Chapter Seventy-Two: A Series of Perilous Traps

From beginning to end, Baoling kept her back to the door, her head lowered and fixed on the globe. Her expression was completely vacant, her eyes half-open and half-closed, and her nostrils flared slightly. Judging by her appearance, she was not merely sleepwalking; she had been deeply hypnotized, her mind drifting between a state of semi-consciousness and semi-slumber.

Having known her for so long, Guan Wen had never heard of her suffering from sleepwalking. Her current condition was undoubtedly the handiwork of Kalle.

Suddenly, she bent down, carefully set down the white bronze pillar, and then lifted half of the globe, pushing it aside. Next, she picked up the white bronze pillar, placed it into the old slot at the center of the globe, and stood there in a daze once again.

"Without the key, how is she supposed to unlock it?" Guan Wen could not help but smile bitterly. Baoling's appearance ached his heart, but under Kalle's control, he felt utterly helpless. Moreover, as far as he knew, Baoling was no lock-picking expert; lacking Kalle's special skills, how could she possibly open that keyhole?

Kalle thrust his left hand into his pocket, and when he pulled it out, an antique white bronze key had suddenly appeared between his fingertips.

"This is... It was you who had the thief snatch the bag? You've had the key all along?" Guan Wen was startled.

With a flick of his finger, Kalle accurately shot the key into the keyhole, then smiled darkly as he replied, "Of course the key has been in my hands. In fact, our people have been tailing Baoling the entire time, from her very first entry into Tibet from Hong Kong all the way to the present――everything has been under our surveillance, including you, and anyone else connected to the treasure of Mount Niseri. Whenever we wish, anyone in the entire world can be put under surveillance."

Guan Wen suddenly dawned on the truth: "You're a member of the Azure Dragon Society?"

Kalle had previously passed a message to Little Huo, claiming that the minions of the Azure Dragon Society were gathering along the road from the Zhangmu Port to Kathmandu. Never would anyone have imagined that the so-called "Azure Dragon Society minions" referred to himself.

Kalle sneered hideously, "Spot on. Now everyone has fallen right into my trap, so I might as well just admit it openly."

"How shall this be handled? My princess's heart is already overburdened; those matters are too difficult... too arduous, and this princess cannot persist. May I choose to give up? Perhaps this princess is not the best candidate, please choose someone else..." Baoling spoke, but her voice had unmistakably transformed into that of another woman. Furthermore, every phrase was archaic and literary, bearing no resemblance to modern conversational speech.

Just a few seconds later, she shifted to yet another female voice, though the language had now changed to an obscure and difficult ancient Tibetan.

Disregarding Kalle for the moment, Guan Wen listened intently to those words, piecing together the general meaning: "The eternal heritage must not be broken. The one chosen by the deities is the most suitable successor. To evade it is to invite divine retribution, meeting one's end struck by five thunderbolts and afflicted by virulent diseases."

Kalle's expression changed as well. He left Guan Wen, walked around to the other side of the globe, and stared intently into Baoling's face.

Baoling's voice kept alternating between the two female voices, much like a master of martial arts battling against themselves. Playing two distinct roles at once, she rambled on for nearly five minutes. Eventually, the persona speaking ancient Tibetan gained the upper hand, her tone growing increasingly stern, forcing the other literary female voice to sound more and more submissive.

"Open it," the ancient Tibetan-speaking female voice commanded with severe authority.

The literary female voice replied, "This princess has tried many times. The key turns, yet the keyhole refuses to open. This princess is entirely at her wit's end."

The ancient Tibetan-speaking female voice fell silent for a moment, then suddenly muttered to herself, "Where on earth has something gone wrong? After all these years, could even the seal have undergone a mutation in its nature? No matter what, you must open it; that is the righteous path of the mortal world."

The literary female voice responded, "This princess knows not, but this princess is truly powerless."

"Even with the key, it still won't open?" Guan Wen muttered to himself, clenching his fists in extreme tension.

"Of course it won't open, otherwise why would I have gone to such great lengths to trick the two of you into the Summer Palace?" Kalle chimed in subconsciously.

"Can I try?" Guan Wen asked again.

Kalle waved a hand. Guan Wen stepped forward, leaned down to grip the handle of the key, and gave it a hard twist. The core of the lock smoothly turned by a full ninety degrees. Ordinarily, under such circumstances, the lock would have opened, and the sealed contents would immediately reveal themselves to everyone. Strangely, however, the white bronze pillar remained completely unchanged, looking exactly as it had before.

Guan Wen twisted it a dozen times consecutively. Each time, the lock core turned smoothly, yet the outcome remained virtually identical.

"The only one who can open it is her—the one closely tied to the seal. Since the soul of Princess Zhaoge resides within her body, stirred by the familiar sights, she is bound to remember something." Far from being discouraged, Kalle pressed forward step by step.

Guan Wen turned his head to look; Baoling was still in a daze, entirely unaware of the danger surrounding her. She did not even spare Kalle a glance, focusing solely on her inner emotional state.

Medical research has proven that sleepwalkers are able to get out of bed and move around independently during sleep, before returning to their original positions to continue sleeping. Electroencephalograms (EEGs) of sleepwalkers show that their brainwave trajectories during sleepwalking correspond to stages three and four of normal sleep—namely, the stage of deep sleep. During deep sleep, humans do not dream. From this, it is evident that sleepwalking has nothing to do with dreaming; they are two entirely separate phenomena.

Guan Wen could be certain that Baoling was indeed completely unconscious at the moment, entirely oblivious to the conversation between him and Kalle.

"Let her go, it's useless," he said.

Kalle let out an eerie laugh. "Let her go? You must be joking! After I went to all this trouble, do you think I'm going to release someone without getting any results? Actually, I have one final trick up my sleeve that is guaranteed to activate her past-life memories and help me unlock the white bronze pillar, and that is—" Abruptly retreating, he twisted a thick book on the bookshelf.

With a loud rustle, a glass dome three meters in diameter descended from the ceiling, enclosing Guan Wen, Baoling, and the globe right in the center.

"This thing was originally prepared just for Miss Baoling, but since you barged in neither too early nor too late, you have no choice but to go down with her and experience what it feels like to be entwined by thousands of snakes." Kalle twisted a second book, and the floor of the library split apart from left to right, turning the ground beneath Guan Wen's feet into transparent glass.

According to his memory, the space directly beneath the library was the dining room, but this time, controlled by Kalle's mechanism, Guan Wen could no longer see tables or chairs. Instead, he saw a deep, dark abyss at the bottom of which flickered an eerie green light.

"I'm terribly sorry, but I have no choice other than to resort to such extreme and brutal methods to get what I want. After all, since we are all smart people, everyone knows perfectly well what chips the others are holding. For instance—" Kalle clapped his hands. Two men pushed in Gu Qingcheng, whose hands were cuffed behind her back, and shoved her forward hard, causing her to crash against the glass dome with a loud thud.

Gu Qingcheng's complexion was extremely grim, but those heavy-duty steel wolf-teeth handcuffs were the real deal, and the two men standing behind her each held a gun. She was completely stripped of any ability to fight back.

"Miss Gu, you're late. Otherwise, if the three of you went down together, it should have been quite entertaining. Of course, how could such an amusing game be complete without lights? Actually, you shouldn't have pulled the main circuit breaker. That was equivalent to giving me a heads-up in advance, hahaha..." Amidst his loud laughter, he clapped his hands again, and the lights in both the room and the corridor blazed on.

"Hiss, hiss, hiss, hiss..." Awakened by the lights, the venomous snakes seemed to stir, and the sound of them flicking their tongues grew increasingly loud.

"Don't do anything foolish—Kalle, if the two of them die, it's equivalent to snapping every single clue to the treasure of Mount Niseri. You'll end up with nothing, your efforts all for naught." Unwilling to sit back and await her doom, Gu Qingcheng attempted a psychological warfare tactic to alter Kalle's mind.

Feigning a sense of humor, Kalle shrugged, tapped twice on the glass dome, and pressed a hidden button on the side of the bookshelf, illuminating the lights inside the deep pit as well.

"Hey, look down there. Some new friends are waiting down there to welcome you all!" He chuckled wickedly, acting much like a haughty movie director admiring a prank he had directed himself.

Guan Wen glanced downward, and a wave of intense dizziness almost made him vomit on the spot.

The deep pit was circular, about three stories high, and its walls were constructed of double-layered glass, with a distance of two meters between the inner and outer walls. Crammed tightly into this ring-shaped space, which was two meters wide and ten meters high, were venomous snakes of every conceivable color. Jampacked and writhing against one another, they vied to flick their tongues upward, resembling a horde of famished, desperate wretches awaiting food falling from the heavens. The green light he had seen just moments ago emanated precisely from the eyes of the starving snakes; the more lethal the venom, the more intense that green glow became.

"Imagine what will happen if I lower this glass dome all the way to the bottom, and then remove the dome and the inner layer of glass? The two of you will be buried beneath a pile of venomous snakes at least five meters deep. To welcome the two of you, they've been starving for nearly a month now. Oh right, we could run a test: toss a mouse down and let them have a little warm-up for a standard welcoming ceremony..."

Before Kalle's voice had even faded, another two men pushed in Little Huo. His hands and feet were both cuffed, and his entire body was stained with blood, indicating that he had suffered injuries in multiple places.

"Splendid! Now that everyone is gathered, the good show can finally begin. Hey, tell the people below to drop a mouse in!" Kalle commanded loudly.

A small window had been cut into the upper rim of the circular pit's outer wall, through which someone tossed a squeaking large mouse. It was a plump field mouse, measuring a full foot from the tip of its snout to the root of its tail. Before the mouse even landed, a dozen long, green snakes leaped up from the serpentine mass, tearing it apart in mid-air into seven or eight pieces. In less than five seconds, the mouse vanished entirely within the writhing snake pile. This meager morsel threw the serpent horde into an even greater frenzy, causing them to slam repeatedly against the glass, the hissing and thumping merging into a chaotic din.

This time, even the usually composed Little Huo changed color.

"Think of something, Guan Wen! Right now, the only one who can save the two of you is you; everyone else is willing but unable. So hurry up and figure something out. Don't take those secrets down into the bellies of the venomous snakes. To be honest, I don't have much patience, nor do I care to drag things out in a tug-of-war. I prefer things clean and crisp—one is one, two is two. If the two of you die, the remaining two won't live either. I made up my mind long ago: if I can't get the treasures hidden beneath Mount Niseri, no one else will either, haha... hahahahaha!"

Kalle threw his head back and laughed arrogantly, because up to this point, his plan had succeeded in its entirety, without wasting a single move.

"Who might you be, Your Excellency? As far as I know, Kalle doesn't have ambitions that large, nor does he have any interest in joining the Azure Dragon Society. He was the very first friend I made after arriving in Kathmandu—if I'm not mistaken, has he already become snake food by now? The only thing I'd regret is not even getting to see your true face. Since we crossed paths through conflict, perhaps you'd do me the courtesy of revealing your original appearance?" Little Huo said with neither servility nor arrogance.

With a click, Kalle triggered a mechanism, and the glass floor beneath Guan Wen's feet began to slide downward along the pit wall, slowly descending into the sea of serpents.