Chapter Seven: The Gate of Giants Opens

As expected, Shen Lie’s prediction proved correct—the wall was not the true end of the passage. Beyond it lay a vast hall, its walls set with countless luminous gemstones, casting a brilliant glow throughout the chamber. The first thing Shen Lie saw was a massive golden dais at the hall’s center; the second was an enormous, peculiarly shaped chair upon it. This chair was not only bizarre in form, but its material was also unusual—not fashioned of gold or stone, but of a deep crimson substance unknown to him. It was the second non-golden object he had seen in this strange domain, aside from the ever-present stone.

Yet as remarkable as the chair was, it was not nearly as arresting as what sat upon it. There, enthroned, was a figure—once a person, now nothing but a skeleton, a skeleton of gold.

After all the marvels he had witnessed, one more skeleton scarcely troubled Shen Lie’s nerves. Still, this one was much larger than any normal man’s, and its golden hue made it all the more conspicuous.

But what drew his gaze most was the skeleton’s head, transfixed to the chair by a thick, black cylindrical object—about as wide as a man’s arm. The cause of death was instantly clear, as was the origin of the holes in the stone wall that Shen Lie had observed.

A look of shock crossed his face. Could it be that this black cylinder had been hurled from outside, striking its victim with lethal precision? He glanced upward at the wall behind him and, sure enough, found a matching hole aligned perfectly with the first, identical in size and width.

What manner of force could achieve such a feat—sending this dreadful “weapon” through layers of stone to strike its target dead with a single blow? Such power was nothing short of miraculous!

Shen Lie’s body trembled, whether from fear or hunger he could not tell. He forced himself to look away and continued peering through the hole to observe the hall beyond.

Everything within the great chamber was astonishing, but what intrigued Shen Lie most was not the crimson chair or the golden skeleton, but the floor beneath the golden dais. The entire surface was inscribed with intricate patterns, reminiscent of the teleportation array he’d seen in the underground chamber before, though these were even more complex and mysterious.

“Could there be a teleportation array here as well?”

His eyes lit up. If this truly was a teleportation array, he finally had hope of escaping this accursed place.

Buoyed by this discovery, Shen Lie wasted no time. He leapt from the pile of stones and began searching for the mechanism to open the stone door.

“This doesn’t make sense,” he muttered anxiously after another fruitless search. “There’s a hall behind the wall; how could there be no switch to open the door? Is it remote-controlled? Or voice-activated?”

“Open sesame?”

“Open, watermelon?”

“Open, pineapple?”

“Little bunny, please open the door?”

...

Dejected, Shen Lie slumped to the ground, once again cursing his fate. Fate had given him a window of hope, only to bar it with a lock whose key was nowhere to be found, leaving him to gaze helplessly from the outside.

“That’s it, I’m done for.” He had searched every possible place—now, even if there was a feast and a teleportation array on the other side, it would do him no good. Without access, all hope was pointless.

“How did the person inside get in? And how did he get out?”

“In… out?”

“Out?”

“That’s it—out!”

A fading light returned to his eyes as the realization struck him. Shen Lie sprang back onto the stone pile and peered once more through the hole into the hall.

If the chamber was the golden skeleton’s secret room, it would make sense to hide the entrance mechanism. But the exit mechanism would not need to be concealed—perhaps it would be easier to spot from the inside.

Because the hole sloped downward, he could see the area just beyond the stone door. Scanning the interior, his eyes quickly landed on a protrusion shaped like a lever. It was unmistakably a control switch.

Joy flickered across his face. Judging by the position and design of the protrusion, it had to be the switch for the stone door—and its placement aligned perfectly with the slant of the hole.

Exhaling to steady himself, Shen Lie stripped off his shirt, tearing it into long strips and knotting them together into a makeshift rope. When this proved too short, he removed his pants as well, fashioning them into additional strips until he had a rope of sufficient length.

Finally, he removed the metal buckle from his belt, tying it securely to one end of his “rope.” He weighed it in his hand, swinging it up and down, but shook his head in dissatisfaction.

“It seems a bit too light,” he muttered. Nevertheless, aside from the belt buckle, there was nothing else suitably heavy at hand. He would simply have to make do.

“Here goes!”

With tense anticipation, Shen Lie gripped the buckle tightly, squinted through one eye to aim, then launched it through the hole with a shout.

His belt buckle was a metal ring—just the right size to slip over the lever. The belt had been a gift from his college girlfriend; though their relationship had ended, he’d kept it all these years. In this moment, he couldn’t help but feel a stroke of luck.

“Ah!” Perhaps from nerves, his first attempt missed the hole entirely, the buckle clanging off the edge and nearly bouncing back into his face.

“Again!”

“Go!”

He urged himself on and tried once more.

This time, the buckle flew through the hole, but landed far from the lever, clattering noisily to the ground.

Shen Lie had anticipated this—success would not come in a single try. He patiently reeled the buckle back in and tried again.

The metallic clink echoed again and again in the empty space. Shen Lie lost count of how many times he’d thrown the buckle; each time, it missed, sometimes striking the edge of the lever but never quite catching. So close—yet the gap was as wide as earth and sky.

There was no day or night in this underground world, but his phone’s battery was not yet dead, so his sense of time remained. He had been trapped in this mysterious place for two days now, with nothing to eat or drink, surviving one brush with death after another. Even with his determination to live, he was nearly at his limit.

Shen Lie could not be sure that the lever was indeed the door’s mechanism, nor that his buckle could catch it. Yet he was like a gambler who had lost everything—clinging to this single sliver of hope.

“It must work, it has to work. I want to live—I must live and escape this damned place!” he murmured, dizzy and exhausted, eyes growing clouded as his body moved automatically.

Perhaps the heavens finally heard his desperate prayer. One throw struck true. The buckle landed squarely on the protrusion and slipped neatly over the lever!

On reflex, Shen Lie gave a hard tug. At once, a thunderous rumble echoed through the passageway as the massive stone wall, like a chasm opening, slowly began to rise.

Stunned, Shen Lie rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Then, swept by overwhelming joy, he leapt from the pile of stones and crawled through the gap as the stone wall inched upward.