At last, all the halos before him were about to fade completely. Xu Yi sprang forward and plunged into the thirteenth halo cave on the left.
The moment he entered, the halo passage and the halo cave vanished together. The next instant, Xu Yi's feet touched solid ground. He found himself in a cave full of gray dust and cobwebs. Inside stood a withered corpse before a white jade wall, devoid of any sign of life. Outside the cave, peach trees grew thickly, the sunlight was bright, and peach blossoms were in full bloom.
Xu Yi swept his hand, and all the cobwebs and dust vanished, leaving the entire stone cave spotless.
He respectfully bowed three times to the withered corpse, its hair and beard thick, before rising.
"Why did you choose this wretched place? Of all the caves, this one has the least mystery. Look at this wall. Besides a square, what else is there..."
Huang Mei couldn't help complaining.
Xu Yi said, "A place of enlightenment is beyond the understanding of ordinary people. Rest quietly for a while." As he spoke, he sealed the Starry Sky Ring, cutting off Huang Mei.
He had, of course, chosen this cave for a reason.
The ultimate reason was that he recognized the square. It was called the Thirty-Six Questions Bewildering Method.
He had seen it in an ancient text. The square seemed utterly ordinary, but was in fact made up of thirty-six lines. The length of each line represented the conjectured answer to a question.
The answers were given, but the conjectures could not be proven.
Thus, the key to the Thirty-Six Questions Bewildering Method lay in proving those conjectures.
Xu Yi had once studied this riddle, but after failing to solve it for a long time, he had stopped working