Chapter Six: The Round Aperture

The stone door opened easily, and Shen Lie's eyes immediately lit up. The chamber inside was quite spacious, with several stone racks along each wall, neatly displaying a variety of weapons. Every single one appeared to be of exceptional quality. In this age of apocalypse, where firearms would become ineffective, possessing a powerful weapon might be the key to surviving a little longer. Even more so now that he found himself in desperate straits—at least these weapons meant he was no longer empty-handed. Though he had nothing to eat or drink, at least he had gained something.

“Which one should I choose? They all look impressive…” Shen Lie knew his strength was nearly spent, so he felt no greed. He only wanted a weapon for self-defense; he could not carry more even if he tried. No matter how good these things were, they were only useful if he could wield them.

Still, since he had to choose, he’d pick the very best. There were at least a hundred weapons in the room by his estimation, and selecting the finest among so many was no easy task.

“This one looks promising…” Alone in the underground chamber, with no one to compete with him, Shen Lie could afford to be calm. After scanning the racks, his eyes settled on a blue-green longsword, about a meter in length. He walked over and casually picked it up to test its balance.

But the moment his hand touched the hilt, Shen Lie froze in place. He stared, dumbfounded, as the sword crumbled to dust beneath his fingers. He thought to himself that the phrase “joy turning to sorrow” must have been invented for moments like this.

Whether from sheer age or some other cause, the sword had disintegrated at the lightest touch. Shen Lie’s heart leapt into his throat. He reached for another sword nearby.

Again, it shattered at the slightest contact, even more fragile than the first. It seemed he hadn’t even touched it—just a waft of air turned it to powder.

A chill gripped Shen Lie’s heart. Cursing under his breath, he tried weapon after weapon. By the time he was exhausted, he had to admit his luck was truly abysmal—so poor that even if the halo of destiny favored a dog, it would not favor him. Every single weapon in the room had crumbled to dust at his touch; not one could be picked up.

There are few things more exasperating in life than believing fate has finally smiled on you, only to find that the sweet fruit you reached for turns out to be a slap in the face, leaving you seeing stars.

Staring at the piles of powder on the floor, Shen Lie was at a loss for words to express his feelings. At last, he said nothing, simply turned and left quickly.

There was more than one room here, after all. In haste, Shen Lie moved to the next stone door, hoping the contents of this chamber might still be intact. Surely, there had to be something preserved in one of these rooms. But as he tried to push it open, his expression changed: the door wouldn’t budge.

“Seriously? Does it have to be this bad?” After pushing in vain for a long while, he gave the door a hard kick and moved on to the next one.

Still, it wouldn’t open.

Locked.

Locked!

…

There were about a dozen stone doors lining both sides of the corridor, but except for the initial armory, none of them would open—they might as well have been painted onto the walls. No matter how much force he used, they didn’t budge an inch, though to be fair, Shen Lie’s strength was now so depleted it was almost negligible.

The brief flicker of hope that had risen in his heart was quickly snuffed out. Despair welled up again. Shen Lie slumped against the last stone door, letting out a deep sigh. His patience was wearing thin. If not for the stubborn will to survive that still lingered inside him, he might have simply laid down and never gotten up again.

“I can’t sleep. I promised Mom I’d live a good life,” Shen Lie muttered, shaking his head to clear it. He shifted his body and drew a colored photograph from his pocket.

In the photo was a woman in a white dress, refined and graceful, her eyes shining with hope. Beside her stood a man in a black suit—not handsome, but clean-cut and neat, always smiling at the woman, his eyes full of happiness.

These were Shen Lie’s parents, the only image of them he had left, taken at their wedding and kept close ever since.

His father had been the son of a tomb-raiding family, while his mother was a private-sector professional. Their union was an unlikely one, but they had come together naturally and loved each other deeply. Sadly, his father died in a tomb, caught by a trap, and his mother passed away from illness two years ago. The double blow left Shen Lie withdrawn and quiet.

Looking at the photo, Shen Lie recalled his mother’s dying words—her hand clutching his, urging him to live happily—and the sorrow in her gaze. His expression gradually hardened with resolve. He was his parents’ only legacy in this world. No matter what, he could not give up. No matter how the world changed, no matter how grim his circumstances, he would keep fighting. As long as he lived, there was hope.

After one last look at the photo, Shen Lie carefully put it away. The firm, familiar touch of the photograph seemed to fill him with strength. He sprang to his feet, took a deep breath, and resumed his investigation of the stone doors and the corridor’s end.

A dead-end corridor—this made no sense.

The stone doors might be jammed from age, but a blocked corridor made little sense. Though he hadn’t inherited his father’s tomb-raiding skills, Shen Lie had learned a thing or two. In structures of this size, corridors typically led to the main hall; they never simply stopped midway.

Moreover, judging by the distances between doors on either side, this corridor shouldn’t be so short. The gap between the final stone door and the corridor’s end didn’t match the spacing before. If his guess was correct, the wall at the end was actually a hidden stone door.

Shen Lie knew he didn’t have the strength to open it, but he wasn’t ready to give up. He searched carefully, hoping to find a switch or mechanism like the one he’d found earlier. If one teleportation array could exist, why not a second?

After searching for a long time, Shen Lie had to concede he was out of his depth. The surface of the wall was as smooth as a woman’s skin—not a trace of a button or even the slightest indentation.

“It seems I’ll have to go back and face that bug. The crack it came through looked like a spatial rift too. Who knows where it leads?” With no results after all his searching, Shen Lie decided to return to the surface. Rather than wait for death here, he might as well fight for a chance. The giant insect was terrifying, but the rift it entered through might be his only way out.

Having made up his mind, Shen Lie turned and started walking back. Yet after a few steps, he couldn’t help glancing back at the wall blocking the corridor. That last look made him halt in surprise—his footsteps stilled.

From a distance, Shen Lie could see the whole wall, and immediately spotted something odd: high up on the wall was a round hole, as thick as an arm.

The wall was utterly smooth, but here was this round opening—entirely out of place. Since it was so anomalous, Shen Lie had to investigate. Even the faintest hope was better than returning above, where terror awaited—whether it was the vanishing heads in the main hall or the monstrous insect outside, he felt no courage to face them.

The hole was far above the ground. Even if he had the jumping ability of a world champion, Shen Lie doubted he could reach it, especially now that his knees felt close to seizing up. Furthermore, all the walls were slick as glass—no handholds whatever. Climbing without aid was impossible.

But that wouldn’t stop him. He quickly returned to the only room he could open. Though all the weapons had turned to dust, the stone racks that once held them were miraculously intact, and they could be taken apart.

Shen Lie couldn’t help but marvel at how stone outlasted metal. Piece by piece, he rolled the sections of rack over to the base of the wall with the hole. The stones were heavy—excessively so—and with his last reserves of energy nearly spent, the process was painfully slow. By the time he’d stacked them high enough, half a day had passed.

His stomach growled again with hunger. Shen Lie blinked his dimming eyes and summoned his last reserves of will, pushing himself up onto the makeshift pile.

Peering through the hole, standing atop the stones, Shen Lie could not help but let out a dry, desperate laugh—the sound of a man snatching life from the jaws of death.