15: Chapter 15 Tower Destruction

The cave was very dark.

After Lu Chen squeezed in sideways, he discovered he was standing in a narrow passage.

The passage was only shoulder-width wide, its walls made of stone, damp and ice-cold to the touch; he could feel water droplets melting in his palm.

He looked back at the cave entrance.

Light shone in from the entrance, painting a ghastly white rectangle on the ground.

But the light could only reach the mouth of the passage; after walking a few steps inside, it became pitch black.

Lu Chen pulled a fire starter from his robes and blew on it twice.

The flame lit up.

The passage was deeper than he had imagined.

The light could not reach the end; he could only see the wall ahead, gray-black and covered in water droplets that reflected the light.

He walked forward.

His footsteps landed on the stone with a dull thud, echoing back and forth in the passage as if many people were walking at the same time.

After walking for about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the passage suddenly widened.

It went from shoulder-width to one person's width, then two.

The ceiling also rose, shifting from requiring him to hunch over to allowing him to stand straight, and finally, to where he couldn't touch the top even with his hand raised.

Lu Chen held the fire starter high.

Where the light shone, it was stone.

Not natural stone, but masonry—block by block, square and neat, with the gaps filled with a grayish-white substance that looked like lime, or perhaps bone ash.

"Man-made."

He squatted down and looked at the ground.

It was paved with stone slabs, just like those on the mountaintop.

But these slabs were larger and thicker, and something was growing in the gaps—not grass, but a type of black mold that smelled like rust.

Lu Chen stood up and continued walking forward.

The passage turned ahead, veering right, then left, as if winding around something.

After turning seven or eight times, the passage suddenly ended.

In front was a door.

A stone door, with two leaves opening outward, each about a person's height and half a person's width.

There were no handles or keyholes on the door, only carved characters.

Lu Chen brought the fire starter closer.

The characters were large, each stroke carved deeply—so deep that the grooves were filled with black ash, as if someone had burned them with fire.

"Those who enter this door must abandon emotion and sever righteousness."

Lu Chen stared at these eight characters for three seconds.

Abandon emotion, sever righteousness.

To cast aside feelings, to cut off moral obligations.

It meant the same thing as the "Refining emotion is like refining iron" written on the bone fragment.

Emotion was the Impurities, and the Dao was the essence.

Before entering the door, one must first discard emotion.

But Lu Chen had nothing left to discard.

Family affection was gone, and friendship was nearly gone too.

He didn't care about what remained.

He reached out to push the door.

It didn't move.

He pushed again, using more force.

It still didn't move.

Lu Chen paused and thought for a moment.

Then, he took the bone fragment from his clothes and pressed it against the door.

The moment the bone fragment touched the door, the door lit up.

It wasn't the door itself glowing, but the characters upon it.

Each stroke looked as if it had been scorched by fire, emitting a dark red light that seeped out from the grooves, as if something inside the door were burning.

The door opened.

It didn't open to the sides, but fell inward.

It was as if the two door leaves had been pushed from the inside, collapsing onto the floor with a dull thud and kicking up a cloud of dust.

Lu Chen covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve, and after the dust settled, he walked in.

Behind the door was a great hall.

It was massive.

The light from the fire starter couldn't reach the opposite wall, only illuminating a small area in front of him.

He walked forward, and with every step, his footsteps echoed throughout the hall, beat by beat, like someone beating a drum.

In the center of the hall, there was something.

Lu Chen only saw it clearly once he approached.

It was a stele.

A stone stele, one person tall and half a person wide, standing on a stone pedestal.

Characters were carved onto the stele, dense and packed, from the top to the bottom.

He brought the fire starter closer and read the first line: "Inverted Tower, Level 1. Emotion-Refining Prison."

The text below was more extensive: "Those who enter this prison must pass three trials.

The first trial: Forget family.

The second trial: Forget friends.

The third trial: Forget—"

The third one wasn't finished.

It was just like on the bone fragment.

After the character for "forget," it cut off.

It was as if the person carving the words had stopped halfway, their hand pausing, unable to continue.

Lu Chen touched the characters on the stele.

The grooves were deep; he could feel the direction of the strokes with his fingers.

He closed his eyes and traced the strokes one by one.

"It wasn't left unfinished.

It was carved, then erased."

Someone had deliberately erased what the third trial was.

They didn't want those who came after to know.

Lu Chen opened his eyes, walked around the stele, and continued forward.

At the end of the hall was a staircase leading downward.

The staircase was wide, enough for three people to walk side by side.

The steps were made of stone, and each one was very high, reaching nearly to his knees; he had to lift his legs with effort to step down.

The stairs led downward, growing deeper the further he went.

Lu Chen stood at the top of the stairs and looked down.

Darkness.

He couldn't see anything.

But he could hear sounds.

They came from deep, deep below—like the sound of water, or perhaps the wind, or maybe something breathing.

It was the same as the wind at the cave entrance.

Lu Chen held the fire starter high and began to walk down.

One step, two steps, three steps.

After about twenty steps, the light of the fire starter suddenly went out.

It wasn't blown out by the wind; the fire starter extinguished itself.

It was as if something was missing from the air here, preventing fire from burning.

Lu Chen stood in the darkness, not moving.

He touched the bone fragment at his chest.

The bone fragment was hot.

Not the previous chill, but heat.

It was as if someone had roasted the bone fragment over a fire and pressed it against his skin, hot enough to make him frown.

Then the bone fragment lit up.

It wasn't the faint white light from before, but a dark red glow, just like the characters on the door.

The light seeped from the surface of the bone fragment, very weak, but enough to illuminate a distance of three feet around him.

Lu Chen looked down.

The characters on the bone fragment had changed again.

The ancient characters he couldn't understand before had now all turned into characters he could recognize.

Line by line, clear and distinct.

"Use blood as the guide, use life as the bridge."

"Use the body as the furnace, use the soul as firewood."

"Refine."

"Refine oneself."

"Refine into what?"

"Refine into ruthlessness."

"Ruthlessness is longevity."

The last line of characters was particularly large, occupying most of the bone fragment: "Ruthlessness is longevity."

Lu Chen stared at these five characters for a long time.

Ruthlessness is longevity.

It wasn't losing memory, but losing emotion.

Memory was merely the vessel for emotion.

The bone fragment didn't absorb the memory itself, but the emotions within the memory.

Family affection, friendship, love—these emotions were sucked away, and the memory became empty, like an egg with its yolk removed, leaving only the shell.

Ruthlessness.

That leads to longevity.

Because the Heavenly Dao does not allow those with emotions to attain longevity.

Emotion is the Impurities, the shackles, the thing that makes a Cultivator stop.

If one has emotions, one will fear; if one fears, one will stop; if one stops, one will die.

A ruthless person fears nothing and cares for nothing, so they can keep walking forward.

Walking to the very end.

"Is this the price?"

Lu Chen stood in the darkness, the dark red light of the bone fragment illuminating his face.

There was no expression on his face.

Family affection was gone, and he didn't feel sad.

Friendship was nearly gone, and he didn't feel sad either.

Love—he had never had it, so there was no question of losing it.

"I am already on the path."

He continued walking down.

The staircase was very long.

He had been walking for about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, and he still hadn't reached the end.

Every stretch of the way, the staircase would turn—left, then right—as if circling around some center.

The dark red light of the bone fragment remained lit.

With every step Lu Chen took, he could feel the bone fragment absorbing something—not memory, but something else.

It was being pulled out from his body, as if someone were using a small spoon to scoop things out of him, bit by bit.

It didn't hurt.

But he could feel the emptiness.

When he reached the thirtieth turn, the staircase suddenly ended.

In front was another door.

But this door was different from the one above.

The door above was a stone door, with two leaves opening outward, carved with characters.

This door was an iron door, rusted—heavily rusted, with the surface covered in brown rust that flaked off at the slightest touch.

There were no characters on the door.

There was only a crack, with light shining through it.

It wasn't a dark red light, but white, and very bright, as if someone had lit a large lamp behind the door.

Lu Chen reached out to push the door.

It wasn't locked.

It opened with a push.

The world behind the door made him stop in his tracks.

It was a vast space, even larger than the hall above.

The space was filled with shelves—wooden shelves, row upon row, like bookshelves in a library.

But what was on the shelves were not books.

They were bones.

Human bones.

Skulls, ribs, finger bones, leg bones—neatly stacked on the shelves, with characters carved into every single bone.

Lu Chen walked in, went to the nearest shelf, and picked up a skull.

The skull was very small, like that of a child.

It was carved with characters, very dense and very small.

"Zhang Xiaohua, resident of Qingniu Town, seven years old. Level 1 Qi Refining. Died from the cost. What was lost—parents."

Lu Chen put the skull back and picked up another piece.

"Li Tiezhu, resident of Qingniu Town, thirty-two years old. Qi Refining Stage 2. Died from the cost. What was lost—wife."

And another.

"Wang Cuihua, resident of Qingniu Town, nineteen years old. Level 1 Qi Refining. Died from the cost. What was lost—memory."

Piece by piece.

They were all people from Qingniu Town.

All dead beneath this mountain.

Lu Chen put down the bone and walked to the very back of the shelves.

On the rearmost shelf, there were three bones, separated from the others and placed alone on a pedestal.

The first was a finger bone.

It was the same as the one he had hidden in the cave.

A single character was carved onto the bone—[Repayment].

The second was a rib.

Two characters were carved onto it—[Wang Qishan].

The third was a skull.

It was large, and a name was carved on the forehead—[Mo Wen].

Lu Chen stood before the pedestal, looking at Mo Wen's skull.

The bone fragment was scorching hot.

So hot it felt as if it were about to burn.

But he didn't take it off.

He pressed the bone fragment against his chest and turned to walk deeper into the shelves.

At the end, there was a wall.

Four characters were carved on the wall—"Longevity is death."

It was the same as on the cave ceiling.

But below it, there was an extra line of small text.

"What dies is the person. What lives is the Dao."

Lu Chen stared at this line of text.

The bone fragment reached its peak heat.

Then it cooled.

It went completely cold.

It was as if something had flowed from the bone fragment into his body.

He looked down.

The characters on the bone fragment had all vanished.

The grayish-white surface was as clean as an ordinary piece of bone.

There was nothing left.

Lu Chen stood where he was, standing before the wall carved with "Longevity is death."

The bone fragment no longer glowed.

It was very dark all around.

But he had no intention of lighting a fire.

He stood in the darkness and thought of one thing—"Am I still considered a person now?"