Chapter 1353 — You Go On Ahead: Of Course, It Is Not Simply That the Path Is Impassable—Within This Path There Are Forkings, and Forkings Within the Forkings, Splitting and Merging in Bewildering Tangles; Once You Enter, You Are Very Likely to Lose Your Way Inside, Yet There Is No Danger of Any Kind; the Only Way Out Is to Retrace Your Steps, For Otherwise, Having Entered, Whichever Fork You Choose, You Will Only Circle Endlessly Within...
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Old Yu frowned but said nothing. In a situation like this, there was nothing he could do either.
"There's no difference between these two paths... huh?" Yu Xiaoke had just started to say that the two paths were no different when Old Hei pulled the searchlight nearer, and she saw that on the passage walls at the mouths of both tunnels, someone had written words in chalk — or rather, irregular symbols!
"There are markings here!" Qiu Lingshan had spotted the symbols on the wall as well.
"Maybe they're secret marks left by the tomb robbers who entered this underground palace passage before us!" Old Hei came over too and nodded. "But forgive my poor eyes — what do these symbols mean?"
Old Hei counted as a seasoned tomb robber of the Thief Sect, yet these symbols on the wall he had never seen before.
"I haven't seen them either..." After studying them carefully, James shook his head as well. His store of knowledge was no match for Old Hei's, so he could make even less sense of it.
"Male Thief, weren't you the capable one? You picked the right path before — why so silent this time?" Old Yu turned to look at Wei Zhao. "Boy, you take us in, and you certainly won't go without your reward!"
Wei Zhao had kept silent all along because he himself was not entirely certain which path could be taken! He had stood before each of the two tunnel mouths in turn. At one of them, the jade pendant space gave off no warning signal at all, which meant there was no danger inside.
But the other path sent out a powerful warning signal — proof that it was very dangerous.
By ordinary logic, Wei Zhao would certainly have chosen the path that gave no danger warning, yet Liu Bojia's materials had made him hesitate.
And the other path, the dangerous one, was clearly not a dead end — for a dead end had no danger in it.
For a moment Wei Zhao found it hard to choose. After all, if he did not take that safe dead end, he would have to take the dangerous path — which was to say, knowing there were tigers on the mountain, he must still walk toward them.
"This path has no danger, but I'm afraid it's a dead end, impassable." Wei Zhao pointed at the tunnel without danger, then pointed at the one beside it. "That path carries a thick reek of danger, but it should be the right one, because the road to the underground palace cannot possibly run smooth all the way."
"What do you two think?" Old Yu asked Old Hei after hearing Wei Zhao out.
"This..." In his heart Old Hei favored trying the safe path first — after all, if there was no danger, there would be no harm in turning back, and that was the more prudent course. So he hesitated before saying, "Since there's no danger, why don't we walk a ways and see? If it's impassable, we'll take another path. There's nothing to lose either way, is there?"
"Fine, then you go. I'll wait here." Wei Zhao spoke flatly. "If there's anything inside, I won't take a single coin of it. It's all yours."
Wei Zhao felt Liu Bojia had no reason to deceive him; between them there was only a debt of kindness and no conflict of interest. So he could not be bothered to walk a pointless round with them.
"Then let's go have a look!" Old Yu's eyes lit up. Wei Zhao's words seemed to make some sense, but nothing in this world was absolute — what if that path really was the right one? Wei Zhao was no immortal who could divine the future; and without Wei Zhao along, he might find it all the easier to get what he wanted.
So Old Yu agreed almost without a moment's thought.
With Old Yu's approval, though they lacked the support of the husband-and-wife thieves, Old Hei and James still chose to go and explore that path. But to keep from losing their way, they decided to scatter quicklime powder along the route as a trail marker, so that they could retreat without trouble.