Xiao Lou took the plan that Old Mo had drawn and pointed to two of the six paths of reincarnation rooms. “The exit of the maze is probably in the six paths of reincarnation rooms. However, we observed it carefully and we didn’t find another special mechanism.”

Gui Yuanzhang agreed. “Indeed, the six walls of the room and the medicine hut in the middle were covered with charms. The medicine hut in the middle can be rotated to expose the doors on the six walls. According to what you said, the exit of the labyrinth is originally in this room. Then what is the mechanism?”

Old Mo made a guess. “Perhaps the medicine hut can continue to rotate?”

They were pressed for time and there were currently no further clues to analyze. Xiao Lou simply suggested, “Senior, can I trouble you to go back to the six paths of reincarnation room and examine it carefully? We have to go back to the hell realm path and finish the remaining three levels to see if everyone’s conjecture is right.”

Gui Yuanzhang nodded and the group quickly left the Peach Blossom Spring.

The location of the Peach Blossom Spring was the platform on the east side of the stairs. If they continued east, they would find the six paths of reincarnation room on the east side. If they went in the opposite direction then they would go to the six paths of reincarnation room on the west side.

Gui Yuanzhang led the team back to the six paths of reincarnation room while Xiao Lou used Li Qingzhao’s teleportation to teleport the six people back to the hell of the mountain of fire.

Shao Qingge had copied Tang Ci’s Smart Armor card with his Rich and Willful card. They put on the heat-resistant protective armor again. The entire hell of the mountain of fire was full of raging flames. Under normal circumstances, they would be burned to death when they entered. Now the heat-resistance armor completely isolated them from the flames and the six people smoothly exited the hell.

They had gone through 16 of the 18 hells. The remaining two levels were the hell of mills and the hell of sawing.

The hell of mills was like a giant, spinning millstone. Xiao Lou had seen this type of mill at his grandparent’s house when he was a child. It was used to grind wheat to produce flour. At this time, the grinding disc that occupied the entire room rotated quickly. If they failed to run properly then they would be ground down into minced meat.

Xiao Lou used Li Qingzhao’s deceleration skill again and everyone quickly climbed over the grinding plates.

The hell of sawing contained countless sharp saws cutting back and forth. The movement of these saws was extremely fast. If they weren’t careful, they would be split in half. After carefully observing it for a while, they discovered the rules behind the movement. Based on the similarity to the mechanism of the hell of scissors, they carefully moved past step by step.

The path of the 18 hells were over and a beam of light appeared in front of them. Xiao Lou walked out of the glowing door with his teammates. Sure enough, it was the six paths of reincarnation room. Xiao Lou saw the blue arrow mark left by himself beside the door of the hell realm.

Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang exchanged looks and the latter spoke in a low voice. “Our guess is correct. This labyrinth is indeed petal shaped. No matter which way we go, we will eventually return to this secret room.”

To put it simply, this underground labyrinth was a giant flower to the east and the west.

Assuming that the six paths of reincarnation room where Gui Yuanzhang was located was Point B and Xiao Lou’s location was Point A, then the current course of action of Gui Yuanzhang’s team was: Point B → gods realm path → Point B → human realm path → Point B.

They made two large circles inside the labyrinth rather than going into the depths of the labyrinth.

The current course of action for Xiao Lou’s team was: Point A → 18 hells path → Point A. They also went around in a big circle.

The first time they entered the six paths of reincarnation room, six doors appeared on the six walls. They would subconsciously think that one of these six doors was the right exit and would try it separately.

Whether it was the gods’, human or hell realm… the end was the starting point.

Xiao Lou’s gaze swept across the entire secret room. The charms on the wall were still there and the medicine hut in the middle corresponded to the six walls. Would this medicine hut continue to rotate as Old Mo speculated? He told his team, “Try turning this medicine hut.”

The medicine hut was too heavy to be moved by one person. Previously, it took Lu Jiuchuan, Yu Hanjiang and Old Mo working together to turn it. The three of them stepped forward again after hearing Xiao Lou’s words. They each held a corner and started to shove. Yet no matter how hard they tried, the medicine hut that was one meter tall wouldn’t move.

Xiao Lou asked Ye Qi, “Xiao Ye, what have you found?”

Ye Qi answered, “The medicine hut doesn’t move. We checked the six walls carefully and didn’t find any other mechanisms. I also tried pulling some charms off but the room didn’t respond.”

Where was the mechanism?

Xiao Lou continued to observe the six paths of reincarnation room. Suddenly, he saw that on the medicine hut in the middle, the three charms corresponding to the path of the gods’ realm, the hell realm and the human realm were flickering with a faint light.

His eyes narrowed and he walked over for a closer look. It wasn’t dazzling but the charms corresponding to the three paths were indeed flickering.

Xiao Lou felt enlightened. He pressed down on the voice headset and told everyone, “The three doors we went through weren’t in vain. The design of the petals labyrinth should be like this: the center of the flower is the mechanism but the six petals must be lit up before the mechanism in the center can be activated. The activation of the petals is shared. We have just finished the hell realm path and three charms on the medicine hut have been activated. My guess is that we must make all six charms light up before this medicine hut can be activated.”

Gui Yuanzhang took a closer look. There were indeed three charms flashing on the medicine hut in the center.

Ye Qi was excited. “This is the same as a stand-alone RPG game. First, light up the branches of the mechanism before we can activate the main mechanism. It seems we will have to continue walking through the remaining three doors?”

Xiao Lou suggested, “Senior, how about you go to the demi-god realm and we will go to the animal realm?”

Gui Yuanzhang had no objection. “Okay.”

The six people on Xiao Lou’s team entered the animal realm path and inexplicably found that they all turned into animals?! Lu Jiuchuan became a black bull, Yu Hanjiang became a horse, Old Mo became a big chicken and Xiao Lou was a lamb. Tang Ci and Liu Qiao were already transformed so their animal forms were also small. Tang Ci became a thumb-sized puppy while Liu Qiao was a thumb-sized pig.

Lu Jiuchuan, “Moo!”

Old Mo, “Cluck cluck.”

Liu Qiao, “Oink oink?”

Xiao Lou, “Baa baa?”

Lu Jiuchuan, “……”

No one could understand this fucking cross-species language!

The six people felt dark. The animal realm directly turned them into animals. Little loli, you are too good at pitting people.

Yu Hanjiang flung his horse’s tail and stomped his hooves, meaning, “Go quickly.”

Lu Jiuchuan leaned down his bull’s head to let Tang Ci climb on top of his horns. The thumb-sized Tang Ci puppy had to climb helplessly. Meanwhile, Liu Qiao climbed up Old Mo with difficulty. Yu Hanjiang took the lead followed by a bull, sheep, chicken, puppy and pig. Their language wasn’t clear so they didn’t say anything in order to avoid making strange sounds.

The deeper they went, the gloomier the atmosphere. They found many corpses of the same kind and a lot of blood. Xiao Lou was surprised to find that this path actually disabled their cards.

The animal realm path was apparently to let them experience the tragedy of being animals. The surrounding walls were full of bloody murals. All types of animals were tortured to death while shedding bloody tears. The more Xiao Lou saw, the more frightened he became. Fortunately, there were no dangerous mechanisms in this path. They walked for around 10 minutes before reaching the exit.

Xiao Lou saw the door of light and sighed with relief. He left the animal realm path with his teammates. Everyone finally changed back.

Lu Jiuchuan rubbed his pained head. “First, I became an ugly duckling and then I got to experience the feeling of being a bull. This experience is really rich.”

Xiao Lou, who had become a little sheep, didn’t want to talk.

He walked toward the central medicine hut and saw that the charm symbolizing the animal realm had lit up. Ye Qi and his group were walking along the demi-god realm path and it hadn’t lit up yet. Xiao Lou asked carefully, “Xiao Ye, how is your side?”

“Our side is full of strange monsters. These monsters have no physical form. They are like black fog floating in the air and constantly attacking us. Fortunately, Senior Gui is very powerful and used his writing brush to drive away the monsters!”

Xiao Lou was acquainted with the power of Gui Yuanzhang’s brush. Once he waved the brush, he could make the target float in the air. His presence meant Xiao Lou didn’t need to worry about any danger Ye Qi and the others would encounter for the time being. He led his teammates to continue walking the final path of the hungry ghosts realm.

They entered the path and had only walked a few meters when fierce ghosts with hideous faces swooped toward them. Xiao Lou hurriedly summoned Bai Juyi and used the third skill Song of Everlasting Regret to make all targets within range immediately stop attacking! Countless evil ghosts seemed to have had the pause button pressed and they stopped moving immediately.

Xiao Lou felt a lingering fear as he exclaimed, “Go!”

The six people ran forward quickly. They passed around a corner and more evil ghosts pounced at them. At the same time, evil ghosts emerged from the ground and held their legs tightly. There were weird screams that made people’s ears hurt.

Yu Hanjiang frowned. “This is the hungry ghosts realm. Do they want us to become food for these hungry ghosts?”

As he spoke, he drew his knife and cut at the little ghost holding Xiao Lou’s leg. Simultaneously, he pulled Xiao Lou to him and flew up lightly, stepping on the heads of a few ghosts to rush forward quickly.

Old Mo learned from his example and flew up lightly with Liu Qiao in his pocket while Lu Jiuchuan simply rode on the vermilion bird.

The hungry ghosts realm path was very long. The ground, walls and ceiling were packed with evil ghosts. These evil ghosts used their teeth and nails, revealing ghastly white bones. The image was scarier than a tide of zombies!

Yu Hanjiang took the lead and his knife swung swiftly. It would instantly cut at any hungry ghost that reached out to grab him from the walls.

Xiao Lou concentrated on dealing with the evil ghosts above their heads. The speed of drawing a circle with the compass was one second. The silver rings floated in the air and became weapons to attack the hungry ghosts, throwing them away.

The two people cooperated to clear the field, followed by Old Mo and Lu Jiuchuan.

It wasn’t known when the hungry ghosts realm path would end. Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang moved all the way and felt like their arms were going to break. The bones in the cave kept increasing and eventually Lu Jiuchuan couldn’t tolerate it anymore. He directly used the divine beast’s big move.

It was Vermilion Bird’s Heavenly Fire! The red flames swept through the passage in an instant! The white bones were burned and the entire cave was filled with fire. Yu Hanjiang took the opportunity to hold Xiao Lou and leaped forward quickly.

They once again returned to the six realms of reincarnation room.

Simultaneously, Gui Yuanzhang’s voice was heard in Xiao Lou’s ear. “We just came out.”

Xiao Lou held down the voice headset. “Us as well.”

The two people tacitly went to the medicine hut. As expected, they saw that all six charms on the medicine hut were lit up with a soft white light.

Xiao Lou was happy. “The mechanism has started.”

We have an entry for CR in the CG 10k event. Check out:

Liu Qiao’s Light as a Sparrow by Mie

CG 10K event

Proofreader: Fictional Reality & Paranoid Kitten