“Okay.”

Without any hesitation, Fang Qiu took two steps forward to examine these ancient Chinese characters of Huaxia on the light screen under everyone’s gazes.

To ensure that these characters stayed visible to Fang Qiu, one of them took the initiative to come forward and touch the light curtain again to reactivate it. Then, once again, the text emerged.

Fang Qiu looked at each character very carefully.

He took note of every character on the light screen.

Fang Qiu could recognize each ancient Chinese character in Huaxia, but the whole text was meaningless to him.

Facing this predicament, Fang Qiu had a frown on his face.

Never had he seen such a jumble of words. No matter what means he tried, he couldn’t make any sense of those characters which lacked logic and coherence and did not produce any meaningful sentences.

“No.”

After reading all the characters, Fang Qiu couldn’t help shaking his head and said, “I don’t have a clue. I need more time and may also fail to decipher it.”

Everyone was taken aback.

“Guys, you can understand these characters, can’t you?”

Diwu Mingchuan raised his eyebrows and stood up to offer his advice. “Old chaps, don’t keep your strength under wraps. If we take this passage literally, it looks confused and disorderly without any inherent logical connections. John Doe is young and inexperienced, after all. Besides, this secret land hasn’t yet shown anything related to the formation, so I guess the advantage he can bring to us is of no use for the time being. In my opinion, each of us should demonstrate our prowess to figure it out.”

All the others nodded in agreement.

“What he said is reasonable.”

“We’ve just arrived, so all of us are not familiar with everything here. It’s better for us to observe the surroundings first.”

“Since these characters appeared, they must mean something. It must be challenging for one person to crack a word puzzle like this. Thus, let’s all take a look, and then each of us should share our opinions.”

Everyone agreed and stepped back. Then they sat cross-legged on the ground and started taking items out of their backpacks.

Fang Qiu was no longer the center of everyone’s attention.

He turned to look at the crowd.

He was surprised to find that this group had begun to do their own research separately.

Many took pictures of the text on the light screen with their mobile phones. After translating it, they began searching for the connections between these characters on the Internet.

Some people took out many ancient books to check these characters, one by one.

Notably, some of them brought laptops with them.

For a moment, they all joined together to compare these ancient and modern characters with great care and even posted the text on various forums, message boards, and Weibo to invite many others to try and figure out the connection between these characters and the text’s meaning.

“Oh, impressive moves!”

Seeing them like this, Fang Qiu couldn’t help sighing with emotion, “These old stagers must have learned something beforehand, so they are not only experienced but also well-equipped.”

Looking back at his large bag filled with water and snacks, Fang Qiu couldn’t help laughing at his foolishness.

He could do the same thing with his phone as everyone else, but he didn’t think it would be helpful because he could recognize the characters on the light screen at a glance.

Why would he bother to translate the text online?

The most important thing was…

If seeking help online was useful, these people should soon find a way out. He just needed to wait for their answers. Why should he waste the energy doing the same thing?

While everyone else was absorbed in their tasks, Fang Qiu kept walking back and forth around, observing the characters on the light screen from all angles in the hope of observing any changes.

Occasionally, he would go forward to activate the light curtain for the others.

After working on this for a long time, Fang Qiu concluded that from any angle, the characters on the light screen stayed the same, and there was not even the slightest change.

“It looks like I’ll have to go to the top of the mountain to check everything. Maybe I can see the situation inside!”

With that thought in mind, Fang Qiu immediately said, “I’ll go up to take a look.”

His voice faded.

With a slight movement, he thrust himself up toward the mountain three times in a row. Finally, he landed precisely halfway up the mountain. By rapidly treading on the thick ice on the mountain, he zipped to the summit.

No one knew Fang Qiu could fly directly to the mountain top with his actual strength.

However…

There were too many people watching him, most of whom were Wulin forces’ leaders. Fang Qiu had hidden his strength for so long already. How could he easily reveal his secret before them?

“Whoosh, whoosh…”

Just as Fang Qiu was heading rapidly for the summit, he heard the whistling sounds of wind behind him.

He looked back.

Everyone was chasing after him.

“What are you doing?”

Fang Qiu stopped.

“We want to have a look too.”

Elder Zhan chuckled.

All the others nodded in agreement.

Seeing them, Fang Qiu was speechless.

He knew these guys followed him because they feared he would either run away or avoid telling them the solution he had found. Although they seemed to be doing their own stuff, they had been watching him closely.

Soon, the group of people came to the peak of the mountain.

Looking down, they could see the light curtain which stood upright like an ultra-thin glass wall. The view from the back of the light curtain was exactly the same as what they could see at the foot of the mountain!

“I can’t see anything special.”

Fang Qiu shook his head with a frown.

The rest of them, also watching attentively, found nothing particular to be seen.

Fang Qiu then came down the mountain.

Everyone followed him down.

Back at the foot of the mountain, Fang Qiu walked ten meters away from the light curtain, sat cross-legged in the middle point between the two mountains, and continued observing the characters on it with rapt attention.

The others also sat down cross-legged, trying to figure out the puzzle.

Time flew by.

In the blink of an eye, it was night.

In the darkness, a bright moon shone and the stars twinkled in the night sky.

Despite the beautiful scenery, no one found anything.

At midnight, the stars were shining even more brightly in the inky sky. To everyone’s surprise, Master Numinous, the Pear Garden’s chief, took out a Feng Shui compass and tried to find a solution by using his fingers to do some calculations, and using astrology.

But after a long time, he still couldn’t find a way to unravel the riddle on this thin light curtain.

Throughout the night, everyone continued to observe the texts and mull over them.

When the sun came out the next day, they took the chance to observe closely. But still, they couldn’t find any clues.

Twenty-four hours had passed, but none of them managed to figure out anything.

Since the light curtain remained unchanged, they couldn’t find any way to resolve this difficult problem. At this time, everyone felt helpless because not a single piece of clue had appeared.

If it went on like this…

Even though it had been a day, they couldn’t unravel the mystery of this light curtain even if it took another ten days or half a month.

Those foreign forces would have long since arrived before they cracked this case.

When they thought of this, everyone became even more anxious.

Time was running out. If they really couldn’t find a way to crack the code, everyone would lose the relic to foreign forces!

“Ha-ha…”

However, a burst of laughter suddenly attracted everyone’s attention when they were mulling anxiously over this problem.

They looked for the source of the sound.

The one who laughed out loud was none other than Diwu Mingchuan!

Everyone was stunned at his ill-timed laughter.

“Brother Diwu, what are you doing?”

Xi Fengling, who had not uttered a word for a long time, cast a puzzled look at Diwu Mingchuan and asked.

“Old dumb-ass, what’s wrong with you? You scared us, don’t you know?”

Elder Zhan rolled his eyes at Diwu Mingchuan.

“Brother Diwu, did you find anything?”

Patriarch Qian asked with a smile.

The others also asked one after another, eager to know the reason for his laughter.

“Patriarch Diwu, what were you laughing about? Did you find something as what Patriarch Qian had suggested?”

“It’s been a whole day. We should hurry for we won’t have much time left.”

“That’s right. Patriarch Diwu, can you tell us what you’ve discovered?”

Everyone bombarded him with questions from all sides.

Fang Qiu also turned his head to look at him for the first time.

“Everyone, calm down.”

Diwu Mingchuan stopped laughing and said, “Something has come to my attention.”

Everyone watched him in amazement.

Eagerly they waited for Diwu Mingchuan to continue.

Even Fang Qiu immediately focused on him, ready to listen to what Diwu Mingchuan had discovered. He was one of the four great patriarchs, and his clan was top-notch among the forces this group of people belonged to. Also, he was very experienced. After all, the four great families had several times more of the ancient books and records than the other forces.

Therefore, all the others thought Diwu Mingchuan must have found something valuable.

Even Master Numinous was watching him attentively, waiting for his answer.

But…

Under everyone’s expectant gazes…

Diwu Mingchuan smacked his lips and said, “It suddenly occurred to me: this place is a world of ice and snow, so why the hell would we laboriously bring so much water here? We are all fools, aren’t we?”

His logical analysis startled everyone.

Obviously, no one else had expected that Diwu Mingchuan would say something that had nothing to do with breaking the puzzle on the light curtain. Of course, some suspected Diwu Mingchuan had found something, but he didn’t want to share it.

“Don’t think too much about it.”

Diwu Mingchuan smiled wryly and said, “I didn’t expect you all to be so nervous. What I discovered was what I said, and I haven’t found anything else yet.”

All the others pursed their lips in disapproval.

“Then what did he do just now?

“After trying to fool us, he told everyone he hadn’t found anything!

“What the fuck was that? A bad joke?”

They were not satisfied with his answer.

But Diwu Mingchuan was the patriarch of the Diwu Great Family, so no one dared to say anything. Unlike them, the three patriarchs of the Xi family, the Qian family, and the Zhan family had a good idea of Diwu Mingchuan’s nature, so they were not surprised by this matter and pretended not to hear his words.

“See what this guy has done.”

Fang Qiu smiled wryly at Diwu Mingchuan’s performance.

Usually, no one dared to question Diwu Mingchuan’s authority.

But now, it seemed that…

Diwu Mingchuan possessed no air of authority.

“This fellow must have severely ruined his own public image!”

Fang Qiu uttered a silent sigh in his heart.

Sitting cross-legged, he went on watching the characters on the light screen.

On the other side, some others would reactivate the light curtain constantly.

The characters on the light curtain kept flashing. Like a day ago, they found no connection between the characters.

Fang Qiu fixed his eyes on it.

He engraved all the words on the light curtain onto his mind.

In his mind, he copied the picture of the light curtain before him. Then these characters on the light curtain in his brain kept shifting around.

Fang Qiu, who had been staring at the light curtain, slowly closed his eyes.

“Whiz!”

Three hours later, Fang Qiu abruptly opened his eyes.

He had figured it out!