"I didn't say I intentionally summoned them," Chu Xinghe replied, his voice remaining flat despite the tightening tension. "Think about when we landed there; everything was silent. Those pale creatures suddenly emerged from the pond and chased us. But the moment I shouted that title, they didn't just stop—they prostrated themselves. And immediately after that, those massive monsters appeared from the sky like that title was a signal they loathed."
Chu Xinghe continued with a slow exhale. "I have often read in ancient literature that if someone holds the name of an emperor like that and speaks it carelessly, the universe itself seems to respond because the name is considered sacred, or too hated to be uttered. You want an example? Listen to me."
"If you read the history of the Han Dynasty, you surely know that the name of Emperor Liu Bang caused changes due to the tradition of Bihui." Chu Xinghe spoke softly, his eyes scanning each of his friends. "Emperor Liu's birth name was Bang, and because of that, the name 'Bang'—which at the time meant 'State'—was forbidden to be spoken. That is why it was changed to 'Guo,' as in 'Zhongguo.' Even a human emperor was like that; imagine a title like the one I uttered just now."
Chu Xinghe crossed his legs and rested his chin on his elbow atop his thigh. His eyes stared at the tips of his shoes. His explanation of the Bihui tradition did not make the situation any better. Zhao Lin stared at him with an even more cynical gaze, while Li Wei could only scratch his head even though it didn't itch.
"So you're saying a monster with tentacles the size of a building arrived because it was offended that you shouted their boss's name?" Zhao Lin asked. His voice was still hoarse, but his condescending tone had returned. "That's stupid, Xinghe. Truly stupid."
"I didn't say they were offended," Xinghe countered. "I'm saying a name like that might be sacred or hated, and this isn't your father's office where you utter a title to call the superior of those strange creatures. Perhaps they feared the person mentioned in that title would return, causing those monsters to panic and grow angry, arriving on the planet like they had their beards set on fire."
Han Dong stared blankly at the crystal floor beneath his feet. His mouth opened and closed several times before a voice finally emerged from his throat.
"Beards on fire. A tentacled monster the size of a skyscraper panicked over an emperor's name." Han Dong let out a dry, parched laugh. He rubbed his face roughly with both hands. "The Immortal Emperor of All Ages. What happens tomorrow? We meet the General of Falling Stars at the edge of the galaxy? Are we scheduled for tea with the Minister of the Solar System at a lunar crater the day after?"
Han Dong shook his head violently. His logic was suffering severe damage. "This is all insane. I must be sleeping in my school dorm room. Tomorrow is my promotion day and I haven't studied at all. Yes, this is just a stress reaction to exams. The bronze furnace, the dead dragons, the mercury fluid—it's all just a hallucination because I lack sleep. No, wait, we've already graduated."
Zhao Lin paid no attention to Han Dong's rambling. His hands were busy patting his pants pockets repeatedly. He then patted his jacket pockets, felt his chest area, and looked down to examine the crystal floor around him with a frantic motion. He scratched his messy hair hard.
"My phone," Zhao Lin muttered, his eyes wide. "My phone is gone."
"You threw it on the ground when you ran from the mercury pool, you idiot," Li Wei remarked from his seat. "I saw you drop the thing before you ran past all of us toward the woodpile."
Zhao Lin gripped his own hair with both hands. "Damn it! My limited edition titanium-shielded phone! My access to my crypto wallet is in there! Important photos!"
He stopped speaking as he realized how absurd it was to mourn a phone when the planet they had just stood on had exploded into cosmic dust. However, losing the only object that connected him to his worldly wealth hit Zhao Lin's psyche very hard. He whined softly, lamenting his fate.
Li Wei ignored Zhao Lin's whining. He shifted his sitting position slowly, trying to move closer to Yun Hai. The girl was leaning against Xin Yan, her face still deathly pale and her breath still hitching frequently. Li Wei saw this as a golden opportunity to act as a reliable man. He put on an expression he thought was most soothing and reached out his hand to pat Yun Hai's shoulder.
"Yun Hai, don't worry. As long as I'm here, you're safe. We'll definitely find a way out of this situation and go home."
*Slap!* A loud smack echoed inside the bronze cauldron. Li Wei's head was thrown to the side. A red handprint was immediately clearly visible on his chubby cheek.
"Ouch!" Li Wei cried out, his hand immediately rubbing his hot cheek. "Why did you slap me?!"
Yun Hai stared at Li Wei with eyes wet with tears but filled with rage. "Your foot was stepping on my severely injured calf, you chubby Li Wei! Are you trying to break my leg?!"
Li Wei looked down quickly. His large sneakers were indeed pressing down on Yun Hai's calf with full weight, right below the girl's knee that had previously been bandaged with a piece of clothing by Xin Yan. Li Wei immediately pulled his foot back while cursing himself.
"I'm sorry! I swear I didn't mean it! It was so dark down here while we were sitting!" Li Wei spoke in a panicked tone, begging for forgiveness.
Xin Yan sighed deeply at the silliness. She shifted her body to protect Yun Hai from Li Wei's clumsiness. Seeing Xin Yan's movement, Zhao Lin immediately crawled closer. He ignored Li Wei's suffering and focused his full attention on Xin Yan.
"Xin Yan, you heard what Li Wei said, right? My phone is gone," Zhao Lin whined in a nasal voice. "All access to my savings is in that device. If we land somewhere later and have to pay someone to use a communication device to Earth, I won't have a single cent. My father will kill me."
Xin Yan looked at Zhao Lin with a blend of pity and mounting annoyance. "Zhao Lin, we are sitting inside a flying cauldron pulled by corpses of mythological animals through the darkness of the universe. Do you think there's an ATM out there? Do you think there's an internet signal to access your money? Shut your mouth and sit quietly."
Lin Mei, who had been silent while pressing the bandage on her head, finally spoke up. "Can you all be quiet? My head hurts so much hearing you argue about lost phones and stepped-on legs."
The girl touched the torn shirt wrapping her temple. She frowned. Lin Mei slowly pulled the bloody cloth away from her wound. The severe bleeding she had suffered on the blue stone land had stopped. The deep gash now left only a thin pink line of new skin tissue. "Look at my head," Lin Mei pointed to her temple. "My wound closed by itself."
Fang Hua leaned in, her eyes widening at the sight. "Mei, the blood around you has even dried and peeled off. Even though your head hit that crystal pillar only a few minutes ago."
Lin Mei looked down at the slowly rotating disc in the center of the crystal platform where they sat. The spring flower symbol emitted a warm light, releasing the sweet and refreshing scent of mountain jasmine.
"This disc is the cause. This flower scent has a strange effect," Lin Mei said. "When we were still inside the pavilion, I felt the cold air eating away at my skin until it went numb. But once we came back in here and the room filled with this smell, our bodies immediately healed."
Chu Xinghe heard Lin Mei's words. He immediately lifted both his hands. His broken fingernails and the torn skin of his fingers from resisting the pale monster's drag were now undergoing a rapid healing process. The sharp ache in his shoulder bone had also vanished without a trace.
"Springtime," Xinghe murmured. He continued to observe his new skin growing over the wounds. "This phase provides growth and tissue healing. This bronze furnace is intentionally ensuring its cargo doesn't die mid-journey."
"If that's the reality," Lin Mei leaned her back against the empty air at the outer boundary of the platform and pulled both knees to her chest. "We'd better sleep now. There isn't a single thing we can do here. We don't have working phones, we don't have protective weapons, and we don't have the ability to drive this furnace. Sleeping is the most logical choice so our brains don't explode from thinking about all this madness."
No one argued with Lin Mei's suggestion. Physical exhaustion and the drastic drop in adrenaline made their bodies feel very heavy. The aroma of the healing mist from the spring disc also acted as a very gentle sedative.
Before they could close their eyes to rest, Fang Hua raised a trembling hand. She pointed toward the transparent glass wall of the cauldron. The darkness of the Eridanus Supervoid had vanished. The view outside the furnace had changed.
"Yun Hai," Fang Hua whispered, her voice shaking violently. "Look at that."
Yun Hai forced herself to look outward. Behind the transparent bronze wall, the universe was glowing brilliantly. There was an incredibly massive wall of light covering their view. Millions of galaxies were clustered close together, forming a giant structure of staggering size.
The light from these galaxies was dazzling, coloring the cosmic vacuum with sweeps of glowing gold, deep red, and bright purple. The nine dead beasts outside were pulling the bronze cauldron right alongside this monumental structure at a speed that did not decrease at all.
Yun Hai's breath hitched in her throat. She crawled forward toward the transparent wall, her face nearly touching the cold surface. Her lips trembled violently as her eyes moved wildly, sweeping across the cosmic panorama before her.
"That... this... this is impossible," Yun Hai spoke haltingly. Her voice sounded like a whimper of despair. She turned back to look at her friends, then looked outside again. "The shape of the structure... the density of the galaxies... the span of light is very specific."
"Do you recognize that place, Yun Hai?" asked Xin Yan, who had also crawled closer to the wall.
"T-this..." Yun Hai swallowed hard. She gripped her own collar tightly. "This looks identical to the large-scale structure map of the universe my mother once showed me from observatory data. This giant filament of galaxy clusters..."
Yun Hai stopped speaking, her chest heaving as she searched for air. "This is the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall."
Han Dong furrowed his brow, his delusional panic momentarily paused by the astronomical term. "Great Wall of what? You're talking about a space version of the Great Wall of China?"
Yun Hai shook her head with quick, jerky movements. "No! This is the largest galaxy structure ever discovered in the universe by humans. A cluster of bright galaxies whose span reaches ten billion light-years. Ten billion!"
Li Wei rubbed his cheek, which was still red from the slap. Confusion was clearly etched on his face. "So what's the problem if it's big? We're just flying past it."
Yun Hai turned to face everyone. Tears were now flowing freely down her face, uncontrollable. Her voice broke on every word she uttered. "You don't understand how fatal this is. The Eridanus Supervoid is about three billion light-years from Earth. The Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall is ten billion light-years from Earth in a completely opposite coordinate direction."
Chu Xinghe immediately straightened his back. His usual composure was shaken by the implications of those mathematical figures.
"We just left that dead planet in Eridanus a few minutes ago based on our time count in here," Yun Hai continued her explanation, her voice further fracturing. "And now we are suddenly here. This furnace isn't just flying fast using the physical thrust of the dragons. Space and time out there... are being forcibly folded. Bent together like a folded map. This ancient object is tearing through the fundamental laws of the universe just to move forward to its destination."
Yun Hai covered her face with both hands, her sobbing sounding heartbreaking. "Ten billion light-years away. Sunlight itself takes ten billion years to reach Earth from our current position. We... we have crossed the edge of the world. No radio signal, no NASA rescue fleet, no prayer can reach Earth from a distance this insane."
The reality of their isolation crashed into the psyche of the eight teenagers simultaneously. The fact that this journey had no way back became an undeniable reality. Xin Yan immediately pulled Yun Hai into her embrace. The two girls hugged tightly, crying loudly on each other's shoulders. Fang Hua joined in, hiding her tearful face against Xin Yan's back.