The old man said solemnly, "What's going on? Could it be that this room isn't the one we were in before? "
"We can't be sure yet." As he spoke, Zuo Qingcang pulled out his dagger again and began to carve a mark on the ground, "Let's wait here and see if this mark will disappear."
The old man nodded, he immediately understood what Zuo Qingcang wanted to confirm. If the mark didn't disappear, it meant that they might be trapped in this maze of stone rooms.
Staring at the ground in front of him, Zuo Qingcang asked the old man beside him, "After you entered the stone room, did you feel the existence of artificial spiritual power? Is it possible that we've been hit by a Taoist technique? "
"No, if there was, I would have seen it." The old man shook his head, "It could be a Taoist technique, or it could be a mechanism. Because many Taoist techniques can be carried out without the circulation of spiritual power, just like the star chart at the gate. Taoist techniques were used during the construction process. As long as it's built, even if there's no spiritual power to power it, its existence can drive people crazy. "
Then, the two discussed several possibilities. Zuo Qingcang calculated the time as he spoke. Until half an hour later, the mark in front of them was still there, there was no change at all.
The elderly man's countenance was very grim. Zuo Qingcang nodded. "The mark won't disappear. This means that we entered a different room when we retreated." As he said that, he once again walked into the passageway in the middle and headed toward the stone room he had headed to earlier.
However, when the two of them looked into the room, the spot where Zuo Qingcang had left a mark before he retreated was now empty. The mark had also disappeared.
Then, the two experimented a few more times, and the old man's face became more and more unsightly. No matter if it was forward, backward, left, or right, the mark would disappear as long as they went back and forth.
"Every time we go through a passage, we'll come to a new stone room?" The old man looked at the three passages in front of him and the one behind him in disbelief, and said uneasily, "What's going on? Could it be that something is following us and erasing our markings? "
"That's unlikely." Zuo Qingcang shook his head. "The average time we take to pass through the passage is about 30 seconds. It takes 60 seconds to go back and forth to restore these scratches …"
"I have to try!" The old man stood up. "In any case, we have to go all the way back. If we can't go back the way we came, it means that there is something wrong with this place. Someone didn't erase the scratches."
Zuo Qingcang did not object. In this situation where there were no clues, testing every possibility one by one was the only way.
Thus, the two of them returned along their original route. Because they always took the middle passage, logically speaking, they could go back the way they came.
But now that they were retracing their steps, they had a strange feeling.
The stone chamber was square, and there was a passageway at the front, back, left, and right. When Zuo Qingcang and the old man confirmed that the passage behind them was the way back, there were only three ways forward for them in the entire stone chamber.
But now, the two of them were not sure if they were walking on the way back. So after walking through the stone chambers in a row, a strange feeling enveloped them. Because in terms of appearance, they were no different from when they were walking through the stone chambers.
Their front, back, left, and right were all mixed up, and a sense of disorientation shrouded their hearts. Although their brains told them that they were going back, the visual information made them feel that there was no difference from the way they were going.
The two of them could only silently count the number of stone chambers they passed through. But the more they counted, the more agitated the old man's face became, and his footsteps became faster.
Finally, when the two of them walked into another stone chamber, they had counted the 30th stone chamber. The old man said anxiously, "It's the 30th stone chamber. When we came here, we definitely didn't pass through so many stone chambers. And in these stone chambers, we didn't find a single mark, which means that we didn't pass through any of the chambers that were marked before. "
Zuo Qingcang pressed a hand on his shoulder and said coldly, "Don't worry, we have to stay calm at this time."
The old man nodded reluctantly and exhaled deeply, as if he wanted to spit out the frustration in his chest.
Zuo Qingcang looked at the stone chamber in front of them and judged, "The situation in front of us is either a change in space, or we're under some kind of illusion. And among them, unless there's a space-shifting Dao formation in this building, no matter if it's an illusion or a change in space, it's nothing more than a trick to deceive our eyes. "
The old man shook his head with certainty, "There's definitely no space-shifting Dao formation here. This kind of Dao formation has been lost even in Western Wei, and only remains left behind from ancient times exist. And any one of them requires a huge amount of spiritual energy to activate. It's definitely not this kind of Dao formation."
"Then, let's see if there's a problem with the structure here." Zuo Qingcang looked around the stone chamber and thought, "First, we have to confirm if there's a problem with what we see in front of us."
Zuo Qingcang took out the rope tied around his waist, handed one end to the old man, and held the other end in his hand. Then, the two of them stood along the wall of the stone chamber.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to see if there's a problem with this stone chamber." As Zuo Qingcang spoke, he used the rope to measure whether the whole stone chamber was really square like what he saw, and whether the distance between the four passages was the same as what he saw.
"There's no problem." After measuring, the structure of the stone chamber was the same as what he saw. Then, he looked at the old man, "Have you heard of tricks?"
"Tricks?"
"Yes, I once learned some tricks from a guy named David Copperfield. He told me that if you want to deceive the audience on the stage, the most important thing is to attract the audience's attention and draw their attention to insignificant places. This is called replacing reality with illusion. The audience will never discover the mystery of the trick because they've never really seen it. "
The old man asked, "David Copperfield? A Westerner? "
Through Liu Zhicheng's memory, Zuo Qingcang knew that after crossing the New World and going west, there was a country composed of Westerners, whose culture and race were similar to the Europeans and Americans of the previous world.
Zuo Qingcang said, "Well, a very interesting Westerner."
The old man followed Zuo Qingcang's gaze and looked at the surrounding passages. Compared to the brightly lit stone room, the unlit passage was incomparably dark.
Obviously, the illuminated stone chamber attracted their attention, and the passages shrouded in darkness were relatively easy to ignore.
The old man said thoughtfully, "You mean, the problem lies in the passages?"
"If the rooms we enter are different every time, then the passages connecting these rooms are obviously the key."
Zuo Qingcang left one end of the rope in the stone chamber, and he and the old man took the other end of the rope and carved a cross. Finally, they randomly chose a passage on the left and walked in.
"According to our previous experience, after walking into the passage, a new stone chamber will appear every time. So, what will happen if we carry the rope with us?"
"When we go back the way we came, will the rope disappear? Or will it still exist? "
"What about the mark we made?"
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