"This..." Zhao Zichao cautiously glanced at the situation above his head, "How do we get up there?"
Above the two of them was an open iron door. On the right side of the door was a thick stone wall, but to the left it was not clear. Only the vague shadow of a candle could be seen shaking on the floor.
Lin Xi hesitated again and again before making a choice: "Tsk, I have no choice but to bite the bullet."
Judging from the current situation, there is no retreat behind them, and there are no other options around them. The only way for the duo to break the deadlock is the door in front of them.
Lin Xi turned on the flashlight again and nodded at Zhao Zichao.
The latter jumped behind the door in one stride, looked outside the door cautiously, and then gave Lin Xi an OK gesture, indicating for her to follow, while he went out first and looked around at the situation.
"It's not like you to be so brave." Lin Xi raised his eyebrows and muttered in a low voice, "By the way, the smell is a bit weird."
Hearing this, Zhao Zichao pinched his nose and sniffed, then frowned and said, "When you say that, it seems a bit weird."
Blood?
Formalin?
In an instant, hundreds of terrifying conjectures ran through Zhao Zichao's mind. His sense of smell was not as sensitive as that of Jian Yi, and he could not accurately analyze the components of the smell, but one thing was certain: this was not the smell of normal air.
The dim candlelight hung above the two people's heads. Only then did Zhao Zichao notice the position of the candle, which was actually embedded in a slot as high as one person.
In the long corridor, the walls on both sides were covered with such short candles, and they were all lit. He was dizzy for a moment.
Zhao Zichao carefully avoided the candles and walked through the long corridor: "Damn, with so many candles, it's not really a cult, right? When I entered the village, I felt something was wrong. How could anyone regard a tiger without a tail as a mythical beast?
"
"Well, it's indeed a bit strange," Lin Xi immediately turned off the flashlight to save the little power. She looked around and continued, "But the biggest question is... where is this?"
Zhao Zichao shook his head and said: "How do I know that? There are neither humans nor ghosts. Not to mention where we are now, we don't even know where we are going..."
"Alas," he said and sighed pessimistically, "Master is not here either..."
"If he's not around, we'll have to rely on ourselves." Lin Xi responded without any delay, "Since Master has proposed separate operations, he naturally believes in us."
While they were talking, the two of them had already arrived at the end of the candle corridor: a white and green wall, exactly the same in appearance and texture as the white marble wall they inspected just now, but it still had an indescribable weirdness.
.
Zhao Zichao observed it for a moment, then stepped forward and pushed it, finding that it was motionless, as if laughing at his own small strength.
"Tsk, it can't be opened?" He kicked it twice with all his strength. Unexpectedly, the wall did not move, but the floor under their feet began to loosen slightly.
"Hey, hey, the ground will collapse if you kick it again!"
Lin Xi saw a tremor under his feet and quickly stopped Zhao Zichao's reckless behavior. Unexpectedly, he was usually timid, but he was quite courageous in dealing with such a dead creature.
"Uh, wait, I think I saw it." Zhao Zichao waved his hand to stop Lin Xi from pulling him. Only then did he realize that there was a strange square convex shape on the wall not far from his feet.
It looks like a button.
Before Lin Xi could catch him, Zhao Zichao leaned down and pressed the unknown object that looked like a button.
"Click..."
There was a sound of gears turning from the inside of the wall.
"Does this scene seem a bit familiar..." Lin Xi recalled the scene when they fell, and instinctively looked down at the floor beneath them, but this time it was different. The first thing to change was the jade wall in front of them.
As the mechanical sound inside the wall continues to sound, the shape of the wall also keeps changing as it flips.
Soon, a large pie-shaped table popped up on the wall, with a huge Go board placed on it, almost completely occupied by the black and white players.
Two small boxes popped up on both sides of the chessboard, containing black and white chess pieces respectively.
Obviously, this was an endgame, and the two soon understood that only by cracking the endgame could they open the door.
"Um... shouldn't it be a password or something?" Zhao Zichao knew nothing about this, and he didn't understand the other party's intention of setting up the chessboard: "If he doesn't want us to enter, why not just set a password? If there is someone among the intruders,
He knows how to play chess. Isn’t his chessboard set up for nothing?”
"Well... since there is no hard password, I am more inclined to think that this is a test." Lin Xi glanced at the chessboard distressedly, "But... I don't know how to play Go."
"I'll do it."
Zhao Zichao took a step forward and turned his attention to the chessboard. Black and white were almost evenly matched, and the only point of contention was the junction around Tianyuan.
There is no hint telling the two of them which side to help, and no explanation for it.
"There is no description... a draw? But there is basically no draw in Go..." Zhao Zichao had a flash of inspiration and seemed to suddenly think of something, "Is it a robbery?"
"Uh, robbery? Who's robbing?"
"Of course that's not what you meant," Zhao Zichao glanced at her and then pursued his victory, "You don't even understand basic Go terminology, do you?"
"How long has it been since you started talking poor..."
Seeing Lin Xi's hands ready to move, Zhao Zichao hurriedly explained: "Of course robbery doesn't mean that. It's normal if you don't know. It's normal..."
"What I mean by robbing is that both black and white surround each other's chess pieces. In this situation, if a white piece is played, a black piece can be captured; if a black piece is played, a white piece can also be captured. Because it goes back and forth like this.
It creates a cycle with no solution.”
"Are you sure?" Lin Xi stood aside and looked at Zhao Zichao's hesitant expression, "Although I don't want to put pressure on you, the completion of this puzzle may directly affect the outcome of this copy."
"It should be no problem." Zhao Zichao wiped his sweat, held a white chess piece between his two fingers, and carefully dropped it on the chessboard, just in time to form an angle with the black square, and the two sides were like two big chess pieces.
There are only two chess pieces left in the middle of the pocket. No matter who plays this chess piece, the other side can take it away instantly, naturally forming an unsolvable dead end.
"Click..."
After the last stone was placed on the board, the chessboard full of black and white stones and the two chess boxes were suddenly retracted into the wall. As the wall flipped over again, the ground began to shake violently, forcing the two to tighten their grip on each other.
hands to maintain a certain balance.
"pay close attention!"
Zhao Zichao leaned against the hard stone wall on the left side while firmly grasping Lin Xi's hand.
