Wu Xie
The next morning, Wu Xie was ready to dive into the lake as soon as he put on the gear. He was impatient to get to the bottom of the lake and see just what happen to Xiaoge and Pangzi while he was away. He needed to know if they were down there somewhere or the current had make them drift somewhere else. Most of all he needed to know if they were still alive.
"Wu Xie, I don't trust Cox Hendry... you should not dive alone, no matter if he demands you to dive on your own." Xiao Hua said to him as he walked into the small port that have been made for the boat that was going to take him into the deepest part of the lake, quite close from where Pangzi had disappeared.
"Xiao Hua, precisely because I don't trust that man is why I rather have you here, instead of going down with me. Keep an eye on things in this camp for me and if it comes to the worse, at least you can try rescue me, along with Xiazi. That's better than all of us getting into troubles with no one else to help." Wu Xie told him and Xiazi put a hand on Xiao Hua's shoulder. The man have been tense ever since Cox Hendry asked Wu Xie to dive alone into the lake and he could understand why.
"Listen to him, Xiao Hua. I doubt that Cox Hendry will mess up with Wu Xie when he had the backing of the Wu family and the Mystic Nine and that goes for you too. Besides, if he tries anything fishy, the two of us can deal with it, right?" Xiazi asked and Xiao Hue sighed.
"Alright then. Just make sure to keep an eye on your oxygen level. We just still don't know how deep that lake is and how long it will take you to reach the bottom. No matter what he wants, you just concentrate on finding Xiaoge and Pangzi and if there is something dangerous, get out immediately." Xiao Hua advised and Wu Xie smiled.
"Don't worry, I will leave marks, just in case something goes wrong. Keep a track on my position for as long as you can and if we lose contact... well, come and find me." Wu Xie said.
"Ah, we will... your cousin will break havoc in this camp if something does happens to you, so go down without worries, because we both have your back securely hooked." Xiazi said.
"Good... now I will be going, just be careful you two while I'm gone. Xiazi... you take care of Xiao Hua for me, okay?" Wu Xie said and Xiao Hua rolled his eyes.
"I can take care of myself." Xiao Hua protested.
"Ah, you know I will love to stick to him at all times."
"I bet you do... don't annoy him too much, thought."
"As if... dive safely, Wu Xie..." Xiazi told him and after a final glance to the pair of lovers, he got inside the boat and was on his way to the marking point on the lake.
Xiao Hua and Xiazi then moved to the table that had been set to monitor Wu Xie's progress with the GPS and communication system and when Wu Xie was in position, they tested the communication before the young man finally dived into the lake.
At 60 meters, Wu Xie could barely see a thing in front of him, yet he told Xiao Hua and Xiazi of everything that he could see so far and that was... an entire village that had been submerged with only and old Zhang Pavilion standing in the bottom of the lake.
"Wu Xie, what is it?" Xiao Hua asked.
"A village... it's most likely the lost Yao Village that was supposed to be on Banai. I will go down the lone Pavilion that is left standing. Is the only place I can see that Xiaoge and Pangzi could be in. Maybe there is a room or something that still have some air inside." Wu Xie transmitted.
"Okay, just be careful as you dive deeper... make sure you have enough air to come back."
"Don't worry, if I find Xiaoge and Pangzi, nothing will stop me from getting them back." Wu Xie teased and Xiazi smiled.
"He is so devoted..." Xiazi whisper, but Xiao Hua silence him with a hard gaze.
"Be careful there..."
"I will go closer... it looks like it was made with a Han style... and it's quite big... wait, the front tablet is still readable... it said... Head of Zhang Family..."
"So it is the old Zhang's Pavilion after all..." Xiao Hua said as he looked at Xiazi with a raised eyebrow and a mocking smile pasted on his lips. So much for that bet too...
"I will have to go in and see just what's inside. It looks like it doesn't have much damage. The front door is intact so far."
"Be wary of traps... the Zhang's are very good at them..." Xiazi said and Wu Xie.
"I know... I'm going inside now..." Wu Xie said as he open the door of the Pavilion and swim inside it.
"There is nothing inside, no furniture or anything else, just an empty room so far... wait... guys, can you hear it too?"
"Hear what?" Xiao Hua asked a bit alarmed.
"Bells... there is a sound of bells all around the room, can't you hear them?" Wu Xie asked and Xiao Hua looked at Xiazi with worry.
"No... but you have not much experience in diving... it can be a side effect of deep you are in right now."
"Xiao Hua, I'm not crazy..."
"Never said that, but there shouldn't be any sound where you are. The sound waves are distorted in water, you shouldn't be hearing bells at all."
"Never mind that Wu Xie... it could be a Zhang thing... just be careful..." Xiazi added, looking back at his Master Hua.
"Alright... I will keep up, there is something strange ahead... I will let you know about it..."
"Wu Xie wait, don't just rush into danger like that... Wu Xie!!" But just then, the communication got lost and he only received the white noise of static.
"Wu Xie!!!" Xiao Hua yelled, but there was no response and he stood quite suddenly to walk toward the lake, but Xiazi stop him shortly after he begin his dash.
"Xiao Hua, you will not do nothing with repeating the same thing Zhang Qiling did." Xiazi said and Xiao Hua stared at the lake.
"I know... but we need to get him out of there..."
"It's too soon, let's go check on his body status... before you stood, I look at it and his heart is beating normally, so is his body temperature..."
"But the communication..."
"We are dealing with the Zhang's now... nothing will go as planned... let's just give Wu Xie a chance to find Yaba Zhang and Pangzi. If his body signals start to drop, then we bring him back." Xiazi said and Xiao Hua let him guide him back to his sit.
Deep into the lake, Wu Xie approached what looked like a film of water that looked abnormal, like it wasn't part of the rest of the water at all. The density was heavy and he could not see beyond that film... thus he did the only thing he could under the circumstances, he touched the odd film of water and found that it was completely dry at the other side.
"How is this possible?" Wu Xie asked himself as he retrieved his hand, then move it forward again to confirm his first finding. Yep, as impossible as it seemed, the film of water was in fact the border of lake water into a room free from it. Perhaps Xiao Hua was right and he was experiencing some side effects of deep diving, because there was no other explanation, unless the Zhang's were actually gods or hold the secrets of the gods on their Pavilion.
Illusion or not, he trespassed the border and went inside the dry room, looking back to see the wall of water that was just rippling behind him.
"Xiao Hua!! Xiazi!! Can you guys hear me? You won't believe what I have found... Xiao Hua! Xiao Hua! Xiazi!!" But there was no response from the other side at all.
The again, right at that moment he was standing in a dry room that had a wall of water right behind... so it was not strange the communication was gone. Nevertheless, he needed to explore the place, because now he had really good chances of finding his lover and friend alive.
Thus he took out his mask and breathed, finding the oxygen just normal and then, he took out his diving suit and put it aside. He will walk more comfortably without the restraining suit he had put over his clothes and then started to explore the Zhang's main family Pavilion on his own.
"Xioa Hua, I have no idea if you can hear me or not, but just in case this is only one sided, I will tell you what I find..." He walked slowly in the wide hall until he reached a door that was marked with Xiaoge's signature.
"I think I find them, Xiao Hua... it won't be long now, to bring them back home... so wait for me up there, I will go back shortly." Wu Xie said as he open the door to find himself into another corridor that had stone walls filled with multiple drawings.
"Xiao Hua, Xiazi... this place certainly is strange, it's like walking into a different dimension at every turn. First there was a wall of water... now is like if I have stumble into a tomb with murals... to be honest it doesn't make sense, but as long as I can find Xiaoge and Pangzi here, I don't really care... but I can see why Cox Hendry wants to find what's in here so badly." Wu Xie continue his narration, just in case Xiao Hua was listening.
"There are several murals here too... mostly like the ones in the Heavenly Queen Mother place... so the Zhang's must have come from Tamutuo and left and some point for whatever reason they have and establish a branch here, a main one most likely. Unfortunately, the murals here don't show much information... I'm guessing is only a way to unlock the door at the end."
"I'm good at riddles, so I think I can manage this one on my own." Wu Xie said as he studied the door and the way to unlock it, finding it not too hard to do so and pretty much open it effortlessly.
"Guys, I'm coming..." Wu Xie whisper as he pushed the double doors to find another kind of dimension, a rock passage similar to the ones underground in the Queen Mother's Palace and at the end... he saw two figures. There was a kind of sandy fog, so he could not see them clearly, but he knew well enough who those two where only by looking at their figure... He had finally find them, both Xiaoge and Pangzi, alive a well... he was so glad that he smiled wholeheartedly, as wide as it could be.
"Xiaoge!!" Wu Xie yelled as he ran toward his lost lover and hug him tightly.
"Wu Xie..." Xiaoge whisper to him as he hug him back.
"I miss you so badly..." Wu Xie said as he pressed himself to him even closer.
"Hum, Tianzhen... did you forgot about me? I'm here too you know..." Pangzi whined and Wu Xie turned his head to look at him, still with a beautiful happy smile pasted on his face.
"Hey, let me meet my man first... you want a hug too?" Wu Xia asked merrily.
"Hell no, now you reek at passion..."
"Don't be an idiot, I just hug him."
"And that's where it all started, then it will be a kiss and then..."
"Si Pangzi! Don't start another nonsense, I have quite a few questions to ask you. How the hell did you get in here for starter?"
"That story is so exhilarating! You see we got sucked into this place..."
"How is that exhilarating you idiot and this place is 70 meters deep, how come you got sucked all the way here like that? I t should be impossible."
"This is the Zhang's territory... we don't know how, we only know that we were caught in the siphon passage and got inside the water wall, mostly to our great luck, otherwise both of us would had drown, because none of us have diving equipment when it happen."
"I guess it was because Xiaoge is a Zhang from the main family. Then, did you explore the place? Did you found what's in here?" Wu Xie asked excitedly.
"Look at it yourself... right behind you..." Pangzi told him and Wu Xie let go of Xiaoge to look behind him and saw the most incredible sight so far.
Right there, just a very short distance away he could see a huge building, although it was mostly the top as the thing was flipped, like in a mirror and had several layers in different shapes and directions. It was surreal, just like anything else since he crossed the water wall, yet it was like ancient magic working right before his eyes.
"Xiaoge had checked the exterior of the Pavilion and he said the Yao village was built to protect the Pavilion, but one day a huge flood sunk it and created the lake on the Yang Jiao Mountain." Pangzi explained.
"Then that means that the siphon in the lake was the village drainage system. Maybe a huge landslide blocked the exit, so the village was submerged completely by the rain. Wait... have you enter the Pavilion?" Wu Xie asked next.
"Not yet, we were about to go in when you arrived... just in time by the way. Xiaoge was beginning to worry he will not see you again..." Pangzi teased and Wu Xie blushed.
"It was quite the ordeal to come here, trust me..." Wu Xie said as he shyly looked at his lover whom smiled slightly at him.
"Then let's give it a try..." Wu Xie said as he illuminated the place with his flashlight, noticing that most of it was covered with water.
"We don't know how deep this water is thought..."
"Ah, don't bother about that... nothing in here is like it looks like, watch..." Pangzi said as he took a pebble from the ground and throw it away. To his surprise, Wu Xie saw as the pebble simply make some ripples in the surface but did not sink at all... then he notice that his Xiaoge was not standing over the wide stone both Pangzi and he were, but directly over the water, also without sinking.
"Wow, wait... we can walk over the water? That... that..." He bend to touch the surface and find it having the same feeling as water...yet...
"It seems like water, but it can't be as simple. No liquid can withstand weight or pressure. This should be as impossible as that water wall at the entrance. This simply completely denies any laws of physic known to mankind."
"Wu Xie... gravity doesn't work here." Xiaoge said.
"Think again Wu Xie, how a wall of water exist in a world of gravity? The only thing we know about this place is that is outside anything we had knowledge on, it's like another dimension with its own rules we can't even begin to comprehend..." Pangzi said and started to walk over the water as easily as he would over solid ground. Xiaoge walked away too and Wu Xie follow them still on a daze.
"This... the Zhang's just what kind of secrets they had to be able to produce something as impossible as this..."
"Well, let's find out right now..." Pangzi said and Xiaoge took that as a cue and jumped into the top of the building that was floating sideways and then Wu Xie and Pangzi followed closely. Then Xiaoge break down a wooden wall and jumped inside.
As soon as they walked in, Wu Xie saw that they were back to the floor and gravity was once again working like it should, since everything looked normal inside the building. With a long wide stair that leads to upper floors.
"I'm glad we had some gravity here, I thought we will be walking on the walls all the way to the Zhang's secrets."
"Dual gravity and anti-gravity... this is getting better and better by the minute." Wu Xie said, as his head started to ache with all the confusion and getting his bearings.
"Glad that Newton wasn't in here as he write on his notebook, otherwise that apple would have never fall on his head and we would still be in the candles era." Pangzi joked, then felt as a drop of water splashed on his neck.
"Huh? Hey, this building is liking... and it smell like sea water..."
"Sea water... we are bellow a lake, not the ocean..."
"Beats me, I'm just telling you how it smells..."
"Wu Xie, look up!" Xiaoge said suddenly and all of them did, seen now the figure of a woman dressed with a ragged clothes that Wu Xie recognize instantly.
"It's her... Hua Ling!"
"Not she is not!! She is Chen Wenjin!!!" Pangzi shouted and all three of them sprinted into the stairs to look for a place to hide. Xiaoge open one door and then close it behind Wu Xie and all three of them hold it to prevent the woman from breaking in.
"How come you said is Chen Wenjin?! She enter the meteor in Tamutuo and never came back!"
"Not while we were there, but we don't know what happen after we left..."
"She said her cure was inside the meteor!"
"Yeah, right, then why Xiaoge came back far worse than he went in?"
"It can't be her!"
"You know I never forget a woman figure. I'm positive is Chen Wenjin!" Pangzi yelled as he pushed the door with as much strength as he could, since the woman outside was banging on the door with quite a lot of strength.
"No... none of this is quite right..." Wu Xie said as his headache increased and as he looked the place in more detail he notice something that had escape him when they enter... it was the room he recognize and had been in there before. The place in where everything started...
"This is all wrong... this is not the Zhang's Pavilion..."
"Tianzhen, there is a transformed woman outside and trying to get in, what the hell are you mumbling about? Put more strength in keeping this door close."
"I tell you this just can't be the Zhang's Pavilion. I'm sure we are inside the Golmud Sanatorium."
"We are in Guangxi, Banai! How come the Sanatorium transfer to Guangxi?!"
"I tell you I'm not mistaken!" Wu Xie yelled back and he left the door to cross the room to open the door of the wardrobe at the opposite side of the room and yes... there was the stair that leads down...
"There, the stair that leads down into the basement is right where it was in the Golmud Sanatorium. I know it quite well because I fell down half the stair there." Wu Xie stated and both Xiaoge and Pangzi left the door to look at the stair inside the old wardrobe.
"Could it be that the Sanatorium was built as a replica of this place?" Pangzi asked.
"If it was, then that video they sent me was recorded there or here?" Wu Xie asked back, but in that moment the door broke and the woman came in, throwing herself at the one she was closer, Pangzi.
Pangzi try his best to avoid her stepping back, but she was far faster than him, however as she was going to grab Pangzi's neck, Xiaoge kicked her with as much strength as he could gather on his leg and thrown her away. Then, she went for Wu Xie, but of course, didn't manage to get him as Xiaoge intercept her again and broke her neck, making her body fall on the floor lifeless.
"See... it was Chen Wenjin after all..." Pangzi said sadly as he looked down at her body.
"It can't be..."
"She must had failed at whatever she was looking for inside the meteor and then come here." Pangzi whisper.
"We should go..." Xiaoge said as he took Wu Xie's hand on his and they walked down the spiral stairs down to the basement. There, Wu Xie let go of Xiaoge's hand and went ahead, looking at the man dressed in hospital attire, dragging himself in the floor. The sight alone make Wu Xie's skin have goosebumps all over his body.
"Wu Xie..." Xiaoge whisper behind him, but he was simply transfixed into watching that man with long hair crawl. It looked the same as in the video and if he make him turn... will he see himself? Wu Xie asked himself.
"Wu Xie don't..." Xiaoge said, but he was determine to find out once and for all and right when he decided it, the man on the ground turned, revealing exactly what he feared... a man that looked like him, although his skin was now completely white and red skin rounded his eyes, almost making him look like a clown.
"Who are you?" Wu Xie asked, but the man simply stared back at him without answering.
"Then... who am I?" Wu Xie asked again and to his surprise, he hear the man answer him right inside his mind, instead of speaking aloud.
"You do not exist in this world... you are already dead... Wu Xie..." The man said and with a speed that was almost impossible to comprehend, it stood up and stared at Wu Xie, face to face. His heart raised like crazy in the deadliest fear he had encounter, to a point he was completely paralyze under that dead stare.
"Wu Xie!!!!" If it wasn't for Xiaoge pulling him back and holding him so he will not fall, Wu Xie would have let the man kill him, because he was completely defenseless against him. Luckily, the man ran away upstairs, leaving a scared Wu Xie behind.
"Wu Xie, I'm here... Wu Xie..." Xiaoge whisper to his ear as he hug him right where they stood. Wu Xie chest expanded and contracted as his fast breathing needed more air to fill up his lungs, to be on pair with the rushing adrenaline.
"Xiaoge... he..."
"Don't say it... it wasn't you... let's leave this place... it's not good for you." Xiaoge said as he gently guide Wu Xie to the last room, the room in where Chen Wenjin write her notebook and sure enough, when he open the drawer, he saw it again laying on the bottom, just like he had find it the first time.
With trembling hands, he pick it up to have a look at it and as he turned the pages, he realize it was all the same... something else that was impossible, because even if that Golmud Sanatorium was built like the Zhang's Pavilion, it was impossible to have a replica of the notebook that Chen Wenjing wrote and that was currently lost somewhere in Tamutuo. That of course was the last drop that overflowed the glass.
"Wu Xie..." Xioage whisper to him, but just hearing his voice make him feel deep pain. He wanted to find Xiaoge and Pangzy so badly that he had let himself fall into the illusion of getting them back.
"It's all an illusion... this whole place is an illusion, something that I created in my own head..." Wu Xie whisper as he stared back at Xiaoge... he looked so real, he felt so real that he had been trapped in the Zhang's trap without a second thought despite the many impossibilities he had encounter in that place.
"Is it? Then from when it started?" Pangzi asked and Wu Xie laughed, mostly to repress the desire to cry. If it was an illusion, then he could indulge himself for one final moment before going back to reality, so he give a big step and pulled Xiaoge to him to kiss him with desperation.
It felt just like always and his heart clinched with the thought of letting go of him, but he did and started to analyze just how he had been trapped and since when. The Zhang's Pavilion was obviously fake, the lack of gravity and the water walking also fake, so was the tunnel in which he found Xiaoge and Pangzi and that room with the door and murals that resemble those from the Queen's mother Palace... so if he go back, well, the most obvious was the wall of water that was also impossible.
Thus, the moment he lost contact with Xiao Hua and Xiazi was right when he hear the bells... Ah the bells... so it was from there on.
"The hexagon bells array... damn it... Xiaoge... I promise I will find you no matter what..." Wu Xie told himself internally as he open his eyes, to wake up into his real world, still on his diving suit and equipment, floating inside the hall of the old Pavilion... and surrounded by the bells array.
AN: Ah man this one is the longest, so I pretty much cut the scene with Xiao Hua and Xiazi coming down to the Golmud Sanatorium, which is where Wu Xie realize he was trapped into the illusion, otherwise I could have reached 6k words, which would have been too much. Next chapter will tell the Heihua part, right from where they lose contact with Wu Xie. I hope it wasn't a boring chapter, giving the fact it's still a 4.3k long. Until next time, please take care.