It was simply floored, dotted with a few potted plants and empty vases, but otherwise, there was almost nothing here; not even a partition.

However, moving forward across the dust-caked and blood-stained floor, we soon spotted several wooden stakes planted right in the center of the attic, along with some sandbags whose fastenings had broken, swaying quietly overhead.

It seemed this was the martial arts hall of the attic, the very place where Monk Leiyun and his subordinates had sparred and trained. No wonder it was so spacious.

The bloodstains on the ground formed streaks, passing through the wooden stakes in the center of the hall and stretching toward the staircase opposite.

Clearly, Xie Yuting and his group, just like us, saw nothing of interest on this level and chose to go down to the floor below, or up to the next.

But what differentiated us from Xie Yuting was that we still needed to examine what kind of projection the light emanating from the giant dragon mirrors on the floor below had left on this level.

To our disappointment, when we reached the two crystal lenses on the ground, we discovered that this was not the final layer for the light projection; there were two identical crystal lenses directly above us on the fourth floor as well.

After circling the lenses twice, Nie Chuan remarked, "*—look, these lenses don't seem flat; they look like convex lenses."

I crouched down and touched the mirror surface, finding that Nie Chuan was right; the crystal had been polished to a slight convexity, allowing it to concentrate light.

This meant the projected shadow of the giant dragon would be shrunk by this convex lens and then cast onto the floors above.

Staring at the significantly smaller Tenglong pattern within the convex lens, I fell into deep thought.

But why? I still couldn't figure it out.

It seemed that to find the answer, we had to check the floors above.

After circling the convex lens a few more times without any further discovery, we hurried to follow the bloodstains up to the fourth floor.

However, when we reached the entrance to the fourth-floor stairs, we saw several deep gouges carved into the wooden wall.

These carvings looked like some kind of symbol, formed by two horizontal and two vertical lines, resembling the Chinese character for "well" ($\text{}$).

"Jǐng?" Da Xiong pointed at the character and looked at me with confusion.

"Could there be a well above us? But this is the fourth floor; how could there be a well?" Nie Chuan chimed in.

I stroked my chin, examining the roughly carved mark.

This character always gave me a sense of warning, but what was it warning us about? To be careful of falling into a well?

Could it be that the attic on the fourth floor was a hollow space? That one could easily fall through, hence the character for 'well'?

"*—what do you think?" Nie Chuan frowned, looking at me.

I thought for a moment and said, "Let's keep going up, but be cautious, especially watching our footing, so we don't step into a trap or a void and fall."

Nie Chuan nodded, then signaled Da Xiong, and the three of us headed into the narrow stairwell.

As we ascended, I kept turning over the 'well' character in my mind, feeling that something was amiss.

Walking distractedly for about five minutes, I realized we had consecutively climbed five flights of stairs.

The other two noticed it too and stopped simultaneously.

Nie Chuan's eyebrows were nearly knitted into a single line as he said to me, "*—these stairs..."

Before he could finish, a flash of realization struck me; I slapped my forehead and declared, "Damn it! That's not the character for 'well'!"

Nie Chuan froze, then whispered, "Then... what character is it?"

"It's zhǐ—the character for stop!" I announced.

"Zhǐ?" Both men's eyes widened instantly. Nie Chuan then stated, "You mean the person leaving the signal wanted us to stop at the stairwell? It meant halt?"

I nodded. "Exactly. Although both characters are composed of two horizontal and two vertical lines, the person leaving the signal must have been in extreme urgency, so they didn't draw the character perfectly. But don't you remember? The vertical line on the left wasn't drawn all the way down—that was what had been bothering me."

"Then... we're already inside. What do we do now?" Da Xiong seemed flustered.

I looked up the stairs, then down the banister, realizing we couldn't see the exit either above or below. Moreover, we had already climbed five consecutive flights of stairs; the distance between floors couldn't possibly be this long.

"We're trapped in the stairs," Nie Chuan stated.

I nodded. "Right. This isn't as simple as a gui da qiang (a ghost baffling illusion)."

Da Xiong blinked. "What do you mean? If it's not a gui da qiang, what is it?"

I paused, sat down on a step, and said, "Do you remember how in Heilongjiang's Heizhugou and Lop Nur, we encountered mazes we couldn't walk out of? This is definitely not a coincidence."

"Are you saying these three locations' mazes are connected?" Nie Chuan asked.

"Exactly. But unlike the previous two times, where I suspected some obscure formation magic like the Eight Trigrams or Qimen Dunjia, at Lop Nur we learned that this kind of maze might not be static; we might be inside a living entity," I analyzed.

Nie Chuan nodded. "That's true, but *—do you really think these places are connected? Why?"

I nodded. "The clue lies in the mark left at the entrance to the maze."

"The mark? What about that mark?" Both looked at me simultaneously.

"Anyone who enters the maze gets lost, so how could someone walk out to leave us a mark? There's only one possibility: the person who left the mark knew it was a maze before entering, so they left the sign in advance," I explained.

"But what does that prove?" Nie Chuan still didn't understand.

I smiled faintly. "Haven't you realized that every adventure we've had is somehow connected to Xie Yuting? In Heizhugou, we traveled with him; in Lop Nur, Boss Wu who guided us was entrusted by Xie Yuting to bring us along, and this time, it was also orchestrated by Xie Yuting."

Before they could speak, I continued, "In Heizhugou, Xie Yuting said his maternal grandfather had entered ancient ruins, so he was intimately familiar with the maze. Although Xie Yuting wasn't directly involved in Lop Nur, we found his subordinates in the maze's secret chamber, which shows he also knew the maze very well. And this time, he could leave a mark for those coming after him before even entering the maze, clearly knowing the situation ahead."

Hearing this, their eyes widened.

I smiled faintly. "You don't need to look so surprised; actually, you’ve long sensed that every operation seems to have been prearranged by Xie Yuting."

At this, Nie Chuan let out a long sigh. "*—so you realized it long ago too. Xie Yuting seems to have been using us all along."

I gave a wry smile. "What choice do we have? We are still willingly letting him use us."

Nie Chuan shook his head then. "I always feel it's not entirely the case. 'Using' is a derogatory term; this action usually means deceiving others to do things beneficial for oneself. But so many times, Xie Yuting has risked his own life, and yet he hasn't become rich or gained promotion. Is that really called 'using'?"

I stroked my chin. "Perhaps 'guiding' is a more appropriate term? He is leading us step by step to discover a secret, and this secret happens to be something we want to know, which is why we willingly follow him."

Nie Chuan then wagged his finger. "It's not Xie Yuting guiding us; it’s the organization above him."

"What kind of organization is that one marked by flames?" I muttered to myself.

"I was also very puzzled before, but when I saw this lightning emblem, I think I understood something. Fire, ice, thunder—these are all common elements in nature, three elements possessing infinite destructive power yet also infinite creative power. Like gods of creation and destruction, and now, these three gods have successively appeared before us," Nie Chuan said, his eyes shining with a strange light.