108 Maidens of Destiny

"Sister Xinjie, you said how could people have really constructed such a long corridor underground." Shi Yuan squatted where she was, hanging her head in dejection.

"When we entered, a certain someone seemed to have said she liked this sort of obvious and straightforward mechanism the most!" Wu Xinjie said in ridicule.

The Thief Star's mouth sank:¹ "This is absolutely not a mechanism at all."

"As long as you know." Wu Xinjie gazed at this strange Great Corridor, always feeling something was slightly off. Constructing a several million li corridor underground was simply impossible to accomplish, but continuously walking for this many days yet not seeing the end, it seemed as if they had entered into a clump of fog. The Knowledge Star vaguely felt that this place definitely had some sort of difficult to solve oddity, but she honestly could not think of just there the problem was.

Wu Xinjie spotted Lin Yingmei staring wordlessly at Su Xing. Smiling inwardly, she elegantly walked over. "Young Master, what were you and Little Sister Suwen secretly talking about?"

"Only borrowing Suwen's spice bag for a bit." Su Xing chuckled.

"All this time, Young Master still really has a feeling of leisure. If Young Master is really depressed, you could have sought Xinjie…Xinjie is also very tired and bored…" The Knowledge Star was like a Water Snake, climbing onto Su Xing's shoulder. Sticking out her tongue, slightly panting, whispering: "Young Master Su Xing, do you know what is going on with this Great Corridor? Xinjie feels there are some oddities."

"I more or less have a clue."

"Then this time, I really need to make a request of Young Master." Wu Xinjie abruptly moved her head very close, her beautiful and sensual red lips kissed on top of Su Xing's mouth a fiery and arousing kiss.²

The An Suwen who was right to the side was dumbstruck. Her face red, she backed a few steps away from the two, lowering her head.

The heated kiss ended, and within the firelight, Wu Xinjie's luminous³ pupils floated around, full of tender feelings. They were brimming with a sentiment that would make people restless.

"What are you guys doing?!"

Shi Yuan cried out in alarm.

Wu Xinjie gave her a healthy look: "Never seen a kiss before?"

"Knowledge Star, you…you. You unexpectedly…" The Thief Star almost shrieked. The Resourceful Star unexpectedly would so boldly kiss with a man; this was completely beyond her expectations. "Sister Lin Yingmei…" She originally had wanted to go inquire with the Majestic Star, but the latter's attitude made her even more unable to conceal her shock. The Panther Head seemed to have grown accustomed to this sort of situation and was aloof. The opposite looked at Wu Xinjie and Su Xing's heated kiss, a bit of jealousy within her eyes.⁴

"We had better leave this place first then." Lin Yingmei's face expressionlessly interrupted her. The Majestic Star looked around this wriggling corridor, her eyes deeply locked: "This Great Corridor is extremely strange. We'd best move quickly."

"Walk here, walk there, it's all the same. Too annoying." When the Great Corridor was mentioned, Shi Yuan immediately became like deflated ball, dispirited. This kind of Great Corridor Mechanism was completely different from what she thought. She originally believed the interior concealed an array, charm or the like. As it turned out, not only was it missing this, even the most simple pitfall mechanisms were not seen. From start to finish, they only saw the surrounding walls moving.

"Let's go. We can find the exit in just a moment." Su Xing said to her.

The Thief Star twitched her mouth. If she were to believe in an unfaithful man that seduced Sister Suwen and even passionately kissed with the Knowledge Star, then that really was too stupid.

"If Young Master says we're at the exit, then we'll definitely arrive at the exit soon." Wu Xinjie covered her mouth as she laughed up her sleeve.

Shi Yuan pouted and blurted out a few noises. She seemed to be saying: As expected, even if it is the Knowledge Star, a woman in love is blind.

The man and four women in the pitch-black corridor again continued to walk forward for a while. It was not at all like what Su Xing said about seeing the exit. On the contrary, the endless darkness was still unending, giving a person a sort of suffocating oppression. This corridor seemed to never stop and was endless, and the Thief Star, Flea on a Drum Shi Qian, was already about to give up and stop trying. Incessantly complaining, the Best Thief Under Heaven unexpectedly was about to be trapped to death in here; truly an unfitting death.

Suddenly, Su Xing ceased moving forward, facing his head upward as he sniffed in the air, showing an expression of clear understanding and relief.

"Master?"

"Young master?"

The rest were puzzled.

"Indeed, this Great Corridor is very fascinating, so it's no wonder Xinjie was deceived as well. The one who invented this was truly amazing." Su Xing laughed.

Wu Xinjie and Lin Yingmei glanced at each other face to face, a smile flitting across the corner of their mouths coincidentally at the same time. They were fully aware of Su Xing's character, knowing if he said as such, then that meant yet another unfathomable puzzle had been solved.

"Young Master, in the end, what is going on with this Great Corridor?" Lin Yingmei could not help but ask.

"I see this Ten Thousand li Corridor is the Ten li Corridor, more or less."

"Ten li Corridor?" All the girls' faces showed doubt.

"Su Xing, you definitely have been choked mad." Shi Yuan disdained: "We've walked this many days, several thousand li have already been covered."

"We're only repeatedly walking the same road." Su Xing shook his head.

"Are you saying this corridor is circular?" Shi Yuan was powerless: "We aren't idiots. If it really was a circular corridor, then we already would have felt it."

Su Xing knew his explanation was rather long, so he summarized: "Just now, I borrowed Suwen's spice bag, intentionally saturating the air with its fragrance. It's reasonable to say that if we aren't walking the same road, these aromas could not possibly show up. However…" Su Xing sniffed.

The girls moved closer, and sure enough, they smelled a faint burst of sandalwood.

"A coincidence?" Shi Yuan said blankly.

"It's not a coincidence. We definitely have been walking the same road, and you'd understand if you think about it. Building the Great Corridor underground, how could the Ink Clan possibly have such a great remarkable ability, so the simplest method is to join a corridor from head to tail and let us walk on endlessly." Su Xing gestured,

The girl blinked. She could not conceive how they could arrange interconnecting paths yet not letting them perceive it.

Su Xing thought for a bit and just took out a talisman, and then he tore the talisman into a rectangle. He turned a short end around 180 degrees behind and stuck it together with the other short end, thereby forming an "8" shaped loop.

The girls were amazed to discover this originally completely unlinked paper had its two side inconceivably linked together. "So mysterious…" An Suwen cried out in surprise.

"Su Xing, how did you come up with this?" Shi Yuan asked, astonished.

"The Möbius Strip!"⁵

Su Xing shrugged his shoulders. It appeared mysterious, but on Earth, it was actually very well-known. It had a special, formal name, "Möbius Strip." It was a topological structure, and anyone with a bit of math education knew about it.

The "Möbius Strip" was a sort of space partition without an interior or exterior, namely, its front side had a back side, and its back side had a front side.

"It's like a yin and yang mixing process, truly hard to believe." Wu Xinjie gasped in admiration.

With this sort of mechanism that exploited mathematical principles in its design, it was only normal that Wu Xinjie could not guess through this mechanism.

"But could only this much really make us blindly walk for three, four days?" Shi Yuan was suspicious.

And so, this was the "Great Corridor's" true nature. Its active walls and floors were not to show off the corridor's strangeness, but to change the surrounding environment. On a Möbius Strip, the link had a crossing. Exploiting this active mechanism to manufacture differing degrees of elevation, doing it in this way would not make people feel they were repeating. The active floor also had the advantage of preventing a person from making a seal.

Because no matter who continuously walked for several days, they would all give birth to the feeling of making no headway. If a seal was written down, these active walls would then thoroughly erase these seals' existences.

"So Young Master, just now when you and Little Sister Suwen were speaking, is it because you made your seal in the air that it was not destroyed?" Lin Yingmei had an epiphany.⁶

Su Xing nodded.

Not only that, but the mechanism's light deprived state was also meant to make those entering lose their sense of direction. Inside darkness, humans' perception was most easily lost, and Divine Intent had no way of preventing this.

"Originally I thought, 'Strange, since this was a mechanism meant to hurt people, why specially arrange this.' This is exactly for the purpose of giving those that enter a certain psychological suggestion, making them believe the corridor inside definitely has ten thousand li, thereby lowering their guard."

Shi Yuan face turned red. She felt that Su Xing was talking about her, and she said in denial: "Psychological suggestion what? This Young Lady has never heard of that. Hmph, however, since you say it with such certainty, then where is the exit. This place definitely has an exit, so don't say there isn't. This Young Lady investigated clearly. After we pass this corridor is the plaza…but we currently haven't seen the exit at all."

"I'm afraid the exit is exactly where we came in." Su Xing wrinkled his brow tightly.

His words left the girls feeling more and more wonder.

Su Xing's explanation was because this corridor was created following a special rock and forbiddance amalgamation, making a breakthrough required maximum power. According to his theory, this Möbius Great Corridor was interlocking loops. It was impossible to incorporate an exit, so the sole possibility was the rumbling door from when they just entered. That should be the only exit.

Shi Yuan was confused: "Mulling over this for so long, we just need to go back."

"Nope. If these walls can move around, then that mechanism can move, too." Su Xing said to them: "Let's search for it. Together with that sealed stone door from when we came in, there must be the exit."

Everyone immediately busily searched within the Great Corridor.

As expected, not long after, Lin Yingmei found this mechanism inside a moving rock. This stone door moved just as Su Xing said. A mobile exit; no wonder they did could not find it after walking for such a long time;

Pushing hard on the stone door, the stone door opened with a rumble. However, outside the door was thick soil, and the stone beneath was endlessly changing. It seemed the entire Great Corridor was active.

Everyone just waited outside the stone door. In the empty space beneath, a space sunk in, and Su Xing gave the order to jump.

They afterwards dropped down from above.

By the time they were firmly on the ground, they knew at a glance that they already truly walked out of the corridor, arriving atop a plaza.

Su Xing raised his head, giving endless praise. This mechanism was honestly too awesome.

“Sister Xinjie, could it be he is truly far more incredible than you?" Shi Yuan blankly asked.

"It's only psychological riddles and such that I'm good at, nothing more. 'Incredible' is out of the question." Su Xin shook his head as he said calmly.

Shi Yuan fearfully looked at Su Xing: "What holy land do you come from…even being able to solve this sort of mechanism." Recalling right now about the Möbius Strip and the psychological suggestion things he spoke of, these were terms she had never heard of.

"As long as you follow Young Master, you will discover Young Master is even greater than what you think." Wu Xinjie said very ambiguously.

"This Young Lady is actually a little tempted. Pity that the young master won't favor Star Generals like us, right, Sister Suwen." Shi Yuan placed both her hands against the back of her head, sticking out her towering chest as she stretched her body.

An Suwen lightly smiled and went, "En."

"There isn't any sort of favor or disfavor. I don't like your Star Duels that much, either." Su Xing shook his head, earnestly speaking.

"Suddenly, I feel a bit envious of my sisters." Hearing Su Xing's words, Shi Yuan giggled.

1. 癟嘴, that face people make when they are about to cry. ↩
2. That’s my boy, ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ↩
3. 秋波, also can mean amorous ↩
4. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ↩
5. 魔比斯環 Literally Möbius Loop, but it isn't really called that. ↩
6. She’s relieved that Su Xing isn’t completely taken yet, lol… ↩