Chapter Four: The Golden Hall

Shen Lie only felt his body yanked violently by an invisible force, and then the scenery before his eyes changed completely!

The moment he steadied himself and suppressed the dizziness, Shen Lie surveyed his surroundings and was startled to discover he was no longer at the bottom of that cramped pit, but standing within a vast space.

“Could this be a teleportation array?” He glanced at the patterns on the floor beneath his feet, and a term from the world of cultivation novels surfaced in his mind.

But this wasn’t the issue he needed to worry about right now, so he set the thought aside. Whether it was a teleportation array or a magic circle, as long as he was free from that damned pit, it was enough. The urgent matter now was to determine where he was—underground or above, in another dimension or still on Earth. Everything else could wait.

Before him stood a colossal golden hall, so immense that its end was lost to sight. Yet this grand structure had collapsed, reduced to a desolate ruin.

It was hard to imagine what power could have destroyed such a magnificent building. Even a large excavator would be powerless here, for the structure was simply too massive, too solid.

“Could it have been demolished by explosives?”

Shen Lie considered this but quickly dismissed the idea. The architectural style was clearly ancient, and if this were Earth, such a building would be a top-grade protected relic—people would be desperate to preserve it, not tear it down. Besides, judging by the weathered state, the destruction seemed to have happened ages ago; the entire ruin was steeped in a melancholy sense of history.

Suddenly struck by a thought, Shen Lie looked up at the sky. The heavens above were pitch black, with neither a single sun nor two, nor any moon or stars.

“Why, then, is this space so bright?” Shen Lie was confounded. He had a feeling he was still within some otherworldly space, but if such a building existed here, did that mean humans once lived in the spider-monster’s world? If so, what kind of world was this, and why did it connect to Earth?

With these tangled thoughts, Shen Lie slowly approached the ruined structure, gently touching a broken pillar—and his expression changed at once.

The pillar was made of gold!

Disbelieving, Shen Lie touched it again, then scrutinized it for a long time, and finally, unwilling to give up, bit the broken end. He had worked in a gold shop during a school holiday, and he was absolutely certain: this pillar was solid gold. The fact that such a gigantic column was forged from gold was simply staggering.

How heavy must it be? Probably measured in tons. Even a broken half of this column, if taken back, would make him fabulously wealthy. A single fragment would be enough for him to live in comfort for years.

But soon Shen Lie sighed helplessly. He had no idea if he could ever return to Earth; what use was a mountain of gold to him now? His priority was to find a way out.

Cautiously, Shen Lie moved forward, alertly scanning his surroundings. If this was another world, one inhabited by monsters like the spider-beast, even a single encounter could spell his doom. He had to remain vigilant.

He was soon faced with something even more shocking: the entire hall was made of gold. A palace forged entirely from gold—words failed him. He couldn’t even begin to describe the marvel, and his curiosity about the owner of this place grew ever stronger.

He observed for a long while but found no trace of life—no living nor dead creatures, no spider monsters, no sign of the golden palace’s former inhabitants, not even a bone or a blade of grass. There was nothing but gold, radiating a cold, lifeless chill.

His stomach growled in protest. Shen Lie rubbed it silently. Though he had escaped the bloodthirsty spiders and that suffocating pit, he had yet to solve the problem of food and water. The space was vast, but nothing edible was in sight. Without a way out, death was inevitable.

So many consecutive ordeals had left him somewhat numb. He glanced around, picked a direction at random, and set off, unconsciously heading toward the best-preserved area of the ruins.

He walked for over half an hour, passing nothing but golden ruins. Despite his desperation, Shen Lie was still overwhelmed with awe and even doubted his own judgment—how could such an enormous complex be made entirely of gold? Even the entire gold reserves of China wouldn’t suffice.

But this was not the time to dwell on such thoughts. He needed to find a way out. Shen Lie stopped before a relatively intact building, which, from his observations, seemed to be the center of the complex—a hall so grand it was likely the core of the entire group.

There was another reason for this supposition: this was the only undamaged building, its doors tightly shut, and above them hung a plaque with strange, unfamiliar script—unlike any language he knew.

Driven by boundless curiosity and a desire to survive, Shen Lie slowly approached and reached out.

To his surprise, the doors, which he’d expected to be heavy, swung open at the slightest push, revealing a crack from which a gust of musty, decayed air rushed out.

Instead of fear, Shen Lie was elated. Where there was wind, there was air circulation—perhaps a passage to the outside. With this hope, his anxiety mounted, and he hurried inside.

The moment he entered, Shen Lie let out a terrified scream. The sight before him made his scalp prickle, his whole body tremble, his face turn pale, and terror seized his every nerve.

Heads—the entire floor of the hall was covered in heads!

No other body parts, only heads—human-like yet subtly different. Each bore wide, unyielding eyes, as if freshly severed. Moreover, these heads seemed deliberately arranged in a pattern, all their gazes fixed upon the entrance. The moment Shen Lie stepped in, hundreds of eyes stared at him; it was a wonder he did not faint on the spot.

Swallowing hard, Shen Lie staggered back two steps, forcing himself to remain upright, instinctively wanting to flee.

But then he noticed something odd.

There was not a single trace of blood in the hall! Though the heads looked freshly cut, the floor was spotless—no red stains marred the golden surface. This meant that, despite their appearance, these heads had likely rested here for centuries, if not millennia.

With this thought, Shen Lie managed to halt his retreat, suppressing his horror and scanning the hall, searching above all for the source of the air current, which might be his only chance of escape.

He avoided looking at the heads, focusing on the periphery of the hall. Suddenly, his eyes lit up—on one side of the chamber’s far end was a passage leading downward, and the air was flowing from there. What truly excited him was that this passage was white, not the ubiquitous gold.

This change filled Shen Lie with hope; the terror of the heads seemed to fade. Where there was change, there was a chance for survival. If there was any hope of escape, it lay there. The rest was nothing but cold, lifeless gold, offering no exit. Even if the passage led to hell itself, he had no other choice.

Calming his panic, Shen Lie took a deep breath, repeating to himself, “No heads, no heads,” and prepared to stride toward the passage.

But at that very moment, all the heads suddenly blinked in unison.

A chill shot up Shen Lie’s spine, and, shrieking, he spun around and bolted, darting out of the hall like an arrow.

He did not stop even after exiting, running far across the ruins until exhaustion forced him to his knees.

“Something’s seriously wrong here… What the hell is this place?” Only when he saw that the heads had not pursued him did his nerves settle, and he muttered under his breath.

After a brief rest, Shen Lie stood again. The presence of those heads shattered his belief that this place was safe. Where he had thought food and water would be his immediate enemies, now it seemed unlikely he’d even last long enough to die of hunger or thirst.

Though the stone steps in that hall were the only non-metallic structure he had found, Shen Lie dared not return. He could only continue exploring.

Though the space was large in comparison to ordinary architecture, in truth it spanned only three or four kilometers at most. Shen Lie, on the brink of collapse, parched and exhausted, finally made a complete circuit.

He found no exit.

Around the edges of the space seemed to be some invisible barrier—whenever he approached, he felt an inexpressible sluggishness, unable to advance further. Within these barriers lay only the golden ruins; this entire space seemed to exist solely for them.

Shen Lie slumped onto a golden block, staring helplessly at the ruins. Aside from the hall filled with heads, not a single structure remained intact—everything else had been utterly destroyed. Nowhere else did he find even a fingernail’s worth of non-metallic matter.

“Do I have to go back there?” Shen Lie swallowed hard. He knew he had no other choice. Desperate hunger and thirst gnawed at him; food was the lesser concern, but without water, he would soon lose consciousness—and he knew he’d never wake up again.

Entering that hall might offer a sliver of hope; staying outside meant certain death. The choice was clear. Shen Lie took a deep breath, again whispering, “No heads, no heads,” and gritted his teeth as he started back toward the hall.

Suddenly, the ground began to tremble, and a deep rumbling echoed all around. At first, Shen Lie thought it was just a hallucination brought on by his weakened state, but when he turned, his face filled with shock and terror!