the stone door opens again.
As a boy, Wei Zhao had learned seal script from Old Man Wei, so he had no trouble making out the eight lines carved on the stone tablet. Having read them through, he set to puzzling over their meaning.
On the night of the full moon — that was easy enough. Was tonight not the night of the full moon? And "the stone door opens of a sudden" must mean this vermilion stone door. But what did "only the fated" mean? Could he himself be that fated one, the reason he had been allowed inside?
It struck Wei Zhao as wondrous and baffling at once. There seemed nothing special about him. An orphan, taken in by Old Man Wei, he had drifted muddle-headed to the age of eight without ever noticing anything out of the ordinary in himself. Compared with Old Man Wei, at least, there was nothing in which he surpassed the old man.
Still, since he had gotten in, he might as well count himself the fated one.
"Before daybreak" was even simpler: it meant before the sun rose and the sky turned light. "Remember to leave" meant he must be gone before daybreak. Yes, taken literally, that was the meaning.
But what of the last part — "five years hence, the stone door opens again"? Could it mean that if he failed to leave before daybreak, the stone door would close of itself, and the next time it opened would be five years later?
At the thought, Wei Zhao could not help shuddering. Good heavens above — thank fortune he could read seal script. Otherwise he would have sat here like a fool the whole night, and when the door shut behind him, would that not be the end of him? Never mind five years; five days without food or water would be hard enough to survive.
Now that he knew the rules of this cave, so long as he made his way out before daybreak there should be no trouble. At this, Wei Zhao's heart eased a little.
Only then did Wei Zhao take a close look at the great hall. It turned out that all four walls were studded with luminous pearls, which was why the place was bright as day.
Anyone with the least eye for such things could tell that every pearl set in those four walls was priceless; take one out to the market and auction it, and it would fetch a fortune.
But Wei Zhao had grown up in the mountains, and had little taste for gold and jewels. Wondrous and lovely as he found them, he did not suppose they would fetch any great price outside.
The real question was: in these mountains, whom would he sell them to? The richest person around was Widow Wang at the head of the village, who ran a snack shop and a little store and managed to put by over a thousand yuan a year.
But rich as she was, who would spend money on such impractical things? To Wei Zhao's mind, money was better spent on two big slabs of fat pork — now that was fragrant. These luminous pearls were fine to look at but useless; you could not eat them.
So Wei Zhao did not let his eyes linger over the hall's lavish ornaments. Instead he began searching the place in every direction. From the Jin Yong novels he read, he knew that when a man stumbled by chance into some cave or valley, he was bound to come upon a stroke of fortune — a manual of peerless martial arts, say.
At the thought, a thrill ran through Wei Zhao. If he found a manual of peerless martial arts, he would no longer have to suffer the old man's bullying; once he had mastered it, the old man would not dare beat him.
The hall was vast but empty. Apart from the glittering decorations on all four sides, there were only two structures at its center. One was the stone tablet Wei Zhao had seen the moment he entered; behind the tablet stood a raised platform.
The platform much resembled the altar of ancient sacrifice, or the place in a sect where precious things were kept. In any case, it looked exceedingly old — no such structure would be built in modern times.