"In short, thank God you finally woke up." Luo Jiujiang threw the scabbard to Xie Chuncan, and motioned him to knock on the stone walls in two corners with him - he had just groped around and found a clamshell-shaped mark.

Xie Chuncan snorted a laugh, a hint of complacency flickering across his features. "No need to thank God, just thank me. So, now you know you can't live without me? Before, you told me to abandon you and run away, and in the end, you still wanted me to rescue you... I'll lend you three times the courage next time, and see if you pull any more idiotic 'die first' things."

He weighed the scabbard in his hand and struck the stone brick with subtle patterns in a rhythmic pattern, waiting for the expected retort from Luo Jiujiang. After two or three blinks, he heard no movement from the other party. Xie Chuncan's eyebrows twitched, and he turned around to see Luo Jiujiang saluting him.

"Yes, never do such stupid things again." Luo Jiujiang said with a smile, his eyes lightly sweeping over Xie Chuncan's wrist with three obvious scars. Xie Chuncan subconsciously wanted to pull up his sleeves to cover it, and even when he made a gesture to pull the corner of his clothes, he realized that his upper body was naked.

"Thank you for saving me, brother. Luo Jiujiang will never forget it."

"Well, there's no need to be so serious. Just act normal..."

Xie Chuncan had just cleared his throat uncomfortably when he saw Luo Jiujiang straighten up, taking advantage of the situation. He said with a leisurely and playful smile, "But honestly, I don't know where Brother Xie found a pursuer as crazy as Lu Qi. After the first encounter, not only was there blood all over the floor, but he also fell into a deep sleep. It really makes me, as a brother, extremely anxious."

Hearing this, which was clearly a rebuttal to his previous "all-night debate", Xie Chuncan choked and said helplessly, "Now that I think about it, there's no need to be too normal with your savior. There's nothing wrong with being respectful and polite to him!"

Luo Jiujiang laughed heartily, and the long sword in his hand spun half a circle on his palm. Then he pinched the blade and threw it, and the handle and the scabbard in Xie Chuncan's hand hit the pattern on the wall at the same time. The timing and strength were controlled to perfection.

As a sound of mechanical friction came from behind the stone wall, the pattern that was almost unrecognizable to the naked eye gradually took shape. Under the eyes of Luo Jiujiang and Xie Chuncan, who were holding their breath, it split into two on the spot and turned into four identical clam shell patterns, stationed in the center of the four walls, and then there was no movement.

Xie Chuncan waited for a long time, but there was no other reaction from the four-sided stone wall. He turned to look at Luo Jiujiang and asked, "Keep knocking?"

"Knock." Luo Jiujiang thought for a moment and made up his mind. "No matter what I did before, the pattern didn't respond. Only knocking it made it move. In this environment, a response is better than no response. Let's knock it again and see the result - after all, you have to ring the bell every day."

Each of them held an arrow from Xie Chuncan's backpack and simultaneously hurled the arrows down onto the center of the pattern. The same mechanical clicks, heard just now, reappeared, and the four patterns became deeper and clearer. Then, each clam shell split into four, transforming into sixteen.

Xie Chuncan held the arrow that bounced back, his brows furrowed. "Jiujiang, I think this is a bit weird. I can't ring it anymore. If I ring it again, the pattern will probably become more than a hundred. If I ring it a fourth time, I'll have to stay here and ring the bell for the rest of my life."

"Wait, let me think about it." Luo Jiujiang said with a stiff face.

"Try to think it through." Xie Chuncan sighed, "If we kowtow two or three more times, and it's confirmed that we have to kowtow here for seven or eight lifetimes, then you and I will become monks, and even my little brother can be consecrated."

"...Don't worry about whether your brother is consecrated or not. If you keep interrupting, I'll help you open the door." Luo Jiujiang said unhappily. He pressed the handle of the knife, turned the tip over, and rhythmically knocked it against the ground. The monotonous and regular sound of the knocking slowly sorted out the thread of things. "I searched the room carefully three times the first time, and found nothing except a pattern. There's no way I missed it. It doesn't make sense that another clam shell would appear as soon as you woke up to complete the pair."

"Based on the current situation, working backwards, you must have knocked it when you first found the pattern." Xie Chuncan quickly followed Luo Jiujiang's line of thought.

Luo Jiujiang hummed, stroking the clamshell patterns on the wall thoughtfully. He and Xie Chuncan had tried this before: tapping the patterns sequentially wouldn't elicit any response. Only when they struck them simultaneously would the patterns respond.

One becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes sixteen...If this speed continues, even if he and Xie Chuncan each transform into a Thousand-Armed Guanyin, it won't be enough.

"...Ringing the bell doesn't work, and neither does the Bodhisattva. It seems the owner of this place doesn't believe in Buddhism." Luo Jiujiang murmured in disappointment.

Xie Chuncan had been listening intently to his eloquent remarks, but his voice was choked. He was about to question what was going on in Luo Jiujiang's mind when he saw him raise his knife thoughtfully. A faint light flashed across the dark, night-like blade.

"Jiujiang?" Xie Chuncan suddenly felt an ominous premonition. He raised his hand and tapped the back of Luo Jiujiang's knife, warning him, "Talk to me before you do anything. Don't act recklessly."

"I'm not doing it randomly, I'm just trying it out." Luo Jiujiang said with a smile, "Brother Xie, look at how interesting the pattern distribution is."

Upon hearing this, Xie Chuncan re-examined the stone chamber and saw that the patterns were unevenly distributed: three on each of the four walls, all located in the center and closely spaced. The stone slab beneath Luo Jiujiang's feet was devoid of any pattern, while the ceiling above him instead had four clamshell carvings neatly clustered together.

My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!