The small book in Gu Yanshu's hand turned its page on its own.
A thin dry sound moved through the room.
No one spoke.
The corridor opening remained half-visible, the shelf panel stayed open, the ceiling crack held its line, and the black strip on the floor sat in the middle of the room like a mark that had decided to remain there until someone else moved first.
Gu Yanshu looked at the page.
A single line had appeared.
The witness is now inside.
He read it once.
Then again.
The words did not change.
That made the room feel slightly colder.
Yu Chang was the first to shift his eyes from the doorway to the book in Gu Yanshu's hand. He did not move his body. Only his gaze changed. He Mulin noticed that, then looked at the corridor door again. Qiu Weiran kept his book open without turning the page. Lan Wege still watched the ceiling crack. Qu Yaoyang's attention moved from Xon Leon to the center of the room and then back again, as if he could not settle on one thing because the room itself had stopped giving him a clean answer.
The house continued moving through Area 913.
Outside, the route slid past in pale blurred lines. The window showed a sky that felt narrower now, as if the house had entered a part of itself that did not like being stared at too directly.
Gu Yanshu closed the small book halfway.
Not all the way.
Just enough to keep the line visible if he wanted it again.
Then he stepped toward the black strip in the center of the room.
He did not touch it.
He crouched slightly and looked at it.
The strip had not moved since it reached the center, but now that the room had answered again, it looked less like a flat line and more like a narrow seam drawn into the floor on purpose. Thin. Still. Wrong in a quiet way.
Qu Yaoyang swallowed once.
"Lord…"
Gu Yanshu did not look up.
"Keep watching."
Qu Yaoyang shut his mouth.
The black strip gave one tiny twitch.
Gu Yanshu saw it.
The strip did not spread. It did not retreat. It simply drew one millimeter tighter, as if it had heard the room's attention and decided to stay flat for a while longer.
Then, from the corridor opening, a second sound came.
A soft scrape.
Very close this time.
Yu Chang's hand tightened on the doorframe, and he leaned in just enough to keep the opening in sight without stepping into it.
The pressure outside had not gone away.
It had only gotten quieter.
That was worse.
He Mulin looked from the corridor to the shelf panel and then back to Gu Yanshu.
"The book said the witness is inside," he said quietly.
Gu Yanshu stood up from the black strip and looked at him.
"Yes."
He Mulin waited.
Gu Yanshu did not explain further.
He only turned toward the open panel under the shelf.
The hidden chamber inside it remained dark, but the small book that had been inside had shifted forward again. It looked as though it had been pushed by something from behind it. The edge of the cover now showed more clearly than before.
Qiu Weiran noticed it and held his breath.
"The chamber is moving," he said.
Gu Yanshu nodded once.
Lan Wege's eyes narrowed.
The ceiling crack shifted again by a thin line.
Not down.
Sideways.
The shape above was still there, still hanging in the upper layer, but it had begun to spread out a little more than before, as if it was feeling the room from above and deciding whether to descend further.
The room had already become strange. It was becoming stranger now.
Gu Yanshu took one step toward the shelf panel.
He Mulin moved aside immediately.
Gu Yanshu reached into the hidden chamber and took the small book out.
As soon as it left the compartment, the room gave another faint hum.
Not loud.
Just enough for everyone to feel it at once.
The corridor door sound stopped.
The ceiling shape held.
The black strip on the floor stayed where it was.
Gu Yanshu opened the small book.
The first page was blank.
The second page had one line.
The witness cannot stay unnamed for long.
He looked at it for a second.
Then he turned the page.
This one had a rough drawing of the room again. The shelf. The corridor door. The ceiling crack. The floor seam. The center.
At the center of the drawing was a small empty place.
Under it, a line.
The room will place a name there.
Yu Chang's fingers shifted on the frame.
Qiu Weiran glanced down at his own book again.
The page in his hands had also changed while nobody was looking directly at it.
His eyes moved over the new line and his expression changed slightly.
He looked up.
"Lord… this page says the hidden layer can take a name from the room."
Gu Yanshu glanced at him.
"Read it."
Qiu Weiran did.
"The hidden layer can take a name from the room if the room gives it too much attention."
The sentence sat there in the air.
Lan Wege looked from the ceiling to the shelf.
He Mulin did the same.
Qu Yaoyang's expression tightened.
Gu Yanshu closed the small book halfway and looked around the room once.
The answer had become clearer, but not cleaner.
Too much attention gave something a place to settle.
Not enough attention let it move.
The room had become a balance that was hard to keep.
He looked toward the corridor opening.
The shape there had not entered yet.
It still stayed near the edge of the door, close enough to make the opening feel occupied.
Then the pressure outside changed again.
This time it did not scrape.
It pressed.
Very lightly.
Like something had leaned one shoulder against the wood and stayed there.
Yu Chang's eyes sharpened.
Gu Yanshu turned slightly toward him.
"Do not open it."
Yu Chang nodded once.
The shadow above the crack moved.
Just a little.
Enough to make Lan Wege look up more sharply.
The line on the floor remained in the center.
The small book in Gu Yanshu's hand turned its own page again.
A fresh line appeared.
The room has already chosen what it will keep.
Gu Yanshu read it and then looked at Xon Leon.
The senior brother still stood in the middle of the room, quiet and motionless, the same wrong stillness around him as before. The room had not yet taken anything from him in sight. But the way the lines in the books were changing made it feel like he was at the edge of something that had not yet finished deciding what he was.
He did not move.
The black strip at the center of the floor twitched again.
He Mulin saw it and stiffened.
"The floor thing is moving."
Gu Yanshu looked down.
The strip had shifted slightly toward Xon Leon.
Not directly.
In a short angled line.
Like it had chosen a path through the room that would avoid all the people standing around it.
Qu Yaoyang saw it too and took one careful breath.
The room had become a place where even a thin dark line could feel deliberate.
Gu Yanshu moved before the strip could reach Xon Leon's side.
He stepped across its path and forced it to stop.
The strip did not retreat.
It simply flattened harder.
The hidden panel behind the shelf gave a small click in response.
He Mulin turned at once.
The small book inside the chamber had moved forward again.
More of its cover was visible now.
The book was trying to leave.
Not fast.
Just enough to make the room notice.
Qiu Weiran looked down at the page in his own hands again and read the next line.
"The room lets the witness step forward only after the center is sealed."
Gu Yanshu listened.
Then he looked at the black strip.
The center was not sealed yet.
It was being watched.
That was different.
The ceiling crack widened another fraction.
Lan Wege lifted his head higher.
The shadow above was lower now than before, no longer only hanging, but leaning into the room.
The lower edge of it drew in and out once, as if it were testing the shape of the air.
Gu Yanshu did not look away.
He said, "Move closer."
The others obeyed.
He Mulin stepped in by the shelf panel.
Qiu Weiran moved a half-step closer to the center, book still open in his hands.
Yu Chang stayed by the corridor door.
Lan Wege kept his place under the crack.
Qu Yaoyang shifted closer to Xon Leon again.
The room felt more crowded now.
Not full.
Crowded.
That difference mattered too.
The black line on the floor moved again.
This time it slid in a short curve toward the shelf.
He Mulin saw it and stopped.
The line kept going.
The shelf panel clicked softly.
The small book inside the chamber slid another inch forward.
The room did not like the movement.
Gu Yanshu could feel that.
The pressure in the room was changing too quickly now, and the hidden layer was answering to every shift.
Then the corridor door gave a second scrape from the other side.
This one was longer.
It ran down the wood like a fingertip moving slowly over a surface.
Yu Chang's body tightened.
He did not open it.
He did not step back.
He only held his position.
Gu Yanshu looked at the door, then the shelf, then the ceiling crack.
The house outside continued its forward movement through Area 913, and the route marker no longer appeared in the window. The room had passed deeper into the crossing now. The feeling was not dramatic. It was simply there, sitting in the walls and floor and all the little places where the house felt less ordinary than before.
He opened the small book again.
The next page was not blank.
One line appeared across the top.
If the witness does not enter by the door, the room will open another place.
He read that line and lifted his head.
The hidden panel under the shelf was already open.
The corridor door was still shut, but the pressure behind it had not gone.
The ceiling crack had widened enough that the shadow above was now visible as a thicker line of dark, and the black strip in the center of the floor was still there.
Three openings.
Three pressures.
One room.
Gu Yanshu looked at the others.
"Stay in place."
No one moved.
Then he looked at He Mulin.
"Do not close the panel."
He Mulin nodded.
Qiu Weiran's eyes stayed on the page.
"Read the next line."
Qiu Weiran lowered his eyes and read.
"The place is chosen by the first sound."
The sentence landed quietly.
Yu Chang noticed the door pressure.
Lan Wege noticed the ceiling crack.
He Mulin noticed the panel.
Qu Yaoyang noticed the black strip in the center.
And then the small book in Gu Yanshu's hand turned its page again.
The page made a dry whispering sound.
Then a new line appeared.
The first sound has already happened.
Gu Yanshu stayed still.
He knew what the book meant.
The first sound had been the soft breath behind the door.
The room had already heard it.
That meant the place had already been chosen.
He looked toward the corridor opening.
The edge of a shape was still there.
Not fully visible.
Only enough to make the opening feel occupied.
Yu Chang's hand remained on the doorframe.
The pressure on the wood had become almost gentle.
Almost.
The kind of pressure that asks without asking.
The kind that waits for a response.
Gu Yanshu closed the book in his hand.
Then he took one slow step toward the corridor door.
The others watched him.
He did not open it.
He only stopped just short of the opening and looked into the gap.
The shape behind it did not come forward.
But it was there.
The room had already admitted that much.
The black strip in the center of the floor moved again, turning slightly toward the door now instead of the shelf.
That change made He Mulin's face harden.
The small book inside the chamber gave another tiny click.
The panel opened a little wider.
The ceiling crack widened by a thread.
And then, from behind the door, something moved once more.
Not enough to enter.
Enough to show that it had decided to stay there until the room answered properly.The room did not answer at once.
The shape behind the corridor opening stayed still for a long breath, half-hidden by the narrow gap in the door, as if it was waiting for the room to decide first. Its outline was thin and uneven, just enough to show that something stood there. The pressure around the doorway held steady. The ceiling crack stayed open. The shelf panel stayed open. The black strip at the center of the floor remained where it was, fixed in a line that seemed to belong to the room more than the floor.
Gu Yanshu stood in front of the doorway and kept his eyes on the opening.
No one else moved.
The house continued crossing through Area 913 outside the windows, and the route beyond the glass slid past in pale blurred bands. The moving walls carried a low hum that seemed to come from deeper than the floor. Everything in the room had reached a point where even a small sound felt important.
Then the shape at the doorway shifted.
One shoulder line became visible.
Then a faint edge of the neck.
The opening did not widen.
The shape simply leaned in a little more, as if the air in the room had finally pulled it close enough to show the first part of its body.
Yu Chang's fingers tightened on the doorframe.
Qiu Weiran's book trembled once in his hands.
He Mulin kept staring at the hidden panel.
Lan Wege's eyes stayed lifted to the ceiling crack.
Qu Yaoyang's gaze flicked from Xon Leon to the doorway and back again, unable to settle.
The small book in Gu Yanshu's hand gave a faint rustle.
He looked down.
A line had appeared on the page.
The witness arrives through the wrong place.
Gu Yanshu read it once.
Then the shape behind the doorway moved again.
This time it did not lean farther in. It stepped.
One foot came into the opening.
Then stopped.
The rest of the figure remained hidden behind the door.
The room changed at once.
Not with a burst.
With a shift.
A faint turn in the pressure, like a seal loosening somewhere under the floor. The black strip at the center of the room moved one millimeter toward the doorway. The shelf panel gave a dry click. The ceiling crack narrowed and widened again in one short pulse.
Gu Yanshu watched all of it.
Then he spoke, very quietly.
"Stay where you are."
No one moved.
The figure in the doorway did not answer either.
It only stood there with one foot inside the room.
Gu Yanshu looked at the small book again. The page turned by itself.
A second line appeared.
The room will open wider if it is given no greeting.
He closed the book halfway and lifted his eyes.
No greeting.
That meant no one should speak first.
No one should rush the figure.
No one should call it by any name before it crossed on its own.
Gu Yanshu stepped back half a pace and looked at the doorway without changing his face.
The figure outside moved again.
The second foot entered the room.
The doorway still did not widen.
The shape looked a little clearer now. Tall, narrow, draped in a dark covering that made its shoulders and arms hard to tell apart. Its head was lowered slightly, so the face stayed hidden. It stood in the opening without speaking, as if it had no reason to hurry.
The air around it felt cooler.
Yu Chang noticed that first.
He swallowed once, then kept holding the doorframe.
The thing in the doorway did not cross farther.
It remained in place, and the room remained in place with it.
Then, from behind the shelf panel, the hidden chamber made a small sound.
A click.
Everyone's eyes shifted for a second.
The small book inside the hidden panel had moved forward again. Half of its cover was visible now. The chamber had widened by another fraction.
He Mulin's expression changed.
"The panel is opening more."
Gu Yanshu looked toward it, then back to the doorway.
The figure there still did not move.
The corridor door itself had become a narrow frame around it, and the room now looked as if it were measuring whether this new witness belonged to the door or to the hidden chamber.
Qiu Weiran glanced down at his book.
The page had changed again.
He read it aloud.
"If the witness does not greet the room, the room will greet it by opening something else."
Lan Wege's eyes narrowed.
"Something else," he repeated quietly.
No one answered.
The black strip on the floor shifted again.
This time it slid away from the center and moved toward the doorway in a long thin line.
Not fast.
Careful.
As if it had chosen a route through the room and wanted to keep to it.
Qu Yaoyang saw it first and stepped half a pace to the side.
The strip kept moving.
The figure in the doorway remained still.
The strip stopped just short of the figure's feet.
Then it turned.
Not away.
Sideways.
Along the edge of the doorway.
The room was doing something now, and everyone in it could feel it.
Gu Yanshu looked down at the black line on the floor.
It had become a kind of marker.
Not a shadow.
A path.
The small book in his hand opened by itself again.
The page was already written on.
The witness is not a person.
Gu Yanshu read that line and then looked at the figure in the doorway.
The shape outside remained still.
Then the page turned again.
The witness is a position.
That made He Mulin's face harden.
Qiu Weiran's eyes widened slightly.
Yu Chang did not move.
Lan Wege looked between the doorway and the shelf panel.
Qu Yaoyang's mouth tightened.
Gu Yanshu stared at the new line for a second.
Then he looked at the doorway again.
Position.
That meant the room did not care who had entered.
It cared where the entering thing stood.
The shape in the doorway took one more step into the room, and the black strip on the floor stopped moving.
The room answered immediately.
The ceiling crack widened by a thin line. The hidden chamber under the shelf gave a low click. The corridor door behind the shape pushed inward one inch, then stopped.
The room had taken the position.
He Mulin's voice was almost a whisper.
"It got in."
Gu Yanshu did not answer.
The figure stood in the doorway, one step inside the room, the rest of it still cloaked in dark cloth. Its head remained lowered. Its hands were not visible.
The room held itself in a strange way around that presence. The hidden panel, the ceiling crack, the black strip, the corridor opening, all of it seemed to focus on the place the figure occupied.
The small book in Gu Yanshu's hand turned again.
A fresh line appeared.
Now the room waits for the second witness.
Qiu Weiran looked up from his own book in time to see the line.
Then he looked at Gu Yanshu.
The corridor figure stayed motionless.
The black strip on the floor did not move again.
The shelf panel remained open.
The ceiling crack held.
The house kept moving through Area 913.
Then the figure in the doorway lifted its head slightly.
Not enough to show the face.
Enough to show that it had heard the room answer.
Yu Chang's breath changed.
He was still holding the doorframe, but now his body looked more fixed than tense, as if any sudden movement would break the wrong arrangement in the room.
Gu Yanshu closed the small book halfway.
Then he took one step toward the doorway.
The figure did not retreat.
He took another.
The shape remained where it was, and the black strip on the floor gave one very small twitch.
The hidden chamber under the shelf gave a click in answer.
This time the panel opened another inch by itself.
He Mulin noticed and looked over.
The small book inside the chamber had moved closer to the edge again.
Now its spine was visible.
The shape in the doorway seemed to be receiving the room and giving it back little pieces at a time.
Qu Yaoyang saw the movement and looked at Xon Leon, then at Gu Yanshu, then at the figure.
His face was changing little by little, as if the room had become too full of things that did not belong together.
The figure in the doorway finally spoke.
The voice was low.
Not deep.
Not loud.
Just very plain, like words spoken in a room that had no interest in pretending to be comfortable.
"It opened."
Yu Chang's shoulders stiffened.
He Mulin went still.
Qiu Weiran's fingers tightened around the book.
Lan Wege's eyes sharpened.
Qu Yaoyang looked from the figure to Gu Yanshu.
The figure's voice had not been directed at any one person exactly.
It sounded like it had spoken to the room.
Gu Yanshu looked at it and said nothing.
The figure stepped one more inch inside.
The corridor behind it remained dark.
The room around it remained tight.
Then the small book in Gu Yanshu's hand turned its page again.
The line on it appeared slowly.
The second witness is near.
Gu Yanshu read it and then looked at the others.
He Mulin, Qiu Weiran, Yu Chang, Lan Wege, Qu Yaoyang.
Then he looked at the figure in the doorway.
The room seemed to want another thing now.
Not an answer.
A second presence.
Something else had to enter before the hidden layer would finish showing itself.
The figure in the doorway kept still.
The cloth around its shoulders shifted once with the house's movement.
The floor line moved slightly under it and then stopped.
The black strip in the center of the room slid a little farther toward the doorway, then halted again.
He Mulin's voice came out low.
"Lord… what is it waiting for?"
Gu Yanshu looked at the doorway.
Then at the shelf panel.
Then at the ceiling crack.
Then at Xon Leon.
Then back to the doorway.
"It is waiting for the room to choose the rest."
No one spoke after that.
The room itself seemed to hold the answer in place.
Then, from the shelf panel, the small book in the hidden chamber slipped forward another inch.
It was almost out now.
The room had shifted enough that everyone could see the top half of its cover.
The book's spine was cracked and old. The corners were worn smooth. It looked like it had been handled many times, then hidden away for a very long time.
Qiu Weiran's book gave a faint rustle in his hands.
He lowered his eyes and read.
His expression changed.
"Lord," he said quietly, "this page says the second witness does not always look like a person."
The room changed again.
Lan Wege's eyes moved to the ceiling crack.
The shape there had lowered a little more, and the lower edge now cast a thin line of shadow across the room.
The figure in the doorway remained still.
Gu Yanshu looked at Qiu Weiran's book.
"Read the rest."
Qiu Weiran's voice lowered.
"It says the second witness can come from above."
Lan Wege's expression tightened instantly.
He looked up at the ceiling crack again.
The shadow above it had already been there.
The room did not move.
It only held that sentence in place.
Then, from the ceiling crack, a thin shape shifted.
Not fully descending.
Just moving enough to be seen.
A dark thread slid downward by one line.
Then stopped.
The room responded in pieces.
The hidden chamber clicked.
The black strip on the floor trembled.
The doorway figure did not move.
Yu Chang's hand tightened on the frame.
Gu Yanshu looked at the ceiling line and then at the doorway.
The room had become a stack of waits.
The first witness in the doorway.
The second witness above.
The center on the floor.
The chamber under the shelf.
And the house continuing through Area 913 outside the windows as if it had no concern for the quiet pressure building inside it.
The small book in Gu Yanshu's hand turned one more page.
The line on it appeared slowly.
When the second witness arrives, the room will choose who remains.
He kept reading.
Another line appeared beneath it.
The chosen one will stand in the center.
That made the room feel smaller.
Not physically.
In purpose.
Gu Yanshu closed the small book halfway and looked at the black strip in the center of the floor.
It was still there.
Still drawn tight.
Still waiting.
Then he looked at the figure in the doorway.
It had not moved from the entrance.
It was standing in the right place for the room to notice and refusing to claim more than that.
Gu Yanshu turned slightly toward the others.
"Do not touch the shelf."
He Mulin nodded once.
"Do not open the door farther."
Yu Chang stayed where he was.
"Do not stare at the ceiling."
Lan Wege lowered his gaze a little.
"Do not step on the center line."
Qu Yaoyang looked down at the floor strip at once.
The room had now been organized around the choices that had not happened yet.
Then the ceiling crack widened again.
The dark thread hanging there extended a little farther down.
The figure in the doorway lifted its head by a fraction.
The small book in Gu Yanshu's hand turned its page on its own.
The next line appeared.
The room has seen both witnesses.
He read it.
Then he looked at the doorway figure.
Then at the shape above.
Then down at the black line in the center.
The hidden chamber under the shelf made one final click.
The small book inside it slid almost fully out.
And, at the same moment, the figure in the doorway took one more step into the room, while the thread above the crack lowered just enough to touch the air.The house slammed into Area 917 with a sudden jolt.
Not a slow arrival.
A crash.
The whole structure lurched forward, the floor shifting under their feet, the walls giving one hard tremor before settling into a strained stillness. The windows flashed with bright land outside, then the route marker vanished behind them. The house had stopped moving through the middle ground and landed hard in the place they had been chasing all along.
Area 917.
Gu Yanshu stood near the edge of the room and looked out.
The others came with him.
Qu Yaoyang, Lan Wege, Qiu Weiran, He Mulin, and Yu Chang all followed, their faces still carrying the shock of the sudden arrival. They moved out of the sect together and stepped onto the ground outside, one after another, as if they were checking whether the house had truly stopped or whether the world itself was still sliding under them.
It had stopped.
The sect behind them looked battered in a way no one could ignore. The structure that had carried them through the sky now stood torn and unstable, as if the force of the landing had left cracks through its bones. Parts of the outer frame looked broken. Some of the rails had twisted. One corner of the roof had sunk slightly to one side. It had not collapsed fully, but it did not look like something that could travel again without repair.
The five disciples stared at it.
No one spoke at first.
Gu Yanshu looked around the area.
It was wide open here. The light felt different. The air carried a dry heat, and the land stretched farther than the areas they had crossed before. This place did not feel like a stop in a route. It felt like a destination that had been waiting too long.
Yu Chang blinked once and looked at the ground, then at the broken sect, then at the sky.
"We're here…"
His voice sounded strange to him, like he did not quite believe it yet.
Qiu Weiran stood beside him and stared toward the distance.
"This is Area 917?"
He Mulin did not answer immediately. He was still looking at the house.
Then he nodded once.
"Yes."
Lan Wege let out a breath.
Qu Yaoyang looked from the sect to Gu Yanshu and then back again.
Their goal had been to reach this place, but the arrival had happened so suddenly that it did not feel like a victory yet. It felt like being thrown into the answer before they had time to finish asking the question.
Gu Yanshu looked at the sect again and said, "It's ruined."
No one denied it.
The landing had damaged it badly.
Not beyond repair, but badly enough that it would take work.
He Mulin rubbed one hand through his hair and looked at the broken frame.
"We'll need to build it again."
Qiu Weiran nodded slowly.
"New structure."
Yu Chang looked toward the open land.
"A new sect."
Lan Wege's eyes brightened a little at that.
Qu Yaoyang turned toward Gu Yanshu.
"Do we still keep the same place?"
Gu Yanshu looked at the damaged sect, then at the five disciples standing near him, then at the land around Area 917.
He did not answer right away.
Then he said, "We have beast materials."
That made the others look at one another.
He went on, "Enough to rebuild. Enough to start again."
Qiu Weiran's expression eased a little.
He Mulin looked less tense too.
Yu Chang nodded.
Lan Wege exhaled once through his nose.
Qu Yaoyang's mouth curved slightly, not into a smile exactly, but into something close.
Gu Yanshu kept his eyes on the broken sect.
"We can heal it."
His voice stayed calm.
"But we do not need to remain inside something ruined."
He glanced toward the open ground ahead.
"We reached the goal."
The others all looked forward with him.
That sentence sat in the air for a second.
Then Gu Yanshu said, "We will make a new sect."
The words landed cleanly.
He Mulin straightened.
Qiu Weiran looked almost relieved.
Yu Chang lifted his chin.
Lan Wege nodded once.
Qu Yaoyang turned his head toward the distance and then back again.
The others all seemed to accept it at once. They had been dragged through too much already to cling too hard to the old shape of the place.
They stood there for a while, looking over the damaged sect and the land around Area 917.
Then Gu Yanshu's eyes shifted.
He saw something moving ahead.
Not in the sky.
On the ground.
A cluster of people.
Many people.
They were gathered in the distance, not standing still, but shifting in small waves. Some moved their hands. Some leaned forward. Some raised their arms and then lowered them again. The whole group looked restless, excited, almost feverish.
Gu Yanshu watched them.
The others noticed too.
Qu Yaoyang narrowed his eyes.
"What are they doing?"
No one answered him.
The crowd ahead kept moving in place. A strange chant began to rise from them, faint at first, then louder as the wind carried it closer.
"Get wealth! Get wealth! Get wealth!"
The words were shouted in a rhythm that made the whole group sound like they had been waiting for this moment far too long.
Yu Chang blinked.
He looked at Gu Yanshu.
"Are they shouting for money?"
He Mulin frowned.
Qiu Weiran looked more puzzled than amused.
Lan Wege stared at the crowd.
Qu Yaoyang's face shifted with curiosity.
Gu Yanshu watched them for a second longer.
Then the chant came again, louder this time.
"We will get wealth! We will get wealth! He's coming back! He's coming back!"
Gu Yanshu's eyes narrowed a little.
"Interesting," he said.
The others looked at him.
He did not explain.
He only started walking toward the crowd.
The five disciples moved with him.
As they got closer, the noise grew louder. The people were packed more tightly now, and many of them were looking toward the road ahead with the same excited expression. Several were moving their hands as if they were catching something that had not yet fallen.
The chant repeated again and again.
"He's coming back!"
"We'll get wealth!"
"He's here! He's here!"
Gu Yanshu stopped near the edge of the gathering and watched.
The strongest disciple, Qu Yaoyang, stood beside him and looked ahead as well.
"This looks like a procession."
He Mulin nodded slowly.
Qiu Weiran's eyes were fixed on the road.
Yu Chang seemed uncertain what to make of the whole thing.
Lan Wege watched the crowd's hands.
Something was coming.
It could be felt before it was seen.
Then the people ahead suddenly surged.
"He's come! He's come!"
A bright shape appeared at the far side of the road.
A luxury horse.
Not just any horse. It was tall, well-fed, polished in its harness, and dressed in ornaments that made it look almost ceremonial. The harness had bright metal details, and the carriage behind it shone in the sun with gold and lacquered wood. It moved slowly, almost grandly, as if it knew the crowd was waiting for it.
The crowd's chant rose higher at once.
"We will get wealth! We will get wealth!"
The horse moved into view, and the whole road seemed to light up around it.
Gu Yanshu watched it approach.
Then he noticed something strange.
The horse did not simply carry a carriage.
It seemed to be the center of the crowd's excitement itself.
The people were not cheering for the animal alone.
They were cheering for what came with it.
The luxury horse stepped forward again, and as it did, bright objects began to fall from the carriage.
Small.
Round.
Shining.
Pills.
A rain of pills spilled into the air and scattered across the road.
The crowd reacted instantly.
Hands flew out.
People rushed forward.
Some laughed.
Some shouted.
Some bent to grab the pills before they hit the ground.
The chant grew louder again.
"We will get wealth!"
"He's back!"
"He's back!"
Gu Yanshu looked at the scene with a still face.
Then he said, quietly, "Interesting."
The others watched the falling pills too.
The ground was already dotted with them. Some rolled across the road. Some bounced once and stopped. The crowd moved fast, but the excitement was not chaotic. It was eager, practiced, like they had done this many times before and still could not control their excitement when it happened.
Qiu Weiran looked at the pills and then at the crowd.
"Why are they acting like this?"
Lan Wege's eyes narrowed.
He Mulin looked at the horse.
Yu Chang looked at the pills.
Qu Yaoyang was already thinking.
"It's a delivery," he said.
The others looked at him.
He pointed toward the carriage.
"Something valuable is being brought in."
The crowd kept shouting.
"He's come back!"
"We will get wealth!"
And then the horse itself grew brighter.
The light around it began to gather in a way that was hard to ignore. At first it was only a shine from the sun on polished wood and metal. Then it became more. The brightness increased around the horse's head, then around the carriage behind it, then around the road itself as if the whole procession were reflecting something that was not visible at first glance.
The brightness kept rising.
Gu Yanshu watched it without moving.
The others did too.
Then a new wave of pills spilled out.
This time more than before.
They struck the ground, rolled, and scattered into the open space.
People in the crowd rushed to gather them up.
Some laughed.
Some shouted even louder.
Some raised the pills overhead as if they had just been handed something priceless.
The chant came again in one long wave.
"We will get wealth! We will get wealth! We will get wealth!"
Yu Chang stared at the scene.
"This is… strange."
No one answered him.
The luxury horse moved forward a little more, and the carriage behind it gleamed so brightly now that it almost looked unreal. The crowd pressed in tighter, still chanting, still reaching for the pills that kept falling like gifts from the procession.
Gu Yanshu watched a pill bounce near his foot.
He did not bend to pick it up.
Neither did the others.
The pills were small and ordinary-looking compared to the cultivation they already had. Basic level. Low quality. The kind of pills that would not mean much to people like them.
The disciples knew that.
Gu Yanshu knew it too.
He looked at the others and saw the same thought move through them.
These pills were not worth much to them.
They had already moved far beyond this level.
Lan Wege folded his arms slightly.
Qiu Weiran let out a small breath.
He Mulin watched the crowd with a curious expression.
Qu Yaoyang remained focused on the procession.
Yu Chang glanced at the pills and then back to Gu Yanshu.
The crowd still shouted.
"He's here!"
"Wealth is coming!"
The horse stepped closer.
And then the brightness around it increased again.
This time it flashed in thin bursts, one after another, like the whole carriage had begun to release light through its seams. The gold on the frame glinted. The ornaments flashed. The air around the animal's head glowed.
Then more pills fell.
Not scattered now.
A rain.
Small shining pellets falling down into the crowd and across the road.
The people reacted at once.
They bent, crouched, shouted, and reached for them with both hands. A few even bowed toward the horse as the pills rained down.
Gu Yanshu watched the whole thing.
Then he turned slightly toward Qu Yaoyang.
"We came here at the right time."
Qu Yaoyang looked at him.
He did not answer immediately.
Then he said, "This feels like a ritual."
He Mulin frowned.
Yu Chang looked up.
Lan Wege nodded a little.
Qiu Weiran stayed quiet.
The horse moved again, and the crowd's shouting grew louder.
"He's back! He's back!"
The procession had now reached the center of the road in front of them, and the man or people in the carriage still had not fully shown themselves. Only the horse and the brightness were easy to see.
Gu Yanshu's eyes stayed fixed on the moving carriage.
Then he said, "They're looking for something."
That made the others turn toward him.
He kept looking at the crowd.
"Not just pills."
His tone stayed even.
The people shouting for wealth did not look like simple beggars. They looked like they were waiting for an event they understood very well. They were excited, but not surprised. The chant had the feel of something repeated so many times that it had become part of the place itself.
The horse neared the front of the crowd.
One pill bounced across the ground and rolled to a stop near Qiu Weiran's foot.
He looked down at it.
Then away.
He did not pick it up.
Not because he rejected it.
Because it was too low-level to matter.
The others did the same.
No one from Gu Yanshu's side bent to collect the pills. Their cultivation levels had already moved far above this stage, and the pills lying on the road were too basic to change anything for them.
The crowd around them did not seem to care.
They kept gathering the pills, laughing, shouting, and waving their hands as if they had just been granted a rare blessing.
Then the luxury horse reached its brightest point yet.
The light around it rose sharply.
It became so bright that the crowd near it had to narrow their eyes.
Gu Yanshu watched and did not blink.
The carriage door opened slightly.
A hand appeared.
Then vanished again.
The crowd screamed louder.
"He has come! He has come!"
Gu Yanshu's gaze sharpened.
The others stepped a little closer without meaning to.
The carriage door opened wider.
The light spilled out.
And from inside, a figure began to emerge.
Not fully yet.
Just enough to make the whole crowd erupt again.
The chanting became wild.
"We will get wealth! We will get wealth!"
Pills still fell from the carriage edges.
The crowd still scrambled for them.
And the figure inside the luxury carriage was finally starting to show itself.The rain of pills stopped as suddenly as it had started.
For a breath, the street below remained loud, the crowd still reaching, still shouting, still fighting over the pieces they had already caught. Then the noise changed. People began to look up. The golden statue stood in the middle of the road, bright and ugly under the sun, and the whole thing suddenly felt less like a blessing and more like a trick that had gone on long enough.
"Rare pills!" someone shouted again.
The voice was high, eager, almost cracking.
"We'll get rare pills! We'll get rare pills!"
The words spread through the crowd like fire through dry paper. Hands lifted again. Bodies pressed in closer. A few people were already arguing over the fake pills they had gathered. Others kept staring at the statue as if it might still give them something real if they waited one more second.
Gu Yanshu stood on the terrace above the road and watched all of it with a flat face.
Beside him, Yu Chang was staring too.
The crowd had fully lost its shape now. What had started as excitement had become a mess of greed, anger, and hope that refused to die even after being fooled once. Some were still holding the broken shells. Some were showing them to others. Some were shouting that they had seen the real thing fall. Some were already blaming the people nearest them for taking too much.
Then one pill dropped from the statue again.
A single one.
It fell straight down through the air and landed near a man in the front row. He reached for it with both hands.
The pill vanished the instant it touched his palm.
The man froze.
Then his face changed hard.
"Mine!"
He shouted and looked up at once.
His eyes locked on Gu Yanshu.
The man's expression twisted with anger so fast it was almost funny in a way that was not funny at all.
"You took it!"
He pushed through the crowd and started climbing toward the terrace where Gu Yanshu stood. His hands were clenched, his face red, his whole body stiff with the kind of rage that comes from thinking something has been stolen from you in public.
Yu Chang glanced at him and then at Gu Yanshu.
"Lord, he's coming."
Gu Yanshu did not turn to face the man.
He only looked at the crowd below for one more second.
Then he put a hand on Yu Chang's shoulder.
The next moment, both of them were no longer on the terrace.
They vanished from the spot in a clean movement and appeared on another roof a short distance away, on the terrace of a random house overlooking a different stretch of the street.
Yu Chang stumbled one step when they landed, then straightened quickly.
His eyes widened.
"We're on another roof."
Gu Yanshu looked over the edge.
Below them, the angry man had reached the first terrace and found nothing there. He shouted again, louder this time, then looked around in confusion.
Gu Yanshu did not care about him.
He looked at the new terrace.
This place was wide, tiled, and covered with old dust. A row of broken jars sat near one wall. There were many basic pills scattered across the ground here too, more than he had expected. They were not the same as the crowd below had been chasing. These looked ordinary, low-grade, too plain to matter to anyone who had already moved past that level.
Yu Chang looked down at them too.
"There are a lot."
Gu Yanshu picked one up between two fingers and looked at it.
The pill had a dull surface.
Not shiny enough.
Not dense enough.
It looked ordinary at first, but when he tilted it toward the light, he saw a thin seam near one side. Very shallow. The kind of line that told him the object was made quickly, not properly.
Yu Chang leaned closer.
"These are fake too?"
Gu Yanshu did not answer at once.
He set the pill back down.
Then he drew the traveler's sword.
The blade came out with a clear sound.
Not loud.
Clean.
It caught the light as soon as it left the sheath, and the edge looked sharper than before.
Yu Chang watched him.
The sword began to shine.
At first it was just a faint line on the metal.
Then it became brighter.
Then brighter again.
The light spread along the blade in a narrow strip, and the sword seemed to be gathering something into itself as if it had finally been given a reason to wake up.
Yu Chang stepped back a little.
"Lord?"
Gu Yanshu kept his eyes on the pills.
The sword continued to brighten.
The light on it thickened until it looked too pure to be normal metal anymore. The blade gave off a white gleam that forced Yu Chang to narrow his eyes. The light was not hot. It was not soft either. It was just intense enough to make everything around it look a little dull in comparison.
Then Gu Yanshu brought the blade down once.
Not on the ground.
Across the line of pills.
The sword passed over them in a clean arc, and the pills exploded at once.
Not a violent blast.
A sudden burst of powder, shell fragments, pale dust, and thin chipped pieces that scattered across the terrace floor. The sound was sharp, dry, and final. A few of the pieces rolled over the tiles and stopped near the wall.
Yu Chang stared.
For a second he did not speak.
Then he said, "They really are fake."
Gu Yanshu lowered the sword.
"Yes."
He said it like the answer was now settled.
Yu Chang bent down and picked up one of the fragments.
It was thin.
Too thin.
He rubbed it between his fingers and a little powder came off.
"These aren't pills at all."
Gu Yanshu looked at the broken pieces.
"They're shells."
Yu Chang raised his head.
The sword still held a little of its shine, but the light was already fading.
Below them, the crowd had started to notice something was wrong.
The loud chanting had died off.
People were no longer shouting about wealth in the same way. They were shouting about missing pills, vanished pills, false pills, and the statue itself. The excitement that had filled the road only moments before was now breaking apart into confusion and anger.
Then a voice rose from below.
"Fake!"
Another one answered.
"It's all fake!"
That word spread quickly.
"Fake pills!"
"Fake!"
"Fake!"
The crowd's energy changed in one breath.
The man who had chased Gu Yanshu onto the first terrace was still shouting. He looked up toward the roof line, then back down at the road, still furious and still looking for someone to blame.
Gu Yanshu stood on the terrace and watched the street below.
The statue in the road was still shining, but now the shine looked wrong.
Not sacred.
Not rare.
Just bright enough to fool tired eyes.
He let the traveler's sword rest in his hand and looked at the house they had landed on. The roof around them was old but stable. Nothing here mattered except the view of the crowd and the statue beyond it.
Yu Chang looked over the edge again.
"This was planned."
Gu Yanshu did not answer immediately.
He looked at the shattered pill pieces at his feet.
Then at the crowd below.
Then at the statue.
"Yes," he said at last.
Yu Chang's expression shifted.
The crowd below had now split into two kinds of people.
One group was angry that the pills were fake.
The other group was still staring at the statue like there might be something real left if they searched hard enough.
The statue itself seemed to be aware that it had been exposed.
Its golden surface still shone, but the light had become uneven. Some parts gleamed too brightly. Others looked flat. A faint seam ran around the base, and now that Gu Yanshu was looking at it from above, he could see that the whole thing was held together like a display shell built for a performance.
Yu Chang looked down and frowned.
"That statue is weird."
Gu Yanshu's eyes stayed on it.
"Yes."
Yu Chang pointed very slightly.
"It's not just standing there. It's set up to make them gather around it."
Gu Yanshu said nothing.
The crowd below had started arguing over the fake pieces they had already picked up. One man insisted his pill had been real until someone else touched it. Another shouted that the statue had tricked them on purpose. A third kept pointing at the gold shell and calling for rare pills again as if saying the words one more time might make the truth stop existing.
Gu Yanshu watched all this in silence.
Then the statue changed again.
A thin bright pulse ran through its body, from top to bottom.
Yu Chang saw it and stiffened.
"Lord, it moved."
Gu Yanshu nodded once.
The statue had not stepped or walked, but the light had shifted in a way that made it feel less like an object and more like a stage prop ready for the next act. The crowd below noticed too. Their shouting came back immediately.
"We'll get the rare pills!"
"We'll get the rare pills!"
The words were so loud now that they sounded almost desperate.
The statue glowed brighter.
Then one more pill dropped.
This one fell in a straight line toward the ground below, and the crowd beneath it surged hard enough to make the whole street ripple.
A man caught it.
He stared.
His face changed.
Then the pill vanished in his hand.
The man's shout came out sharp and angry, and the others around him reacted at once.
Gu Yanshu looked down at the street, then at the roof edge.
Yu Chang was watching too.
The crowd had become unstable. They were not thinking about the statue anymore. They were thinking about who had gotten what. The group had broken into smaller storms of blame and greed.
Then the statue gave one bright flash.
Not a pulse.
A flash.
A few people below cried out and covered their eyes.
When they looked again, another small cluster of pills had appeared near the base of the statue.
The crowd lunged again.
Gu Yanshu did not move.
Yu Chang looked at him.
"Are they real this time?"
Gu Yanshu watched the scene for a moment.
Then he said, "No."
Yu Chang nodded once, as if that settled something in him.
The pills below were basic level shells. Easy to make. Easy to paint. Easy to drop. They were built to trick people into seeing value where there was none.
The crowd below was still fighting over them anyway.
The man who had first accused Gu Yanshu earlier was now shouting at the statue directly. He was too angry to think clearly, and the crowd around him was becoming even worse. People were shoving one another. Some were demanding compensation. Others were still searching the ground for pieces that had already burst.
Gu Yanshu stood on the terrace and sheathed the traveler's sword.
Then he looked across the roofline and noticed something else.
The statue's base was not fixed the way it should have been.
The road under it had a small moving platform hidden beneath the decoration, and that platform was no longer aligned with the road itself. It was turning a fraction, enough to show that the statue could be shifted without anyone noticing at first.
Yu Chang saw his gaze move and followed it.
"There's something under it."
Gu Yanshu looked at the base.
"Yes."
Yu Chang squinted.
"A mechanism?"
Gu Yanshu did not answer directly.
He just watched the statue.
The gold shell gave another bright flare, and the crowd below reacted at once. Their shouting returned, louder than before, because they still believed there might be something left inside that shell if they only waited for the right moment.
Then the statue's side opened by a narrow line.
A small gap.
Enough for light to spill out.
The crowd gasped.
"Rare pills!"
"We'll get rare pills!"
The same words came back again, louder now, and the people below surged hard enough that some of them nearly tripped over one another.
Yu Chang looked alarmed.
"This is still going on?"
Gu Yanshu said nothing.
The statue opened a little more.
Inside was not a treasure pile.
Not a chamber full of rare pills.
Just a brighter inner frame and a few more fake shells waiting to fall.
The crowd did not know that yet.
The crowd could not see enough from where they were standing.
They only saw the opening and the light and the false suggestion that something valuable was still waiting inside.
Gu Yanshu's expression stayed flat.
Then he reached toward Yu Chang.
"Give me the sword."
Yu Chang handed it over at once.
The blade was still carrying a faint shine, but it was already dimming.
Gu Yanshu looked at the statue below one more time.
Then he let the sword light flare again, not as strong as before but enough to catch the edge of the gold shell and expose the seam around the statue's side.
He aimed once.
The light struck the shell.
A thin crack ran along it.
The crowd below screamed.
Not because they understood the structure.
Because they saw the shell break.
More pills fell out.
A burst of them.
This time the crowd became even more frantic.
Hands shot up. People shoved. Some shouted that the real rare pills were coming at last. Others screamed that the statue had been hiding them all along.
But when the pills hit the ground, the truth came apart again.
They broke.
A few burst into dust.
Others turned dull and thin.
One man held a broken piece and shouted in rage that it had all been another trick.
The crowd's excitement finally started to die in chunks.
They were still noisy, but the noise no longer had confidence in it.
Gu Yanshu watched the broken statue.
The shell had been built to make the crowd think there was something precious inside.
It had worked long enough to gather them.
Long enough to feed greed.
Long enough to make them forget the difference between a shell and a treasure.
Yu Chang looked over the edge again, then back at Gu Yanshu.
"Those pills were never meant to help anyone."
Gu Yanshu handed the sword back down to his side.
"No."
Below, the crowd had become a mess.
Some people were still shouting for rare pills.
Some were now shouting that there had never been any real ones in the first place.
A few were pushing away from the statue entirely, disgusted that they had been played.
The angry man from earlier was still there. He had not calmed down at all. He kept pointing up at the terraces and then back at the street as if he could not choose who he wanted to blame more.
Gu Yanshu did not care about him.
He looked at the statue's cracked surface.
The broken gold shell now showed darker material beneath it. Not treasure. Not pills. Something like a frame, layered and hollow.
Yu Chang looked at it too.
"It's just a statue."
Gu Yanshu's eyes stayed on the cracked shell.
"Yes."
Yu Chang frowned.
"It looked like it meant something."
Gu Yanshu looked at him.
"It did."
That was all.
He did not explain more.
He did not need to.
The street below had already done the work for him.
The people had gathered because they thought wealth was coming. They had shouted and fought and reached for cheap shells because the statue had been built to trigger the exact feeling it wanted from them.
The crowd was now realizing that the promise had been fake from the start.
The shouting was fading.
The anger was spreading.
A few people were still arguing over the broken pieces in their hands.
One man threw a shell to the ground and cursed.
Another bent down and searched anyway, even after seeing it was worthless.
The habit of chasing had already been planted too deep.
Gu Yanshu stood on the terrace and watched all of it.
Then he lifted his eyes toward the road beyond the statue.
A narrow passage between two houses had opened into view now that the crowd was shifting away. It had been hidden earlier by the mass of people and by the statue itself. The path was not wide, but it was clear enough to notice.
Yu Chang saw it too.
"Lord, there's a way through."
Gu Yanshu looked down the passage.
The path ran deeper into the district beyond the crowd. It did not look important at first glance, but it was the first clear route they had seen since landing in Area 917.
The statue was still breaking.
The crowd was still shouting.
And the real road forward had finally shown itself.
Gu Yanshu held the sword in his hand and looked at the passage for one second longer than before.
Then, very quietly, he said, "There."
And the two of them turned toward it.The crowd had not settled.
Even after the fake pills broke, even after the gold shell on the statue cracked open, even after people began shouting that they had been tricked, the street still did not calm down. It only changed shape.
The anger stayed.
The hands stayed up.
The voices kept running over one another.
Some people were still crouched on the road, collecting broken pieces and empty shells as if they refused to believe the disappointment in their own palms. Others were standing now, turning around fast, accusing the nearest person of stealing, lying, pushing, taking too much. A few were trying to back away, but the ones behind them kept pressing forward, and that made the whole crowd move in broken waves.
Gu Yanshu stood above them with the traveler's sword in his hand and watched the whole thing without blinking.
The narrow passage between the houses was still open ahead of them, but he had not stepped into it yet.
Not because he was unsure.
Because the crowd below had become more interesting than the road in front of him.
Yu Chang stayed at his side on the terrace, one hand resting against the low wall.
The street noise had become a rough, ugly roar.
"Rare pills!" someone still shouted from somewhere in the mess.
Another voice answered, sharp with anger, "They were fake!"
A third voice cut through both, "Who brought that statue here?"
The words kept changing, but the noise did not.
Qu Yaoyang, Lan Wege, Qiu Weiran, He Mulin, and Yu Chang were all watching from the roofs and the street edge, each of them looking in a slightly different direction, each of them caught by a different part of the scene. But all of them were watching the same thing in the end.
The crowd.
The crowd was where the damage was now.
A man below slapped one of the broken shells in his hand against his palm and shouted at the person next to him that it had looked real enough to make him move.
The person next to him shouted back that no one had forced him to touch it.
That made the first man shove him.
Then another person pushed the first man.
Then a fourth voice rose.
Then a fifth.
The whole street started tightening again.
Not around the statue.
Around the blame.
The golden figure in the road still stood in place, but now that the shell had cracked, its shine felt wrong in a new way. It was too bright at the edges and too flat in the middle, like a painted thing trying to keep looking important even after the crowd had already started pulling its lie apart.
Gu Yanshu turned his head slightly and looked down at it.
Then he looked back at the street.
The crowd's attention kept snapping between the broken shells, the statue, and the people nearest to them. Every second someone was pointing. Every second someone else was shouting. The street had become a place where nobody wanted to admit they had believed it in the first place.
And still, even now, people were reaching for the remaining pieces.
That was the part that stayed ugly.
Not just the disappointment.
The refusal to stop reaching.
Yu Chang frowned as he watched one man kneel and grab three broken shells from the ground as if he could still make them into something worth keeping.
"Why are they still picking them up?" he asked.
Gu Yanshu did not look at him.
"Because they want the lie to be lighter in their hands."
Yu Chang stayed quiet after that.
The crowd below seemed to hear the same sentence in its own way. Several more people bent down again. Some of them had already decided the shells were useless. Others were still gathering pieces because they could not stand the idea of leaving empty-handed.
Then the statue gave a small sound.
Not loud.
A dry, metallic shift.
The nearest people heard it and stopped.
A few of them turned their heads.
The cracked gold shell on the road was moving.
Not far.
Just enough.
A small segment near the base shifted inward, then outward again, like the outer layer had decided it was not finished pretending yet.
The crowd fell quieter for one breath.
Then someone shouted, "It moved!"
That broke the quiet at once.
More people turned toward the statue.
A woman at the edge of the crowd stepped backward.
A man near the front raised one hand and pointed.
Another person yelled that maybe the rare pills were still inside.
The word rare moved through the street again and found new life in the mouths of the ones who were not ready to lose the hope.
Gu Yanshu saw that happen.
He did not react.
He only watched the crowd react to a small movement like it was a promise.
Then the gold statue moved again.
This time the movement was clearer.
The outer shell straightened by a little, not fully, but enough for the crowd to see it. A few people gasped. Some stepped forward. Some backed away. Some froze with their hands half-raised.
Yu Chang's eyes narrowed.
"It's not broken like it should be."
Gu Yanshu did not answer.
He was already watching the people in the street.
The crowd had split into smaller groups again.
One group looked frightened now.
Another group looked angry.
A third group still looked greedy.
That third group was the most dangerous, because they were the ones who still wanted the statue to give them something even after it had already lied to their face.
The figure inside the crowd who had first shouted about wealth pushed his way closer again.
His face was red, his hands moving fast, his voice rising above the others.
"We were supposed to get rare pills!"
The words hit the street and came back from half a dozen mouths at once.
"We were supposed to get rare pills!"
"Wealth!"
"Rare pills!"
The crowd turned itself into a new kind of storm.
One man bent down and snatched up a broken piece from the road, then stared at it as if he had only just now accepted it was worthless. He threw it back down in rage.
Another man shouted that someone had cheated them.
A third said the statue should be smashed.
Then someone else shouted that the statue was still useful and should not be destroyed.
That started a new argument immediately.
The street became noisy in layers.
Not one line of sound.
Many.
Gu Yanshu watched all of it from the terrace.
The broken statue in the road was now the center of a bad kind of attention. Some people wanted to keep it. Some wanted to break it. Some wanted to shake it until the missing pill treasure came out. Some wanted to blame the first person who had shouted wealth.
The crowd was no longer chasing the same thing.
It was chasing its own reaction.
That was even harder to settle.
On the roof beside him, Qiu Weiran spoke quietly.
"This is turning into a mess."
Lan Wege gave a short breath.
"It already was."
He Mulin kept his eyes on the road.
"The statue drew them here on purpose."
Nobody answered him.
Not because he was wrong.
Because the answer did not help.
Below, the statue's gold shell flashed again, and this time the flash made several people step backward at once. A few gasped and covered their faces. Others stared too hard at it, like the brightness itself could still force out something real if they looked long enough.
Then a new object appeared near the statue's base.
Small.
Bright.
A pill.
It dropped without warning into the open space between two people.
The crowd saw it at once.
Everything changed again.
People lunged.
Hands reached.
Bodies pressed inward.
The argument about the shells vanished in a breath, replaced by the older hunger.
Rare pills.
The word returned like a spark.
"We're getting rare pills!"
It spread through the crowd.
The broken shells were forgotten.
The statue was forgotten.
The anger was pushed aside by the chance that the next pill might be the real one.
Gu Yanshu's gaze sharpened slightly.
He saw the way the crowd moved.
The pill had not even hit the ground before three people were already fighting for the space around it.
One of them shouted that it was his.
Another shouted that it had fallen in front of him.
A third shouted that anyone who touched it first owned it.
The crowd surged.
Yu Chang watched with a hard look.
"They still believe it."
Gu Yanshu's eyes stayed on the center of the street.
"They want to."
The pill reached the ground.
One man dove for it.
His fingers closed.
The pill vanished.
The man stared at his empty hand in disbelief.
Then his face changed.
Not surprise.
Not confusion.
Offense.
As if the road itself had insulted him.
He shouted, swung around, and pointed in a wide circle at the people nearest him.
"This one was mine!"
The crowd answered with another wave of noise.
Some people swore they had seen it too.
Others shouted that someone must have taken it.
A few still bent down to search the road where it had disappeared.
It was all the same greedy shape again, just reassembled.
Gu Yanshu looked down at the street and then at the statue.
The gold shell was still standing.
Still shining.
Still pretending.
Then another pill dropped.
This one fell slower.
The crowd saw it and moved at once, their hands rising in a new wave.
The pill hit a man's palm.
He gasped.
The next second it turned dull and crumbled.
He froze.
The group around him froze too.
Then the man's face twisted with fury.
He threw the remains at the statue.
More shouting followed.
More blame.
More confusion.
The crowd had become tired enough that the trick no longer looked exciting. It looked offensive. That made the anger sharper.
Gu Yanshu finally spoke.
"They won't stop on their own."
Yu Chang looked at him.
"No."
A pause.
Then Yu Chang asked, "Do we stop them?"
Gu Yanshu looked down at the crowd.
The street below had become crowded in a different way now. Not with hope. With argument. The people who had been laughing earlier were not laughing anymore. Some were starting to push away from the statue. Others were still crowding in to see if there was anything left. A few had already turned to each other and begun shouting over who had started the whole thing.
The statue itself remained in the center like a bright wound.
Gu Yanshu answered, "No."
Yu Chang waited.
Gu Yanshu's voice remained even.
"They will stop when they run out of each other."
That made Yu Chang look down at the street again.
Below them, the arguments had started to split into smaller fights. Nothing too severe. Just the kind of pushing and shouting that comes when people realize they have all been pulled into the same bad mood and do not want to be the only one left standing there looking foolish.
One man accused another of stealing his shell pieces.
A woman shouted that someone had bumped her and broken what she had collected.
A younger man kept insisting that the real rare pills would appear if everybody waited one more minute.
Nobody believed him.
The crowd did not care.
The statue gave a dry shimmer.
Not a bright flash this time.
Just a small glint across the cracked gold surface.
The man below who had been shouting for rare pills looked up again anyway, still trying to force the next miracle into happening.
He was the sort of person who would keep reaching even after losing twice.
The statue's shell moved a fraction more.
This time it was visible to everyone.
The base under it made a tiny sound.
A few people in the crowd noticed and backed off.
Others leaned in harder.
The whole road was now split between those who wanted to leave and those who wanted the statue to prove them right.
Gu Yanshu's eyes stayed on it.
Then he noticed something strange.
The statue was not simply cracking.
It was settling.
The shell had already broken, but now the broken parts were shifting back toward a cleaner shape. Not fully repairing. Just holding itself together in a new arrangement, as if the pieces inside it had decided to keep performing even after the outer lie had been exposed.
Yu Chang saw the same movement and frowned.
"It's changing again."
Gu Yanshu said nothing.
The crowd below had not noticed the change yet. They were too busy arguing among themselves. One man accused another of making the crowd rush too early. Another accused someone else of hiding the real pills. A third said the statue had been set up by a group in the city and not by the road itself.
That last rumor spread too quickly.
Now the blame had a shape.
The crowd started talking over one another with fresh energy.
Gu Yanshu watched the street and said, "They're easier to move when they're angry."
Yu Chang looked at him.
Gu Yanshu did not explain what he meant.
He did not need to.
The crowd below was already proving it.
One person raised a hand and shouted that the statue should be dragged down.
Another shouted that it should be broken apart.
Another said it should be taken back to the market so someone could inspect it.
The ideas were bad, all of them, and they spread because the crowd was already leaning toward any direction that let them keep moving.
Then the statue shone again.
A little brighter.
Several people stopped arguing and looked at it.
The surface had become polished in a few places again, almost as if some hidden layer beneath the cracks was catching the light and trying to look whole.
The man who had been yelling about rare pills shouted again, "There must still be more!"
The crowd stirred.
More hands lifted.
More bodies pushed forward.
Gu Yanshu's eyes narrowed.
Not because he trusted the statue.
Because he did not trust the crowd.
They were one flash away from turning the whole street into a crush of bodies and blame.
He turned toward the others on the roof.
"Stay up here."
Yu Chang looked at him immediately.
"You're going down?"
Gu Yanshu looked at the street.
"Yes."
He stepped to the edge of the roof and dropped down before anyone could answer again.
The landing was clean.
The crowd below reacted at once.
A few people noticed him and shifted back.
Others were too busy staring at the statue.
Gu Yanshu moved through the edge of the crowd without drawing much attention. He did not push anyone aside. He simply walked into the gap where the people had already begun to lean apart from one another.
The statue stood in the road ahead of him, gold and cracked and still somehow commanding the street.
The people around it saw Gu Yanshu coming and stared.
One of them recognized him from earlier and pointed.
"That's the one who took the pill!"
A few heads turned.
The crowd's attention pulled toward him for a breath.
Not long.
Enough.
Gu Yanshu did not look at the man.
He looked at the statue.
Then he saw it.
The base.
The seam below the gold shell had widened.
Something inside was shifting.
Not a person.
Not yet.
A mechanism.
Or a support.
Or something that had not fully shown itself.
The crowd was too loud to hear the change clearly, but the statue itself had begun to move again.
The gold shell gave a soft click.
Then another.
The people nearest it stepped backward with widened eyes.
"What is it doing?"
Someone shouted.
The man who had been accusing Gu Yanshu earlier shouted again, still angry.
"It's theirs! They brought it!"
That accusation spread fast enough to make a few people turn back toward Gu Yanshu at once.
But before the crowd could make a new shape around him, the statue made a stronger sound.
One of the gold plates along its side lifted by a fraction.
Not enough to open.
Enough to frighten the people nearest it.
The crowd fell back by a step.
A woman near the front covered her mouth.
A young man shouted that it was moving on its own.
The crowd started reacting again, but now it was fear mixed with greed, and that made the whole street more dangerous than before.
Gu Yanshu looked up at the statue.
Then he looked at the people around it.
Their faces had shifted.
Some wanted to run.
Some wanted to stay.
Some still wanted one last pill.
The statue gave another click.
Then, from somewhere inside the golden shell, a small bright object slipped through a seam and dropped toward the ground.
The crowd gasped.
Hands shot up.
The object vanished before anyone could touch it.
Gu Yanshu had already taken it.
The man who had been closest to it stared at the empty space where it had been.
Then he turned and saw Gu Yanshu holding the object in his hand.
His face changed at once.
"Give it back!"
Several people nearby turned toward Gu Yanshu too.
The crowd had now found a new center for its anger.
He held the object in his hand and looked at it.
It was not a real pill.
Not the way a pill should be.
It was a thin fragment of something else, brighter on the surface than the shells, with a hard smooth edge that did not belong to the other fake pieces.
Gu Yanshu did not break it.
He simply watched it for a second.
Then he crushed it lightly.
The fragment split.
Inside was dust.
Not medicine.
Dust.
The man who had shouted at him stared for one second too long, then lunged forward in rage.
"Mine!"
Several people around him moved too.
The crowd tightened fast.
Gu Yanshu stepped back from the center of the surge.
The traveler's sword was already in his hand.
He did not draw it fully.
He only let the light catch the edge.
That was enough.
The nearest people saw the shine and stopped.
Not because they trusted him.
Because the blade looked sharper than their hands felt at the moment.
The crowd wavered.
The statue behind them made one slow, low click again.
Everyone turned.
The gold shell had opened a little wider.
Not enough to reveal what was inside.
Enough to make the people in the street think the next answer was only one breath away.
The chant started again, but weaker this time.
"We'll get rare pills…"
Some still believed.
Some were too angry to stop hoping.
Some just wanted one more thing to happen so they could blame it properly.
Gu Yanshu looked at the statue.
Then at the crowd.
The street was holding itself together with greed, fear, and noise.
A cracked shell in the center.
A crowd with their eyes fixed on it.
And one opening inside the gold body that had still not shown its real purpose.
That was the part that stayed interesting.
Not the pills.
Not the shells.
Not the shouting.
The fact that the statue had not finished.
It stood there in the road, cracked open, while the crowd kept staring at it and waiting for the next thing to fall.
And for a moment, everyone forgot to breathe.