The black gate loomed ahead, its surface absorbing what little light the corridor dared to give. It stood like a sentinel from a forgotten age, towering over three meters tall, carved from shadow-dark ore that shimmered faintly when struck by the wavering glow of Li Wei's lantern. Within its colossal frame, dozens of silver gears turned with methodical grace—interlocking, disengaging, realigning—as though possessed of thought, or bound to a will not yet sated.
Each click of the gears echoed like distant thunder through the passage ~klak-klak~ klak~, unsettling the dust from the eaves above. The sound was not deafening, but deliberate—warning.
Li Wei's steps slowed, his sharp gaze sweeping over the mechanical marvel with measured caution. His breath misted slightly in the air, a sign the spiritual tension in the passage was rising. Leng Yue came to a halt beside him, her cloak whispering against the stone. Her eyes—cool and calculating—locked upon the inscriptions running along the upper rim of the archway.
"This door is built like a barricade," she murmured, stepping forward with one hand extended. Her fingers hovered a hair's breadth from the surface, where ancient glyphs writhed faintly with a pearlescent sheen. "The runes above it are… hm…"
She narrowed her eyes, focusing on the sequence. Her pupils dilated as she shifted into a subtle meditative state, drawing on a sliver of qi to better perceive the script. "These patterns render this object resistant to most elements. Fire, water, lightning—none shall breach this wall, save perhaps heaven's own fury."
"A ward against brute force, then," Li Wei said, stroking his chin. His eyes remained on the gate, but his thoughts were already darting elsewhere. If the gate cannot be broken…
"…What about the surroundings?" he finished aloud, turning on his heel. The young master's voice was calm, but with the undercurrent of sudden insight. "The ancients left few things to chance, but they loved misdirection more than blood."
Without delay, he began retracing his steps, scanning the murals carved into the stone walls that framed this part of the corridor. Each was a tapestry of life and struggle, frozen in pigment and mineral. They had passed these scenes in haste earlier, yet now their secrets whispered louder than ever.
"If I am right," he muttered, drawing close to a mural that depicted a mountain valley soaked in starlight, "then the answer lies within one of these scenes…"
His fingers traced the edge of a painted ridge. The stone was cold to the touch, and smooth—too smooth. The murals had not suffered erosion from time alone. They had been maintained by intent.
Leng Yue, without needing a command, mirrored his actions on the opposite wall. She moved with the precision of a watchful serpent, her eyes flicking from crack to crevice, her hands brushing lightly against each irregular seam. She tapped several places—listening for hollow echoes—pressed her palm against cold inlays of copper and jade, and even sniffed the air for scents beyond dust.
"I can't find a passage," she said after a time, "but something strange about these walls. I can feel a pulse beneath my feet—barely."
"No sign of a passage," Li Wei answered, standing before a new mural, "but perhaps there is a path."
He was gazing now at a vivid depiction—two celestial beasts locked in combat. A great eastern dragon, its coils vast and storm-wreathed, clashed in a frozen moment of fury with a primal lion, its mane alight with gold and ash. Claws met fangs, talons struck hide. Yet their battle, fierce as it appeared, bore one unsettling flaw.
"Their eyes…" Li Wei murmured. He stepped closer, squinting, aligning himself to match their angles of gaze. "Neither of them is looking at the other."
Leng Yue turned her head toward him. "What?"
"They're staring away from each other," he continued, lifting a hand to trace their lines of sight. "Both are fixed… there."
He pointed. And sure enough—farther down the corridor, where the torchlight barely reached—stood a plain slab of wall. Unadorned. Unremarkable. But now, in light of the beasts' disinterested gazes, deeply suspicious.
He strode toward it, hands behind his back, spine straight. The chill in the air thickened as he drew near the wall. Something here had been deliberately hidden—not with illusion, but with attention. The eye was drawn elsewhere by chaos, by fury… but those were feints.
"Interesting…" he said under his breath. "Two beasts clashing, but their war means nothing. They are pointing the way."
He stopped short. Another mural, near the right corner.
This one showed a tempestuous sea, and a ship caught in its jaws. Sailors fought valiantly against a monstrous crustacean that loomed above the deck, pincers snapping like scythes. But amidst the frenzy, one figure stood serene. A lone sailor, untouched by battle, stood on the bow… pointing.
Pointing toward empty air.
"Now this is clever…" Li Wei said, stepping back. He looked up.
There, carved into the ceiling—barely visible save from the exact angle that sailor had gestured—was another set of paintings. The ceiling had been darkened with soot or shadow-wash, hiding it unless one knew to look. Now it caught the flicker of the torch.
He tilted the flame upward. The ceiling mural revealed itself slowly: the same ship, now safe under a starlit sky. The monstrous crustacean nowhere to be seen. And the same sailor—now placing a glowing object into the hands of a robed figure.
"They buried truth not beneath stone, but beneath attention," he whispered. "To follow the gaze is to follow the path."
Leng Yue had drawn closer, her gaze scanning ceiling to wall to floor. "So the beasts show where to look. The sailor shows how."
"Aye," Li Wei said. "This gate was never the door. It was the distraction."
He returned to the slab the beasts had been staring toward. With slow, deliberate motion, he pressed his palm flat against the center.
Nothing.
He withdrew, then pressed again—this time releasing a whisper of qi into the stone.
~thnnnk~
A faint vibration. The stone beneath his hand began to warm.
A rune appeared—a single character, long dormant, now flaring to light.
Insight.
The slab trembled. A seam appeared along its left edge. Then—
~grrrrk~
—stone shifted. A portion of the wall slid inward, revealing a dark corridor veiled by silence and the smell of untouched air.
Li Wei glanced back toward Leng Yue. Her lips quivered faintly in amusement.
"You were right," she said. "As always."
"No. Just curious," he replied. "But let's not flatter fate."
And with that, they stepped through the hidden passage.
Beyond, the dark awaited.